Talk:Denglisch

Lemma

Shouldn't this page be at "Denglisch"? Maximus Rex 17:15, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

There doesn't appear to exist a mutual agreement on which combination of constituent parts from "englis(c)h" "deutsch" and "german" makes up which kind of semi-language (english spoken by germans or the other way round). This is why I put them all together into one article (see the "vice versa"). Even if anyone knew better, I wouldn't opt for splitting it up - as for moving, I don't mind. But I think Google spits out most results for "germish" Kku 06:55, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Germisch

Thanks for this excellent page. As the son of a German migrant to Canada, I grew up with enough semi-English sentence structure and vocabulary that I had to re-learn quite a lot when I finally attended German class in High School (thinking I was in for an easy grade). Famous scraps of Germisch in my family's lore include my Opa's utterance about the dog; "Rudi hat ein Rabbit weg ge-chased!"

It's interesting that this is happening in Germany, too.

listen to the globalized citizen and you will find it everywhere... ;) -- Kku 11:18, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

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From the native german's point of view, Denglisch is the word for intermixing english vocabulary into the german language. The first example given is a very fine one.

In the youth and hacker language, denglisch is widely spread. But, as stated, most marketers pick it up to sound hip and top-notch. By now, the german translation would rather sound boring. "Kundendienst" ("service point") really is a nice example. But there are people who are getting annoyed by denglisch...

--Dave (native german)

and rightly so. -- Kku 11:18, 25 October 2005 (UTC) also very native

By the way, it's "widespread", not "widely spread".

--jae 04:40, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC) (another native German)

You had to say it, didn't you? Maikel (talk) 14:09, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

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I'm not a native English speaker, so you might feel the need to spell check my changes... Btw, is there a Template:GrammarEditorNeeded banner?

Lachaume 19:20, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"I become a hamburger"

Years ago, when I was working in Germany, one of the natives there confided in me that his wife once made a lasting impression saying this in a fast-food restaurant in Florida. (Of course, it was his wife, & not him. ;-) And during the same time one native made the same mistake practicing his English over this false friend; his English was otherwise far better than my German. I came to conclude this is a common mistake amongst Germans who haven't practiced their English sufficiently.

A minor point -- although it annoyed me after a while -- was the confusion of "Bye-bye" for "Tschuess/Tschau", which caused the speaker to sound as if she/he were speaking to a very young child (IMHO, a better equivalent would be the American English "Later", or the British "Cheers"). But then slang/colloquialisms are the hardest parts of a language to acquire; even some native speakers never quite get it right. -- llywrch 17:16, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Someone I know recently translated the German word "Unternehmer" in a very literal way... this was obviously not a proper use of Denglish and succeeded in raising some eyebrows. --Cs32en (talk) 17:04, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

The reason for the often made mistake with "become" is; the german word "bekommen" sounds very similar and means "get" or "receive" and many non-really-english-speaker-germans think its the same. It happens often when they try to impressive english speaker or to cover that they aren`t really able to speak english ;)--84.161.85.95 (talk) 19:37, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

This is not really related to Denglish but rather belong to the "Lübke English" class of translational mistakes. --Purodha Blissenbach (talk) 05:36, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Removed text

As with other pidgins, the adaptation also takes the other route (..)

Germish is no pidgin! Read the introduction of this article and compare with the definition of pidgin.

Ich erinnere, dass... (I remember that...)
Properly: Ich erinnere mich, dass... (roughly: I make myself remember that...)

I have never heard that structure and a Google search clearly shows that it's far from being "widespread" like the article claims.

oh, please. this expression even made it to a radio broadcast i heard lately. uttered by (otherwise) educated people. trust me. the transitive form is spreading. -- Kku 11:08, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Compare the french verb "souvenir" which is approximately equivalent to the German one. The provincial motto of Quebec is "Je me souviens" meaning "I remember" or literally "I make myself remember".

"Ich erinnere, dass..."', is not Denglish, but this transitive form is (and always has) been very common in Northern Germany (Hamburg and surroundings). I am not sure whether it is considered incorrect at all. In any case, it is just a peculiarity of Northern German dialect, and not wrong only because of its similarity to English. esmi 08:40, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

YUCK. Using the transitive form is incorrect in that particular context. When expressing that one remembers something, the verb erinnern is *always* used in its reflexive form. Erinnern in transitive form is used when one wishes to express that the subject is *reminding* someone else, as in Ich erinnere ihn an den Termin. Cheers, Schmiddtchen 15:13, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, around here (Bavaria) I would definitely regard accusative as incorrect. Or, if somebody said: Ich erinnere den Vorfall, I'd (now that's a hyperbole, of course) silently wonder why he talks to incidents, but people talk to trees after all, and then ask him: Well of what is it that you remind the incident.--93.133.198.77 (talk) 22:00, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Body Bag

I think I'm almost fluent in Germish and I probably used all of the examples but "Body Bag" at least once in my lifetime. If someone told me about a "body bag", I'd assume he/she was looking for something to carry a (dead) body. It's literal translation to German IMHO could be "Leichensack". Neither Leichensack nor Body Bag has anything in common with German Rucksack. I don't think this example should be used in the article.

