Denglisch

Mixed German and English in a German department store

Denglisch (German spelling) or Denglish (English spelling) is a portmanteau of the German words Deutsch and Englisch (English). The term is used in all German-speaking countries to refer to the increasingly strong influx of English or pseudo-English vocabulary into German. Many synonyms exist, including Germ(l)ish, Gerglish,, Angleutsch, and Engleutsch. Both these and Denglish are also used to refer to incorrect English that is influenced by German.

To some extent, the influence of English on German can be described in terms of normal language contact (which is active also in the reverse direction, see list of English words of German origin). The term Denglisch is however mostly reserved for forced, excessive exercises in anglicization, or pseudo-anglicization, of the German language. The forced introduction of anglicisms in especially in marketing and business terminology experienced a peak during the 1990s and early 2000s, but the ubiquity of practice has since made it much less fashionable or prestigious and since the later 2000s many publicistic commentators have argued against it. Zeit Online (itself an example of the prevalence of English loans in IT terminology) in a 2007 article, while granting the possibility of excessive linguistic purism among those arguing against anglicizing influence on German, criticizes ubiquitous use of English (citing as example the fashion to label information desks at train stations, formerly simply known as Auskunft, with the anglicistic Service Point), and as an extreme case cites the pseudo-anglicistic Brain up! chosen by then-minister for education Edelgard Bulmahn as a campaign slogan in 2004. The same slogan had already been satirized by Frankfurter Allgemeine in 2004.

Loanwords

German vocabulary has numerous cases of English loanwords which have become fully "naturalized" as German words, including full inflection. There was only very limited influence of English on German before the mid-19th century. Such loanwords as there are mostly concern nautical vocabulary, loaned into Low German (e.g. tank, ultimately from Indo-Aryan; Tanker (tanker (ship)) is early 20th century).

In the 19th century it was still more common to use loan translation for the vocabulary of industrialisation (Dampfmaschine for "steam engine", Pferdestärke for "horse power", etc.), but to some extent continued in the early 20th century (Wolkenkratzer for "skyscraper", Kaugummi for "chewing gum", Flutlicht for "flood light", Fernsehen for "television").

English loanwords become more common in the early 20th century; A notable example from this period is Test, from US English (ultimately from Old French test "earthen pot"). Test was compatible both with German phonology and orthography, so that its nature as a loan is not evident. Early loanwords (19th to early 20th century) often describe characteristic garments or foodstuff, e.g. Jumper (19th century), Curry (19th-century loan from English, ultimately from Tamil), Pyjama (early-20th century loan from English pyjamas, ultimately from Urdu), Trenchcoat (1920s). Also boykottieren "to boycott", 1890s; Star ("film star", homonymous with the German for starling).

Direct influence of English, especially via US pop culture, becomes far more pronounced after the end of World War II and with Allied occupation of Germany, later by association with 1960s to 1970s US counter culture. Jeep, Quiz, Show, Western; Rock ("rock music", homonymous with the German for "skirt, frock") Hippie, Groupie.

The newest and most prolific wave of anglicisms arose after 1989 with the end of the Cold War and the surge of the "Anglo-Saxon" flavour of economic liberalism in continental Europe and the associated business jargon ("CEO" became extremely fashionable in German, replacing traditional terms such as Direktor, Geschäftsführer, Vorsitzender, during the 1990s). At the same time, the rapid development of information technology pushed many technical terms from that field into everyday language.

Many of the more recent loans have developed in spoken language and are still clearly felt as English words, so that their English orthography is retained in written communication, which leads to awkward spellings combining German morphemes with English word stems, as in gebootet ("booted up" of a computer) or gecrasht or gecrashed ("crashed", of a computer), downgeloadet, gedownloadet or gedownloaded ("downloaded"). They also retain English phonology in many cases, including phonemes that do not exist in Standard German (e.g. the /eɪ/ and /əʊ/ in "update" and "download", respectively).

Pseudo-anglicisms

German pseudo-anglicisms are words that seem to be English, but they are German creations and have a different meaning, or no meaning at all, in (real) English.

Existing English words or expressions that came to be used in an unfamiliar sense in German:

Beamer	(digital) projector
City	city centre, downtown, central business district origin: The City (of London)
Handy	mobile phone or cell phone
Peeling	facial or body scrub
Fotoshooting	photo shoot
Smoking	dinner suit, tuxedo origin: Smoking jacket
Sprayer	graffiti artist or tagger. Origin: verb sprayen "using a spray can"
Timer	personal organizer; origin: the "pseudo-anglicistic" meaning was generalized from the loan of timer in the existing sense of "device used to measure time intervals", which remains the primary sense also in German.
trampen	hitchhiking;

Compounds: Some German pseudo-anglicisms are produced by compounding two existing "correct" anglicisms.

