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The Awful German Language (as Twain put it)

30 Aug

The Awful German Language or What do these three things have in common?

German speakers will realize immediately that they are all translated into German using the word “Band” — but the first one is neuter (das Band), the second one is feminine (die Band, which seems to be borrowed from the English and tends to be pronounced more in the English way), and the third one is masculine (der Band). In addition, they all have different forms in the plural — die Bänder (the ribbons), die Bands (the [rock] bands), and die Bände (the books, the volumes, in case you have more than one volume of Goethe, for example).

The good news is that you can tell them apart — if you’ve managed to internalize the above rules.

Happy Saturday!

The ORF on normality

21 Jul

Below is a link to a very interesting (and rather worrying) ORF article about the word “normal”. Recently, the governor of Lower Austria, Johanna Mikl-Leitner, used the phrase “people who think normally” (“normal denkende Menschen”) repeatedly in an interview in the newspaper the “Standard”. She is a member of the conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) and, the ORF tells us, was only following the party line, which has also been embraced, as you might expect, by the right-wing, nationalistic Freedom Party (FPÖ).

The Vice-Chancellor, Werner Kogler, of the Green Party (“die Grünen”), as might be expected, sharply criticized that use of the word and called the “normal” rhetoric “prefascist” (“präfaschistoid”) in an interview in the news magazine “Profil”.

In my opinion, Kogler has some justification for doing so. The problem is, of course, who gets to decide what “normal” is — and then what happens to those who are considered “not normal”. In a country that has a not-so-distant history of labeling anyone who criticized the government “asocial” (“asozial”) and sending them, often, to concentration camps sometimes to be murdered, it does feel as if we are on a slippery slope. (link to recent ORF article on this below)

I accept that there is bound to be (always has been?) backlash and that as diversity, inclusion, and belonging initiatives make headway (I’m not so sure “equity” plays a big role in the discussion in Austria at the moment) there will be pushback against people who want inclusive language (one of Mickl-Leitner’s hobby horses) or reject schnitzel or cars as central to their lives (Chancellor Nehammer’s [ÖVP] examples). I also think we need to tread very carefully and always remember where this kind of language has led in the past and could still lead in the present and future.

What is, after all, normal?

https://orf.at/stories/3324510/ (in German, on “normal denkende Menschen”)

https://topos.orf.at/Vergessene-NS-Opfer100 (in German, on “asoziale”)

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The gloves are off – but the masks are on (we hope)

18 Oct

For months the public transportation authority in Vienna has been making an announcement in its vehicles along the lines of “Dear passengers, please cover your nose and mouth when in underground stations and using public transport.” (An aside: I imagined the pleasure of the translator that they were proficient enough to know that “nose and mouth” sounds more natural in English even though in German it is “Mund-Nasen-Schutz” or “mouth-nose protection / covering”.)

A day or two ago I realized that this announcement has been shortened and is now delivered in a more peremptory tone compared to the rather mellifluous earlier version. The current version: “Dear passengers, please cover your mouth and nose.”

What’s next? No “please”?

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A glossary

4 Mar

For a long time I’ve been meaning to write up a glossary for the Viennese concepts I find hard to translate. This seems like a good time to get started. (I’ll add to this as I go along.)

Magistratsabteilung or MA – a city office responsible for a specific task, e.g., the MA 48 is the city sanitation office.

Melange – a kind of coffee typically made from espresso, hot milk, and milk foam. Anyone who has ordered a melange knows, however, that this is not carved in stone. (In fact, it’s somewhat disputed.)

Schmäh – a special kind of Viennese humor that should come with a winky emoji.

Trafik – a small store with a special license to sell cigarettes, tickets for the public transportation, and lottery tickets, for example. The practice started after the First World War, if I remember correctly, to create jobs for wounded veterans.

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“Gruß Gott!”

29 Sep

“Gruß Gott!” is still a common greeting in Austria, or at least in Vienna. Today, reading an interview in the Kurier with Thomas Schäfer-Elmayer, owner of the number one dancing school in Vienna and the Emily Post certainly of Austria if not of the entire German-speaking world, I learned something of the history and associations of the phrase.

He didn’t feel the need to explain but I do: The phrase (word-for-word translation “Greet God!”) is short for “God greet you.” (“Grüß Sie / dich Gott!”) He told a story, though, in which he was speaking at a technical / vocational high school and a student called him on using it because the student considered the greeting too closely associated with the ÖVP or Austrian People’s Party (a.k.a. the Conservatives).

To his credit, Schäfer-Elmayer looked into this claim and discovered that between the world wars it truly was a sign to others that one belonged to the People’s Party. His research showed that during this time–with what amounted to a civil war being waged in the streets of  Vienna–the hate between the Social Democrats (the Reds) and the People’s Party (the Blacks) was so great, people chose to signal their allegiance immediately in how they greeted other people. “Grüß Gott” for the Conversatives; “Guten Tag” for the Social Democrats.

