The image is from www.hyperseo.ru.
Those of you who are regular followers have probably noticed that there are a lot of technical terms in Russian that have German roots. Well, here's another one of them: кабель (kabel), which is exactly the same as the German Kabel (cable, wire).
The image is from www.hyperseo.ru.
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Word of the Week is back after an eventful summer that yielded lots of inspiration for this blog. Unfortunately, inspiration alone is not enough to make a post, so you will have to bear with me a little longer if you are interested in the German words I discovered in the Baltic countries, among others.
This week, just a little choice morsel - that's what Leckerbissen means in German. In Danish, it is used as lækkerbisken (and usually for food, mind you, just like in German). The image is from http://goshirtdk.spreadshirt.dk. 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. Depending on how hot it is where you are right now, you might be wishing for a cool breeze off a glacier. In the Netherlands, you'd have to look very hard indeed to find one, however. For obvious reasons, there are many words of German origin for things to do with mountains in the Dutch language. Gletsjer is one of them. The "sj" approximates the "sch" in the original German Gletscher.
The image is from www.dearend.nl. 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. Most people probably know the term poltergeist from the eponymous 1980s US horror series, but it has been around in English for much longer. Poltern is "to make a racket" in German, and a Poltergeist is a ghost that makes loud noises and throws around furniture etc.
The image is from www.plus.google.com. The German word Spaßmacher (jester, comedian) comes from Spaß (fun, joke), which, I have just discovered, was originally the Italian spasso. The Danes took their spas, spasmager and spasmageri (the activity of a spasmager) from the Germans, though.
The image is from www.information.dk. 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 Monday, the Word of the Week reaches you from Montepulciano, Italy. Time for a postcard! The Dutch use the German term Ansichtskarte in a slightly modified version - ansichtkaart.
As my colleague Eva Bodor tells me, the Hungarians use it, too - in the significantly less recognizable reincarnation anzix. Sounds like the Asterix and Obelix term for a postcard! The image is from www.drukland.nl. It's a shame that the website mentioned above is no longer available. I would have loved to find out more about the "Day of the Submissive Husband"! This is what Pantoffelheld means in German - and in Dutch, too.
The image is from www.vimeo.com. |
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 b.priebe@aiic.net. Archives
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