nucular and Latino

[Paul Frank]

> What is Neudeutsch?
> Victoria

Neudeutsch is a trendy and ugly type of German that employs a great many
English and pseudo-English words. I have nothing against borrowing useful
words from other languages. All languages do this. Borrowing has made the
English language rich and beautiful. But along with most Germans, I am
unhappy about the excessive use of English words by advertising and business
hacks who have little to say. Unfortunately, there's nothing that can be
done about it. Legislation will not work: it hasn't in France, Brazil, or
Poland, although it must be said that the situation is much more serious in
Germany than in France. This is a sensitive issue in Germany, because from
1933 to about 1942, the Nazis tried to protect the German language from
foreign influence, although even the Nazis were accused of debasing the
language with foreign words. For an examination of the 20th-century history
of foreign word-borrowing in Germany, see Peter von Polenz, "Fremdwort und
Lehnwort sprachwissenschaftlich betrachtet":
http://www.univie.ac.at/Germanistik/schrodt/vorlesungsmaterialien/Polenz.htm
). The Verein der deutschen Sprache has a very entertaining webpage on the
question of Neudeutsch (also known as Denglish):
http://www.vds-ev.de/literatur/texte/seckelmann.php . By the way, I'm not a
language purist or prescriptivist. But I love the German language and I hate
Neudeutsch. There isn't a single German-English translator who doesn't hate
Neudeutsch. A lot of people revert to Neudeutsch when they have nothing to
say or can't write proper German.

Paul
_________________________________
Paul Frank
English translation from Chinese, German,
French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese
Tel. +33 450 709 990 - Thollon, France
E-mail: paulfrank at post.harvard.edu