Language are a funny thing. I think we've already established that. Today I want to talk about a) anglicisms, b) germanisms, and c) words that do exists in German, but not in English.
Lately I've started to notice how many words in German are being replaces with English words by now. Of course that's nothing really new, but I never realized how extreme it is by now.
I was sitting in the tram and since I can remember there was always a woman's voice announcing the stations and from time to time she says: "Bitte vergessen Sie nicht, Ihren Fahrschein zu entwerten" (which translates to Please don't forget to stamp your ticket). So that day I sat there and suddenly she said: "Bitte vergessen Sie nicht, Ihr Ticket zu entwerten". Same woman, same sense, different word. I hope you can imagine how shocked I was that after more than 15 years (I don't know about before because I'm not that old, but I assume it was the same) they suddenly changed that one word - to an anglicism. Do people nowadays don't understand German anymore? Did our bus services want to be cool? I'll never know. (I suspect the being cool thing. A few years ago they changed all the displays and signs to all lowercase letters (even the street names and you know that in German capitalization is important because we capitalize all nouns and some other stuff too) and at that point I even wrote them a letter of complaint, telling them how unacceptable I find that. I never got an answer, though).
Anyhow, there are anglicisms everywhere. People seem to have the need to use English words for terms that have a perfectly fine German expression. It's not Winterschlussverkauf anymore, it's mid-season sale. Magister and Doktor became Bachelor, Master and PhD. Kaffee zum Mitnehmen is a coffee to go.
Then there are the words that sounds English, but don't even exists in English. Handy is a mobile phone, a Beamer is a projector. And the English words that were completely germanized, my favorite among those: abgefuckt (which means something like something or someone that looks bad).
In the same manner there are German words in English and it always makes me giggle when those come up. Kindergarten, Rucksack, Doppelgänger, Poltergeist, Wanderlust, Wunderkind. If you think about it, those are all words that have no real English equivalent. I think that in those cases it makes sense that you would adopt a word from a different language. And still there are many words that we have in German, but which don't exist in English. Some examples: Schadenfreude (to be happy about somebody else's bad fortune), fremdschämen (to be embarrassed for somebody, for example friends who are misbehaving), vorgestern (the day before yesterday), übermorgen (the day after tomorrow), Geisterfahrer (somebody who is driving against the right direction on a motorway).
I like that topic, so I will find some more examples (source: my mind and mostly Google). Neuschnee (new snow), Fahne (regularly flag, but in the not-existing-way the way you smell after you drank alcohol), Rabenmutter (a bad mother).
Oh, and there is one missing English word that I would actually need. I'm hungry and I'm starving. I'm thirsty and I'm dying of thirst?! We have a word for that: verdursten. I'm not sure why I need that so often, but I do.
What other words like that do you know? And non-english people, do you also have so many anglicisms in your language?
There are many words that we have but the English language doesn't. But I'm just gonna stick to similar words to some of the German words you just listed: Ylihuominen (the day after tomorrow), toissapäiväinen (of the day before yesterday), myötähäpeä (shared sense of shame - feeling embarrassed with/of someone for something embarrassing they did), vahingonilo (to be happy about somebody else's bad fortune - Schadenfreude). Then there are all the words for different kinds of snow. Not even gonna go there.
ReplyDeleteAs for anglicism in our language, yes. We do have some and it's been increasing (Because, you know, age of the internet, increasing need for English language, more media in English). We also have borrowed from the Swedish language, for obvious historical reasons.
One thing that's kinda grabbed my attention recently with the whole anglicism thing is the use of the you passive. In our language there is no you passive. If you use the Finnish word for you, you are addressing someone. Period. If you wrote "in order to x, you must y" in a Finnish essay, the teacher would write a note "Me, the reader? You don't know me. Why are you telling me to do these things?".
Rarely do people use the you passive, really,** but a friend recently started at an IB upper secondary, where they use English for all the classes. The first time I saw her since she started at that school, I realized that she was using the you passive constantly while talking. After a while of listening to her, I just had to point it out to her and she hadn't even realized it. The you passive is kinda infectious.
** (Though apparently it had been common enough a mistake for our upper secondary Finnish teacher to once feel the need to remind us not to use it)
The passive thing is interesting, thinking about it, the same is happening here. We have a form to express something general, like in your example. We use "man". But you can see it more and more often that people say "du" (=you) and it's usually just wrong.
Delete(Btw, I think it says a lot about germans that there is a word for being happy about somebody else's pain and being embarrassed for somebody else, but nothing like your myötähäpeä XD)
We don't really even have "man" sorta stuff to express a passive. It's all about the grammatical cases. But yeah, some people occasionally slip into the you-passive. Kinda interesting that it's happening with you guys too.
