Some Aspects of the History of German and English for the Classroom

Abstract

Most American students learning German are actually learning their second Germanic language since they have already achieved fluency in English. The German teacher, however, may not be able to capitalize on the close relationship between the two languages since he/she may not have had the opportunity to study the history of the German language and since few teachers have delved into the history of English. In the following discussion I hope to outline aspects of the historical development of both German and English which could be presented in the classroom, either to palliate the feeling of the foreignness of the foreign language experienced by many first year students or to enliven the review of grammar in more advanced classes. Since this material is intended primarily for students learning German, I will attempt to present practical linguistic generalizations without undue regard for the theoretical subtleties inherent in the subject matter. Further, I will employ the terminology found in our first and second year textbooks even though the trained linguist might prefer a different nomenclature in many cases. Finally, I will relegate to the footnotes information which is probably of more interest to the teacher than to the student.