German toddler schools his dad on driving—and the rest of us on the origins of English
A hilarious viral video demonstrates why English is considered a Germanic language.
Out of the mouths of babes…
Tiny humans talking is cute in any language, but sometimes a video comes along that take adorable to a whole new level. Remember the little girl who was passionate about pencil justice? Or the Italian preschooler who did a full Italian rant about a miniskirt? Kids say the darnedest things, and when the darned things they say are caught on video, virality almost inevitable.
Now there's the German toddler who sternly gives his father a road rules lesson, literally side-seat driving and chastising him for accelerating too fast. His "Oh, mein Gott!" has people rolling, as does his ingrained respect for the rules of proper driving.
Watch:
Not only is the video a hilarious viral moment on its own merit, but it's also a pretty solid demonstration of how the English language originated.
English is considered a Germanic language, which is sometimes confusing because most of the words we use don't actually come from German. Some people mistakenly think English is a romance language like Spanish or French, but it's not. More than half of our vocabulary comes from French and Latin, though, hence a lot of the confusion.
Around a quarter of our vocabulary comes from German, but where our Germanic roots really come through is in our grammar and syntax. The order in which we say words is the same, such as putting adjectives in front of nouns (which is the opposite of romance languages). And our grammatical structure is very similar, with only a handful of somewhat minor differences.
As we see in the video, the German sentences are almost understandable without even having the translations on the screen. In the beginning, it almost sounds exactly like he's saying "Wait! Stop! Halt!" just with a German accent, even though he's actually speaking German. "Papa, da ist rot!" is so close to "Papa, that is red!" And "Oh, mein Gott!" is very clearly, "Oh, my God!" which is part of why English-speakers are finding the video so entertaining and also educational.
Check out these comments:
"We need an entire channel with this kid teaching us to speak German."
"Need my GPS to go 'aaaah! Mein gott, das ist zu viel' when I go over the speed limit."
"I just learned so much German.. this baby is more effective than Duolingo lol."
"MY German instructor. I'd so learn how to speak German from this baby 😭💕 I just learned like 5 words already!"
"How is it I can't understand toddlers that speak English but I can understand a German toddler without even knowing the language 😂"
"Americans are so much more used to hearing Spanish and French that we forget that our own language has nothing to do with them, and is actually much more closely related to what this little boy is saying. That's why it sounds so familiar to American ear ! :-)"
People also joked about his adult-like adherence to rules and regulations, as the German culture is known for such things.
"He's between 3 and 75 years old."
"This ain't kids first life on earth."
"Did he learn that somewhere or is that factory settings?"
"Lil bro has a decent credit score already and he isn't even fully out of the diaper stage of his life😂"
"That’s not a kid, that’s a full grown driving instructor 🤣🤣"
Thanks to the wee German lad for the fabulous driving and language lesson.