[Milsurplus] Language Experts?

[Tino Zottola]

German is indeed a very unique language. 

In all Latin based languages, technical words are all
derived from Latin and Greek roots.

For example: The English, French, Spanish, Italian,
Portageuse word for "television" is essentially the
same in all 5 languages, gave or take a letter. In
German, it is totally different: "fernseherapparat" or
Far Seeing Apparatus.

As a side note, English was actually a Germanic
language 1000 years ago, but in 1066 when the Normans
invaded England, The English language took a major
deviation and became a hybrid of German for old
existing words and French for new formed words (like
technical ones for example).

Regards Tino VE2GCE

--- "Kenneth G. Gordon" <keng@moscow.com> wrote:
> > Can anyone tell me what language these words are,
> > and how they translate to english:
> > 
> >   telefoon
> >   zendwyze
> 
> Dutch
> 
> telefoon = telephone
> zendwyse = send way (or to put it into literal
> English, method of sending, 
> it would correspond to our word MODE as applied to a
> switch)
> 
> Most Germanic based languages don't have neat words
> that combine 
> meanings like English does. They have to put two or
> more words together 
> to get a meaning which English often expresses with
> one word. Kinda 
> clumsy in my opinion, but works for them. A good
> example is 
> Panzerkampfwagen, shortened to Panzer for tank. In
> LITERAL English, 
> it means Armored-war-wagon. Another is unterseeboot
> for under the sea 
> boat, or U boat. Some Germanic words get really long
> and clumsy when 
> describing mechanical or scientific devices with
> specific uses.
> 
> Ken W7EKB, who is NOT a language expert by any
> means.
> 
> Ken W7EKB
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