DeleteMyötähäpeä is a handy term. xD It's not quite the same as being embarrassed of something someone did but it's...a shared sense of shame. Somehow less negative but highlights the embarrassment.
There are definitely lots of anglicisms in Dutch. We're generally not overprotective of our language (like, for instance, tv isn't dubbed and foreign words are easily accepted into our vocabulaire), so we have a lot of English words, but also German and French.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, a lot of the German words that don't exist in English, also exist in Dutch, like leedvermaak (to be happy about somebody else's bad fortune), plaatsvervangende schaamte (to be embarrassed for somebody, for example friends who are misbehaving), eergisteren (the day before yesterday), overmorgen (the day after tomorrow) en spookrijder(somebody who is driving against the right direction on a motorway).
There is this Dutch word, though, 'gezellig' for which I've never found an equivalent in another language. It generally discribes that the ambiance in a room is good and fun, but can also describe people. Like, if you'd say that someone is 'gezellig', it'd mean something like 'easy to be around' or 'fun to hang out with'. Does anybody know a word like that?
Hmm. I checked out gezelligheid (gezellig seemed to be too difficult for it) on a dutch to Finnish translator and the closest I think is rattoisa, but it's not quite the same really. At least I don't think it is? Rattoisa is more about having a fun or pleasant time/being fun, pleasant and light rather than anything else. It's not as often used about people as it is used in the context of social atmosphere. Like a party might be rattoisa or have a rattoisa atmosphere to it.
DeleteWe also have that word, "gesellig". The dictionary suggests social or outgoing, but it's not quite correct.
DeleteThe worst thing for someone who speaks English as a first language, is the ignorance of others who do the same.
ReplyDeleteWe have quite a few words in the English language, which come directly from other languages. This isn't a problem at all, I mean why invent a new word, when there's a completely fine counterpart in a foreign language. However, people seem to feel, that it isn't acceptable to just use foreign words, as it isn't British enough, so they end up pronouncing them the wrong way just for the sake of it. It's infuriating!
The perfect example I can think of is the word nougat. You know the delicious food type? It's meant to be pronounced nu-gah. People here pronounce it nugget (as in a nugget of gold). Why? Because heaven forbid something be pronounced in a french accent!
There's loads like that, such as hyperbole, facade, viscount,quay and lieutenant to name but a few. I think another contributing factor to our mispronunciation of words is down to the lack of use of accents in the English language, which becomes particularly problematic when dealing with words from french.
Mind you, it does make me feel better that the french are as equally guilty as we are, with things like Le Weekend, or le rosbif.
Also, would famished/ravenous not do for extremely hungry/thirsty?
DeleteFor some reason, Le Rosbif made me burst out in laughter. Is that really a thing?!
DeleteYes and no. The french use it to insult us I believe, all though I may be wrong: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2913151.stm
DeleteIn Poland they call it Fejsbuk...
DeleteAnd famished/ravenous both rather mean starving, dying of hunger, right? It's not exactly the same as dying of thirst.
DeleteMental image: John Cleese saying: "Now go away you ros-biffy english son of a toilet water, or I shall taunt you for a second time!"
DeleteWell, there's 'parched', for when you're merely very thirsty (as in the colloquial 'I'm starving'). And then for actual dying of thirst, might I suggest 'dehydration'?
Delete(I may or may not have given this particular lexical gap a lot of thought in the past.)
Anglicisms in the Malay language are in abundance and ever growing. In fact, it's come to a point where it's absolutely ridiculous because there was a perfectly fine word for it before, but instead they decided to change it to an English word but with different spelling. But I guess it makes life easier for people to understand even if they don't understand Malay.
ReplyDeleteFor example: Restaurant is "restoran". Orange is "oren". Ambulance is "ambulans". sausage is "sosej".
We too have words that don't exist in the English language, like lusa (day after tomorrow). They're probably more, but I can't really think of any.
In addition to the Anglicized version of Malay words is the creation of slang words that are basically a combination of Malay and English. This is becoming a huge problem because a lot of people speak this "manglish" and become unable to speak proper Malay or English. But a lot of people are very fond of this Manglish because of cultural pride.
My Godmother heard this sentence used at her work: "Die Meeting is gecancellt."
ReplyDeleteSchadenfreude, apart from the fact that it has now been fully adopted into the English language, despite some dictionaries' objections, has an English synonym with a Greek etymology: 'epicaricacy'. I need to look it up each time I want it though: schadenfreude is easier.
I never realized Rucksack is from German, but it's obvious now that you point it out. It, also, does have an English equivalent: Backpack.
And I love the word Geisterfahrer. Specifically I love the joke about the man on the Autobahn who hears on the radio that there's a Geisterfahrer on the road. He exclaims "Only one! There's hundreds of them!"