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Changes to German

Printed From: FSI Language Courses
Category: Learning Languages
Forum Name: German
Forum Discription: Discussion about studying German using the FSI course.
URL: http://fsi-language-courses.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=292
Printed Date: 16 January 2009 at 2:44am


Topic: Changes to German
Posted By: Lother
Subject: Changes to German
Date Posted: 19 January 2007 at 6:45am
I understand that modern german is changing fast into an english hybrid, much the way japanese is. The younger people speak and use borrowed words such as 'gekillt' when they already have german equivalents.

I wonder how this affects us Hochdeutsch learners. I believe it just may become an issue, not now, but maybe in 20 years when our german will seem archaic to some. On the other hand for us english speakers it's good news.

What have you heard about this phenomena regarding the language itself?



Replies:
Posted By: Exocrist
Date Posted: 19 January 2007 at 6:18pm
Germans' say "Sorry" all the time, but with the full German accent.  :)


Posted By: reachrishikh
Date Posted: 23 September 2007 at 3:14pm
lol, This reminds me of a little joke someone posted on another forum some time back, but it sorta works in reverse of what the OP has mentioned. Here goes -
 
 
Euro-English now official language!
 
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c".

Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year
when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year,

publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer
peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as
replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer,
ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and
after ziz fifz yer,
ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.


Posted By: JonB
Date Posted: 27 September 2007 at 11:44am
I think it's maybe an exaggeration to say that German is 'changing fast into an English hybrid'. This certainly wasn't my impression during the long time I spent living and studying in Germany!
 
Of course, lots of people in Germany learn English at school, and they are often keen to practise speaking it whenever they meet an American or English person. This can sometimes give a traveller the entirely false impression that English (or even broken English!) is spoken by everone in Germany all of the time.
 
It's also true that a fair number of English words are being borrowed over into German - but that is not quite the same thing as hybridization. (Neither can it be assumed that these borrowings are all recent. I'm fairly certain that the example you give - the verb 'killen' for 'to kill' - has been around in German since the 1920s, at least.)
 
You also have to remember that there are certain inherent similarities between English and German - i.e. they have always been 'sister languages'.Wink



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