This is the very first Word of the Week from Spanish - please let me know if you know of any others, since I completely depend on my readers for this language! Hinterland was pointed out to me by Marta in a comment related to one of my earlier posts. 

In Spanish, hinterland seems to be used the same way as the German original, Hinterland, and the English equivalent, which of course is originally German, too. The French use it, too. I'm not sure how a Spanish speaker would pronounce it, but my guess is that the "h" at the beginning is the point where the pronunciation of hinterland differs most between the two languages. 


The image is from www.slideplayer.es.

Although I'm still enjoying the delights of Italian cuisine, today's example is a Romanian one. A Gugelhupf, Guglhupf or Gugelhopf  is a kind of Bundt cake, known in Romanian as guguluf. The cake has made its way into the ovens of many different countries, taking its name with it. This resulted in a dizzying array of spellings: in France alone, it's known as kouglof, kougelhof, kugelhof, kugelopf, kougelhopf, kugelhopf or even kouglouf. In Hungary it's kuglóf, in Croatia kuglof. The cake is also known in Serbia, Macedonia and Russia (куглоф/"kuglof"). 

The image is from www.cronicadeiasi.ro, most of the varieties of Gugelhupf were found on Wikipedia.

This week, an example from France. The large WWII bunkers that dot the French coast (part of the Nazi's famous Atlantic Wall) are know as blockhaus in French. In German military terminology, a Blockhaus is a defensive strong point, a blockhouse. However, a layperson will usually call these buildings Bunker, and think of a house made of squared logs when they hear the term Blockhaus. So, when I came across the blockhaus (in French, this is also the plural) in Brittany, I was at a loss as to why the French were calling these huge bunkers blockhaus. One lives and learns. 

My thanks go to my former colleague Dora Strinkau for reminding me of this term.

The image is from www.militaria.collector.free.fr.

This is a recent discovery of mine, and one that concerns several languages. In English, Dutch and French (and perhaps even more languages), the musical instrument you can see above is known by its German name, Glockenspiel. In German, however, Glockenspiel has a second meaning that didn't survive the transfer to the other languages - "carillon". 

The image is from www.kids.britannica.com.

I believe that this week's choice is one of those words that spread to other languages because they fill a gap - they provide a name for something that is nameless in those languages. Kitsch is used in English, French, Dutch and Danish, to name just a few.

The image is from www.theworldofkitsch.com.

This week's Word of the Week, Putsch (coup d'état, putsch, overthrow - isn't it interesting to see that there are two foreign words here in English?) has its origins in the Swiss dialect of German. It is used in French, English, Polish (pucz), Romanian (puci), Hungarian (puccs), Czech (puč), Italian (putsch) and perhaps even more languages that I am not aware of yet.

The picture is from www.charles-de-gaulle.org.

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.

There don't seem to be that many exciting German words in French, and of those I know, this week's featured word is definitely the most intriguing. But vasistas is apparently also used in Italian and Turkish. It is derived from the German Was ist das? (What's that?) and designates a transom window or skylight. If you want to hear it sung by Bénabar, click here.

The picture is from www.brocantecourt.com.