German Academics and Authors Call for End to 'Gender Nonsense'

THE GUARDIAN: Open letter hits back at demand for more gender-neutral nouns

A group of German authors, comedians and academics have added fuel to the flames of an increasingly bad-tempered culture war over language bias by calling for a fightback against “ridiculous linguistic constructions” designed to make German more gender-neutral.

In an open letter published by the Dortmund-based German Language Association, signatories including the philosopher Rüdiger Safranski, novelist Peter Schneider, comedian Dieter Hallervorden and the former head of the country’s domestic intelligence Hans-Georg Maassen, hit back against calls for more gender-neutral generic nouns.

In German, where nouns have either a male, female or neuter gender, words for mixed groups of people are traditionally based on the masculine form. If you are talking about a group of teachers, for example, you would say die Lehrer, not die Lehrerinnen. » | Philip Oltermann | Friday, March 8, 2019

Boom in German Lessons as Europe's Jobless Head North
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Classes in German are booming across southern Europe as young Spaniards, Greeks and Italians flee their own recession-hit countries to seek employment in the region's powerhouse.

More than 9,000 Spaniards took German courses last year, a jump of 56 percent since 2009, new figures show. Of those studying the language in Madrid, one third were under the age of 25.

Unemployment in Spain stood at 26 percent in January - twice the average for the European Union - while more than half of young people are unemployed.

The classes appear to be paying off, however: in Germany, the number of Spanish workers finding employment rose by just over 12 percent last year. The number of Spaniards living in Berlin alone jumped to 11,473 in 2011 from 8,223 the previous year.

In Greece, where young people alone were facing an unemployment rate of nearly 60 percent last year, enrollment in German classes has surged by 24 percent since the start of the credit crunch. Last year, the number of Greeks working in Germany climbed by around 10%.

Italians were also dusting off their German books, with some 4,700 enrolling in classes last year, an increase of 28 percent since the financial crisis began. Read on and comment » | Jeevan Vasagar, Berlin | Friday, March 01, 2013

Want German Lessons in Athens? Join the Queue
eKATHIMERINI: Ruediger Bolz has 350 students coming through the doors of his German language institute in central Athens each day -- 20 percent up on a year go.

The rush among Greeks to learn German may seem odd after the war of words between the two countries, with Athens fuming at German accusations of financial mismanagement and some Greek media playing on Nazi caricatures of Berlin politicians.

Yet for Bolz, who has run the Goethe-Institut for the last six years, there is no mystery: his Greek pupils are happy to side-step politics and face up to harsh economic realities by acquiring new skills.

”Most of those coming to us are young students or academics and they are doing all they can to improve their professional qualifications,” Bolz said in his office at the state-run agency, which like the British Council or French Institute has the job of promoting national culture and language.

”No doubt some of them have plans to leave Greece but most of them just think they will stand a better chance of getting a job if they have a foreign language - in Greece or elsewhere.” Greek unemployment has soared to over 20 percent largely due to the global slowdown and a first round of budget cuts demanded by lenders as the price for a first debt bailout in 2010 to save Greece from a chaotic default. » | ekathimerini.com | Friday, February 24, 2012

Language Wars in South Tyrol
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A language war has broken out amid the normally placid lakes and mountains of Italy's German-speaking South Tyrol region.

Italian-speakers are furious at the number of footpath signs which have been erected in only German in the Dolomites, an area that is renowned for its extensive hiking trails and spectacular scenery.

Hikers who speak only Italian have been left bamboozled when confronted with signs pointing to an Archaologischer wanderweg [sic] [Wanderweg] (archaeological trail) or a wasserfall [sic] [Wasserfall] (waterfall - which in Italian would be the vastly different “cascata”).

The region, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until it was ceded to Italy at the end of the First World War, is supposed to be bilingual, a dual identity reflected in its name - Alto Adige in Italian and Sud [sic] Tirol [Südtirol] in German.

Road signs are rendered in both Italian and German - the regional capital of Bolzano, for instance, is Bozen in German while the town of Bressanone is also known as Brixen - but up in the mountains, particularly in areas close to the Austrian border, German increasingly predominates.

Heaped with snow in winter and baked by the sun in summer, the timber signs do not last forever. » | Nick Squires, Rome | Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Germany Launches Campaign to Save Language from English
THE TELEGRAPH: German language experts have launched a campaign against the hybrid "Denglish" which they claim is polluting culture through its growing use in advertising and television.

English is widely spoken in Germany and English expressions and Anglicisms are common. Photo: The Telegraph
The advocacy groups are intensifying their fight against the use of a hybrid of the two languages, which has begun to encroach on everyday parlance.

As part of the campaign, the German Language Foundation called on Germans to find an alternative for the English term "fast food". The result was "Ruckizuckifutti"*.

"We don't want to be language purists, but we want people to be aware of how they speak and that certain linguistic imports just don't fit into German," said Cornelius Sommer, a former German ambassador and one of the leaders of the campaign.

Another advocacy group, the German Language Club, has called on telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom to stop using terms like "Blackberry Webmail" and criticised national rail operator Deutsche Bahn for similar misnomers.

They face an uphill battle in Germany, where English is widely spoken and English expressions and Anglicisms are common. >>> | Tuesday, July 27, 2010

*Who on earth thought up this ridiculous word? It would be easy to come up with something better than this. What about Schnellimbiß or Schnellessen? Those would do the trick. At least they trump “Ruckizuckifutti”! What kind of nonsense is that? – Mark

German Language Adds 5,000 Words
BBC: Around 5,000 new words have been officially added to the German language - many of them from the English-speaking world.

The newcomers appear in the latest edition of the respected German dictionary, Duden.

Germans can now go to "eine After-Show-Party", as long as it is not "eine No-Go Area", and meet "das It Girl" - if she does not have "der Babyblues".

Fans of social networking can also "twittern", which means to Twitter.

The financial crisis has inspired many of the new entries in the 135,000-word dictionary.

'Kreditklemme'

Appearing for the first time are "Kreditklemme" (credit crunch), "Konjunkturpaket" (stimulus package) and "Abwrackpraemie" (car scrappage bonus).

The word "Ehrenmord" (honour killing) also makes it into the dictionary, which was published on Wednesday.

The German language is known for its extremely long compound nouns.

And the new edition includes a 23-letter example: "Vorratsdatenspeicherung", which means the saving of data relating to supplies.

The first Duden dictionary was produced in 1880 and consisted of just 27,000 words. [Source: BBC] | Wednesday, July 22, 2009