Rather odd hatred of German considering that English is in effect a regression of German (yes, I know, that simplifies it, but it’s true), i.e., a simplification.
It’s a typical kind of lashing out by hubristic people who reject complexity they cannot master with vigorous anger; kind of like how a child may call math stupid out of frustration. It’s probably a symptom of the jingoistic era, especially in trust-fund-baby-country called America.
German and English have a distant common ancestor (spoken roughly 2000 years ago) but neither is the ancestor of the other. There’s no meaningful scientific reason to say that German is the “main branch” of the Germanic languages and English is the “fork”.
Also, it’s not clear that either is “more complex” than the other across the board. German has more complex noun morphology (cases, etc) whereas English has more complex phonology, for example.
I do think English has deviated more from its Germanic roots due to the pervasive influence of French (there are people who call English a creole although I think that's taking it a bit far).
But I agree that languages with more complex morphology aren't somehow "better", that's just weird elitism coming from an era where every language was analysed as if it were some variant of Latin, Greek or Sanskrit.
> I do think English has deviated more from its Germanic roots
That’s fair, but so have German and many other Germanic languages. For example, Proto-Germanic had six cases whereas German only has four (and colloquially spoken German mostly only has three). Dutch has only vestigial remnants of a case system and Afrikaans has none at all.
The Norman invasion of England in 1066 led to extensive introduction of French vocabulary into English. That's a large part of the reason English has so many Latin cognates that you don't see in German (and German also has been purged of some Latin cognates at times as well).
You don't write something like this without being enchanted thoroughly by the language.
LOL.
You're criticizing a satirical book excerpt written by Mark Twain in the middle of the 19th century. It is not meant in any way to be taken seriously, nor does it reflect modern American culture as a whole. Around 70 million Americans speak a second language.
The reason we're talking about it ~150 years later is because it resonates with anyone who has tried to learn a second language, especially one as complex as German.
You might want to keep your pompous kneejerk anti-American sentiment in check until you educate yourself a bit more.
> simplification
Have you maybe considered the idea that a simplification might actually be an improvement?
As in: a language's first and foremost role is to communicate ideas and feelings as efficiently and clearly as possible, and with the broadest possible reach and not to impress the plebs with how sophisticated your sentences can become.
In that light, which of {English, German} best fits the bill in your opinion?