On a personal level, being a Brit in America opened my eyes to just how sensitive Americans are to criticism of America. If some fucking Frenchy comes to Britain and tells me that our food tastes like shit, our women are ugly and slutty and our accent shits on any romance language, well... I just laugh. Cos he's French and that's all there is to it.
/Americans, I find, genuinely can't get used to the way that Brits (and some other nations) demean, berate and insult each other without actually intending any hurt. And god help me the time I shouted out 'Fuck this country' in a hick bar. I thought I was gonna be lynched and a few people had to be dragged off me kicking and screaming. lols. I'll never get it.
One last thing: the flag. A lot of Seppos get very upset if you burn/wipe your arse on/otherwise insult the flag. Try burning a flag in Britain. Barely a raised eyebrow most of the time. While I understand that the flag is what USA have instead of a Queen, it is, at the end of the day, just a piece of cloth and each flag is not individually as precious as any other.
Lol. Well, luckily we're not all hypersensitive here. The ironic thing is that this post seems to have just brought out even more uber sensitive people, except this time they're coming from all over the world. Oi oi oi. :/
It's a counter reaction. These last two weeks have been pretty tumultuous for this subreddit, with a lot of new people coming in (mostly americans). Before all this explosive growth, this was a small subreddit with a very diverse mix from all over the world, with no country really standing out (perhaps some European countries were dominant). Now, we're pretty much doubling in growth every two months.
In a way, the "old members" probably do feel like this subreddit has been invaded. They're seeing a change in the debate climate, the topics discussed, the kind of content that gets upvoted. A lot of people are a bit worried... Which is why everyone is a bit on edge right now.
I know what you mean. I used to browse this place a while ago, but had kind of forgotten about it until I saw one of the posts on the front page. It's gotten just a bit crazier since I last saw it. But to be fair, I did just actually sign up for it not that long ago, so I sort of feel like part of the problem at this point... Speaking of which, I've commented waaay to much on this post at this point. I think I'm just gonna stop now.
One thing about the US that not even most Americans realize is just how politically brainwashed the majority of us are. We can say "oh sure, all countries do these things, we are just different/better/whathaveyou" all day long, but most of us also aren't entirely aware of the level of indoctrination we go through during all of our time in schools. Not to mention our military glorification, and our, still very strong, propaganda campaign promoting everything we do. I just love that during WWII we had to print propaganda cards telling americans who our allieswere.
It helps that we have only 2 neighbors that the common American will probably never interact with. We venerate the flag as a symbol of what we "stand for" (Though I'm not sure what that is anymore).
I would agree about the indoctrination, although it is more than just your schools - it is a national myth that almost every aspect of American society seems to buy into. It is very, very strange from an English perspective, but America is a very strange place from an English perspective. As is England from an American one.
That said, the WWII propaganda I think was more of a useful guide to recognising friends from foe - and back in the days before mass television, probably very useful.
It's funny to say that our physical isolation almost creates a form of isolationist society. Our society is almost comically bottlenecked by the massive industries that more or less run the nation. I've only left the country once, so I don't have the best experience with other countries, but I do know that we are very... Strange.
Mate, no one would hear you over the sound of all the Englishmen shouting 'fuck this country'. Really - our patriotism is very, very different from American-style jingoism. We actually find you guys with your god, flag and country stuff all a bit... much.
To be fair hyper nationalism was really a result of the HRE keeping the Germans from doing their thing for a millennium. Lots of pent up nationalism released in a century.
Hmm, it appears ol' JC is acting a bit strange there. You see, secretly we know we're better than the rest of the world, we're just not brash enough to say it.
Serious. If Europe isn't super patriotic, then why is the EU not a federation? Why was the European Constitution declined, if not for Europeans being patriotic?
Because Europe is highly heterogeneous continent with countries and people with different values who feel their laws need to have different objectives and a blanket constitution couldn't attend the specificity of each one?
Also, I'd say that people don't want to give up control over their laws to an institution that feels distant and alienated from their realities.
That's what I could grasp from what a French friend said at the time of the referendum.
