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Message |
    
Alex McLean
Member
Username: alex_mclean
Post Number: 81
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Friday, November 29, 2002 - 1:36 am: | 
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Why did a ship owned and built for the Nazi Party have an English name? Robert Ley was the leader of the DAF party, and in turn, had a ship named after him, and although it has nothing to do with ships, I would like to know how a person with an English name ound up in the Nazi Party. This would help my reasearch a lot, as this is something neither I nor my German teacher can understand.
Many thanks
Maintain speed and heading,
Third Officer Alex McLean, 14, Vic, Australia
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Michael H. Standart
Moderator
Username: mstandart
Post Number: 4962
Registered: 12-2000
| | Posted on Friday, November 29, 2002 - 4:18 am: |
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About the only thing I can point to is that the Nazi Party had a lot of sympathizers outside of Germany...some of whom threw in with them during the war. My bet is that this guy was one of them.
Ever hear of Lord Haw Haw? His real name was William Joyce. He was an American expatriate who was raised in Ireland and who in time took up German citizenship in 1939 where he made propaganda broadcasts on behalf of the Nazi regime. He was hanged for treason on on January 3rd, 1946 at London's Wandsworth Prison. You can read more about him HERE.
Cordially,
Michael H. Standart
Equal Opportunity Curmudgeon
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Dave Gittins
Member
Username: gittins
Post Number: 937
Registered: 4-2001
| | Posted on Friday, November 29, 2002 - 9:14 am: |
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G'day, Alex!
Robert Ley war echt Deutsch. You can read all about him here.
http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/biografien/LeyRobert/
For exercise, you can translate the page and impress your teacher.
Not all Germans use names that are obviously German, like Heinrich or Siegfried. Some that occur to me are Arnold, David and Sophie.
I notice that in Bonn there is a Robert Ley who sells fashionable clothing, so maybe the name is fairly common. |
Malcolm Wardlaw
Member
Username: malcolm
Post Number: 12
Registered: 6-2004
| | Posted on Monday, March 7, 2005 - 8:56 am: |
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Is it not more the case that many British people have German names? The English language is very close cousin to German, most of its principal vocabulary is derived from German. The same will hold true with names. Names like Albert, Robert, Harald are I think of German descent, but we think of them as "British".
Names like Elizabeth, David, James, Hannah all seem "British" at first sight by familiarity, but in fact all are anglicisations of ancient Hebrew names. I think our "James" descends from "Chaim", for instance. |
Monica Hall
Moderator
Username: monica
Post Number: 1267
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 7, 2005 - 10:47 am: |
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The English language is indeed a close cousin to German. But it is also a close cousin to Latin or Romance languages. I don't know much about this, but I remember reading an article (Chomsky, maybe?) some years ago about how English has accommodated the two main strands of its origins, and accorded them different subtle meanings. For example - 'fragile' and 'breakable'. Two different roots - one Romance, and one German, and given subtly different meanings in modern English. No wonder it's hard to learn - and yet, so many people do learn it. It's strange. |
Malcolm Wardlaw
Member
Username: malcolm
Post Number: 14
Registered: 6-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 8, 2005 - 1:14 pm: |
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Hmmm... etymology on titanica, not bad. The potted history I have picked up is that some Vikings invaded northern France, found it made sense to learn Medieval French to blend in with the locals, but still kept some traditions that made their Norman French a bit different from indiginous French. It was these ex-Vikings under William that invaded England, then German/Celtic speaking, in 1066 and beat the locals at Hastings. For several centuries there was a language divide between the French speaking arrogancy... I mean aristocracy and the low-German/Danish speaking locals. Eventually the "English" got kicked out of Normandy in the C13th and the English aristocracy gradually chilled out and split the difference with the locals. This gradually produced a hybrid language we know as English today.
An odd aspect of this is that there was never the same blending of languages between the Celts of Western Britain and the German/French speaking peoples to the eastern part of the country. I don't know why the dispute between these peoples ran so deep - and still does in some parts.
It is worth bearing in mind that Celtic, German and French all have common roots in the ancient Indo-European language of Central Europe. Even Russian and Hindu are descended from this ancient language, which was similar to Indian Sanskrit and modern Lithuanian.
Hope you titanians find this interesting. There's no law that says you have to read it. |
Michael F. Barratt
Member
Username: marriner
Post Number: 5
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, May 1, 2005 - 10:56 pm: |
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Another famous German "Robert" was Robert Schumann, the composer. |