BTW: As Backpacking is now a widely understood Germish word, ppl from Germany will probably use the term "backpack" more often in future. Thus Germish helps speaking better English in that case. --JanKorger 19:50, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

As a native speaker I back up that opinion here. The term "body bag" is not of common use, it's simply a term used seldomly by internet-shops to distinguish different kinds of backpacks. the term does not "refer" to a special kind of backpack. Any person asked in the street what a "body-bag" might be, would in most cases have no idea. --141.15.30.1 11:44, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

"Bodybag" in German refers to those backpacks with only one strap who've been fashionable for a while, e.g. http://www.neckermann.de/shop/bodybag-36.asp. The point is that this is a word coined in Germany and is unknown in the English speaking world in that meaning, akin to "dressman", "talkmaster", "evergreen" etc. The added hilariousness comes from the fact that this word exists in English anyway, but has a completely different meaning there, which most Germans are unaware of. Imagine native English speaking tourists in passing a supermarket in Germany plastered with ads for "BODYBAGS only EUR 15.99". 213.73.114.95 21:09, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Hilarious! These small "rucksacks" are called "bum bags" in the UK and "fanny packs" in the US. Leibniz 20:14, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I reverted the last change mady by user 216.254.126.167: The word "Body Bag" is just a strange creation, it is not a literal translation of the word "Rucksack". The literal translation would be "back bag" or something like this. "Ruck-" derives from "Rücken" (back) or from "Rückseite"/"zurück" (reverse). esmi 08:56, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi there, actually I life in Germany for about 21 years now. And i can assure you, I never heard Body bag used for backpack. Probably the difficulty is, that the germans never would translate Ruck( from Rücken = back) with body( what would Körper). So a Body bag would in Germany be translated to "Körpersack" which most people would interpret as "Leichensack", what is the english meaning of body bag. And to be honest, with that neckerman thing, just think of "handy" for mobile. What would be a much better example for this section.

Living in Germany, too. And it seems that "body bag" thing is taking over. LMFAO. Sorry, but it's pretty hilarious. You can buy all sorts of designer "body bags" from Camel, Jack Wolfskin to sOliver (search google Germany - sometimes called "city bag" or "bodyrucksack"). Though I haven't met anybody who actually said "body bag" to his Rucksack in real life (yet).

As a native speaker, I had no idea what "body bag" might mean before reading this discussion. Now I remember "those backpacks with only one strap". But I can't imagine someone saying "body bag" instead of "Rucksack", which IMHO is the word that 99.99% of Germans would use to refer to a rucksack or backpack. Even "Backpack" is VERY rarely used in Germany, maybe to refer to a BIG rucksack, whereas "Backpacking" and "Backpacker" are commonly used and understood especially by young people and have the same meaning as in English.

Imho the "body bag" thing started with an italian manufacturer selling their sleeping bags to Austria and, later, Germany with the intention to establish international brands "body bag" and "cosy body bag" for them. They stopped the campaign, when they learned about the already existing use of the expression. Afaics that was in the 1990s or earlier. --Purodha Blissenbach (talk) 05:49, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

ambiguous article structure and article title

This article is wandering between "English influences to the German language" vs. "Improper English spoken by German natives". IMO, they are two different kinds of animals, the former is German and latter is English. The introduction at the top seems to define the former, but later in the article, the latter is mixed in. Looks like Germish is not in the same catagory as Engrish or Chinglish which are bad English spoken by Japanese and Chinese respectively. Kowloonese 19:31, May 13, 2005 (UTC)

could we reach an agreement by stating that while some english influences to german are harmless or even useful (as in tech speak), most owe their existence to a ruinous tendency towards hype? that border is fuzzy and floating. hype of today can make it into the Duden tomorrow. -- Kku 11:16, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

While Spanglish and Denglish are bad Spanish and Germen respectively, Engrish and Chinglish are bad English. Is there a similar term for bad English due to the influence of Germen? Kowloonese 00:14, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Doomed from the Start

"Denglish" and its various siblings apparently comprise non-idiomatic errors produced by primary language contamination which native speakers find amusing. As much base humor, it has a victim, but since it's all in "fun" (now a good German word), that aspect is readily passed over. Why, for instance, is there no companion article holding English and American students of German up to ridicule for similar errors? Since that is the case, isn't it rather pointless to attempt a transformation of this article into a serious observation of the interaction between German and English? Janko 13:18, 18 July 2006 (UTC)Janko

I think the point is that this is far more common in Germany (and other Non-English speaking countries) than in the UK or US. I can't point to any statistics. It's more than the natural seepage of loan words into a language over time - people in Germany now quite deliberately take English words or even entire phrases and stick them (usually inappropriately) into German sentences, instead of using perfectly good German equivalents. Apparently they think it makes them sound (richtig) clever. Just the other day on a talk show the host asked her guest "Passiert das wirklich, oder ist es ein Self-Fulfilling Prophecy? (smirk)"

That doesn't usually work the other way round. If you started throwing a German word in every other sentence when speaking English (a) noone would understand (b) everyone would think you a pretentious fool. Even the French loan phrases we inherited from a previous generation - je ne sais quoi, joie de vivre - are falling out of use, or used only in mockery.Cavort (talk) 14:39, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, the funny thing in this is, of course, that prophecy must of necessity take the gender, in German, which Prophezeiung has, and that's feminine. (There's no other way. In German we have die Tour "journey" for the sake of "Reise", even though the French say la Tour Eiffel but le Tour de France.) As to other things, the "self-fulfilling prophecy" seems to have been a scientific theory of late, expounded upon in English, so that there is only the chance of either rendering it in Anglicism or in the Quasi-Anglicism selbsterfüllende Prophezeiung. Anyway, if @Janko thinks this article is about mocking Germans who try to speak English, that only proves he isn't German. (As I assume him to do; if he doesn't, it proves I'm not English.) The ones who mock at Denglisch the very most are Germans. (In any case, the sound and healthy German habit of mocking Germans is only, of late, interrupted by times of being sorry for German misdeeds. Which is why Germans take so extraordinary pleasure in watching To Be or Not To Be, which they themselves had been unsafe in conscience to produce.) But we are talking about a couple of loanwords - Computer (though "Rechner", calculator, is practised to an extent), Hardware, Software are only for a convenience and custom's sake not spelt Kompjuter, Hartwär, Softwär. The mockery is against a jargon evolved in high economical positions, especially the finance sector; and the pure error in Public Relations, or Öffentlichkeitsarbeit, which assumes it is easier to make people forget that Bahnhofshallen are Bahnhofshallen (and, instead, "Lounges"), rather than make them believe they might with time and time become beautiful Bahnhofshallen. --93.133.198.77 (talk) 22:19, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Ponglish?