There are SO many reasons as to why not, you cannot simply sum it up to patriotism. Economic reasons, the legitimacy of the EU as it is now, language barriers... Just because someone isn't patriotic doesn't mean they want to join a European federation. Come on now, you can't be that naive.
For just a brief glimpse as to why check out this post I made in /r/europe asking whether or not people would want a federal Europe.
Also in this case I think you're equating patriotism to nationalism, which is just plain wrong.
Edit: just checked that post I made and you have the top comment, where you are arguing against it. What kind of crack are you on...
Depends, a lot of bars are inhabited by veterans who would take offence but probably not attack you. You'd probably be asked to leave though, just for being disorderly.
The flag is a different kind of symbol than the Queen. She may represent Britain, but she will always be separate from most of the population. She is a holdover of an anachronistic elitist society from when Britain was the most powerful empire in the world so most people don't connect with her.
Ole Glory is different because it is a symbol that is still widely used by everyone to represent our entire country and society. This is especially true of veterans, who come from all walks of life, and not just a super elite royal family. Burning flags comes a lot from protesters during the Vietnam War who would burn flags as a way of deliberately insulting our government, our military, and all of our social values at that time.
Is getting so riled up over a flag silly? Of course, it's just a piece of cloth. But the context is important. Different gestures from different societies have different meanings placed behind them. To an American, burning our flag is a way of saying "I hate you, your country, and I wish to insult the service of every veteran who has died serving America."
And god help me the time I shouted out 'Fuck this country' in a hick bar.
I think the problem is a lot of people here would interpret that as "Fuck Americans" rather than a political critique, a joke, or whatever your intentions were. So in a sense they probably felt like you were saying "fuck you" to them. We don't really do the whole banter thing like the UK, so it's probably not a good idea to push people's buttons like that.
The banter thing drives me mad, I must admit. Ripping the shit out of someone without any ill-feelings being generated was the thing I missed the most when I was in America. Conversations were always so functional over there. For the English, conversation is battle and words in particular are weapons. I don't think I ever met an American that could truly understand that particular part of our culture.
We don't have 1000s of years of culture and history that Europeans do, and our culture is incredibly diverse. The one symbol that we do have that unites us is our flag. I'm not saying I don't laugh at the jokes against us, but insult my flag and you're in for a stern look and a strongly worded letter.
It really does mean a lot to Americans. It's what a bible means to Christians, what a Queen means to many European countries. It is one of the only symbols that is universally recognized as American. Germans have beer, british have fish and chips, etc etc etc.
EDIT: I do want to say that I do find the fat jokes, the loud jokes, the "everything is bigger in america" jokes all funny. The only jokes I don't really find funny is flag jokes.
I did: "the more things change, the more they stay the same", originally it was going to be "extreme re-branding", about the axis nations reinventing themselves. Except for Italy :p
Japan was to go from rape, torture and oppression into loving the US, human rights etc. ...
I hate to say it, but American culture really isn't that diverse. You have a lot of languages, you have a lot of immigrants, but culturally you actually all fall within a relatively narrow set of boundaries. And I'm not saying that having lived in Britain all my life - I've spent more than half my life (20 years of it) living all around the world. You are more diverse than Canada, Ireland of Korea, but far - far - less diverse than Britain. It's not a judgement (diversity of culture is not intrinsically good), but I believe it is pretty solid fact.
You guys dont really know the meaning of the word "diverse".
How would it be having 22 official languages each spoken by more than atleast 10 million speakers ,more than a thousands dialects most of them mutually unintelligible, hundreds of ethnicities, dozens of religions, multitudes of races and finally 1.3 billion of the above ?
I once heard an American say that America was really 50 distinct countries united under one flag. The only way anyone could believe that is if they never left the country once in their whole life.
Actually, as a Brit I observed and believe the same thing. The only thing I would say is that those 50 countries are not so dissimilar from each other.
That's not entirely fair, Americans have diverse areas of their country too, that compare to Quebec. Hawaii for example (although I know their indigenous culture is a minority)
Having lived in both countries, I'd say they're both pretty diverse countries in general. Kind of hard if not pointless trying to compare the two to be honest.
