Photo by erix on flickr.com under CC BY 2.0
Denglisch (German spelling) or Denglish (English spelling) is probably a term you’ve heard before. It is used to describe the mish-mash of German and English that is becoming more and more prominent in Germany.
Using English words instead of German ones, or anglicising the German language in one way or another is now fashionable, and English can even be seen in German advertising and media (which is probably why everybody else is using it, too). There are different types of Denglisch, but today I’m going to focus on the Denglisch that’s used on social media and websites.
I follow a fair few Germans on Instagram and Twitter, and I often come across some English or anglicised words in their Tweets and captions. Here’s a little list of words I’ve seen used on social media and other websites:
Shoppen (or even Schoppen) –to shop
Klicken –to click
Browsen –to browse
Einloggen –to log in
Gesnoozed – snoozed
Googeln –to google
Downloaden –to download
Chatten –to chat
But what are these words in German, rather than Denglisch? The following ones are pretty straight-forward:
Shoppen :: Einkaufen
Downloaden :: Herunterladen
Chatten :: Plaudern
Einloggen :: Anmelden
Denglisch in use online! Photo by tomascaspers on flickr.com under CC BY-SA 2.0
The rest of them are a little more complicated!
Klicken :: Actually, klicken is the German word. But it was loaned from the English click. To be more German, you could use the word drücken – to press. By saying, Hier drücken, for example, you’re saying Click here (in the context of internet usage, anyway).
Browsen :: The German translation of to browse is durchblättern, though this refers to leafing through a book. You could also say durchsuchen (to look through/search through). Another commonly used phrase for browsen is Im Internet surfen – which is Denglisch at its best! This particular phrase (Im Internet surfen) is nothing new, though – I remember it from years back!
Gesnoozed :: Yes, I really saw this. I think this horrible word was used in a sentence like, Ich habe ein bisschen gesnoozed (I snoozed a little bit). The snooze button is called Die Schlummerfunktion in German. The correct way to say ‘I snoozed a little bit’ is Ich habe ein bisschen geschlummert.
Googeln :: Since to google is an acceptable verb in the English language now, we can let the Germans off this particular Denglisch word. However, if you wanted to use the word for what to google really means – ‘to look something up’ – then you can use the verb nachschauen.
I’m intrigued to find out which Denglisch words you’ve seen or used on social media, websites and forums! Let me know in the comments!
Bis später,
Constanze x
Comments:
Angie:
The most striking example of Denglisch I’ve seen is using ‘s (commonly called Saxon-genitive) to indicate possession. Mein Vater’s Katze instead of Die Katze meines Vaters.
Also – internet acronyms I often see people writing entirely in perfectly fluent German, but they’ll use acronyms like ‘imho’ (in my honest opinion) or ‘rofl’ (rolling on the floor laughing.) It seems similar to how in English we use Latin acronyms like i.e or e.g.
Constanze:
@Angie Thanks for your very insightful comment, Angie! When you compare it to how we use Latin abbreviations, it does seem to make more sense (though does that mean ‘imho’ and ‘rofl’ are the future?!?). I have seen things like My Vater’s Katze, too. If anything it’s confusing for people who want to learn German correctly.
Allan Mahnke:
Alas! I have no doubt this is real. If you had only seen the things my family members wrote to each other more than 100 years ago.
I read a piece by Bastian Sick (Zwiebelfisch) in Der Spiegel a year or 2 ago about a man, whose name escapes me at the moment. His goal was to eliminate latinate words from German. It was as silly as these words are now!
English is a language that has always (at least since 1066) absorbed so-called “foreign words” with reckless abandon. It seems a little sad that German has had to adopt words as its own that seem dubious to this English speaker. German is an elegant language, so I hope that it can be a bit more discriminating in the neoloigisms it takes in.
adventure book:
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Zach:
Recently I’ve been playing the new Metal Gear Solid game in German, and they use quite a bit of denglisch. Every time I turn it on it says “Auf dem Server eingeloggt” but what I find strangest is that the “support team” is called “Unterstützungseinheit,” but the R&D team is called “Entwicklungsteam”
Constanze:
@Zach Are you playing it in German as a way of improving/learning German? If so, that’s brilliant! 🙂 Yes, things like ‘einloggen’ are very common nowadays, as funny as they may sound. I’m afraid I don’t know what an ‘R&D team’ is. If you tell me, maybe I could shed a bit more light on that translation! 🙂 Thanks for the comment.