It's in the dictionary, so yes, it is a German word. Many people criticize the influx of English, or pseudo-English, vocabulary into the German language. But I think that misses the point. Since natural language does evolve and is only sparsely subject to "intelligent design" it isn't static or discrete. Natural language is subject to a gradual evolution that can result in a split or junction of languages.
Take the English term science-fiction, you could also call it Zukunftsroman (Future-novel) in German. Or the German word Zeitgeist as it is used in the English world. You could instead say "spirit of the time".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languages#Historical_evolution To illustrate my point with an analogy: http://scienceblogs.com/gnxp/2009/08/invasive_species_human_excepti.php "But the term "invasive" seems more a normative than a scientific one, after all, at some point endemic species were invasive."
But don't take my word, I'm not very educated (yet). My interests far exceed my knowledge ;-)
That's just the kind of discussion I used to have with my father. He said that grammar is a set of rules that govern a language. My contention is that language is protean, and grammar is just a way of describing how it works at any one time.
Hey, Alexander, I left school with two 'O' levels and no idea what a sentence was.
I left school with the lowest possible graduation you can get in Germany. I'm trying hard to educate myself, study further when I have time these days.
Writing a book though, that's something inconceivable for me right now.
4 comments:
It's in the dictionary, so yes, it is a German word. Many people criticize the influx of English, or pseudo-English, vocabulary into the German language. But I think that misses the point. Since natural language does evolve and is only sparsely subject to "intelligent design" it isn't static or discrete. Natural language is subject to a gradual evolution that can result in a split or junction of languages.
Take the English term science-fiction, you could also call it Zukunftsroman (Future-novel) in German. Or the German word Zeitgeist as it is used in the English world. You could instead say "spirit of the time".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languages#Historical_evolution
To illustrate my point with an analogy:
http://scienceblogs.com/gnxp/2009/08/invasive_species_human_excepti.php
"But the term "invasive" seems more a normative than a scientific one, after all, at some point endemic species were invasive."
But don't take my word, I'm not very educated (yet). My interests far exceed my knowledge ;-)
That's just the kind of discussion I used to have with my father. He said that grammar is a set of rules that govern a language. My contention is that language is protean, and grammar is just a way of describing how it works at any one time.
Hey, Alexander, I left school with two 'O' levels and no idea what a sentence was.
Other - even more interesting - German words include:
"E-Mail"
"googeln"
"einloggen"
"updaten"
"downloaden"
"chatten"
I could go on for hours;-)
I left school with the lowest possible graduation you can get in Germany. I'm trying hard to educate myself, study further when I have time these days.
Writing a book though, that's something inconceivable for me right now.
We'll see :-)
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