Reference
German
German is a cousin of English, but it never became a major language in American colleges. For cultural and political reasons going back to earlier centuries, French has been the standard linguistic acquisition of the properly cultured American. German academic tradition may have been the main source for the higher learning in America, but the American student who wants to be a full citizen of the intellectual world has a hard time encountering that world's German roots: there is no standard University course aimed at that kind of practical reading. Even in advanced subjects like theology, American scholars either wait for a German book to be translated, or they don't read it at all. What help can we offer to the serious person who is trying to sight-read in that tradition? Not much, but:
Quotations are one of the easiest ways to get possession of a finite amount of a language. Germany is a young nation, and an earnest one. German culture is not a culture of wit, like French culture, which has developed the remark into an artform. But it has its small moments too, some of them iron moments. Here is a small sample:
16c 17c 18c 19c 20c
Lexikon. We offer only a tiny one, consisting of the 100 or so commonest words. Umlaut vowels at the beginning of a word are interfiled with the other vowels.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Readings. One distinctive quality of the German mind is its rigor in investigating things. It also has a pronounced sentimental streak. We give below a few illustrations of those and other recurring qualities, with an emphasis on Biblical and Sinological subjects. Most of the selections are excerpts.
Heritage
Mark 4:26-29, Parable of the Seed
Literature
History and Philology
Sinology
Personen. French learning flowered in the Renaissance, and remained central to the European intellect through the transformative Age of Napoleon. Germany peaked somewhat later, both as a culture and as a unified nation. Its great age of mental consolidation and advance was the immediate post-Napoleonic period. Here, drawn partly from other parts of this web site, and thus with no pretense at balance, are some profiles of German personalities. They may suggest how the German mind has engaged the possibilities of the human and rational sciences, though not always on German soil, and not always with success on German soil.
Founding
Flowering
Some Who Stayed
Some Who Went
26 Sept 2008 / Contact The Project / Exit to Reference