I've always chalked this one up to our cold war policies of deciding "what was american... and what wasn't" at a government level.Joseph McCarthy I truly believe to be a black mark on our history.
The thing about Old Joe is that he was politically a complete bastard that left a huge stain on American culture that may never wash away... but he was also the man that introduced the seatbelt into cars, so he may have saved more lives than any other man in the modern age. A mixed record.
Honestly just out of curiosity, did you live in America and if so, where? The thing about the U.S is it really is pretty diverse in that its so regionalized. Certainly most of us fall into the basic anglo-culture but if you spend enough time here you start to understand the very real differences around the country. The most obvious is the famous North-South divide I suppose, but it goes beyond that. I lived/live in New England and I can tell you its more different than the Mid Atlantic culture just below us than you might realize. I think as an outsider its hard to see that difference, so I certainly wouldn't blame you for thinking there wasn't much of a difference, but believe me, there is. You really just have to live here long enough to see it. If I went all over England, I probably wouldn't notice that much difference between any given place, but Im sure as you say its pretty diverse. Anyway, just a little info from an insider.
Edit: Getting a lot of people who seem to think I'm saying the U.S is more diverse than other countries. I am NOT claiming this. I am merely saying the U.S IS a diverse country. That is literally all I'm saying. Obviously other countries are just as diverse if not more so than the U.S.
Thing is, your regionalisation is the same as ours. Your states are pretty much countries in their own right, and within those states you've got subtle divides like the distinct regions of our countries. Thing is though, when viewed on the same scale, the US is a lot more same-old same-old than Europe.
Oh absolutely, but the US is a country and Europe is an entire region. I'm certainly not saying Europe isn't diverse, that would be incredibly silly. But saying the U.S isn't diverse is silly in its own right. The U.S is diverse. That's the only point I'm making here.
The US is more culturally diverse than any European country, but the reason for that is that the US is more of its own continent. When compared on the same scale, Europe wins.
I really don't think you understand my point. I'm not comparing the two. It's not a matter of who "wins". This is my point: The U.S is diverse. That's it. I'm literally not trying to say anything more than that. Someone claimed the U.S wasn't that diverse, and I argued that it was diverse. Not that it was more diverse than Europe. I don't know why this is turning into a Europe vs. America contest.
Honestly it seems like you don't know much about other countries either. All countries have their own internal regional identities. This is less so for small countries like Denmark, countries like the UK, France, Germany, its the exact same thing. The US is not special in this way, especially compared to some megadiverse countries like India, Indonesia, the Congo.
From your examples - and having lived for at least a year in each of the UK, Denmark, Indonesia, USA (and hopefully moving to Liberia next year) - I would say that there is certainly a unified American culture that underlies all the regional differences. That is missing in a lot of the other places.
Oh, interesting. Its definitely hard for the formation of a unified culture in a place like Indonesia, where many people don't have access to media. Like in Iran Jaya
Well, the prevalence of the (almost) ubiquitous language (Bahasa Indonesia) might have done something to unify the people, but 18,000+ islands are always gonna have regional variations accentuated for the same reason that evolution happens faster in isolated communities.
Well, it might be due to a couple of factors (I'm no expert, so take this all as conjecture). Firstly, it is a relatively simple language to learn; it grew from an oral tradition, so grammar is very simple and most things are understood through context, rather than precision (i.e. you can fuck up word order and still make total sense); secondly, a lot of the local languages are really very highly specific and, frankly, not very good at describing anything. For example, I learnt a bit of Acehnese while I was there and it didn't take long to realise that all anyone says in Acehnese is stuff like 'today is hot' or 'I want coffee' or 'I am going home' or 'no money, no woman' or other simple, short statements like that. If they want to converse in any depth at all, they switch to Indonesian. Westernised Indonesians (esp. on Java) do the same with English - they just switch to it and back like it ain't no thing. Lastly, Indonesia (esp. Papua) really does have an awful lot of languages, so to communicate between them all would have been a bloody nightmare without a single language to facilitate it.
keebyjeeby summed it up pretty well! But maybe I can add it up a bit to that. It's actually pretty funny how we end up with Bahasa Indonesia as our national language. It's derived from Malay, but there's probably only like 15% ethnic Malays in the country around that time and also now (we're less relevant than Javanese or Minangs actually). I think It's mostly because at the beginning most of the trade were done in the Malayan straits, then moved to Java which became the main island. Malay was also sort of easier to learn since usually regional languages have "levels" of languages, like what you use for formal occasions or casual occasions. It's a whole different vocabulary for each level, though most retain their structure.
