| Birte Priebe |
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 This week's term I only stumbled upon a few days ago. And it's a pretty straightforward pick, unlike the Japanese "medical patient" we looked at last time. The Russians use the German Vorposten (picket, forward post) in the form of форпост ("forpost"), without any change in meaning.
The image is from www.vimeo.com.
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This week something we can probably all relate to: time pressure, the feeling of running out of time. The Russians use a German term for this that originally came from chess - цейтнот (pronounced approximately "tseytnoot"). The German is Zeitnot. The illustration above is an ad for "How to leave time pressure and procrastination behind".
The image is from www.mariyaleontieva.com.  Hello again! After a somewhat extended winter break, Word of the Week is back. We start the year with an addition to the Russian language: штрейкбрехер ("shtreykbrekher") - a strikebreaker, from the German Streikbrecher. This term was pointed out to me by my colleague Frederike Strunk. Based on this word you might be tempted to think that the Russian for "strike" could be "shtreyk", but the Russians have a completely different word for that: забастовка (zabastovka).
The image is from http://www.stroika24.eu/archives/5768.  Here's another word I found during my trip round the Baltic Sea this summer: rotušė, the Lithuanian term for town house. The original German word is Rathaus. What you see here is the town hall of Kaunas (possibly including the mayor).
Polish and Russian also have words that come from Rathaus - ratusz and ратуша/ратгаус (ratuša/ratgaus) respectively. The Russian ратуша seems to have entered the Russian language via the Polish ratusz, howewer. The image is from www.kauno.diena.lt. 
The Dutch football team has just reached the round of the last eight against Mexico - bring out the fireworks! (Or don't, if you couldn't care less.) At any rate, фейерверк ("feyerverk") is this week's pick for this blog. It's the Russianized version of Feuerwerk (fireworks).
At the same time, this is the last post before the summer break - Word of the Week will be back in September. Have a great summer! The image is from www.vk.com. 
Just a short holiday entry this week: the German word Flügel (wing, in this case of a building) is used in Russian as флигель ("fligel") with the same meaning. A simple i replaces the more complex German ü-sound.
The image is from www.900igr.net.  This week's term is courtesy of my colleague Alexander Drechsel, who thankfully even provided me with the picture to go with it. What you see here is the 2007 "barcode building" in St. Petersburg, Russia, by Vitruvius and Sons Studio. In Russian, it's called штрих код (usually spelled штрих-код or штрихкод, "shtrikh-kod"), which is the Russian version of the German Strichcode. Funny enough, while the Russians use a word of German origin, more and more Germans seem to prefer Barcode to Strichcode.
The image is from http://io9.com/buildings-designed-to-look-like-barcodes-569396673/all.  This seems to be the season of technical terms: after last week's Sprosse, here's another one, this time from Russian. Reißschiene (t-square, a drawing tool) has turned into рейсшина (pronounced "race-shina").
The image is from www.school.xvatit.com.  To be honest, I never expected this entry to become so topical. Штурм ("shturm") is the Russian version of Sturm (assault, attack). Admittedly, the poster above is for an American movie ("White House Down" in the original version), but against the backdrop of what is happening in Ukraine/Crimea these days, it might as well be a Russian one.
The image is from www.online-life.ru.  This week's pick is a nautical term courtesy of my colleague Judith Schächterle. A sailing boat's centerboard is called Schwert in German, and this has been taken over by the Russians as шверт ("shvert"). Correspondingly, a Schwertboot (a boat with a centerboard, a dinghy) is called швертбот ("shvertbot") in Russian.
The image is from www.pioneership.narod.ru. |
AboutThis 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]. Archives
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