I read an article on Wikipedia called “Denglisch” which I thought was really interesting. Wikipedia defines this the word “Denglisch” or “Denglish” as the portmanteau of two languages, English and Deutsch. I am unfamiliar with the word portmanteau, so I looked it up. Apparently it means a blend of two or more words into one word. I then realized that that was kindof obvious, but nonetheless a new word I can now add to my vocabulary! Anyways, “Denglisch” is the merging of the two languages, English and Deutsch, that is surprisingly very present in most German/Dutch-speaking countries. It is used for advertising, business, and information technology purposes since English is an international and widespread language.

The new generation is responsible for the “influx of English vocabulary into the German language”. The older generations are not used to this at all and this phenomenon is controversial since the older generation “is not accustomed to English terms”. Some examples of the merging of these two languages were:

Hast du schon die neueste Firefox-Version downgeloadet / gedownloadet?

Have you downloaded the newest version of Firefox?

Or

Ich musste den Computer neu booten / rebooten, weil die Software gecrasht ist.

I had to reboot the computer because the Software crashed.

As we can see, Germans have taken English verbs and “Germanized” them. These words are downgeloaded/gedownloadet (downloaded) and rebooten and gecrasht (reboot and crashed).

I find this really funny yet strangely functional because we do a similar thing as Americans. When I work on group projects sometimes, if a group member wants to send everyone in the group something, they say “ok, I’ll just facebook this to you guys”. And we all know that means that they will send us something via a facebook message. Facebook is definitely not a verb, however it has been used in this context several times in recent years.

After reading this article, I think that the two languages combined is a great idea. Whether used on a daily basis casually or for advertising purposes, I find it to be incredibly functional. Both are not romantic languages and their origins are the same. I don’t see why a new language can’t be born by these two languages. I think it’s a fascination phenomenon.