{"id":12238,"date":"2020-12-09T11:00:55","date_gmt":"2020-12-09T11:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/?p=12238"},"modified":"2020-12-08T10:34:26","modified_gmt":"2020-12-08T10:34:26","slug":"german-word-of-the-year-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/german-word-of-the-year-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"German Word of the Year 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guten Tag! Today we will look at the\u00a0Wort des Jahres<\/strong>\u00a0in Germany. Each year, the\u00a0Gesellschaft f\u00fcr deutsche Sprache (GfdS)<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 The German Language Association \u2013 picks a word as their\u00a0Wort des Jahres\u00a0\u2013 \u2018Word of the Year\u2019<\/strong>. This is often a word related to a prominent topic in the country during the year, and is usually interesting from a linguistic perspective, too. The Word of the Year has nothing to do with how often<\/em> the word has been used, but is more about the word\u2019s significance. What\u2019s great about learning the German Word of the Year is that it gives us an insight into Germany\u2019s current events, politics and culture, whilst teaching us some quirks of the language, too. So without further ado, let\u2019s take a look at the\u00a0Wort des Jahres 2020!<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Wort des Jahres 2020 is:<\/h2>\n

Die Corona-Pandemie \u2013 The Coronavirus pandemic<\/h3>\n

No surprises there! In fact, many \u2013 but not all – of the words in the top 10 are related to the Covid-19 pandemic. Let\u2019s take a look at them now, to see what other topics were big in Germany in 2020:<\/p>\n

\"\"

Photo by Matt Seymour on Unsplash<\/p><\/div>\n

2. Lockdown<\/h3>\n

Again, this is pretty self-explanatory! If you\u2019re thinking, But that\u2019s an English word?!,<\/em> the German language often takes words from English, and many of them usually show up in the Wort des Jahres lists- the current lockdown in Germany is even called a \u2018Lockdown Light\u2019, due to having slightly lighter restrictions than the previous one!<\/p>\n

3. Verschw\u00f6rungserz\u00e4hlung<\/h3>\n

\u2018Conspiracy story\u2019. This is also related to the pandemic; like many others, Germany has had a problem with conspiracy theorists breaking the rules and protesting the country\u2019s lockdowns this year. The word is broken down into: die Verschw\u00f6rung<\/strong> (the conspiracy) and die Erz\u00e4hlung<\/strong> (the story\/tale).<\/p>\n

4. Black Lives Matter<\/h3>\n

This is another unsurprising addition to the list, as it was just a big a topic in Germany as anywhere else in the world. I wrote a post on Black Lives Matter in Germany, which you can read here!<\/a><\/p>\n

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Photo by Chris Henry on Unsplash<\/p><\/div>\n

5. AHA<\/h3>\n

This is an acronym used in Germany to remind people of how to stay safe in daily day life during the pandemic. It stands for Abstand (distance) \u2013 Hygiene (hygiene) \u2013 Alltagsmaske (daily mask\/face covering).<\/p>\n

6. systemrelevant<\/h3>\n

Literally \u2018systemically relevant\u2019, this word refers to the businesses and sectors of society that were deemed essential, or non-essential, during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

7. Triage<\/h3>\n

The subject of hospital care has of course been a widely discussed topic during the pandemic, so it makes sense that a word like Triage would be on this list. By the way, this word is the same in German and English: Die Triage (triage).<\/p>\n

8. Geisterspiele<\/h3>\n

Literally \u2018ghost games\u2019, this is how football games were described when they were once again allowed to go ahead \u2013 in empty stadiums, to prevent the spread of the virus!<\/p>\n

\"\"

Photo by Sicong Li on Unsplash<\/p><\/div>\n

9. Gendersternchen<\/h3>\n

This is the second word of the list that has nothing to do with the pandemic. The Gendersternchen<\/strong> \u2013 \u2018gender star\u2019 \u2013 is an addition that aims to make the German language more gender-neutral. Please read this post<\/a> for more on the Gendersternchen and how this affects the German language!<\/p>\n

10. Bleiben Sie gesund!<\/h3>\n

And, lastly, one of the phrases seen everywhere in Germany throughout 2020: Bleiben Sie gesund!<\/strong> – \u2018Stay healthy!\u2019<\/strong> .<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"

‘Keep your head up. Everything will be fine.’ Photo by Tobias Rademacher on Unsplash<\/p><\/div>\n

Previous years:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wort des Jahres 2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Wort des Jahres 2018<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Guten Tag! Today we will look at the\u00a0Wort des Jahres\u00a0in Germany. Each year, the\u00a0Gesellschaft f\u00fcr deutsche Sprache (GfdS)\u00a0\u2013 The German Language Association \u2013 picks a word as their\u00a0Wort des Jahres\u00a0\u2013 \u2018Word of the Year\u2019. This is often a word related to a prominent topic in the country during the year, and is usually interesting from…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":12244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3,8],"tags":[522241,532859,522242,533290,522243,529261,376028,95131,376023,358620,375962],"class_list":["post-12238","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-language","tag-corona-chronicles-germany","tag-corona-virus","tag-corona-virus-germany","tag-corona-virus-in-germany","tag-corona-virus-munich","tag-coronavirus","tag-current-events","tag-german-language","tag-language","tag-word-of-the-year","tag-wort-des-jahres"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12238"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12248,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12238\/revisions\/12248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}