The "Denglisch" adaptation of English words into an inflected language is done in Polish also - which is even more inflected than German because even the consonants can change as you decline a noun. For example, "Aga" is the brand name of a solid-fuel cooker widely used in rural Britain. That naturally declines as follows:

"Aga zgasła" - The Aga has gone out. "Zgaś Agę" - Put the Aga out. "Wsadź mięso do Agi" - Put the meat in the Aga. "Mięso jest w Adze" - The meat is in the Aga.

... and so on, to the bemusement of English-speakers.

Oddly enough the same does not apply to English verbs taken into Polish. Importation of verbs is rare (as it is in Denglisch) and is done by adding one of the universal "verbification" suffixes such as -ować. Compare the humorous English -ify or -ificate.

Banning Denglish?

I can across this article about a town that wants to ban Denglish [1]. Is this town (Mühlhausen) or their actions noteworthy enough for inclusion in this article? ^BlankVerse 11:52, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

The town heads probably just wanted some press attention. Though in principle this sounds very löblich. Maybe with the right connections, they can get some help from Winzigweich Konzern? I'm thinking about something like the automatic correction feature in Wort für Fenster. Aragorn2 21:34, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Das hat Sinn mit der Deppenleerstelle

Glauben Sie es mir: Ich bin ein Deutscher. Believe me, I am a German.

1. Anglicism: Das macht Sinn. Correct German: Das hat Sinn.

Example: There's no point in that. = Das hat keinen Sinn. [2]

2. Deppenapostroph, equivalently: Deppenleerstelle (moron's blank, cf. Deppen Leerstelle).

Schöne Grüße - 84.146.209.173 16:00, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Ich glaub's Dir und ich auch. Aber ... (for the benefit of others I continue in English)

"There's no point in that" (= "Das hat doch eh keinen Sinn!")

is not the same as

"That makes no sense." (="Das ergibt keinen Sinn!"

The former is a normal translation, whereas the latter has spawned an Anglicism. The parallel in the first case would be: (*) "Es is kein Punkt (or other horrible translations) darin!"

Und Grüße zurück, Str1977 17:09, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I never heard the word "Deppenleerstelle". Deppenleerzeichen is the correct term. Have a look at:

www.deppenleerzeichen.de 

Gruß, K.E. 16:00 23 July 2007

ein Berliner

The blunders section should really have the splendid "Ich bin ein Berliner" popularised by John F Kennedy which I understand to mean something on the lines of "I am a jam doughnut" (or in his terms, donut), and would welcome any verifications or clarifications before adding it....dave souza 22:51, 22 January 2006 (UTC) (Schottishe). And on checking the linked Kennedy page finds a Ich bin ein Berliner#"Jelly doughnut" urban legend section. Well, Wikipedia's certainly informative. ...dave souza 22:57, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Dave, it's an urban legend, as the article Ich bin ein Berliner makes clear. I guess you've figured this out.  ProhibitOnions  ^(T)

'Germanisation of English words'

I can't see what's wrong (or strange) about these two examples. The 'already' seems a little out of place, but that's it. — mæstro ^t/c, 09:55, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

other terms

Is any of the terms "Engleutsch, Genglish, Germish, Germanglish, or Ginglish" common in English? If so, they should be reintroduced, as I removed them, because they are not common in German for sure. -- 790 12:59, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

List of Pseudo-anglicisms in German

Infos

This article is hilarious. :)

But as a native speaker of German, I can't see that the word "Infos" is any kind of anglizism. The German word "Information" is simply abbreviated to "Info" (singular) and the plural form of this is, in a correct use of German grammar rules, "Infos". Other opinions? esmi 11:14, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Yep, that's a new addition, which I have now removed; it's not pseudo-English at all. Nor is "no name" - which is overused and sometimes oddly used in German, but is not all that different from its English usage. I chopped it out as well.  ProhibitOnions  ^(T) 12:34, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

esmi that´s correct, I think someone is getting mixed up with the fact that "over-zealous" Germans when speaking English, tend to speak of "Informations" and "Standing-Ovations" both of which DO NOT have a plural form in English. Regarding "no-name", that was my addition. The reason I added it, is that it is often used in German, e.g. especially on TV reports about previously unknown sportsmen/women. It seems quite OK to use it in German, but in English it would considered "rude" or "bad-mannered" to call someone a "no-name", daher, the different meaning!. If prohibit has lost his onions over it, it´s OK to delete it. :o) IsarSteve 13:06, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

P.S.ProhibitOnions I realise you are involved with Onions, but you don´t have to CHOP out entries, cutting them would also be OK (siehe: I chopped it out as well) LOL IsarSteve 13:15, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Heh-heh. "Infos" is perfectly fine German, but a common German mistake when speaking English, but is therefore not Denglisch (although other Denglisch words often end up in a German-speaker's English vocabulary because they think they are English. But common German mistakes in English don't belong in this article.  ProhibitOnions  ^(T) 18:28, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I am also a native german speaker and I _never_ heard the word abrippen before. Sounds too funny. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.64.195.241 (talk) 17:16, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Pruning the Pseudo-anglicisms

Am transferring some of the supposed pseudo-anglicisms over here as they appear to be simple anglicisms, with no significant modification. Tacitus 23:25, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

German word	Meaning to German-speaker
Back Shop	bakery shop, from backen (to bake) Back is German in origin, and Shop has suffered no change in meaning.
Freecall	toll-free call Used in English, e.g. by Telstra.
Happy End	happy ending Legitimate variation in the English term: we do say The End.
Looser	loser, with the 'o' sound exaggerated for effect or more likely because Germans learn that 'oo' is spoken like the German 'u' and many of them just don't know that 'loser' is the correct spelling. A slight modification, but why is the outcome pseudo?
Manager	any executive How is this more than an anglicism?
Recyclingpapier	recycled paper Certainly a false friend, but Recycling is the English word, and Papier is German, both correct.
Handy	cell phone/mobile

There are still a lot of words which are not pseudo-anglicisms but merely anglicisms. "Center" is just a different (American) spelling of "centre", "chillen" is the English slang term "to chill (out)", "city" has its original meaning, "dissen" is "to diss" with German flexion, same with "downloaden", "einloggen", "joggen". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.157.169.74 (talk) 16:44, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

