Which are more similar among Germanic, Romance, and Slavic languages?

[Etelfrido]

Absolutely and caused by the (High) German sound shift.

To tell you the truth, German is actually one of the clearest, if not the clearest, Germanic language to me. Also, many of its "oddities" - the case system, three genders, verb at the end - are a consequence of its conservativeness.

[#Oda#]

To tell you the truth, German is actually one of the clearest, if not the clearest, Germanic language to me. Also, many of its "oddities" - the case system, three genders, verb at the end - are a consequence of its conservativeness.

There‘s a theory saying that the German sentence construction with the verb at the end trains intelligence, because you have to have in mind all you want to put before the verb before, and that can be much, and also listening to such sentences with the verb at the end is harder, because you have to anticipate more until the verb discloses the full meaning of the said. Unfortunately this way of speaking is disappearing and the syntax becomes more and more English, which is probably no good sign.

Also "weil" is shifted nowadays, meaning the same.

[Etelfrido]

There‘s a theory saying that the German sentence construction with the verb at the end trains intelligence, because you have to have in mind all you want to put before the verb before, and that can be much, and also listening to such sentences with the verb at the end is harder, because you have to anticipate more until the verb discloses the full meaning of the said. Unfortunately this way of speaking is disappearing and the syntax becomes more and more English, which is probably no good sign.

Also "weil" is shifted nowadays, meaning the same.

I didn't know German syntax has been changing, it'd be a pity if German ended up mimicking English.

[#Oda#]

I didn't know German syntax has been changing, it'd be a pity if German ended up mimicking English.

This syntax change occurs in the spoken language mainly, but more and more also in the written language.
A non native speaker probably doesn't note it.
Further we have adopted many English words and still do, even if there‘s no real benefit. Often it makes sense, but as often it‘s simply zeitgeist or to sound hipper and just ridiculous.

[Etelfrido]

I noted as well that in German you practically often say "is" while is written ist and "panza" while is written Panzer. What is(t) maybe not known to a foreigner is that in very correct German, in "theater language" and when the official news are spoken it is pronounced in line with the spelling, so "ist" and "panzer".

True and as a rationalist the latter thing to me is dissatisfactory. As a partial excuse it can be said that essentially all German "sch" was once pronounced "sk" which also is in line with the etymologies (f. i. Schule from Latin scola, rasch (means quick) from Germanic rask and this is also how it's both written and pronounced in Swedish). The Dutch airport Schipol is also today pronounced "skipol".

Do you think people should speak that theater language?

Do you pronounce it panzer or panza like a good Northern/Eastern German?

Would you rather the trigraph sch were changed to a single letter and preserved its current sound or that it changed to sc and people started to pronounce it as sk like in the old times?