Re: Latin - English derivatives, German

> If you refer to this (non-existing) "tense": "ich habe gesagt
> gehabt, ich habe gegessen gehabt" etc., that is the "Perfekt"
> tense + the additional participle of the verb haben ("to have"),
> then this is not only typical of Berlin, it is typical of entire,
> reunified, Germany (plus Austria): it is wrong - a bad
> habit - it is an... epidemia. :)) [the real PlusQuamPerfekt is
> "ich hatte gesagt (I had said); ich hatte gegessen" (I had
> eaten) | "ich hatte gehabt" = "I had had".]

Nono, I mean the Berliner really use the Plusquamperfekt instead of
Perfekt (and an Austrian friend had warned me about that). E.g., ich
hatte ihn getroffen, instead of ich habe ihn getroffen, when the
context demands perfect. So when my latin Professor hears "venit"
translated as "war gekommen", his first reaction is (and we laugh):
Frau ..., Sie kommen aus Berlin :-)

> "Ich denke, ich habe ihr so zu sagen gesagt gehabt.

OMG, it gives me some hope that I have NOT heard this in Berlin. At
least it must not have happened very often.

Sie hat

> schon die Information bekommen gehabt, sag' ich mal." :))

Aha, or, ich habe es geschenkt bekommen. I think I listened to such
a discussion in Sprachwandel. Unfortunately, I have not done so many
courses in the Germanistik. I just remember discussing the Berliner
not having done their Lautverschiebung.

> It isn't that strict either (die kochen auch nur mit Wasser ;-).
> e.g. any German will use the word "Dialekt" whenever referring
> to regional language aspects.

George, believe me, in 70 percent of the cases they have no idea what
a foreign word means. I did not mean 100 percent, of course. But
since I speak 4 languages, the comparison allows me to say Germans
are more prone to use their own words, while they also remain
ignorant of what foreign words mean (which is not the case in the
other languages I speak). Could be a subjective thing. Yet Germans'
tendency to grow extremely "profiliert" in one area would just add to
such a phenomenon. Why the hell do I need ta know yer words?

> Only higher educated and
> professionals will use the German word for that, "Mundart".

That's more like an exception.

> Or: officially still in use "Fernsprecher, Fernsprechanlage" and
> the like. But vox populi still sticks to... Telephon (which is
> allowed nowadays to be spelled like this: Telefon, as Graphik
> is allowed to be printed as Grafik :-).

These also deviate from the general tendency. Besides, they do not
belong to common vocabulary in, say, the Middle Ages. German is a
quite conservative language and that's exactly the point.

> >You hardly ever hear "Ich habe es nicht machen können."
>
> Perhaps in North Germany a bit less frequently than in the
> South (in Bavarian [i hobs net mOxn kena]), where "ich konnte
> es nicht machen" sounds a bit too... "preissisch." :-)

My experiences are restricted to Northern Germany, you are right.
But I think this is also a tendency in the press, which is not
restricted to Northern Germany. Germans generally leave out forms
that sound too complicated or deviate from what sounds familiar to
them (e.g. habe... machen können, and not gekonnt, habe... sprechen
lassen, and not gelassen).

> Hardly comparable. The use of Präteritum will rather be a
> sign of some social status (higher education) and... region.

Who said this? I did not try to make comparisons on this basis. I
do not find it to be a good basis.

Eva