{"id":13727,"date":"2022-01-26T15:00:54","date_gmt":"2022-01-26T15:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/?p=13727"},"modified":"2022-01-25T15:11:17","modified_gmt":"2022-01-25T15:11:17","slug":"german-unwort-des-jahres-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/german-unwort-des-jahres-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"German Unwort Des Jahres 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the end of every year, the\u00a0GfdS<\/strong>\u00a0(German Language Association) picks a word for its\u00a0Wort des Jahres<\/strong>\u00a0(Word of the Year). This is a word\/topic that\u2019s been highly discussed and prevalent in German society in the year just gone. You can read about the German\u00a0Wort des Jahres 2021<\/strong>\u00a0here<\/a>. But another \u2018word of the year\u2019 also gets picked, called the\u00a0Unwort des Jahres<\/strong>. An Unwort<\/em><\/strong> is a ‘non-word’; a controversial or negative word: one that violates the principle of human dignity; violates the principles of democracy; discriminates against social groups; or is euphemistic or misleading in some way. Therefore, the word selected to be Unwort des Jahres<\/strong> is usually a controversial term. It is selected every year by a panel of linguists at the Technische Universit\u00e4t Darmstadt<\/strong> (Technical University of Darmstadt). Let’s take a look at the 2021 Unwort des Jahres!<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Pushback” Is Germany\u2019s Unwort des Jahres<\/h3>\n
\"unwort

Photo by Markus Spiske<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

The 2021 Unwort des Jahres is ‘Pushback’. This word refers to how authorities<\/strong> prevented\u00a0refugees<\/strong> from coming into the country by ‘pushing them back’ at the German border<\/strong>. This is in violation of the law; anyone entering the country is meant to be given the right to apply for asylum<\/strong>, instead of being forced out of the country right there and then. The methods for this so-called ‘Pushback’ are often aggressive<\/strong> or even violent<\/strong> in nature.<\/p>\n

Key vocabulary:<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Authorities: die Beh\u00f6rden\u00a0<\/em>
\nRefugee: der Fl\u00fcchtling<\/em>
\nState border: die Staatsgrenze<\/em>
\nAsylum: das Asyl<\/em>
\nAggressive: aggressiv<\/em>
\nViolent: gewaltt\u00e4tig<\/em><\/p>\n

\"unwort

Photo by Hanson Lu<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

As you can see, the word ‘Pushback’ is an English loanword. In English, it’s used in aviation (die Luftfahrt<\/strong><\/em>) to describe when an aeroplane is pushed away from its parking position, but it’s also used to describe a general resistance to something. It’s not uncommon for the German word\/non-word of the year to be an English one! In (actual) German, you could use the verbs zur\u00fcckdr\u00e4ngen<\/strong><\/em> (push back; force back) or zur\u00fcckschieben<\/strong> <\/em>(push back; move back) to describe the idea of ‘Pushback’.<\/p>\n

Unwort des Jahres Runner-Up: Sprachpolizei<\/h2>\n
\"unwort

Photo by Dario<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

In Platz zwei<\/strong> (2nd place) this year for Unwort des Jahres was die Sprachpolizei<\/strong>, which literally means ‘the language police’ (die Sprache<\/em><\/strong>: language; die Polizei:<\/em><\/strong> police). This word was used in a derogatory way to describe those who campaigned in 2021 to make the German language more inclusive and less discriminatory. I will do a separate post on this subject, so look out for that!<\/p>\n

If you liked this post, you might also like this one:Austrian Word Of The Year 2021<\/a><\/p>\n

Bis bald!<\/strong><\/em> (See you soon!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"unwort

At the end of every year, the\u00a0GfdS\u00a0(German Language Association) picks a word for its\u00a0Wort des Jahres\u00a0(Word of the Year). This is a word\/topic that\u2019s been highly discussed and prevalent in German society in the year just gone. You can read about the German\u00a0Wort des Jahres 2021\u00a0here. But another \u2018word of the year\u2019 also gets picked…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":13739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3,8,122],"tags":[95131,358428,376023,238450,551762,11197,274673,238365,457073,358620,375962],"class_list":["post-13727","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-language","category-politics","tag-german-language","tag-german-politics","tag-language","tag-non-word","tag-politics","tag-politik","tag-refugees","tag-unwort","tag-unwort-des-jahres","tag-word-of-the-year","tag-wort-des-jahres"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13727","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=13727"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13741,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13727\/revisions\/13741"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}