Birte Priebe
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Word of the Week: BUTERBROD - БУТЕРБРОД

24/6/2013

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Picture
This week, one of the Russian "classics". In German, there is nothing more to a Butterbrot than the name suggests - bread and butter. In Russian, however, any kind of sandwich is a бутерброд (buterbrod). Usually, however, they are  rather elaborate open-faced sandwiches (not necessarily as inventive as the lovely animals above, though.) 

Interestingly, in Danish, the lavishly garnished sandwiches are famously called smørrebrød, which, if you translate it literally into German, means nothing more than Butterbrot! 

The picture is from www.sdelaysam-samodelki.ru.
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Word of the Week: GERENDE - ゲレンデ

17/6/2013

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Picture
This week, another one of those admirable words that made it to the other end of the world (albeit not without losing its original meaning.) 

For reasons not entirely clear to me, the German word Gelände  (terrain, area, grounds...) became the Japanese term for ski slope, as illustrated by this gerendemappu. As usual with Japanese, the word suffered somewhat in the adaptation process. 

My thanks go to Bettina Ortmann for pointing gerende out to me and to Stefano Suigo for finding the gerendemappu for me.

The picture is from http://www.nozawaski.com/winter2011-12/course/map.php.
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Word of the Week: KRACH

10/6/2013

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Picture
This week, a word that fits in with our economically troubled times. The French, the Dutch and the Russians (and possibly some others, too) use the German term Krach to describe an economic collapse or stock market crash. I can see why, too - it's got such a nice onomatopoeic ring to it, much more dramatic than "collapse", wouldn't you agree?

The picture is from www.grapheine.com.
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Word of the Week: FINGERSPITZENGEFÜHL

3/6/2013

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Picture
This week, one of those nice long German words with an umlaut! This Dutch cartoon ("He knew right away that his new pupil had zero dexterity") illustrates that Fingerspitzengefühl (dexterity in both the literal and the figurative sense) has been adopted in the Netherlands despite being rather long and difficult to pronounce. It apparently filled a gap in the Dutch language. 

The picture is from www.coolduits.nl.
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    This is a blog about the traces German (my mother tongue) has left in other languages. Contributions from your language(s) are more than welcome! Mail me at [email protected].
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