Probably the only known case where the famous witticism of His Majesty Charles V is interpreted as not a censure, but a praise to the German language.
In speaking, [the Houyhnhnms] pronounced through the nose and throat, and their language approaches nearest to the High-Dutch, or German, of any I know in Europe; but is much more graceful and significant. The emperor Charles V made almost the same observation, when he said “that if he were to speak to his horse, it should be in High-Dutch.”
— Jonathan Swift, ‘Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World’
