[B-Greek] Classroom metalanguage

Blue Meeksbay bluemeeksbay at yahoo.com
Thu Feb 25 11:26:23 EST 2010


Dr. Conrad:

For those of us who do not know German can you let us in on the joke?  I tried Google translate to see what you said and it translated it as, "Oh, Mr. Conrad, Der, Die, You never glernt ham! "  : > )

Blue Harris



________________________________
From: Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
To: Stephen Carlson <stemmatic at gmail.com>
Cc: B-Greek <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thu, February 25, 2010 7:54:24 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Classroom metalanguage

On Feb 25, 2010, at 10:44 AM, Stephen Carlson wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 9:02 AM, Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com> wrote:
>> On Feb 25, 2010, at 8:52 AM, Nicky de Jong wrote:
>>> Randy,
>>> 
>>> In primary school German teachers use Wer-Fall, Wes-Fall, Wem-Fall und Wen-Fall instead of the Latin-based forms, which are introduced in secondary school.
>> 
>> Now in English that amounts to: Who for, Where-fore, Why-for, What for, and When for?
> 
> Maybe I'm missing something, but doesn't "Fall" basically mean "case" here?

Whether you're missing something is another question; I really wasn't really trying to translate "Fall", which does indeed mean "case" as in Nietzsche's "Der Fall Wagner" or as in Greek πτῶσις PTWSIS, Latin "casus."

My own introduction to "Fallen" Deutsch was many, many decades ago walking into a bakery on successive days in München to ask for "einen Brot" or "eine Brot" or "ein Brot," only to be giggled at by the girl behind the counter, who gaily called out, "Ach, Herr Conrad, Der, Die, Das ham Sie nie glernt!"

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)



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