Bodybag	messenger bag (1990s, from a trademark)
Dressman	-----	Happy End	happy ending
Ice Tea	iced tea, loan-translation Eistee; "ice tea" used to be grammatically unacceptable in English, but it has since become current, and has been listed as a "new word" by OED in 2012.
Public Viewing	used for major sport events like the FIFA World Cup when the games are shown on huge screens to the public on public places. Despite the fact that public viewing used to have a different meaning, apparently this "new" meaning is creeping into native English.
Showmaster	TV-show host
Streetworker	feminine Streetworkerin, a social worker who is actively engaged in lower-class neighbourhoods; from a pseudo-anglicistic noun "Streetwork", an anglicization of the existing German comound Straßenarbeit. English streetworker means "prostitute", but "street work" used to mean "construction work on a street", but the pseudo-anglicistic "street work" for "social work in the street" seems to creep back into English via terminology used by international NGOs.
Youngtimer	analogous formation from Oldtimer, a vintage or classic car or aircraft. Use of "oldtimer" in this sense does (rarely or facetiously) occur in English.[4]

Adoption of English grammar or idiomatics

The adaptation also takes the other route, where literal translations of popular English expressions slowly but insistently replace the correct German words and idioms. Widespread examples of this evolution are:

• Was passierte in 2005? (What happened in 2005?)
  Formally: "Was passierte 2005?" or "Was passierte im Jahre 2005?" Although this usage is considered wrong by many native speakers and violates German grammar, it can even be found in German newspapers.
• Willkommen zu [unserem Videochannel], properly "Willkommen bei" (although it has been pointed out that combination of "willkommen" with the preposition "zu" can also be found in German classics.)

Orthography

Another phenomenon is the usage of the English genitive (possessive) construction 's , often called Deppenapostroph (Idiot's apostrophe or Idiot's inverted comma), instead of the appropriate German constructions. For example, a Denglisch speaker might write Wikipedia's Gestaltung (Wikipedia's design) instead of either Wikipedias Gestaltung, or die Gestaltung der Wikipedia. Less often it is used, incorrectly, to mark a plural (Greengrocers' apostrophes):

Handy's, Dessou's,

or for adverbial expressions, such as

montag's (instead of montags, cf. English [on] Mondays)

Denglisch may combine words according to English rules by writing them in succession. According to the Standard German grammar and spelling rules, this is incorrect.

Reparatur Annahme instead of Reparaturannahme

The first spelling, the words in succession, makes no logical or grammatical connection between the words but simply juxtaposes them. The second combines them to one word, an Annahme (in this case a place where something is received) for Reparaturen (repairs). This is often called Deppenleerstelle, or Deppenleerzeichen which means idiot's space, incorrectly separating parts of a compound word.

Non-translation

Some major companies such as Deutsche Bank now conduct much of their business in English, while several departments of the major German telephone company Deutsche Telekom were known as "T-Home" (formerly "T-Com"), "T-Mobile", "T-Online", and "T-Systems."

Reinventing titles for English-language films dubbed into German was once common practice, so that, for example, a title like Paul Landres's 1958 Western Man from God's Country would become Men Who Die with Their Boots on. Most current American film titles are no longer translated into German, for example Ice Age, although they still often receive German appendages like Prometheus – Dunkle Zeichen (Prometheus – Dark Signs) or include puns not present in the original title, such as Clerks - Die Ladenhüter for Clerks - The Shelf-Warmers. Menus of many global fast-food chains also usually go partly or completely untranslated: "Double Whopper (formally: Doppel-Whopper) mit leckerem Bacon und Cheddar Cheese."

Advertising language

Advertising agencies have such need for both languages that they want ads for new employees to contain plain English such as "Join us". (Wetzlarer Neue Zeitung 26 August 2006). KFC Germany's recruitment slogan is "I Am for Real", and their website shows very heavy use of English coupled with non-standard German.

German commercials or—more often—written ads thus are likely to use many English terms:

Mit Jamba! können Sie Klingeltöne, Logos und Spiele direkt aufs Handy downloaden.

Wählen Sie aus Tausenden coolen Sounds, aktuellen Games und hippen Logos.

The term "downloaden" is alleged to have been coined by Microsoft, as there is a non-English and often-used German word ("herunterladen"). Microsoft Windows Update uses the phrase "Downloaden Sie die neuesten Updates" (Download the latest updates) instead of the standard "Laden Sie die neuesten Aktualisierungen herunter". The latest interface guidelines suggest that the term "herunterladen" should be used again, because many users complained. However, Aktualisierungen (other than herunterladen) would not be idiomatic German in this usage, or at least have to be explained as Softwareaktualisierungen or Programmaktualisierungen, the former involving the new Anglicism "Software".

