(Three readers of this blog may find this funny)
Der Spiegel has a piece on a community in Texas descended from German immigrants in the 1840s. The original settlers came from 5 regions of Germany, with the result that their descendants speak a mixed dialect which makes use of many loan words :
Dazu kommt die Verwendung von englischen Lehnwörtern, wie bei 'Dann sind wir nach Boerne gemoved' oder 'Wir meeten uns heute in town'."
Das texanische Deutsch ist reich an solchen sonderbaren Sätzen wie "Die Kuh ist über die Fence gejumpt!" oder "Wasever, ich muss die Pick-up da erst mal greasen und das Oil changen".
TARARTRAT, LH and DSL can check out the rest here.
Wasever.
5 comments:
my friend sent me that article, i was thouroughly amused- it is like the German I thought I spoke when i was 14.
ooh, also came across this book titled today, reminded me of the blog: "Toxic sludge is good for you! Lies, damn lies, and the public relations industry"
My Bavarian coworker says that's how German business folks speak nowadays as well.
Germans speak like this nowadays as well. Not just businessmen. Even I catch myself saying "gejumpt" sometimes (very shameful moment).
There's a whole genre of books, starting with Sick's tedious, hardly bearable Zwiebelfisch column and the books it spawned, which explait this turn German has taken. I forget how these kind of people are called on Language Log.
explOit, of course.
I did indeed find it amusing. (I had a much more boring post about Texas German a few years ago; the link to the Daily Texan article is now, needless to say, broken.)
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