Goethe, Germany's greatest poet, would be gratified.
In Japan, a student job is called arubaito, derived from Arbeit or work.
The Bassa and Beti tribes of Cameroon, a former German colony, still refer to a railway station as banop, taken from the German word Bahnhof. Bulgarians call a suitcase Kufar (from the German Koffer), Russians refer to a sandwich as buterbrod (from Butterbrot).
So Germans should stop worrying that their language is being inundated with English words, says the German Language Council, which aims to keep Germans aware of the beauty of their language and promote it abroad.
"We wanted to make people aware that there's a lively exchange of words among languages," said Rolf Peter, a spokesman for the Council. "People are afraid that we're being swamped by Anglicisms but it's not a one-way street."
The Council last year invited people to send in examples of German words used abroad and was surprised at the big response from around the world. "We had 6,000 entries. It was interesting that relatively few of them stemmed from the Nazi period, although we did get the word Blitzkrieg," said Peter, referring to the military doctrine used by Hitler.
"The war is a long time ago and the perception of the German language seems to have changed, as has the foreign usage of words that have their roots in German." Nevertheless, the term 'uber', presumably borrowed from the term "Übermensch" associated with Nazi ideology, has become established as a prefix in English for words like uber-cool or uber-powerful.
Finnish bus drivers taking a break put the word Kaffepaussi on their scrolling destination signs, from the German Kaffeepause, or coffee break. In Finland it means simply: Out of Service.
Word Engineering
In Sweden, someone who is tactful and sensitive is said to have Fingerspitzengefühl, a German word which translates literally as 'finger tip feelings'.
That particular example highlights an advantage of German over other languages -- its ability to arrive at accurate descriptions by combining words to form a noun.
Zeitgeist, loosely translated as 'spirit of the age' and used by people trying to sound intelligent in English, is another example of this word-combining. So is the well-established Schadenfreude, which describes that intense pleasure one derives from the misfortune of others, a common sentiment for which the world lacked an adequate description until the Germans, with characteristic precision, constructed one.
"Our list reveals the wealth of the German language and its ability to combine words. You can't do that in other languages," said Peter, doing his PR job.
While some English words used in German are superfluous, such as the "Service Point" signs put up at major train stations around Germany, others are useful because they have no adequate German equivalent, such as 'fairness', said Peter.
He said Germany's subtle approach towards nurturing its language was likely to be more effective than the French way of trying to impose French words for commonly used English terms like e-mail, happy hour, blog or podcasting.
"We're convinced our approach is better. The French approach hasn't really worked. Language lives and you can't administratively intervene to change it. People should keep their hands off it."
Germany was worried about French terms invading their language in the 18th and 19th centuries but it never happened, said Peter. One example of how language can evolve back from a foreign term into a German one is the common word for aeroplane. In the 1950s Germans called it Jet, then it became Flugzeug, then Maschine, and now people say they're going to catch a Flieger (Flier).
So when it comes to their language, there's no need for Germans to feel Angst.
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