The use of ("Handy") has its roots in a commercial name, too. It is related to the handheld Walkie-talkie, a commercial name for the two-way radio transceiver to be transported in a bag, later in hands, hence called ("Handie-talkiecode: eng promoted to code: en "). The proper translation would be ("Handsprechfunkgerät"). Germans used to cite the word ("Handy") as an example for Denglisch.

The field of personal hygiene tends to use much English:

Double Action Waschgel

Vitalisierendes Peeling

Energy Creme Q10

Oil Control Gel Creme

Oil Control Waschgel

Neutrogena Visibly Clear Anti-Mitesser Peeling

Ariel Sproodles

The same applies to detergents:

Color Waschmittel instead of 'Farbwaschmittel' or 'Waschmittel für Farbiges'

[brand name] Megaperls

[brand name] Oxy-Action

Larger national and international companies based in Germany also make use of English to describe their products. The television broadcaster ProSieben uses the slogan "We love to entertain you", while Zurich Financial Services advertise with the slogan "Because change happens". The fastest trains run by the German state-owned railway system Deutsche Bahn (German Rail) are named "IC" and "ICE", abbreviations of "Inter City" and "Inter City Express", while information booths are named ServicePoints, first-class waiting areas are referred to as Lounges, and words like Kundendienst (customer service) and Fahrkarte (ticket) are quickly losing out to their respective English counterparts. As an official stance against this rampant use of Denglisch, the Deutsche Bahn in June 2013 issued a directive and glossary of 2,200 Anglicisms that should be replaced by their German counterparts.

Sometimes such neologisms also use CamelCase, as in the Deutsche Telekom's newest rates called "Fulltime", "Freetime", "Call Plus" and "Call Time" offering additionally such features as "CountrySelect". They do not even refrain from offering services at certain 'Callshops', using both languages by building a German-style compound, capitalizing it and using two English words in a new context. Travel agencies offering "last minute" bookings or manufacturers adopting "just in time" deliveries has become general use, probably required by international commerce and economic interests.

The phrase "Test it!" is increasingly common as an English phrase idiosyncratic to German, meaning roughly "try it out". This is thought to have originated with advertising copy for West cigarettes, exhorting consumers to "Test The West".

Denglish in popular culture

• The popular German a cappella group Wise Guys produced a song on their Radio album called "Denglisch", a tongue-in-cheek look at the use of English words in German language. In this song the lyrics start out mostly German with only a few English words creeping in – "Oh, Herr, bitte gib mir meine Sprache zurück!" (Oh, lord, please give me my language back). It progresses to most of the lyrics being English: "Oh Lord, please gib mir meine Language back"
• In 1985, famous German poetical songwriter Reinhard Mey recorded "Mey English Song" as a parody on radio increasingly frequently playing English songs, although the fans "only railway station understand" (literal translation of the German idiom "verstehe nur Bahnhof", cannot understand a thing). In the song, he states, his producer told him "Well, what do we now for record sell?", urging Mey to sing in English.
• On an episode of the web series Will It Blend? Tom puts a German-English/English-German CD dictionary into his blender. After he finishes blending the dictionary, he says, "Denglish smoke! Don't breathe this!"
• The book I like you – und du? (ISBN 978-3499203237) features frequent code-switching between English and German.

See also

• Anglish
• Béarlachas
• Dunglish
• Europanto
• Fahrvergnügen
• False friends
• Franglais
• Globish
• Language transfer
• List of German expressions in English
• Lübke English
• Macaronic language
• Mixed language
• Pidgin
• Wienerschnitzel

Further reading

• "Germans are speaking Denglish – by borrowing words from us." (Passnotes No 3,401). The Guardian. 25 June 2013.
• Vasagar, Jeevan. "Deutsche Bahn aims to roll back use of English." The Telegraph. 24 June 2013.
• Pidd, Helen. "Mind your language: German linguists oppose influx of English words." The Guardian. Monday 14 March 2011.

External links

• 'ACHTUNG': a classic example of a Denglisch warning
• Denglisch used for truck-driver humour
• ‘Denglish’ is on the march, a December 2004 article from the International Herald Tribune
• Opinion: Desperately Ditching Denglish, a November 2004 article from the Deutsche Welle website
• Don't fret, it's only Denglish, a DaF student's view on the topic, from Freie Universität Berlin, 2002
• Denglish definition and citation, from a February 2001 article on a "lexpionage" (lexical espionage) website
• Wir haben ge-partied, a 2001 article from an Irish "women's web portal"
• Gayle Tufts, a Berlin-based American performer whose comedy is often based on Denglish.
• Denglish, at Languagehat.com