I love it in English because of its onomatopoeia-ness - the words resonating the sound of what they are referring to. ![]() In the recent, extremely hot summer, it wasn't unusual to hear the phrase "flip-flops" in German conversations. ![]() "Language changes all the time: that's natural," Aria Adli, linguistics professor at the University of Cologne, told DW. "If parents complain that today's youth don't speak proper German, one could just as well say that the older generation hasn't learned to speak the way people speak today." Painting with sounds People were able to reduce their speech to a bare minimum when telegrams were sent centuries ago. WhatsApp and Twitter posts are not maiming the German language either, she added. In the DW series 'That's so German,' cartoonist Fernandez also pokes fun how widespread English terms are in GermanĪndrea-Eva Ewels, managing director of the Association for the German Language (GfdS), told DW that such developments do not endanger the German language: "Our language is not declining it is just changing because the world is constantly changing." So, it's not at all unusual for a German to say: "Mein Computer updatet gerade das neuste Software." (My computer is updating the latest software.) It used to make me roll my eyes. They reflect what is happening in a cultural or societal context. If spoken widely enough, they develop over time. If fewer and fewer people speak them, they become endangered or go extinct. Languages evolveĪny linguist will tell you that languages are constantly evolving - or not. In fact, the just-in-August-published edition of the Duden dictionary, the preeminent German language reference work, includes such words, in English. This is much to the chagrin of language purists who say that all these Anglicisms are leading to the corruption of the German language. ![]() Nowadays, in German, you'll hear English words: influencer, lockdown, binge-watching and cisgender. Years ago, it would irk me how Germans, especially in the business or marketing fields, would throw around the colloquial expression: "know-how." They would use it in a formal setting, in which we native English speakers would rely on the more elegant term "expertise." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Often enough, however, these English words are used differently in German: like " Handy" for "cell phone" and "Oldtimer" for "vintage car." Much has been said about the Anglicisms that have either crept or bull-dozed their way into the German language over the years. Today, with the internet and social media, nearly everyone across the planet can utter an English word or two sometimes those words even become part of the other language, and people barely notice. When I was a kid growing up in the US Midwest, I envied other children who spoke more than just English. My kids are fortunate to grow up bilingually. Muttersprache (literally: "mother language," but we would say in English "mother tongue" or "native language") is one of those amazing, absolutely convincing hybrid words that are possible in German: melding different words into one, giving them a new meaning that is both lovely and apt. It was in these moments when my kids were little that it was hard to tell just which "Muttersprache" they would adopt. ![]() Perhaps because many German native speakers have a hard time pronouncing the "th" sound, it also seemed to be a pretty clever, efficient way of getting around that "th" messiness. "Dank(e)," of course, is German for "thanks" and seemed to so organically spill out of their mouths. One of the sweetest things both of my twins said to me when they were learning to speak was "Dank you." Raising them with a German father and me as a US-American mother (in Germany), it appeared to be the penultimate expression of bilingual politeness.
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