which asked 30,000 that
mention the most fun country. While the Americans were the first in the
list, the Germans turned out to be less fun nationality. The perception
that the Germans have no sense of humor is not new. It is a well
known (at least in Europe) stereotype that Germans are punctual, serious and
efficient; the antithesis of the comic. But, this feature is
something cultural and innate or rather is a function of the language?
In fact, the Germans
have a history of very rich comedy, and even today there are many comedy in
Berlin clubs. Then, why other countries don't see the comic side of German
culture? The problem seems to be the language in itself. In a BBC
article, a German linguistics professor explained that the way in which the
language German is structured affects the production and perception
of the jokes. Humor often make use of ambiguity and the play on words to
create double meaning, as a classic pun. However, in German grammar gender
and case must match exactly to produce the desired meaning, so it is much more
difficult to do word games. In addition, it is one of the few languages
that uses compound words. A well-known example is "Schadenfreude",
which means to enjoy the misfortune of another. This word not be
translated directly into another language, implying that the jokes in German
lost part of grace with foreign audiences.
Even Mark Twain wrote in
1880 a contemptuous essay whose title was the awful German
language (The Awful German
Language), where he wrote "when a German is immersed in a
sentence, we will not see it again until it emerges on the other side
with" a verb between the teeth". Having three different
genders for nouns and four different cases, it is not surprising that playing
with the German words can be a challenge. However, with a good translator
and a little creativity, we can translate their jokes without ruining the
finish.Please contact our account executives if you need to locate material in
German.
