Amiga listings on eBay Germany

[Iggy]

Make that History and Religion.
Its amazing we are still here.
And no great wonder that we have always predicted our eventual fall.
Hope I don't live to see it.

And I hope, when I am gone, that this is over for me.

The idea of eternal life terrifies me.

[danbeaver]

History books are filled with wars, they are not forgotten, yet still there are more wars, every year there are wars being waged around the world.
History teaches us why we need to have another war.

History only teaches those who pay attention. It has nothing to do with war; and prejudice and WWII went hand-in-hand. The realities of that period in time did not prevent any war, but what we learned from the treaty of Versailles lead to the Marshall plan.  It did not slow the progress of hate, persecution, racism nor genocide, but defined them in global terms -- we simply can identify these more easily.

[AmigaBruno]

I do speak German, anyway. I'm a linguist.QUOTE]

I envy you. That seems like a tough language to learn. But it would be cool to actually converse with some of my friends in their native tongue.

Good luck with the auction.
I've bought a lot of neat things via Ebay.

I went shopping, then watched lots of TV, then tried and failed to do  any more ADF transfers before checking back here and look what I've found! This thread has gone totally off topic now, like most threads!

Getting back on topic, I can tell you that German is one of the easiest languages for English speakers to learn. This is because it's closely related to English, although the languages Frisian, Dutch/Flemish, Danish, and Norwegian are more closely related to English, but have more difficult and less clear pronunciations than German. Over a period of time one language spread over a distance develops into various dialects, some of which are different enough or have a high enough status to be different languages. Eventually, the common ancestral language dies out, leaving just the related languages, some being easy for speakers of other related languages to understand. Some words take on different meanings or are used slightly differently. There's also the rules of consonantal shift, as mentioned in the classic Doctor Who story "A State of Decay". This is basically where an unvoiced consonant such as t is replaced by a voiced consonant such as d or vice versa (e.g. Bett = bed). English has also adopted lots more French and Latin words than German has, so you often find similar words to Old English in German (e.g. Wohnung = flat/apartment, or home. Old English used Woning for any home).

English was being taught in schools before WWII, according to a reprint of a WWII book of advice for British armed servicemen in Germany dated about 1944.

BTW, I live in Britain or the UK if you prefer, so I should be able to buy anything I like which is being sold in Germany. There are no customs duties or restrictions, but there may sometimes be spot checks for illegal items or items not allowed to be sent through the mail. I'm hoping to buy some real Schweinebraten mit Knoedel (roast pork with dumplings), but it's not sold here and probably couldn't be packaged and sent over.

Finally, you can visit this site to read versions of the Our Father/Lord's Prayer in various languages. Each language is called by its native name. Dansk = Danish, Frysk = Frisian, and DE-Borbecker Platt is a northern German dialect or language similar to Dutch. Plattdeutsch (low German) was the standard language used by the old Hanseatic League trading organisation, which fell into decline after the League broke up. Standard German is called Hochdeutsch or High German.

http://www.vater-unser.de/index_de.phtml?lg=de

[danbeaver]

Er...

English is German at it's core;  read some "Old English"  and see.  The song "Auld Lang Syne" is German (spelled better) as Alt  Lange Zeit.  The UK or Britain either got invaded (Romans, Normans --  "Norse Men" invading Vikings, ex-colonies -- India, etc.) or had kings  and queens from multiple countries who brought their own language -- German, French, more German.

Germany  on the other hand, prevented this with a lack of street and road signs,  so then when the Romans invaded about 2000 years ago (Augustus 6 BE to 4  AD), they got "lost" and turned around with a few military battles lost  along the way -- likely due to the lack of maps and road signs.  The  same for the American military: once they got into Germany, they  couldn't find their way back out; heck, the Berlin airlift came about as  a way to avoid the roads.  Finally with the advent of GPS navigation  based devices, one can actually go from point "A" to point "B" without  stopping and asking a German person for directions.  The whole concept  of transportation that ignored the German road system (Trains, tanks,  and finally the Autobahn) evolved to get around this obstacle; even today the autobahn is laid out with signs that list the originating city for that piece of autobahn and the end city, with no others listed in between.