"Manager" in German usually means executives (higher level), "managen" means what those people (supposedly) do: supervise with leadership, lots; typical de:"Manager" would be CEO or Member of the Board of Large Foobuzz AG -- it's a well known bogus friend (to manage can also mean zurechtkommen) --145.253.2.232 (talk) 17:36, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

All the abovementioned are true pseudoanglicisms, or mixes of German and English in one word. For exmple Backshop, Recyclingpapier are put together from "Back-" (German) and "shop" (English), or "recycling" (English) and "Papier" (German). As you can see, e.g. the corret English "recycled paper" is not used as a loanword, but a new word is created from an English word and a German word rolled into one. That is Denglish. --Purodha Blissenbach (talk) 06:00, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Influence on grammar and spelling

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Of late there is a German trend to combine words according to English rules by writing them in succession. Following the German grammar rules this is wrong.

   Reparatur Annahme instead of Reparaturannahme

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Let me clarify this a bit. It´s wrong according to the old grammar rules. But there has been a "Rechtschreibreform" (= reform grammar and spelling rules), who changed some rules quite a bit. It was possible to choose between the old and the new rules the last few years, but this year the new rules have become mandatory. According to the new rules combining words like "Reperatur Annahme" is the correct way. But it seems there´ll be a "reform of the reform", so that both "Reperatur Annahme and Reperaturannahme" will be correct. 81.201.224.13 07:36, 19 May 2006 (UTC)FreddyE 07:41, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Hey FreddyE, you're wrong on this. "Reparatur Annahme" is not at all correct, also not after the Rechtschreibreform. The change of some grammatical rules (already some years ago) did not affect the combination of nouns, it changed some possibilities concerning the separate writing of verbs and adjectives, such as "kennen lernen" instead of "kennenlernen" etc. But "Reparatur Annahme" ist totally incorrect and...well, Denglish! esmi 11:55, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Uuups...got it mixed up there. Bah..."to hell" with the rules. Since the "Schlechtschreibreform" confused the hell out of me anyway, I write just like I want. ;-) FreddyE 19:46, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Regardless of any reform there has been and still is given the possibility to hyphenate the words: Reparatur-Annahme. For naming an item after a person it is mandatory, like in "Martin-Luther-Platz" or "Karl-Marx-Stadt". I myself prefer to hyphenate because it helps readers to comprehend, especially when german is a foreign language to them and they are not used to extended words made up of several nouns.

"Reparatur-Annahme" is still wrong even with the loosened rules allowing few more hyphenated versions than before. --Purodha Blissenbach (talk) 06:04, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

But true is that Reparatur-Annahme is wrong (even New Spelling), while Reparatur Annahme hurts the eyes.--93.133.198.77 (talk) 22:30, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Translations

I suggest the section headed "Translations" ought to be removed from the article. Interesting as it may be to see how Babelfish translates equivalent sections of the German- and English-language Wikipedias (only equivalent, it should be noted -- the originals do not say precisely the same things), the section is really an illustration of the quality of machine translation in general rather than of the phenomenon of "Denglisch" in particular, and therefore does not, in my view, properly belong here. -- Picapica 15:42, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

UK pronunciation of "Braun"

Quote: An oddity is that in UK advertisements the company name Braun is pronounced Brawn to sound like the English word ["brawn"]

Not really an oddity when you consider how "sight-pronunciation" mangling of foreign proper nouns is more often the rule than the exception in English. Just consider, amongst many other possible examples (with German-spelling renditions of the commonly heard English pronunciations):

• Volkswagen --> Wolksuaggen
• Löwenbräu --> Lohenbrau
• Schröder --> Schrooder

The English haven't yet even learned how to pronounce the name of the man who has managed their national football team for the last five years: Sven-Göran Eriksson. His second name is almost inevitably pronounced more like the Serbian/Croatian name "Goran", now and again semi-correctly as "Yorun"; however, most English speakers seem utterly unconvinced that umlauts are anything more than frivolous foreign curlicues which signify no more than pure affectation and believe that they should therefore always be studiously ignored. Sigh... -- Picapica 16:18, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Since the pronunciations of Volkswagen, Löwenbräu, and Braun listed above are officially promulgated by these companies themselves, I'm not sure what your complaint is. If Braun prefer to be known by a pseudo-foreign-sounding name than one that sounds rather dull in English (i.e., "Brown"), that's their choice. (Braun is a division of Procter & Gamble.)

AFAIK, Eriksson also accepts the anglicized pronunciation of his name. OTOH, the pronunciation of Schröder is frequently wrong, I agree, and from people such as journalists who ought to know better; but then again, it's rare - for example - to hear a German newsreader get Kim Jong Il's name right, too.  ProhibitOnions  ^(T) 16:47, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

And now, of course, we have Chancellor "Mörkel". I think it's because it's now regarded, especially in journalistic circles - from which I don't exclude the BBC - as unfashionably "élitist" for a person to demonstrate that they've made an effort to find out how a name is actually pronounced by its bearer and are trying to approximate that pronunciation at least. -- Picapica 20:07, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I wonder how anybody could get the idea that "Mörkel" is a good apporximation. It would describe the correct pronounication like this: Me(e like in "end")r(put stress on r)-kel (el like in "bibel).FreddyE (talk) 08:20, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I was wanderimg why the English needlessly mispronounced Chrooshtshov and Garbatshoff to Chrushtshev and Gorbatshev, even though these names an be spelt in ways making pretty good utterances in English. --Purodha Blissenbach (talk) 06:14, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

The pronunciation, maybe a little adjusted, is Mearkle, with ear as in bear. However, well, Ändschela Merkle, the latter in English pronunciation, is not altogether bad; as neither it was bad to speak about Anton Salieri back then in Austria, or to speak about, say, Sankt Johannes Maria Vianney, Pfarrer von Ars in as Catholics commonly do. --93.133.198.77 (talk) 22:35, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Denglisch in German dictionaries

