I’ve heard it claimed German humour differs from English humour due to the grammar of the German language making it harder to hide the punchline, and so largely eliminating a lot of wordplay. The humour that remains is either cerebral (conceptual satire and such) or lowbrow slapstick.
Native speaker of German here and I am not sure about that. German tends to put verbs in the end in a lot of sentences, but apart from that, it’s mostly possible to use English-like word orders in German too; I don’t think the difference is significant enough that it would change the entire style of humor.
I’ve heard it claimed German humour differs from English humour due to the grammar of the German language making it harder to hide the punchline, and so largely eliminating a lot of wordplay. The humour that remains is either cerebral (conceptual satire and such) or lowbrow slapstick.
Native speaker of German here and I am not sure about that. German tends to put verbs in the end in a lot of sentences, but apart from that, it’s mostly possible to use English-like word orders in German too; I don’t think the difference is significant enough that it would change the entire style of humor.