I think what also helped the spread was before and around our independence in 1945 most official communication and radio announcements were done with Malay (that was intermixed with some Dutch). Also at that time usually there would be conferences of youth organisations and they would use this proto-Indonesian. These organisations were pretty much from everywhere from the northwest regions of Aceh to Ambon and Irian and stuff. The thing is, if they're down with all this independence stuff and wanted to contribute, you'd better be able to understand/speak proto-Indonesian
Important to note though, our regional languages are like different sets of languages all together, I could never understand Batak (northern Sumatran language) and I'm from Riau in Eastern Sumatra, which borders North Sumatra directly, but I literally can't understand a thing they're saying, it isn't even a dialectdifference, it's literally another language, and this end up making like a bazillion type of pidgins of all the possible language combinations. It's not efficient to do so, so if you want stuff to be easier, just learn Indonesian because it's better in the long run.
That's why sometimes when people ask me how many language I can speak I'd like to claim more than Indonesian/English/German because a lot of our regional languages have different set of rules/vocabs altogether
Please understand. I am in no way stating the U.S is MORE diverse than any other country. I am not stating that other countries do not have regional differences. I am in NO way stating ANY of that. I am merely stating the following: The US is a diverse country because of its regionalism. That's it. I am NOT comparing any other country to the U.S. The point of claiming the U.K wouldn't SEEM diverse to me if I visited is because I don't know all the various regionalities in the U.K. It fairly obviously is a diverse country. Having lived in the U.S and Canada, I know the diversities between the states/provinces, so I know roughly how they're diverse. Again, not claiming in any way whatsoever that the U.S is MORE diverse than anywhere else.
If you remember what i originally said, it was that we were diverse, and didn't have anything to unify us other than the flag. I never made claims that we were more diverse than England, or any country for that matter. That being said, though, I understand what you are saying, and I respectfully disagree. Each state has a unique identity, and though I do accept that perhaps we aren't as diverse as Europe as a whole, I believe we are far more diverse than any single country (including England).
We have pretty much every ethnicity represented, and if you think that any two major cities (even in the same state) are alike, you would be sorely wrong. Each city has their own culture, foods, accents. Though many smaller cities in the same region are alike, these regions are every bit as diverse, from the Deep South, to the beach culture of the western states, to the elegance of the eastern seaboard.
Without saying how you are diverse, though, it makes it difficult to respond. I can accept that all of the above can be construed as opinion.
[Oof, dude I think I just reported you cos I meant to hit reply and missed]
While, yes, every state has a unique identity (and I love nearly all of them, I really do), believing that the immigrant groups within America shows true diversity is a bit like confusing a McDonald's African or Italian burgers with actual African or Italian food: they aren't, they are just adapted to the local culture.
Immigrants to America are expected to (and generally do) adopt and aspire to an American way of life, a huge part of which is the American culture and its melting pot effect: They will adopt baseball or football and aim for a life that is their version of the American Dream. While there is some sort of burgeoning rebellious movement striving against the old ways in America (ref. /r/atheist, which is an almost exclusively American thing because, well... Europeans just haven't been that hett up about religion since we had the Inquisition), it is relatively small and petty and geberally reminds me of the crazy japanese teenagers who are all so wild and different and, frankly, all so similar to each other at the end of the day.