"The word Denglisch is not listed in German dictionaries. The closest German word for it is "Kauderwelsch""

This information is outdated. The most important German dictionary, the "Duden" knows about "Denglisch"

1. Deng|lisch, das; -[s] [zusgez. aus Deutsch u. Englisch] (abwertend): Mischung aus Deutsch u. Englisch.

84.165.241.15 02:42, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

The complete entry in Duden (Duden Band 1, 23. revision, Page 281) reads

dẹng|lisch (abwertend für deutsch mit [zu] vielen englischen Ausdrücken vermischt); Dẹng|lisch, das; -[s] (abwertend)

what means something like

dẹng|lisch (pejorative for german mixed up with [too] many english expressions); Dẹng|lisch, das (noun, neutrum); -[s] (pejorative)

-- de:EmCee 12:10, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Fuck

See the section of the fuck page about German. I think that "fuck" deserves some kind of mention on this page; "fuck" is used as an exclamation with increasing frequency, and I (rarely) hear "fucking" as an adjective. I'm wary of putting in a see also to fuck, as it would be particularly vague, but am not sure how to integrate it into the page itself. Ideas? samwaltz 00:07, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

"Killen"

often used in youth slang. for example in Movies or Computer Games "Kille den Endboss" "Kill the endboss"

This is by no means either slang or youth language. It is an anglicism of the older kind, and was used decades ago; it is mostly applied for contract murders. However, usage in Computer Games seems to lack accuracy. In the military, it is always "Vernichte" die feindlichen Kräfte etc. (destroy the enemy forces) that is used. Or this, the "kill the endboss", might be for being cool, as a "killer" (which is also a German word). While I think, for description, the words "Auftrag ausgeführt" have (in German) a greater force than an untranslated "mission accomplished". However, in many of these cases it could be lack of knowledge about what the real translation is. --93.133.198.77 (talk) 22:05, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

"Come in and find out"

May I contribute to this discussion with some further examples? Then please allow me to continue in German ;-)

Die deutsche (internationale?) Parfümerie-Kette Douglas, nach eigener Aussage eine "Lifestyle-Gruppe", bietet auf ihrer deutschen Homepage im Internet (nur Neonazis verwenden das Wort "Heimseite" oder "Weltnetz", was eine Verwendung durch den wohlmeinenden Deutschsprachler ausschließt) unter anderem folgende "Links" (Querverweise) an: "Hair", "Make-Up", "Nice Price", "Tipps & Trends", "Fashion", "Top Ten", "Newsletter".

Bis vor kurzem verwendete Douglas in seinen Fernseh"spots" den "Slogan": "Come in and find out". Dieser wurde später geändert in "Douglas macht das Leben schöner" – nicht, weil Bewahrer der deutschen Sprache protestiert hätten, sondern, weil Konsumforscher herausgefunden hatten, dass die Mehrzahl der mit diesem Spruch konfrontierten Menschen ihn wie folgt übersetzten: "Kommen Sie herein und finden Sie heraus" ("Come in and find your way out").--91.10.102.151 19:52, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

"Rumbitchen"

I have heard some younger German speakers say things like: "Sie hat so rumgebitcht." Does it mean the same thing as 'to bitch' in English? What are the appropriate uses of this word? I'm not entirely sure, but I get the impression that the uses of this verb differ slightly from its English cognate.Seamus padraig 12:26, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

It could've meant that she complained excessively or that the acted either as a bitch OR sluttly. Though personally I assume that the speaker in question had no idea *what* he or she wanted to describe anyway. But perhaps she meant "zicken", which drives from "Zicke" (she-goat), which is roughly equivalent to "bitch (noun)", though withouth any sexual undertones. --Peterbruells 09:48, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Reworking, needs major cuts

I'm about to start in on a major cut to this article that will in phases remove most of the content. Almost everything here is not up to WP standards. Please do not readd content that cannot be sourced. Please note that simply collecting phrases used in advertising is original research. Scott.wheeler (talk) 10:49, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Since my first edit was already reverted, I'm going to throw this one over to the RfC folks. Scott.wheeler (talk) 12:38, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Just to further clarify my goals, I think this article needs almost a complete rewrite. It's full of neologisms and almost 100% original research. I don't believe that collected lists of such expressions are encyclopedic and would rather have a well sourced, short article on the phenomenon, perhaps with a token couple of examples (again, sourced). Scott.wheeler (talk) 12:38, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your WP:OR concerns. This page is full of things that people added because they know about it, or use the words themselves. There are no documented third party sources for the vast majority of this material, especially the list, which may also violate WP:NOT. "Give it some time" isn't really a valid rationale for keeping the material, since it still hasn't been sourced. The thing is, I think a good article can be written about this. It would have most examples trimmed, and have a lot of sources, including ones about social reactions to it, like here: [3] although I'm not sure if that meets WP:RS. --TexasDex ★ 20:46, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

mass intelligence at work. a counterexample?

Ever since I started that article back in 2003/4, it seems to have undergone a twofold change: one towards more moderate language, but also towards rather simplistic ideas and moderation to the point of blandness. why was Kurt Tucholsky thrown out? What has become of the machine translation part? What seemed wrong about the very famous German example "I become a Hamburger"? Who needs so many examples on primitive teenage "germish" where one would have sufficed easily? And, above all, why has the English in some places deteriorated markedly? I do not deem my own perfect. Far from it. But i really wonder how a phrase like "... much English..." is allowed to survive. Or was this meant to be a witty self-reference? All in all i am not really convinced that time and democratic liberty have had a beneficiary effect on this lemma. -- Kku (talk) 18:43, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

"Sinn machen"

I've deleted that part.

