What Goethe Didn’t Know

Eleven curious things from the world of the German language. Even Germany’s most famous poet, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, would not have known that:

1. Words like “Ohrwurm”, “Fahrvergnügen” or “Baggersee” might ever exist and even become the German language’s “export hits”. They are an indication that other languages also may use German as a treasure trove should they be missing a suitable term themselves.

2. A book would be published with rules on how German should be written: the Duden. And that most German words in it have eleven letters.

3. The word “Grundstücksverkehrsge-nehmigungszuständigkeitsübertragungsverordnung”,  a term from the world of red tape, could have a record number of 67 letters.

Enlarge image Living language: German is the mother tongue of more than 100 million people. (© picture alliance/ dpa) 4. The German language has between 300,000 and 500,000 words. Thus the German word-pool ranks between French (100,000 words) and English (600,000 to 800,000 words).

5. The active vocabulary of an average German is estimated at some 12,000 to 16,000 words, although most Germans understand up to 50,000 words 
without any difficulty.

6. There is such a thing as Belgrano-German in Argentina, Texas-German in the USA, Deutsch-Mokra in Ukraine, Küchendeutsch in Namibia and Unser Deutsch in Papua-New Guinea. German-speaking enclaves exist on almost all continents.

7. Under the telephone number 09-001-88-8128 you can reach the Gesellschaft für Deutsche Sprache in Wiesbaden, a society from which you can receive information on all questions relating to the German language.

8. Wiesbaden society chose the word “Abwrackprämie” as the “2009 Word of the Year”. It describes the environmental bonus paid for scrapping an old car.
Enlarge image (© dpa/picture-alliance) 9. New words like “Gigaliner”, “Regenbogenfamilie” or “Zwergplanet” could one day exist. These are three of more than 5,000 new words included in the 25th edition of the Duden.

10. Kiezdeutsch would become the multi-ethnic language of young people, mixing Arabic and Turkish words with German and thus giving rise to a new dialect: “Lassma Viktoriapark gehen, Lan.”

11. The letters WAMAWIHEAD and BIGLEZUHAU indicate the ability to say as much as possible with as few text message characters as possible. The text message abbreviations stand for: What will we do this evening? I’ll be home right away.