Insulting languages with other languages
If you’ve been looking for some high-brow ways of insulting other languages (and, let’s face it, you’re rather high-brow – or simply snobby – if you’ve moved beyond simply insulting people to insulting the language of said people…kind of), then John Cowan’s Essentialist Explanations is the place to find some choice phrases using the formula “Language X is essentially language Y under conditions Z.”
Be you a Finn insulting a Swede, an Englishman insulting an American or French and insulting, well, anyone, you’re sure to find something guaranteed to offend.
Classical Latin is essentially an artificial language devised to make the vulgar Roman aristocracy sound intelligent.
–Javier de la Rosa
Hawaiian is a cousin of Indonesian with a fear of consonants.
–Danny Weir
Spanish is what happened when Moors tried to learn Latin and said “screw it.”
–Charles Lavergne
German is essentially a language developed by a group of Teutons who gathered in the forest one day to come up with a language that their enemies would have no chance of grasping.
–Jeff Lowery
Swedish is what happened when a Nordic-speaking people got angry at all the other Nordic-speaking peoples and decided to deliberately alter their language to make it look more German.
–Peter Ravn Rassmussen
American English is essentially English after having been wiped off with a dirty sponge.
–J.R.R. Tolkien
Full story at Essentialist Explanations via Kottke.
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"[V]ulgar Roman aristocracy" is an oxymoron. The word vulgar comes from the Latin vulgus; commonpeople. If you want an insult. French was made from Vulgar Latin, which was a language people who didn’t know Latin developed for themselves.