In http://www.iaas.uni-bremen.de/sprachblog/2007/10/01/sinnesfreuden-i/ (and the followup posts ii, iii, iv and v) professor Anatol Stefanowitsch of the University of Bremen clearly shows that the belief that "Sinn machen" is just bad German, originating in English is most probably wrong. He has found evidence of that phrase in print from 1966 which is much plder than most people believe (usually they think this phrase crept in just a few years ago). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.179.240.225 (talk) 21:03, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Correct. And it's even older than that. Even Martin Luther used that construction, as well as Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, though I don't have the sourced at hand right now. I had to delete that part again, today... — N-true (talk) 19:52, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I beg to differ! Above all follow-up Nr. 2 speaks clearly against the use of "Sinn machen". Follow-up #14 on the other hand does trace the expression back to Luther. Number 30 even thinks, Germans brought the expression to England. But what sense does it make to use the language of people 200 and 450 years dead to judge today's (and the last 30 years') language?

And in most cases "machen" does imply creation or change, do check the dwds (and leave away the colloquialisms!) Sense cannot be created, sense is the normal status of things. Only is we do not consider things normal or sensible any longer, we call them "nonsense" or nonsensical and this nonsense can - and must - be created. Therefore "Unsinn machen" is OK.

Ethymologically "machen" goes back to Indogermanic/European "mag" which means "kneten". In later times it was mainly used in connection with building houses (ref. Kluge)

But how much do four single snippets of "Sinn machen" really prove? When is an anglicism an anglicism? As soon as it appears for the first? As soon as it is heard and used in every-day conversation? Personally I would say the latter. The use of the phrase has increased tremendously during the 1990s, parallel to the use of the internet. I do see connections there. And no, I don't have any published proof for that opinion, but how much proof is a blog then? Close to none in German universities.

Don't worry, I will not add it again although most people would probably agree that it is missing. How about a section about felt or apparent anglicisms? MichaelXXLF (talk) 14:18, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

I confirm from experience that (if that happened at all) "Sinn machen" crept into the German colloquial language in the early sixties, or earlier. At that time, German school teachers marked that expression as wrong use of words, and it was widely believed, the "destructive influence of beat music on the German language" could be demonstrated with it. Remember, beat music was sung exclusively in English, almost only listened to by the youth, and e.g. the Beatles came to Germany first in 1963/4. People stuck to saying "Es macht Sinn, ..." til today, and one can easily observe that it is being used differently from the presumably older "Sinn haben", and in somewhat different contexts. "Sinn haben" is only to a small extent replaced by "Sinn machen". A closer look at the different uses reveals that, indeed, "Sinn machen" is used often in contexts of creation and expctations about the future, and can as such be understood as a short form of "create something sensible or meaningful, target something sensible or meaningful" (etwas Sinnvolles schaffen oder erreichen wollen) which fits pretty well with the description of "machen" above. "Sinn haben" by contrast, refers to something sensible or meaningful already being there. Thus, one can conclude, it appears to make sense to Germans, to use the expression "Sinn machen" once in a while, although it is still colloquial due to the use of "machen". "Sinn schaffen" is the non-colloquial counterpart ("schaffen" means "create") and is also being used, especially the adjective "sinnschaffend" (creating ...) Greetings. --Purodha Blissenbach (talk) 07:53, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Denglis(c)h

While "Denglish" redirects to this article, it should also be noted that "Denglish" is also the name sometimes used to describe the mish-mashing of Dutch and English (Dunglish). - 52 Pickup (deal) 10:46, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

In the Before Word of the book We always get our sin too (ISBN 978 90 453 0917 0 and NUR 610/370 from outgiver BZZTÔH, The Netherlands). --My Dutch User Page (CGW) and My Dutch User Talk Page (CGW).

"Citation needed"

For the "in 2002" etc. part: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,545997,00.html Don't know if this counts as a reliable source? I'm still not common with the Wiki codes, so - if it's fine with you, maybe someone else might want to add it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.225.52.34 (talk) 09:36, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

There you go. I added the reference. De728631 (talk) 23:46, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

"gedownloadet", "in 2005"

Never heard "gedownloadet" in Germany, and "in [year]" has probably not originated from the English equivalent. --Cs32en (talk) 16:55, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Both are very common,up to my knowledge.

And no other language (except for Turkish-lol) is so widespread in Germany. "In 2005" is English,but comletely uncorrect German. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.186.137.193 (talk) 10:41, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

If you've never heard "gedownloadet", I wonder where you live and what you talk about. If you discuss your computer in German, you are bound to hear it within five minutes. And of course e. g. "gutes Wetter in 2005" is an influx of English into German. Maikel (talk) 14:12, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

It's a matter of dispute whether it is gedownloadet or downgeloadet. If down- is interpreted as a prefix and treated like a German prefix, it should be the latter; and I think Duden or somewho did in fact decide this way.--93.133.198.77 (talk) 22:07, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

difference between "Centre" and "Center"

I always thought that the only difference between those two was that one was BE the other AE, so I'm a little confused to find them in the list of pseudo-anglicisms. Is there also a difference in meaning? And even if there is, can it be a "pseudo-anglicism" just because Germans use the American spelling with the British meaning of the word? Six words (talk) 08:26, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Removed it from the list of pseudo-anglicisms.--Six words (talk) 22:00, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Definition of Denglisch

I'm a German,so please excuse my English if needed :-)

In Germany Denglisch is the word for German heavily mixed with English words,not uncorrect English,such as

"Ich downloade gerade den song und chille dabei"(I'm downloading a song and relax)

If a German guy says,"I've become a hamburger",that is no Denglish,but simply lack of skills in English language.

There is kind of confusion about definition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.186.137.193 (talk) 10:38, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

The article refers to both:

• German that has been suffused with English ("Ich downloade einen song."), usually called "Denglisch"
  

... as well as ...

• broken English spoken by a native German speaker ("I become Hamburger.").

