Das Lied der Deutschen

A collapse of my Mac has meant that posts and tweets have been thinner than usual recently. Just caught up with the review in the Economist of Ruth Sanders' German: Biography of a Language. Arminius gets a look in:

The next turning point was courtesy of Arminius, also known as “Hermann the German”, a Roman-trained soldier; in 9AD he stopped a Roman advance eastward across the Rhine. At the battle of Teutoburg forest, the troublesome locals ambushed three Roman legions. As a result, the Roman borders, known as “limes” (from which comes the word “limits”) stopped at the Rhine. Whereas the Germanics took up as many Roman ways of life as they could afford, they never took up their language as the conquered—primarily Celtic—people of France and Spain had. Germanic marauders would later devastate the empire itself, but in another twist, those who settled in Italy, Gaul and Spain did in fact begin speaking Late Latin. Arminius had saved a bit of the map for German.

Full review here.

Comments

[Roger Pearse]

I was amused by the title. To me it read: "Das Lied der Deutschen" (or "How Arminius taught me the Horst Wessell Song").

Perhaps not what you had in mind... :-)

[mike]

Good to hear your voice. Sorry to hear about your Mac.