{"id":7815,"date":"2016-10-12T07:00:15","date_gmt":"2016-10-12T07:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/?p=7815"},"modified":"2016-10-11T16:55:29","modified_gmt":"2016-10-11T16:55:29","slug":"germanys-indian-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/germanys-indian-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany’s Indian Summer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guten Tag! Today it\u2019s time for another untranslatable German word \u2013 and I wanted to get this one in now because it\u2019s all about that beautiful period between the end of Sommer (summer) and the beginning of Herbst (autumn) \u2013 which some of us will, hopefully, be enjoying right now! Today\u2019s word is der Altweibersommer.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What does der Altweibersommer mean?<\/strong><\/p>\n

An Altweibersommer refers to the period between September and October when it\u2019s still warm, bright and sunny, but autumn is creeping in. It\u2019s essentially late summer, or what is known as an Indian Summer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What is the breakdown of the word der Altweibersommer?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It consists of three words:<\/p>\n

Alt \u2013 old
\nWeiber \u2013 plural of das Weib (the woman)
\nSommer \u2013 summer<\/p>\n

So the word literally translates to \u2018old women summer\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

What do old women have to do with this time of year?!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stick with me here, because there are a couple of theories on the make-up of this word. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

The word das Weib<\/strong> (singular form of the plural Weiber, as seen in Altweibersommer) is another word for die Frau<\/strong> \u2013 woman<\/strong>. It\u2019s a more colloquial word \u2013 not rude, exactly, but not overly respectful, either. So an \u2018altes Weib\u2019 would mean \u2018old woman\u2019, making Altweibersommer mean \u2018old women summer\u2019 \u2013 because the word refers to the ‘last days’ of summer.<\/p>\n

\"Autumn<\/a>

Die Spinne (spider) and die Spinnwebe (spider’s web). Photo by garyt70 on flickr.com under a CC license (CC by 2.0)<\/p><\/div>\n

But it could also be that the word Weiber<\/strong> comes from the old German word weiben<\/strong>, which means \u2018to weave webs\u2019. The modern German word is weben<\/strong>, meaning to weave.<\/strong> Spiders’ webs are called Spinnweben<\/strong> in German. Have you ever noticed how many spiders and spider webs you see at the end of summer and beginning of autumn (I call them \u2018autumn spiders\u2019)? They are EVERYWHERE! So in that respect, the word Altweibersommer could reference the spiders found during those glorious first days of autumn.<\/p>\n

A third theory ties the two together, saying that the spider webs are reminiscent of old women\u2019s silver hair!!<\/p>\n

Whatever the reason, in German the word Altweibersommer<\/strong> refers to the period where summer meets autumn. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

\"autumn<\/a>

die Herbstbl\u00e4tter – Autumn leaves. Photo by calliope on flickr.com under a CC license (CC BY 2.0)<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

How would you use the word der Altweibersommer in a sentence?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the same way you\u2019d use the word der Sommer, you can use der Altweibersommer. Easy peasy!<\/p>\n

What is the nearest English equivalent to der Altweibersommer?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018Indian Summer\u2019 has the closest meaning but, as always, doesn’t have the same literal meaning that makes this German word so interesting in the first place. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

So there you go! As well as Fr\u00fchling, Sommer, Herbst and Winter, there is another \u2018season\u2019 you didn\u2019t know existed! Hope you are enjoying (or have enjoyed) your Altweibersommer 2016!
\nType ‘seasons’ into the search bar on the right hand-side of this blog to find more posts on the different times of year. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Bis bald!!<\/p>\n

Constanze x<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Guten Tag! Today it\u2019s time for another untranslatable German word \u2013 and I wanted to get this one in now because it\u2019s all about that beautiful period between the end of Sommer (summer) and the beginning of Herbst (autumn) \u2013 which some of us will, hopefully, be enjoying right now! Today\u2019s word is der Altweibersommer…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":7829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[457039,95131,457040,376023,1327,376057,337679,257573,990,169],"class_list":["post-7815","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-language","tag-altweibersommer","tag-german-language","tag-jahreszeit","tag-language","tag-summer","tag-the-seasons","tag-untranslatable-german","tag-untranslatable-words","tag-vocab","tag-weather"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7815","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=7815"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7828,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7815\/revisions\/7828"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}