German language purism

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Under German language purism (also: language purification) refers to efforts that German language from foreign and loan words to clean by these replaced by matching or fitting appearing German words or forms new German words.

In Germany, according to Peter von Polenz , the term linguistic purism applies more to the efforts to maintain language skills in the 17th and 18th centuries, which were not only directed against foreign words but were also pronounced within the language.

The background was that before the French Revolution (1789 to 1799) it was customary for the nobility to speak French and the emerging bourgeoisie and intellectuals imitated this nobility .

The efforts within the long tradition of language care associations were usually based on a love of the German mother tongue in the 19th and early 20th centuries as well as a more or less nationally pronounced attitude.

Baroque and Enlightenment

Philipp von Zesen

The first German language society that wanted to counteract foreign words was the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft , founded in 1617 . Other language societies followed with similar goals.

The linguistic situation was pointedly summarized in the popular satirical pamphlet Teutscher Michel (around 1638):

I German Michel /
Understand nichel ,
In my fatherland /
It's a shame.
One does talk now /
As like the Swedes /
In my fatherland /
It's a shame.

Every Schneyder /
Will now and leyder
The language to be experienced /
Vnd speaks Latin:
French and French /
Half Japanese /
When he is full and doll /
The rough Knoll.
...
You pious Germans /
You should be chased /
That the mother tongue
so little heed .
Dear gentlemen /
That means nothing more /
The language
pervert / destroy.

As a result, there was repeated Germanization, especially Latin and French terms .

The writer Philipp von Zesen (1619–1689) used terms such as "distance" (for distance ), "library" (for library or liberey ), "moment" (for moment ), "passion" (for passion ), "draft" (for project ), "address" (for address ), "correspondence" (for correspondence), " comedy " (for comedy ), "dialect" (for dialect ), "spelling" (for orthography ), "diary" (for Journal ) or "Author" (for author ). Word creations such as “witness mother” (for nature ), “dismemberer” (for anatomist ), “maiden kennel” (for nunnery ), “meuchelpuffer” (for pistol ), which earned Zesen the derision of his contemporaries, remained unsuccessful.

Christian Wolff

The philosopher Christian Wolff (1679–1754) laid the foundation for the upswing of German philosophy in the 18th century by introducing Latin technical terms into German (“basis” is a formation from Wolff for Latin fundamentum ).

Joachim Heinrich Campe

The writer, educator and publisher Joachim Heinrich Campe (1746–1818) was given words such as “antiquity” (for antiquity ), “ground floor” (for ground floor ), “actually”, “sensitivity” (for both delicacy and tact ), "College" (for university ), "rendezvous" (for rendezvous ), "reign of terror" (for terrorism ), "distorted image" (for caricature ), "man woman" (for amazon) or "marginal note". Campe also created German terms for grammatical terms, for example “singular”, “plural”, “suffix”, “switching phrase” or “prepositional”. Others of Campe's suggestions could not prevail, however, such as "Cultivation of the mind" (for culture), "Zwischenstille" (pause), "dried body" (mummy), "upholstered bed" (sofa), "artificial cave" (grotto), "rogue" (Irony) or "obsessive-believers" (Catholics).

It is unclear whether the famous “ face oriel ” for “nose” was ever a serious suggestion or rather a satire on linguistic purism.

In many cases today, both the original and the purist term continue to exist in parallel (like the already mentioned pair “foundation” / “basis”), although there may be differences in meaning, differences in regional distribution and use (some terms are regional or out of date ) or other differences.

The linguistic purism also received criticism from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , who spoke out in favor of not frowning on foreign words, but rather taking them up productively:

Xenien (Goethe / Schiller ), 152. The purist.
You are sensible to clear the language of foreign words,
Well, tell me, friend, how pedant is translated into German for us.

At the same time he let it be known: The mother tongue is both purifying and enriching, is the business of the best minds , and therefore advocated taking useless words from the language and adding equally useful words - also from other languages.

19th century

The Germanist Hermann von Pfister-Schwaighusen (1836–1916) suggested in 1875 the use of the term “völkisch” instead of “national”.

In 1885 the General German Language Association was founded. The General Post Director Heinrich von Stephan found German translations for the technical terms of the language of the Post, which were previously all French. Examples are “ poste restante ” for poste restante or “address” for address . Stephen's educations were sometimes only used in the official language of the post, in everyday language it stayed with the French foreign words, for example franking instead of 'franking' or telephone instead of 'telephone'.

The engineer Otto Sarrazin can be seen as Stephen's counterpart on the railway . He got involved with the General German Language Association and published a dictionary of German translations in 1886 . For the railways, for example, he suggested the terms “compartment” (instead of coupé ), “platform” (instead of platform ), “ticket” (instead of ticket ) and “return ticket” (instead of return ticket ). In the context of contemporary nationalist politics, he encountered state support and the railroad decreed the use of the “German” terms.

time of the nationalsocialism

This tradition lived on during the Nazi era , although the leadership had concerns that too much purism could lead to backwardness. The General German Language Association then dissolved.

In German-speaking countries, when they hear the word linguistic purism , some people think of the language policy of the National Socialists . In a decree of November 19, 1940, "the artificial replacement of foreign words that had long been naturalized into German" was expressly disapproved. In "Mein Kampf" Hitler writes:

“If anything is ungölkisch, then it is this tossing around with particularly old Germanic expressions that neither fit into the present day nor represent something specific, but can easily lead to the meaning of a movement in its external vocabulary. This is real nonsense, but it can be seen countless times today. "

Victor Klemperer also describes in his book LTI - Notebook of a Philologist that foreign words were used to cover up during the National Socialist era :

“A well-taught sign, just as the Third Reich loved the sounding foreign expression from time to time: 'Guarantor' sounds more meaningful than 'guarantor' and 'defame' more impressive than 'badly'. (Perhaps not everyone understands it, and it affects them even more.) "

present

In the present, hardly anyone feels obliged to linguistic purism . This designation is an anachronism today . The efforts to find German with few foreign words are more likely to be attributed to language criticism and language cultivation , to which several language associations are dedicated.

