Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK
OPINION

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

‘Denglisch is for losers, it has to stop’

Professor Walter Krämer, founder of the German Language Society, tells The Local why the Anglicization of German must stop and why Denglisch is for losers.

Published: 7 January 2014 08:44 CET
'Denglisch is for losers, it has to stop'
Photo: DPA

For years the German language has been overwhelmed with a flood of unnecessary and ugly English words and expressions – an advert for yoghurt talks about getting that weekend feeling a television channel runs a Kiddie Contest.

Us Germans do power walking wear outdoor jackets and beach wear, while putting on anti-ageing cream and style our hair.

Deutsche Bahn is perhaps the worst of all offenders with its tickets, service point and McClean.

Some people find it cool but others – the majority of Germans – are annoyed about the superfluous use of English junk and see it as showing contempt for their language.

It is absurd and undignified to replace German words such as Leibwächter, Karte and Fahrrad with bodyguard, card and bike.

This Anglicization of the German language has been accompanied with the global expansion of the American way of life, behind which stands the economic and political power of the USA.

It has changed many countries and their languages and Germany is no different. A lack of loyalty to their language on behalf of some Germans and a readiness to pander to English have, more than anywhere else, led to a mixing of the languages – Denglisch.

We want to counter the Anglicization of German and remind people about the beauty and value of their mother tongue. We want to protect and develop our language. The ability to invent new words and to describe new objects should not stop.

Our society, which has 35,000 members, is not against foreign words being used in German – even English ones. We have no objection to using fair, interview, trainer, doping and slang.

We do not hate foreign words. Most of our board members speak foreign languages and two of our members probably speak better English than any American. One was a pilot for a US airline.

We have nothing anything against German importing words from other languages. A third of all German words are imported.

What we do have a problem with is this attempt to use Denglisch to impress others. People intentionally avoid German words even though they could use it. It is an attempt to suck up to others. That annoys us.

We have a problem with words such as event, highlight, shooting star, outfit which are used to glorify the everyday and the banal. This drivel shuts off many Germans, who do not know these English words, from their own language.

I am often asked for a statement on a certain subject. I tell those who ask that I do not give statements. If they asked me using a German word it would be a different matter. I will give an Aussage.

There is almost always a suitable German word which works and fits with what people want to say.

Take the word highlight. I once counted 30 ways to say highlight in German yet they have all been replaced with one English word.

To counter Denglisch we write to firms guilty of using it, pick a “winner” each year for our language adulterator award and celebrate our annual German Language Day.

Germans who can’t speak English use Denglisch to prance about and say look, I can speak English too. This has to stop. 

Professor Walter Krämer is the founder of the Verein Deutsche Sprache and teaches at the Technical University in Dortmund. 

READ MORE: Let's drop the Angst about Anglicisms

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Le Havre rules: How to talk about French towns beginning with Le, La or Les

If you're into car racing, French politics or visits to seaside resorts you are likely at some point to need to talk about French towns with a 'Le' in the title. But how you talk about these places involves a slightly unexpected French grammar rule. Here's how it works.

Published: 30 November 2021 13:04 CET
Updated: 4 December 2021 17:47 CET
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre.
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre. It can be difficult to know what prepositions to use for places like this - so we have explained it for you. (Photo by AFP)

If you’re listening to French chat about any of those topics, at some point you’re likely to hear the names of Mans, Havre and Touquet bandied about.

And this is because French towns that have a ‘Le’ ‘La’ or ‘Les’ in the title lose them when you begin constructing sentences. 

As a general rule, French town, commune and city names do not carry a gender. 

So if you wanted to describe Paris as beautiful, you could write: Paris est belle or Paris est beau. It doesn’t matter what adjectival agreement you use. 

For most towns and cities, you would use à to evoke movement to the place or explain that you are already there, and de to explain that you come from/are coming from that location:

Je vais à Marseille – I am going to Marseille

Je suis à Marseille – I am in Marseille 

Je viens de Marseille – I come from Marseille 

But a select few settlements in France do carry a ‘Le’, a ‘La’ or a ‘Les’ as part of their name. 

In this case the preposition disappears when you begin formulating most sentences, and you structure the sentence as you would any other phrase with a ‘le’, ‘la’ or ‘les’ in it.

Masculine

Le is the most common preposition for two names (probably something to do with the patriarchy) with Le Havre, La Mans, Le Touquet and the town of Le Tampon on the French overseas territory of La Réunion (more on that later)

A good example of this is Le Havre, a city in northern France where former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, who is tipped to one day run for the French presidency, serves as mayor. 

Edouard Philippe’s twitter profile describes him as the ‘Maire du Havre’, using a masculine preposition

Here we can see that his location is Le Havre, and his Twitter handle is Philippe_LH (for Le Havre) but when he comes to describe his job the Le disappears.

Because Le Havre is masculine, he describes himself as the Maire du Havre rather than the Maire de Havre (Anne Hidalgo, for example would describe herself as the Maire de Paris). 

For place names with ‘Le’ in front of them, you should use prepositions like this:

Ja vais au Touquet – I am going to Le Touquet

Je suis au Touquet – I am in Le Touquet 

Je viens du Touquet – I am from Le Touquet 

Je parle du Touquet – I am talking about Le Touquet

Le Traité du Touquet – the Le Touquet Treaty

Feminine

Some towns carry ‘La’ as part of their name. La Rochelle, the scenic town on the west coast of France known for its great seafood and rugby team, is one such example.

In French ‘à la‘ or ‘de la‘ is allowed, while ‘à le‘ becomes au and ‘de le’ becomes du. So for ‘feminine’ towns such as this, you should use the following prepositions:

Je vais à La Rochelle – I am going to La Rochelle

Je viens de La Rochelle – I am coming from La Rochelle 

Plural

And some places have ‘Les’ in front of their name, like Les Lilas, a commune in the suburbs of Paris. The name of this commune literally translates as ‘The Lilacs’ and was made famous by Serge Gainsbourg’s song Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, about a ticket puncher at the Metro station there. 

When talking about a place with ‘Les’ as part of the name, you must use a plural preposition like so:

Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas – I am the ticket puncher of Lilas 

Je vais aux Lilas – I am going to Les Lilas

Il est né aux Lilas – He was born in Les Lilas  

Islands 

Islands follow more complicated rules. 

If you are talking about going to one island in particular, you would use à or en. This has nothing to do with gender and is entirely randomised. For example:

Je vais à La Réunion – I am going to La Réunion 

Je vais en Corse – I am going to Corsica 

Generally speaking, when talking about one of the en islands, you would use the following structure to suggest movement from the place: 

Je viens de Corse – I am coming from Corsica 

For the à Islands, you would say:

Je viens de La Réunion – I am coming from La Réunion 

When talking about territories composed of multiple islands, you should use aux.

Je vais aux Maldives – I am going to the Maldives. 

No preposition needed 

There are some phrases in French which don’t require any a preposition at all. This doesn’t change when dealing with ‘Le’ places, such as Le Mans – which is famous for its car-racing track and Motorcycle Grand Prix. Phrases that don’t need a preposition include: 

Je visite Le Mans – I am visiting Le Mans

J’aime Le Mans – I like Le Mans

But for a preposition phrase, the town becomes simply Mans, as in Je vais au Mans.

SHOW COMMENTS