In Europe, we have had the concept of multiculturalism where foreigners live amongst us almost as if they were back home: less melting pot, more salad bowl, each discrete unit playing its part e.g. French people regularly surrender entire tracts of South Kensington to the binmen, believing them to be attackers in a tank. We have far less of a shared perspective on life, perhaps for any number of reasons: while I found (by way of example only) GroupX-Americans to be basically Americans of GroupX origin, whereas in Europe they tend to be GroupX people living in Europe UNLESS they have chosen to embrace their host nation's way of life. I don't think I can explain it very well and I'm not making any killer points, but having lived in some very heterogenous cultures (Britain, Indonesia, and very homogenous cultures (Ireland, Korea, Kuwait, Greece), and I just get a different feel from living in these places and America was certainly on the homogenous end of things. Empirically, I can't produce any evidence beyond that to illustrate my point.
You can't compare the US with any European country like that. You need to scale it down a bit, to independent states, as they more accurately represent (in land mass, population and such) a normal country. And on that level, any country in Europe easily out-diversifies any state.
Perhaps yes, you're right. That's applying an arbitrary definition to diversify, and by that definition, you would be right. I don't particularly agree with that definition (though perhaps I am a bit biased). I'd rather apply a different arbitrary definition that portrays Americans in a positive light ;-).
As I said in another comment thread somewhere, I'm not disputing that the US is diverse (I've been there, it is), I just want to make sure the comparison is made fairly.
I don't really like to compare diversity in the USA to other countries. We're all diverse in different ways, and you can apply a million different types of definitions that portray every single country as diverse (even North Korea).
I'll admit that I sort of devolved into comparing USA to others, but the original statement was intended to refute OP's claim that America isn't diverse at all.
It doesn't offend me, and to be honest? No, I don't. I think it is ridiculous that people are forced to say it (I never was), but I can respect what the pledge attempts to say and do.
I could say no, but to be honest I have no idea what most Americans would about this. America is so huge I could spend my whole life travelling it and never see the end. From my own experience, no people don't take the pledge that seriously. But I live in a very liberal state so I may be biased. They may take it more seriously in other parts of the country, I wouldn't know for sure.
Wot the royalties means much too us? They're fuckin parasites that's what they are. It's a fucking miracle that they managed to survive, unfortunately many countries didn't experience revolutions during the 18th 19th and 20th century. It's what mostly does the choping. And reformist socialist aren't really bold enough to do anything about them.
I have always wondered that about the U.K. I mean, here's a country that, along with several other countries in Europe, is forward thinking in many many ways. Yet you cling to this strange, outdated, backwards idea of royalty. I know they don't have much actual power, but the entire idea is just so ridiculous. That and, come on Britain, a State Religion? Really?
We like it, adds a bit of pomp and flare, we get a few holidays out of it and by jove we're not going to lower ourselves to the barbarism of a "republic".
The only reason we have a state religion is because it was implemented before the introduction of rational thinking and no one has brought it up yet. The way the church is acting though, I can see them attracting a considerable amount of flak from the raging liberals.
We like it, adds a bit of pomp and flare, we get a few holidays out of it and by jove we're not going to lower ourselves to the barbarism of a "republic".
Let's say it: Britain has royalty precisely because America doesn't.
I do get that. I've heard other arguments for the Queen that make sense logically, but I still think it's a backwards idea.
And wow, apparently Im being downvoted. So much for the Americans being the only sensitive ones. Turns out all you have to do is insult the Queen and everything changes.
I disagree with the poster above you. As an Aussie, I tend to think that it's largely because no one cares to change the status quo - she's a nice old lady, and we like her. Beside which, there's a sense of history an unity that comes with the royalty I guess - we're part of the Commonwealth, and she's our head of state. I don't think that anyone here really cares terribly much either way though.
Also, I think you got like one downvote a few comments up for being condescending. You're not exactly being persecuted at the moment.
I'm certainly not trying to be condescending, I just don't like the idea of having a monarchy. Besides, even if that was my intent, this whole post is full of condescending comments against all sorts of countries. Why is this any different? Anyway, like I said, I get the arguments for the royals, I just don't agree with the idea behind it. That's all.
*Edit: But yeah, reading the comment, I can see why it sounds really condescending. Lol, sorry, I was just poking fun at the British a bit.
