Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Appropriations committee

A short but entertaining piece on the BBC about the German use of English words. The funny thing is, Germans use English words all the time - almost constantly, in fact - and so Chancellor Merkel's adoption of one is not all that odd to me. Even my most reluctant students talk about das Email, der Computer, ein Hacker, and die Information.

English was created from German and Latin/French; German has been taking words, especially those to do with technology, from English for decades now. It's actually funny to me how much non-German speakers can figure out on menus or street signs because German and English are so close. They're only getting closer.

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