The civil servants, who sought to remain neutral, as good civil servants the world over do, adopted–Schäfer-Elmayer said–the term “Mahlzeit” (usually said before a meal and then taking the place of “Guten Appetit”). This is an interesting take on the greeting, as I always assumed “Mahlzeit” had a similar function as the French “Rebonjour”. In current usage, you say “Guten Morgen” when you first run into someone in your place of work–in the morning–and “Mahlzeit” afterwards to indicate that you remember greeting them the first time. (Apparently, in French companies it is a rather large faux pas to use “Bonjour” twice in one day to the same person. I read that it is tantamount to considering the person so inconsequential that you don’t remember greeting them the first time. Source: Schneider and Barsoux, “Managing across Cultures”)

From 1938 to 1945,  apparently, “Mahlzeit” took on another use. People who wished to avoid saying “Heil Hitler” said “Mahlzeit” instead. I hear my mother–born in Berlin and raised there during the Second World War–saying, “Berliners just kept saying ‘Guten Morgen’.” Her comment is supported by Christabel Bielenberg’s incomparable memoirs, which I am currently re-reading, of living in Berlin as an Englishwoman under the Nazis. Even more of an aside here: that Berliner habit got my grandmother–my German grandmother, that is, not my English grandmother (complicated family)–into trouble when she visited her parents in their small town in Thuringia.

And so a bit of culture and history on this Sunday.

For German speakers, links to the Kurier interview and to the Wikipedia entry on some of the uses of “Mahlzeit” below:

https://kurier.at/freizeit/thomas-schaefer-elmayer-gesteht-ich-mache-auch-viel-falsch/400613615

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahlzeit

 

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“Guten Rutsch!” (~ “Good slide [into the New Year]!”)

31 Dec

Except that I have just read on the infoscreen of the Wiener Linien that it actually comes from a less-known meaning of the word “rutschen,” namely to travel. Bon Voyage into 2019!

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“Wie geht’s?”

22 Sep

One of the first phrases one learns in any beginning German course, “Wie geht’s?” means “How are you?” Simple, it seems. And yet it is important to know that there is no one-to-one correlation in how those phrases are used in Germany / Austria and the U.S.A.

First of all, in German “Wie geht’s?” by itself is quite informal. Ideally, you remember whether you are “per du” with someone or “per Sie”, the former being the informal you (like “tu” in French) and the latter being the formal you (like “vous”). If you are “per Sie” then the correct phrase is “Wie geht’s Ihnen?”–a German lesson in and of itself including relatively advanced concepts like the dative. If you are “per du” then “Wie geht’s?” by itself is acceptable or you could say “Wie geht’s dir?”

That’s the language lesson associated with that simple phrase. Then there are the intercultural aspects. In German, you only ask the question if you really want to know. This usually means you only ask people you know well, where you are prepared to hear a relatively long and truthful account of their current state of being (no “Fine, thanks, and you?” when someone’s back hurts or life is falling apart). It is acceptable to ask a stranger if there has been some kind of accident and you want to make sure the person is all right, but the general use of “Wie geht’s” simply does not exist here. For example, you would never find a salesperson asking you as you come into the store, even though “Schönen Tag!” (“Have a nice day!”) does seem to have crept into the language.

For years, I had a not entirely earned reputation of being a nice person, because I asked colleagues and clients alike “Wie geht’s” and listened patiently as they chronicled their aches and pains. The danger should one ask and then not listen to the answer is that one is labeled “superficial”–a grave allegation in this relationship-oriented culture.

Because I asked, though, I have also found some answers that have always intrigued me and that are, I believe, typically Viennese. One is “Lei’wand” (short for “Leinwand” or movie screen), which is generally interpreted to mean “Great!” The other goes deeper into the Viennese mindset. Sometimes people, especially those lower down on the socio-economic scale, answer, “Wie die Anderen wollen” or “As the others would have it”, expressing a sense that they do not control their destiny, are subject to the whims of others. So much for “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”

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Words Germans (and for the most part Austrians, too) think are English

19 May

This applies for the most part in Austria, too. We don’t talk about “Open Airs” as far as I know, but probably tomorrow I’ll see it on a poster here or hear it in a conversation.

http://www.dw.de/13-words-germans-think-are-english/g-17619951

Tschüs!

29 Dec

“Tschüs!” is a form of leave-taking, rather like “‘Bye!”, originally from Germany.  It has made its way into Austrian usage to the extent that even my absolutely original Viennese friend, C., closes some of her telephone conversations with me with it. And yet there are some differences. “Tschüs” is now widely used in Germany. Even when you leave a store the sales clerk might use it instead of the more formal “Auf Wiedersehen”. In Austria it is seen as something you would use in an informal setting ONLY, and a story from an equally original Viennese friend of mine, B., illustrates this.

B. works for a organization where all address each other with the informal “du” rather than the formal “Sie”. Among them is a German colleague who even uses “tschüs” with clients, that is, indiscriminately in Austrian eyes. Out of curiosity B. had just finished talking about the differing uses with this colleague, sharing the Austrian understanding of “tschüs” and mentioning that Austrians only expect to hear it from people they are on “du” terms with. The German colleague was very interested by this and perhaps took it a little too much to heart. Five minutes later when she was getting ready to leave the holiday party she said “Auf Wiedersehen” to a group of colleagues (all of whom she addressed with “du”). And one of the colleagues, without having been privy to B.’s conversation, said, “Hey, we’re all ‘per du’ here. You don’t have to say ‘Auf Wiedersehen’ to us.” 😉

Na geh’

12 Oct

The Viennese (Austrians?) use “Na geh'” (a distant cousin to the English expression “Now get along with you”) to express general disbelief and mild protest–sometimes both at one time. It is almost exclusively a genial expression.

A Viennese friend of mine told me a joke that beautifully illustrates the use of the phrase:

Two animals meet for the first time.

The first one says, “I’m a Wolfshund. My father was a wolf and my mother was a dog. What are you?”

The second one says, “I’m an Ameisenbär.” [Ameisenbär is the German word for anteater and translates literally as “ant bear”.]

The Wolfshund responds, “Na geh’“.

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