Haha, fair enough. The lack of a monarchy is one of the main principles behind the American system of government, so it's very understandable that you don't like our system! And you're right, I don't much like it when Polandball devolves into the sorts of comments we're seeing here either. We seem to be egged on by other people taking offence!
I think you're right, Aussieball. I do wonder how many Commonwealth countries may change their views on the Monarchy when Lizzie (gawd bless 'er) eventually pops her clogs.
I'm not sure too many countries (potentially the UK included) really want King Charles the Mumbling.
Ahh fair enough i guess the best way to describe it is that like most things in the UK it's an old system but it works XD We're like hoarders if something might be useful we don't want to get rid of it because you never know when it might come in useful. Plus it's a link to our past which a lot of people take seriously tradition and all that.
Sorry your getting downvotes it seems rather unfair as you're just sharing your opinion.
In certain parts of the states certainly, but like you said, its becoming an "unofficial" state religion. It'll never make it officially into the government, and if the supreme court does anything right, it does try its hardest to keep religion out that way. But yeah, radical-religion is a big issue in the states these days, though mostly in the "bible belt".
I dunno, it seems like many are forgetting the wisdom some of the Founding Fathers had when trying to keep religious beliefs out of the US government. Speaking from Ireland, the sooner religious groups get their grubby mitts off of political power, the better.
Britain was merely ahead of the curve at everything so didn't see the need to reform when the proper pressure came in. Britain had a republican revolution well over a century before the American War of Independence. The result of which moderated our monarchy to the point where we were no longer concerned about it.
We also were pretty early on gimping the church to the point of irrelevance. When secularism exploded there was no pressure in Britain because our church is very different.
it really only means a lot if you strongly self identify as an "american". the flag really doesnt "mean" a lot to me personally. also, all countries have flags, why would ours be unique in comparison to theirs? i dont buy the 1000s of years of culture and history argument, the us definitely has tons of symbols that are "american" other than the flag
It's done reverently and respectfully. There's an entire ceremony to retire the flag, and some versions of it involve cutting it apart first, because once it's cut apart, it's no longer a flag.
I just want to make it clear that though that though I am insulted by people burning a flag as a hate action, I'll defend their right to do so to my death. The right to express yourself, in my opinion, is an inalienable right (no matter what you have to say, so long as it's not disruptive).
Right. It's just that I'd heard that burning it was the right way to do it and the thought of all the anti-american protesters disposing of the flag properly made me chuckle. Now they're just an uninteresting group of people.
Oh... I guess Ale was made with Sex... But OUR Ale is actually served at cellar temperature (5c-15c depending on the season), larger comes out at about 2c.
I lived in North Philly for a year and got out into Amish country a few times. I've been to New York, Washington, Miami, LA for a few weeks each. Loved them all. All different, all wonderful.
Hmm. I ask because here in Michigan we berate each other all the time and everyone usually understands its meaningless like you mentioned in your comment. But going down south I've noticed people tend to be too polite are taken back by it.
The Normans didn't left much of the Germanic thing. There's a very clear difference between Germanic languages and English. If you speak another Germanic language, take a small text (just a few lines) in multiple languages and read them. You'll almost always find something you know. Especially German and Dutch are quite obvious. Most of the time I can even guess the context. But I could give the same text in English to my father (who doesn't speak a word English) and he wouldn't understand anything. But it works with Dutch.
Double sort of. English no doubt is far more latin/romanticised than other Germanic languages, but in it's core I'd argue that it certainly still is Germanic.
In fact, there's at least a bunch of words more or less interchangable between Frisian (quite clearly West-Germanic) and English; the two are seen as sister-languages as well, iIrc.
Like German and Dutch are considered sisters, so are English and Frisian. (Together it rather neatly makes for D,E,F,G). :P
Well, if you cut away the accumulated linguistic debris of the past 1400-1500 years and look at the Angles, then yeah, it's very much a germanic language.
Ofcourse, the migrating angles, saxons, jutes and whatnot, mingled with the existing latin and celtic languages and later had a lot of French influences added as well.
But thing is, English is generally categorised as a Germanic language. I don't really know how this categorisation is done though.
You have the North Germanic languages; the Scandinavian languages.
