Hitler's Table Talk

VIEWS ON THE GERMAN AND OTHER LANGUAGES 357
The English language lacks the ability to express thoughts that
surpass the order of concrete things. It's because the German
language has this ability that Germany is the country of
thinkers.
The Italian language is the language of a nation of musicians.
I was convinced of this one day at Obersalzberg, where I heard
a speech by an Italian blinded in the war. When his speech was
translated, nothing was left—a vacuum.
We Germans are not inclined to talk for the sake of talking.
We don't become intoxicated with sounds. When we open our
mouth, it's to say something. But our language is poor in
vowel-sounds, and we must combat this tendency.
To-day Germany lacks poets, and our literature tries to make
up for this deficiency by stylistic researches. We must take care
not to attach too much importance to words. The form is only
a means. The essential thing, always, is the inspiration.
If we let our language-reformers have their way, German
would end by losing all its music. We're already restricted, unfortunately,
to vowels a, e and i. Moreover, we have far too
many sibilants. When I say Kur&chriftler instead of Stenograf, I
have the feeling that I'm talking Polish. As it happens, the
word itself is silly. Why not stick to the baptismal name given
by the author?
The linguists who recommend these Germanisations are
deadly enemies of the German language. If we followed them
in that path, we'd soon be unable to express our thoughts with
precision, and our language would be poorer and poorer in
vowels. It would end—I scarcely dare to say it—by being like
Japanese: such a cackling and cawing! How would it be
imaginable that one could actually sing in a language like that?
Let's be glad we have a vocabulary rich enough to introduce
infinite gradations into our thought. And let's gratefully accept
the foreign words that have entered our language, if only for
their sonorousness.
What would happen if we expelled from the German language
all the words of foreign origin that it has assimilated?
First of all, we wouldn't know exactly where to stop. Secondly,
we'd be stupidly sacrificing the extra enrichments we owe to
our predecessors.