1.02.2006

Germish

I came upon this a while ago: Germish. It sounds like a condition, as if someone is coming down with something and says, "I'm feeling quite germish today." But it's really about the blending of English and German:

Used in all German-speaking countries, Germish owes its existence in part to the cultural predominance of English language pop music, to the international computer slang, and to the use of English as the lingua franca of politics, business, and science.

Because of discrepancies in their pronunciation, syntax, grammar and word use, imported English words must adapt the German language, or German language patterns adapt the English use.


Here are a couple of examples:

Ich musste den Computer neu booten, weil die Software gecrasht ist.
(I had to reboot the computer because the software crashed.)

or

Hast Du schon die neuste Mozillaversion downgeloadet/gedownloadet?
(Have you already downloaded the newest version of Mozilla?)

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