Sprachpflegevereine oppose the (frequent) use of Anglicisms and replace them with German words. German translation dictionaries or lists are also offered for this purpose. As a replacement example, “world network” for “ Internet ” is mentioned here , which is particularly widespread in right-wing extremist circles.

In the current language development, the original words are predominantly retained (“CD”, “Internet”), in some cases pseudo Anglicisms (“Handy”, “Oldtimer”, “Talkmaster”, “Happy End”) are being formed, while others are displacing Anglicisms sometimes existing designations (“CD player” instead of “CD player”); Finally, some words are successfully translated into German (“download” for “download”).

See also

literature

Essays

Monographs

  • Alan Kirkness: On language cleaning in German 1789–1871. A historical documentation . Narr, Tübingen 1975, ISBN 3-87808-626-1 (2 volumes).
  • Falco Pfalzgraf: Neopurism in Germany after the fall of the Wall . Peter Lang, Frankfurt / M. 2006, ISBN 3-631-54854-0 .
  • Peter von Polenz: German language history from the late Middle Ages to the present. Volume 3: 19th and 20th centuries. De Gruyter, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-11-014344-5 .
  • Leo Spitzer : Hunting foreign words and hating foreign nations. A pamphlet against language cleaning . Manzsche Hof-, Verlag- and University-Bookstore, Vienna 1918.
  • Anja Stukenbrock: Linguistic nationalism. Language reflection as a medium of collective identity creation in Germany (1617–1945) . De Gruyter, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-11-018278-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Halyna Leontiy: Multicultural Germany in a Language Comparison. LIT Verlag Münster, 2013, ISBN 978-3-643-11639-0 , p. 175 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  2. ↑ Walter Kuhfuß: A cultural history of French teaching in the early modern period. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013, ISBN 978-3-847-00132-4 , p. 289 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  3. ↑ Language heroes and language spoilers. Documents for research into foreign word purism in German (1478–1750). Selected and commented on by William Jervis Jones. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York, 1995, ISBN 3-11-014480-8 , pp. 138–157 (here based on Innsbruck print B). In abridged form in 1643 by Johann Michael Moscherosch (1601–1669), s. Speech heroes ... p. 274.
  4. ↑ Klemm: When the Sorre in the Gilbhart drives through the witness mother…. 2005.
  5. ↑ Joachim Heinrich Campe : Dictionary of the German Language, Erg.Bd .: "Delicatésse"
  6. ↑ Joachim Heinrich Campe: Dictionary of the German Language, Erg.Bd .: "Táct"
  7. ^ Joachim Heinrich Campe: Dictionary of the German language. Vol. 1-5. Reprograph. Reprint d. Braunschweig 1807-1811. Olms, Hildesheim 1969-70 a. Erg.-Vol .: "Dictionary for the explanation and Germanization of the foreign expressions that have penetrated our language". Reprograph. Reprint d. Ed. Braunschweig 1813. Olms, Hildesheim 1970.
  8. ↑ Friedrich Kluge (Etymological Dictionary of the German Language. 18th ed. Edited by Walther Mitzka . Berlin 1960.) finds the word erroneously attributed to Zesen “but only in Matthison [( Friedrich von Matthisson )] 1795 [...] as Attempt by an unnamed purist. "
  9. ↑ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Works (Hamburg edition in 14 volumes), Volume 12. Writings on art and literature, maxims and reflections, 12th, reviewed edition, Munich 1998, p. 509.
  10. ↑ Blume: Successes and failures of lexical purism in Germany at the time of the General German Language Association and today. 2013.
  11. ↑ We therefore determine that all-essential foreign words in the course of duties must be avoided and [...] by [...] to replace German names are (railway management Mainz (Hg). Official Journal of the Royal Prussian and Grand Ducal Hessian railway management in Mainz of 26. November 1904, No. 60. Announcement No. 609, p. 659).
  12. ↑ Decree of the Reich Minister for Science, Education and National Education, in: Deutsche Wissenschaft, Erziehungs und Volksbildung, Official Journal 6 (1940), p. 534.
  13. ^ Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf , Volume 1, p. 395 (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1933)
  14. ^ Victor Klemperer: LTI - notebook of a philologist . Reclam-Verlag , Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-15-010743-0 , Chapter 1, p. 18.
  15. ^ Thomas Paulwitz , Stefan Micko: Engleutsch? No thanks! How do I say it in German? A people's dictionary , (2nd edition) Erlangen and Vienna, 2000, 132 pages, ISBN 3-00-005949-0
  16. ↑ Reiner Pogarell, Markus Schröder (Ed.): Dictionary of superfluous Anglicisms , Paderborn: IFB-Verlag, 1999, 168 pages, ISBN 3-931263-33-9
  17. ↑ The Anglicism Index of the German Language Association
  18. ^ Fruitful dictionary
  19. ↑ Neo-Nazis in the “Weltnetz”: Few activists - with a lot of space . ( Memento from March 2, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) NPD blog, March 7, 2007.
  20. ↑ On the trail of extremists . In: Die Welt , 23 August 2000.