No Englisch, please, vee are Deutsch

Am 25. Februar stand in der Sonntagsbeilage der in Delhi erscheinenden indischen Tageszeitung „Pioneer“ ein Text über die deutsche Diskussion zu Sprachreinheit, Kulturnation und Parallelgesellschaften. Anmerkungen dazu, was Green-Card-Anwärter erwartet. Ein Nachdruck auf Englisch

von DENNIS STUTE

It may come as a surprise to some German politicians, but the official language in Germany is German. Educational institutions teach in German, the bureaucracy communicates in German, at court you have to defend yourself in German, instruction manuals and product information have to be written in German and so on. Laws regulate all that. This is not enough, believes Eckart Werthebach, Berlin’s senator of internal affairs. The Christian democrat is afraid that „German is being gnawed“, no, not by rats, but far worse, by „a flood of English words“. Hinting that his obsession might have to do with anal fixation, he laments that „advertisements even use the English word ,underwear‘ “. In order to get back his cherished „Unterwäsche“ he wants a law „to prevent further usurpation and impoverishment of the German language“.

Language, he asserts, is the „key to the self-image and self-esteem of a people“, which in Mr Werthebach’s case appears to be rather low since he feels the need to stress that „the German citizen must not be put at a disadvantage by his language.“ He had to observe that „today congresses are taking place in Germany where no German is spoken anymore“. Germans, one must explain, are known for queuing up at congresses of Kurdish nationalists, Islamic Fundamentalists or international scientists, where they habitually leave in disappointment, mumbling something like „I understand not.“

One could argue, as virtually every opponent of the senator’s delusion does, that language is too dynamic a thing to ban or dictate words. One could add, as many have done, that many „German“ words are imports. This is, by the way, not a one-way-street, for Germany has given the world words such as Blitzkrieg, Nazi, Flak, Ersatz and Kindergarten. But the whole debate misses the point.

One could ridicule the advocates of purity for suggestions like using „Luftkissen“ instead of „airbag“ or „Programm“ instead of „software“. The translation of airbag is a term nobody would understand and software is not necessarily a program. One would have to say that the idea was a backlash against precision, if the controversy as such were not pointless. One could remind the ethnic warriors that German as a scientific language is dead, as the secretary of state for culture, Julian Nida-Ruemelin, did. One could stretch the argument and maintain that separate languages are generally a curse. If English is the dominant world language due to an imperialist, well, past, so be it. To preserve the cultural heritage it would suffice to teach vernaculars in colleges to people interested in dead languages. The entire discussion does not make sense.

One could, like Mr Nida-Ruemelin, say the agenda is „close to resistance against foreign influences, even to xenophobia“. One could also voice the impression that those who are afraid Anglicisms may lead to a „two-tier society“ must have spent the last decades on Mars if they seriously believe Germany was a classless society. Or if they think a relatively small number of English terms could widen social disparities when every schoolchild, unlike ageing conservative politicians, knows the lyrics of Eminem or Britney Spears. But it is a controversy about a non-issue. One could remind Mr Werthebach of Jaques Toubon’s fate. The former French minister of culture, who succeeded in introducing a law supposed to protect French, regularly gave wrong answers when journalists asked for French substitutes for words like „marketing“. To make matters worse, Monsieur Toubon (tou = all; bon = good) was baptised „Mister Allgood“ by the press. Given Mr Werthebachs name (Werte = Values, Bach = stream) it should ring alarm bells that some members of the senate have already begun calling him „Mister“ instead of „Herr“. But why get involved in a quarrel of clowns?

One could predict that the whole attempt, even if implemented, is doomed to failure. Who would use „elektronische Post“ instead of e-mail? Countless words (DTP, marketing, Internet, hardware) do not even have a German equivalent.

The whole controversy is pointless, as I know from a man devoted to some cultural or political cause so awkward that I forgot what it was. When I met him in Haridwar a few years ago, he proved my first impression shamefully wrong when he said: „Sanskrit is the sweetest language of the world.“ He was actually far from dim, for he had apparently studied the myriad of idioms ever spoken on this planet to come to this conclusion.

Why, then, preserve an inferior language? Or replace it by another substandard twaddle? If Germany immediately begins to educate teachers, Sanskrit could become the main language within the next two or three generations. By the way, how do you say DTP in Sanskrit?

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