I agree that it ought to differentiate better between both meanings. Maikel (talk) 08:38, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I disagree, I'm an English speaker living in Germany, and Denglisch to me means poor English, typically spoken with German grammar and direct translation of false friends. Aaadddaaammm (talk) 08:27, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Synonyms

Quote: also ... Pary Englisch or VISisch/VIS English

Since I could find no external verification for these three synonyms (all relevant Google hits pointed back to this article), and since I have never heard them before, and since they make no sense, I have removed them. Maikel (talk) 14:09, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Deppenapostroph

Quote: Another phenomenon is the anglicised use of the apostrophe. It is often used in the English way (which in standard German is wrong) for the genitive: Müller's Mühle instead of Müllers Mühle

AFIK this is outdated, the Genitivapostroph is permissible under the Neue Rechtschreibung since 1997. Maikel (talk) 14:25, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

And still looks ugly. When I last looked into the New Spelling regularies - no metaphor, I did really look in them, it's quite a time ago and it was the pre-2005 variant - this was allowable only for Andrea's car ("to make more clear the basic form of the name") but apparently it is still only Müllers Mühle. I personally go for the organic Spelling in which our books are printed, not the activist Spelling which was only done for the sake that something has to change after all, and by just replacing daß with dass did nothing, if not even to a slight degree worsen, to the only real difficulty held against the old spelling, viz. the daß - das distinction. But even there the confusion with the name Andreas is not really there in writing about Andreas Auto: Andreasses are normally not surnamed Auto; if Andreas takes its own genitive, it needs at least its own apostrophe (Andreas' Auto), but I'd prefer either the genitive Andreassens which is only outdated to the simple apostrophe which never really has been in use, andor one of the vast possibilities of circumlocution as in das Auto vom Andreas.--93.133.198.77 (talk) 22:15, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

You seem to miss the point why Andreas' Auto was ever adduced as an example in the first place, which is likely to clarify how to make a distinction whether the owner of the car is named Andrea or Andreas. Flight714 (talk) 20:31, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

The distinction is simple enough. If the owner is named Andrea, we speak of Andreas Auto. If the owner is named Andreas, we write (not speak btw) Andreas' Auto. No confusion possible. 93.134.232.148 (talk) 20:38, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Archive

Could someone please archive this discussions page -- thanks. Maikel (talk) 14:25, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Beamer

I would like to point out that the German Beamer does not mean any kind of projector - a slide projector or cinematograph will never be called a Beamer in German. The word Beamer only applies to video and data projectors - in other words, projectors that receive their picture signal electronically and are connected to computers or video playback devices. --84.157.20.89 (talk) 11:00, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Link to nationalist page

Is it absolutely necessary to link to the nationalist Deutschtum.net?!? 188.101.89.48 (talk) 21:51, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Backshop

I just wanted to point to a pretty common, yet cruel example of Denglish: Backshop which may be translated as Bakery or Bäckerei, depending on which language you use. I'm not sure if, and where this example might join the article. 92.225.73.120 (talk) 08:55, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Please note, thought, that this is a pun, because the first part of the compound is still German, while the second part is a common loanword from English. The pun is, of course, intentioned. — N-true (talk) 19:55, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Backshop as it is being used today, if translated to either "Bäckerei" or "bakery" is loosing information. I's a very special bakery, or no bakery at all. "Backshop" is being used for a sales point of bakery products baked elsewhere, which can be found in the entrances of supermarkets, furniture stores, or gas stations. So, it is a store, or shop, but not a bakery in these instances. Also, a baking automat, or a shop hosting several of those, is called a "Backshop" (at least that's what's printed on them). The specialty in these cases is that the sell items freshly from te automats. Dough is bough in ready made portions on trays, so part of the work traditionally done in a bakery is also not being done in those kinds of "Backshop"s. --Purodha Blissenbach (talk) 08:17, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Might be good to add this usage to the article at backshop.

-and that concept is, and has for moreover a decade been known in Denmark as " bake-off ", which to an american means something completely other and to British absolutely nothing.I found that it would make it a perfect example of " danglish " ( the danish counterpart to denglish ), untill I recently discovered that the term occurs in an EC regulation that explains and describes the process.So,an english term, probably cooked up by ingenious officials, with none or a totally differing meaning to natural born english speakers, but now part of the common european legislation from which it´s bound to eventually spread backwards into the english vocabulary. Brusselish ? Englopean ? Flight714 (talk) 22:13, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

"Twisting of grammar rules" vs. "Influence on grammar"

Where's the big difference? Above all both note on equal phenomenons liek Deppenapostroph. Couldn't they be united into one point? MichaelXXLF (talk) 14:22, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

parking and slip

Aren’t these borrowed from French instead of directly from English? They do seem to carry the same meanings of the corresponding French words.—Gniw (Wing) (talk) 02:57, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

From the point of view of an American visiting Germany

Denglish or whatever you call it fascinates me. handy is probably the most interesting example, because Germans use it thinking it is an adopted English word for a cellular phone, when it isn't ever used as a noun in English. Denglish appears everywhere in advertisements in Germany, sometimes making sense but often not. When a word or phrase is adopted from English, and then used in a way that makes no sense in English or is just not the appropriate phrase or word to use, is it incorrect English or incorrect German, or correct something-else? What gets really confusing is when, in conversation, Germans switch back and forth from German to Denglish and back to German. I'd prefer they would speak one language or another. I have heard conversations between people who are fluent in both English and German switch languages in the middle of a sentence, and the conversation seems to flow nonetheless, whereas I, listening to them, feel nauseous and dizzy. I guess it could suit them well if they don't wish to be overheard. The point I am trying to get to is: we need to differentiate between words and phrases borrowed from English and placed into spoken German, and the abrupt switching into English and back into German. Where to draw the line is a job for an expert linguist. I suspect that the proper way of defining a borrowed word is to modify it by plural or tense by German rules and see if it makes sense in common usage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.232.24.67 (talk) 17:19, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Germans frequently misunderstand English in Advertising

I think it is noteworthy for the Denglish in Advertising section that Germans on average understand considerably less english/denglish in advertising than once thought. But I'm lazy and don't feel like editing linking the sources properly at this time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.197.129.106 (talk) 22:58, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Following is the relevant paragraph from Der Spiegel, May 2011, below my translation — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.197.129.106 (talk) 23:28, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

http://www.spiegel.de/karriere/berufsleben/0,1518,760476,00.html

Nichts zu sagen? Say it in Broken English!

