Anglicisms are currently popular in most European languages. The French did
not get very far in banning them from public speech. Even in Italy, where
knowledge of English is not as widespread as in Germany you find nowadays
many Anflicisms such as il weekend, il gusto light or wellness. In the
political discourse people talk about il leader or welfare. Like in the
German Hartz Kommissions (jobfloater) report Anglicisms in politics
ususally serve to underline neoliberal credentials and to appear modern and
cool.
Since Germany and Italy are countries in the middle of Europe i do not find
borrowing from other languages offending, rather a sometimes funny source
of intended or unintended misunderstandings. Furthermore it is something
that has a long tradition, just think of the many French words in German
and other European languages. i don't know what you would get if go to a
French bakery and if you use a nice German-French word and ask for a Baiser
(meringue). Some borrowed words I do quite like, I rather have a Regisseur
than a Spielleiter, my students however find it difficult to understand why
we use the French word and not the German.
What I find more interesting is the relatively new German tendency to use
all sorts of Italian phrases for the nice things in life, such as style,
fashion, cuisine. However, the things German firms sell under Italian names
are about as authentic as pizza and pasta in England. But it works well, I
have already heard German tourists complaining in Italy that the pizza or
the icecream they have just eaten was no proper Italian food.
In the FAZ from September 28th Dirk Schuemer analyses the tendency to
beautify ugly German products with nice Italian names under the heading:
"Spaghettisiert euch, Alle Welt beklagt den amerikanischen Einfluß, doch
die globale Leitkultur kommt aus Italien". He says that nowadays English is
only used to market the practical and less pleasant things in life like
cigarettes and computers, I would add: neoliberalism. Whereas Italian is
used for all things nice and stylish, for culture in general. I think that
is sensible division of borrowing from other languages, because as long as
the Anglicisms stay out of cuisine and culture we can life with them quite
nicely.
Christina Ujma
Dr. Christina Ujma
Lecturer in German
Department of European Studies
University of Loughborough
GB Loughborough
LE11 3TU
01509/222993
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