This affects my personal family history, since my ancestry is derived from the East Saxons in the German Land of Thueringen (an ancient Saxon tribal name meaning: "The Sons of Thyr" (the ancient Germanic deity after whom "Tuesday" get is name, and the same Indo-European word which gives us Sanskrit "Deva" and Latin "Deus".)). For those of you who don't know, the Saxon nation spit into three parts about fifteen hundred years ago, with one third moving East (these would become my ancestors) into Thueringen and East Saxony, one third staying put in the German Land of Niedersachsen (which is German for "Lower Saxony", as Thueringen and East Saxony occupy the mountains as opposed to the lowlands of Lower Saxony (which the English called "Old Saxony", since it was their own ancestral homeland), and the third part, obviously from what I've already said, moved west to occupy "Thaem maesten dael Bryttenes" (i.e., the greater part of the island of Great Britain), to become today's English people. Now, the history books tell us that the Modern High German language begins when the Franks conquer us East Saxons, but just look at "Old High German", and see how much it resembles Old English, and how little it resembles Modern High German:
For those of you who wish to compare, here's the Old English version of the same Biblical passage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLJGTYkEKLI&feature=channelMy point is that such a language should have given rise to something more nearly approximating Modern English or Modern Dutch than Modern High German, which is beginning to seem to me like some form of academic artifact, rather than a natural evolution of human language.
I must here indicate that I exhibit a near-native capacity in Old English, as well as a limited capacity in New York City Yiddish (a variety of Modern High German). Here's a little piece of NYC Yiddish (not really, and beware of vulgar language):
Here's a far better example of the Yiddish language, delivered by the ultra-cute Molly Picon in pre-Holocaust Poland:
Cheers!