Zompist Bboard Again

This is a piece of silliness which came into my mind when I was trying to get to sleep last night. As conlangers we're all familiar with a variety of mostly Latinate or Greekish linguistic terms; what would they look like if they were calqued into German? Some of our native German speakers will probably want to correct these, but here are some to start with:

Dative case -> das Gebensfall (Gebensgefall?)
Ablative case -> das Abnehmensfall
Subjunctive mood -> die Untergebundenslaune
Imperfective aspect -> der Undurchgemachtsblick (Undurchgemachtsanschau???)

But "das Anklagensfall" or "das Beschuldingensfall" are probably not appropriate for "accusative case".

"Gebensfall" doesn't seem bad, but some of these seem positively silly to me.

It's "der Fall", not "das Fall".

Back in elementary school, when they didn't want to burden our little brains with difficult Latin words yet, when we discussed grammatical cases, the four that are "officially" seen as existing in German were simply numbered: "der 1. Fall", "der 2. Fall", etc.

We learned Wer-Fall, Wes(sen)-Fall, Wem-Fall, Wen-Fall in primary school in addition to the Latin names in elementary school.

Raphael wrote: ↑Tue Sep 23, 2025 1:54 am It's "der Fall", not "das Fall".

Back in elementary school, when they didn't want to burden our little brains with difficult Latin words yet, when we discussed grammatical cases, the four that are "officially" seen as existing in German were simply numbered: "der 1. Fall", "der 2. Fall", etc.

Someone should do some A/B testing on naming vs. numbering cases.

A lot of grammatical terminology is probably confusing to kids because it's so often misapplied or overgeneralized. Cases usually have a number of uses, not all of which match the traditional names. Sanskrit grammarians actually separated cases from semantic roles 2300 years ago.

zompist wrote: ↑Tue Sep 23, 2025 2:31 am

Raphael wrote: ↑Tue Sep 23, 2025 1:54 am It's "der Fall", not "das Fall".

Back in elementary school, when they didn't want to burden our little brains with difficult Latin words yet, when we discussed grammatical cases, the four that are "officially" seen as existing in German were simply numbered: "der 1. Fall", "der 2. Fall", etc.

Someone should do some A/B testing on naming vs. numbering cases.

A lot of grammatical terminology is probably confusing to kids because it's so often misapplied or overgeneralized. Cases usually have a number of uses, not all of which match the traditional names. Sanskrit grammarians actually separated cases from semantic roles 2300 years ago.

The advantage of the Latin words is that they are relatively meaningless in and of themselves to most present-day people who don't themselves actually know Latin, whereas, say, names in German are more likely to be taken literally and thus result in confusion when said names do not line up with the cases' actual use.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Sep 23, 2025 10:00 pm
The advantage of the Latin words is that they are relatively meaningless in and of themselves to most present-day people who don't themselves actually know Latin, whereas, say, names in German are more likely to be taken literally and thus result in confusion when said names do not line up with the cases' actual use.

Yep, but maybe numbers would work just as well and be easier to memorize? On the other hand, I remember Konjunktiv I and Konjunktiv II being particularly confusing.

Creyeditor wrote: ↑Tue Sep 23, 2025 2:24 am We learned Wer-Fall, Wes(sen)-Fall, Wem-Fall, Wen-Fall in primary school in addition to the Latin names in elementary school.

That's what I learnt, too. But what is the distinction you're trying to express with primary vs. elementary? Both normally translate German Grundschule (the first four years).

alice wrote: ↑Mon Sep 22, 2025 2:56 pm As conlangers we're all familiar with a variety of mostly Latinate or Greekish linguistic terms; what would they look like if they were calqued into German? Some of our native German speakers will probably want to correct these, but here are some to start with:

Dative case -> das Gebensfall (Gebensgefall?)
Ablative case -> das Abnehmensfall
Subjunctive mood -> die Untergebundenslaune
Imperfective aspect -> der Undurchgemachtsblick (Undurchgemachtsanschau???)

But "das Anklagensfall" or "das Beschuldingensfall" are probably not appropriate for "accusative case".

This has already been done; for at least the categories that exist in German, there exist German names that have been coined during one of the several phases when language purity activists strove to nativize loanwords:

Subjunctive mood: Vorstellungsform ("imaginational form") - rarely used, the usual terminus is Konjunktiv.
Dative case: Gebefall (obsolete) - ususally Dativ, but for elementary school purposes Wemfall / 3. Fall can be used, as already pointed out by others in this thread.
Accusative case: Klagefall (obsolete); - usuallay Akkusativ, plus Wenfall / 4. Fall.
For categories that German doesn't have (like ablative) or that are not part of traditional basic school grammar (aspects), no nativized terminology is or was in wider use, if it even has been coined; higher education in Germany, where such categories would be taught and discussed, always preferred the latinate terminology.
Ablative could be Fortnahmefall, Imperfective aspect could be unvollständige(r) Betrachtungsweise / Blickwinkel.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Wed Sep 24, 2025 2:45 am Yep, but maybe numbers would work just as well and be easier to memorize? On the other hand, I remember Konjunktiv I and Konjunktiv II being particularly confusing.

That depends. I always have problems remembering what number refers to which category; I always have to look it up what is meant when people refer to the 2nd declension or the 3rd conjugation in Latin. My brain is better at making connections to non-numeral terminolgy, even if it's not very descriptive.

german does already have a lot of "native" constructions for linguistic terms alongisde the latinate ones, e.g. Fürwort vs Pronomen "pronoun". according to wiktionary, in addition to the latin-derived case names and the terms given by raphael and creyeditor, there are also some dated terms for the cases: Nennfall for nominative, Klagefall for accusative, Gebefall for dative, Zeugefall for genitive, and Ruffall for vocative

e: oops, already addressed!

hwhatting wrote: ↑Wed Sep 24, 2025 2:50 am

Creyeditor wrote: ↑Tue Sep 23, 2025 2:24 am We learned Wer-Fall, Wes(sen)-Fall, Wem-Fall, Wen-Fall in primary school in addition to the Latin names in elementary school.

That's what I learnt, too. But what is the distinction you're trying to express with primary vs. elementary? Both normally translate German Grundschule (the first four years).

No distinction. That was confusion on my part. I learned latinate and German terms in Grundschule.

hwhatting wrote: ↑Wed Sep 24, 2025 2:55 am

Ares Land wrote: ↑Wed Sep 24, 2025 2:45 am Yep, but maybe numbers would work just as well and be easier to memorize? On the other hand, I remember Konjunktiv I and Konjunktiv II being particularly confusing.

That depends. I always have problems remembering what number refers to which category; I always have to look it up what is meant when people refer to the 2nd declension or the 3rd conjugation in Latin. My brain is better at making connections to non-numeral terminolgy, even if it's not very descriptive.

I personally have no idea what people mean when they refer to, say, the "nth conjugation" myself.