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Germish (in German Denglisch) also referred to as Denglish, Engleutsch, Germlish, Genglish or Ginglish describes language based on the German grammar that includes a jumble of English and pseudo-English idioms, or vice versa. 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.
Germanisation of English wordsDue to lack of rules for proper declension and conjugation forms, English words within Germish will be added a flexion to, so they often come out in some twisted form. One may hear from native German speakers:
or
Twisting of German idioms and grammar rulesThe adaptation also takes the other route, where literal translations from popular English expression slowly but insistently swamp out the correct German words and idioms. Widespread examples of this evolution are:
Some of those constructs will only be found in youth language, where it has become common, for example, to talk about coole Events which captures almost, but not quite, the respective meaning in English. Involuntary blundersOf course, a decent type of Denglisch can also result from English-speaking people trying to converse in German, discovering themselves as embarazados. The unrivalled master of to-the-point German, Kurt Tucholsky, gave a parody of possible mishaps:
whereas the intended meaning could have been: "Would you be so kind as to lick the reverse of my postal stamp?" (arguably a rather contrived example). Here, the two prominent linguistic accidents are the notorious false friend kind/child and the hintern/backside. The reverse also works. For instance, this can allegedly sometimes be heard from Germans in fast-food restaurants (in English speaking countries):
It derives its humor from the fact that the English verbs "to get" or "to obtain" translate as the German verb "bekommen", which is in turn similar to the word English word "become" (in German, the word for "become" is "werden"). So what the customer actually wanted to express was the wish to purchase a beef patty sandwiched in a soggy bun, not to become one. Some Germish has become so pervasive (and so rarely recognized as incorrect) that it has entered the German dictionary. Probably the most striking example of this must be the German term Handy. "Handy" is now the regular and official German word for mobile phone. Many Germans are under the misconception that "handy" was the English term for "mobile phone" as well — they are genuinely surprised when told otherwise. Since English language is often seen as "hip" and "tech-savvy", and also due to the fact that mobile phone adoption in Germany was so rapid, the error was rarely caught and the term "Handy" stuck. Some Germans have suggested that "Handy" has a non-English etymology, but it is rather unlikely such theories are correct: It is probably telling in this context that Germans use American English pronunciation with "Handy" (German pronunciation would be different). There is an alternative term of "Mobiltelefon", but this is almost never used and a speaker using it would be more likely to be identified as a foreigner by Germans. Influence on grammarOf 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.
Another phenomenon is the wrong use of the apostrophe. It is often used in the English way (which in German is wrong) for the genitive:
Or even for the plural:
The false use of the apostrophe is sometimes very rudely referred to as Deppenapostroph which means fool's apostrophe. Machine translationsEven when the desired effect is not comical, automatic literal translations of idioms or idiomatic language like those produced by AltaVista's Babel Fish can result in language that will most probably sound hilarious. Take the sentence from the German Wikipedia for instance:
The German to English Babel Fish machine translation (as of 2004) of this is:
Instead of the (correct) English sentence:
For completeness, the English to German Babel Fish machine translation (as of 2004) is as follows:
Arbitrary GermishOf course, this approach to a sort of interlingua can also be taken to the extremes, like in this long-famous warning sign (the German equivalent of the Blinkenlights sign) where the influence of the German tongue is now restricted to parts of the spelling and partial literal back translations which results in a faint impression of a German computer administrator trying to make himself understood: The experts: Attention! This room is fullfilled mit special electronishe equippment. Fingergrabbling and pressing the cnoeppkes from the Computermashine is allowed for the experts only! So all lefthanders stay away and do not disturben the brainstorming von here working intelligencies. Otherwise you will be outthrown and kicked elsewhere. Also: please keep still and only watchen astaunished the shufting operator! Another example of unintended consequences in Germish is the use of the word body bag for backpacks, although the proper German word Rucksack would be perfectly acceptable in many dialects of English. Advertising languageThere seems to be a common notion that English substitutes for plain German words somehow make phrases sound more engaging and technically top-notch. German commercials or - more often - written ads thus are likely to overuse English terms:
Truly marvelous inventions can be found in the field of body care: Double Action Waschgel Even some of the traditionally conservative companies tend to adopt neologisms that they consider to sound more international than their original German counterparts. Thus, the venerable "Deutsche Bahn AG" (German Rail) did not mind calling their information booths/stands "service points". The word "Kundendienst" (customer service), in contrast, has almost completely fallen out of use now (probably because it actually sounds like more of an effort to German ears than the rather noncommittal "service"). Sometimes such neologisms also use CamelCase, as in the German Telecom's former rate "GermanCall". Some advertisements are often misunderstood: Come in and find out. - Come in and try to find a way out. See alsoExternal links
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