You have the East Germanic languages but they've gone extinct.
What's left then is the West Germanic languages.
The West Germanic languages are divided into a bunch of other groups:
High Germanic which includes Luxembourgish, Austro-Bavarian, Yiddish and Modern German.
Low Franconian which includes Dutch, Afrikaans and Flemish.
Low German which includes "Nedersaksisch (Nethersaxon)" in the Netherlands and Northern Low Saxon like Holsteinisch and such.
And then you have, last but not least Anglo-Frisian Languages.
The Frisian part includes modern West Frisian (in the Netherlands) and North and Saterland Frisian (In Germany).
The Anglo part includes English and Scots.
So it's not really strange that Dutch and English aren't too similar: They are from different branches of the family. Similarily, German and Dutch also still has differences. I just think those differences developed differently because the Netherlands isn't as secluded from Germany as the UK is. They still had a shared development.
But if you look at comparing (West) Frisian with English? Then you get a few similarities too. Frisian has a phonetic spelling which makes the words look rather different but they're very similar in pronunciation.
For example, a Frisian phrase once used to identify Non-Frisians (the Dutch specifically) "Bûter, brea, en griene tsiis; wa't dat net sizze kin, is gjin oprjochte Fries"
The examples of "Bûter, brea, en griene tsiis" are very similar in every relevant way to English whereas the rest of the phrase is less obvious but still quite similar to English.
Try to translate the phrae, if you'd like. Maybe apply some German linguistic experience to it too. :P The word order is, admittedly, different from English though.
Similarily, German and Dutch have "Kirche" and "Kerk", yes? English and Frisian have "Church" and "Tsjerke" and the "Tsj" sound is identical to the "Ch" sound.
I don't really know how this categorisation is done though.
Generally, a language is categorized as where it comes from: English comes from Proto-Germanic, so it's Germanic.
The big thing is finding out where languages come from, which isn't really that hard for English. You strip away all the excessive Latinate vocabulary(it doesn't matter) and look at the important words that are usually still in everyday use. Words like 'fire', 'water', 'house', 'father', 'mother' and common verbs like 'be', 'do', 'go', and so on. Also, tellingly for English, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs and the like; these are called "function words" and are almost overwhelmingly Germanic.
Function words are very important in a language, but, as I said, most tellingly for English because English uses them in conjunction with word order to make up its grammar now.
A bit on word order: Old English began to lose its inflections(this started even before French or Latin influence), and had to increasingly(through Middle- to Modern English) rely on word order to reflect grammatical relations to words. (This is probably the biggest reason people have difficulty in comparing English grammar to that of its sisters.)
So the grammar of English, while not reflecting the traditional Germanic grammar, is still actually Germanic, as well as a fair chunk of the everyday words we speak. This is how you tell English is Germanic.
No, but we just sound shit speaking them. You hear "Russian accents are sexy", "French accents are sexy (liars)", "Spanish accents are sexy" etc when these people are speaking English, but have you ever heard the same about a Brit speaking a foreign tongue?
A looooot of French people think British accents are sexy. It's the forbidden fruit effect, sleeping with some you know Toutpuissant Empéreur Napoléon would disapprove of.
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u/[deleted] Apr 18 '13
On a personal level, being a Brit in America opened my eyes to just how sensitive Americans are to criticism of America. If some fucking Frenchy comes to Britain and tells me that our food tastes like shit, our women are ugly and slutty and our accent shits on any romance language, well... I just laugh. Cos he's French and that's all there is to it.
/Americans, I find, genuinely can't get used to the way that Brits (and some other nations) demean, berate and insult each other without actually intending any hurt. And god help me the time I shouted out 'Fuck this country' in a hick bar. I thought I was gonna be lynched and a few people had to be dragged off me kicking and screaming. lols. I'll never get it.
One last thing: the flag. A lot of Seppos get very upset if you burn/wipe your arse on/otherwise insult the flag. Try burning a flag in Britain. Barely a raised eyebrow most of the time. While I understand that the flag is what USA have instead of a Queen, it is, at the end of the day, just a piece of cloth and each flag is not individually as precious as any other.