Eleven curious things from the world of the German language. Even Germany’s most famous poet, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, would not have known that:
/1//words like “Ohrwurm”, “Fahrvergnügen” or “Baggersee” might ever exist and even become the German language’s “export hits”. They are an indication that other languages also may use German as a treasure trove should they be missing a suitable term themselves.
/2//a book would be published with rules on how German should be written: the Duden. And that most German words in it have eleven letters.
/3//the word “Grundstücksverkehrsgenehmigungszuständigkeitsübertragungsverordnung”, a term from the world of red tape, could have a record number of 67 letters.
/4//the German language has between 300,000 and 500,000 words. Thus the German word-pool ranks between French (100,000 words) and English (600,000 to 800,000 words).
/5//the active vocabulary of an average German is estimated at some 12,000 to 16,000 words, although most Germans understand up to 50,000 words without any difficulty.
/6//there is such a thing as Belgrano-German in Argentina, Texas-German in the USA, Deutsch-Mokra in Ukraine, Küchendeutsch in Namibia and Unser Deutsch in Papua-New Guinea. German-speaking enclaves exist on almost all continents.
/7//under the telephone number 09001-88 81 28 you can reach the Gesellschaft für Deutsche Sprache in Wiesbaden, a society from which you can receive information on all questions relating to the German language.
/8//the Wiesbaden society chose the word “Abwrackprämie” as the “2009 Word of the Year”. It describes the environmental bonus paid for scrapping an old car.
/9//new words like “Gigaliner”, “Regenbogenfamilie” or “Zwergplanet” could one day exist. These are three of more than 5,000 new words included in the 25th edition of the Duden.
/10//Kiezdeutsch would become the multi-ethnic language of young people, mixing Arabic and Turkish words with German and thus giving rise to a new dialect: “Lassma Viktoriapark gehen, Lan.”
/11//the letters WAMAWIHEAD and BIGLEZUHAU indicate the ability to say as much as possible with as few text message characters as possible. The text message abbreviations stand for: What will we do this evening? I’ll be home right away.