Der Anteil von Englisch in der Werbung stagniert seit zehn Jahren auf hohem Niveau, ohne dass dabei das Verstehen zugenommen hätte. Etwa 25 der 100 am häufigsten in der Werbung verwendeten Vokabeln sind englisch, und 72 bis 75 Prozent der Konsumenten verstehen englische Werbung nicht im Sinne ihrer Absender. Das sind die Durchschnittsergebnisse der Claim-Studien von Endmark; die Kölner Markenagentur befragt dazu seit 2003 regelmäßig jeweils über tausend Verbraucher.

Nothing to say? Say it in Broken English!

The amount of English in German advertising has remained steady at a high level in the past ten years, but without any apparent increase in comprehension. About 25 of the 100 most commonly used words in german advertising are english, but 72 to 75 percent of consumers don't understand the english advertising as intended. These figures are the result of research by the Cologne-based marketing agency Endmark, who since 2003 has regularly conducted polls consisting of over 1000 consumers each.

Difference between loanword and pseudo-anglicism

This is difficult. Your best bet is to find a reliable source that explicitly describes a word as "pseudo-anglicism".

For example, "fitness" or "training" are clearly loanwords. They were taken from existing English usage and just became German words; since they were loaned from one specific meaning of the English term, their semantics as loanwords developed to be different from the source language, but that's normal for loanwords.

Then there are actual pseudo-anglicisms, which are just made up at some point by people (mostly in marketing?) with limited grasp of English; body bag is the most hilarious example of this, and handy probably the best-known case by now.

I would dispute that the German noun "Fitness" is a pseudo-anglicisim. It is simply a loan, taken from the context as in fitness center and came to be used freely.

But the line is difficult to draw. How about the verb trampen? Clearly from to tramp "walk, wander", but perhaps via tramp (n.) "vagabond". Is this a pseudo-anglicism or a loan? The only way is to cite the opinion of relevant secondary sources. The Duden links provided in the list do not establish the terms as pseudo-anglicisms. They just establish the existence of the German word (e.g. (trampen "hitchhiking"). Now, "to tramp" does not mean "to hitchhike" in English, and a German speaker might mistakenly assume it does. This is a situation of false friends, but not necessarily of "pseudo-anglicism". In this case, the semantic proximity remains intact as in W. H. Davies, a Welsh poet and tramp, who hitchhiked America during the early 20th century. This is different from handy or beamer, where Germans would take random English words and apply them to some appliance. The case of body bag is even more complicated. These are two English loanwords, both body and bag came to be used independently in German, body in the context of "Fitness", and bag in the sense of "an accessoire which is too fashionable to be merely described as Tasche". The people who came up with Body Bag simply combined two existing real anglicisms, and it was just their bad luck that the compound already existed in English. I would be willing to accept this as "pseudo-anglicism" because it is funny, but technically it is really just a German compound of two actual anglicisms.

Perhaps it would make sense to distinguish several classes of pseudo-anglicisms

• actual, simple, irreducible pseudo-anglicisms: beamer, handy, slip
• formation of new compounds from loaned components, "Body Bag", also "Public Viewing", "Showmaster", "Streetworker"
• "City" for "downtown, city center". From The City, i.e. generalisation of an actual English expression
• "Oldtimer", "Evergreen": existing English expressions which received a specific (restricted) meaning in German. Also Drive-in, come on, this is a valid English expression, the Germans just use it to also cover what would technically be a "drive-thru". Not a pseudo-anglicism, just semantic widening.
• English compounds which lost one element (essential for context) in the loan. "City [center]"? "Smoking"?
• "Happy End" for "happy ending"; "Ice Tea" for "iced tea": these are examples of anglicisms which introduced poor grammar. Perhaps also "[photo] shooting", "peeling".

--dab (𒁳) 09:57, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I also suppose one should exclude anglicisms which were correct at the time of the loan but have fallen out of use in English since. There are a number of German words which were bona fide anglicisms when they were first picked up (mostly in the 1940s to 1950s I suppose) but which now sound weird or unfamiliar. Use of "old-timer" for a vintage car was presumably always said jokingly (as it were treating the car as a person), but research shows that it was perfectly unremarkable if the context of "speaking among car enthusiasts" was established, at least until the 1970s. So this is clearly not a pseudo-anglicism. Same goes for "Evergreen" for a popular song. "Tramping" for hitchhiking may also fall in this category, as the term "hitchhiking" combines "hitching" and "hiking", while the "tramping" part corresponds to the "hiking" only, but the concept is the same given the right context. "hitchhike" is from the 1920s, but presumably during at least the 1920s to 1940s, there was so little motorized traffic that it would have consisted mostly of hiking (tramping) and only very occasionally of "hitching", so for the time of the loan, "to tramp" was presumably an accurate anglicism for the concept (Chaplin's The Tramp is probably a good representation of the "hitchhiker" you would be likely to meet in the 1920s).

Again, I realize that German speakers who innocently use these anglicisms in their English will sound weird, but this is a case of false friend due to the specifics of loaning, and not an example of "pseudo-anglicism" as such. Else you would have to argue that English consists to about 20% of "pseudo-Frenchisms", because half of the words loaned from French in the Middle Ages now have completely different semantics in French. --dab (𒁳) 12:40, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

"Waschmittel für Farbiges" :)))

This put a wry grin in my face. Whilst you English speakers probably have no idea why companies use Color Waschmittel instead, Germans (like me too) will instantly understand why the German term you suggested in the article is a bit, say, controversial. As soon as you omit the s, just for fun, it would be "Waschmittel für Farbige" and get its sense turned upside down: "Washing detergent for colored people"!! Hence, I think that "Denglisch" on the detergent bottles may sometimes also be due to possible controversies with similar sounding words. "Farbiger", "Farbige" was still used in Germany in the 1980s (without anyone feeling offended about it, go figure) for people we'd call African Americans (German: "Afroamerikaner(innen)") at present. -andy 77.191.195.135 (talk) 13:34, 11 November 2013 (UTC)