![]() wunderkind - wunder (“wonder”) + Kind (“child”).verboten - the German word for “forbidden”.spiel - taken from the German verb spielen, meaning “to play”.neanderthal - from Neandertal, this extinct species was named after the Neander Valley near Düsseldorf in which its remains were found.bahn - derived from Autobahn, the name of the highway system in Germany, people now attach “bahn” to other words to imply that they’re a high-speed interconnected system (like the Infobahn, which is basically another name for the internet).ur - this is a common prefix that means something like “original” or “prototypical”.(The German usually has an umlaut over the “ü.”) uber - this German word meaning “over” is pretty ubiquitous in English now, and people might use it in place of a different adverb like “very” or “super.” It’s also popular around the world because it’s the name of the ride-hailing app Uber.These are parts of words that can be used flexibly with other English words, transforming “text” into “urtext” or “geek” into “ubergeek.” It’s perhaps a testament to how close English and German are that English has adopted a few prefixes and suffixes from the language. foosball - a shortening and anglicization of Tischfußball (“table football”).leitmotif - leit (“lead”) + Motiv (“motive”), so roughly meaning “leading motive,” but in literature it refers to recurring themes in a work.bildungsroman - Bildung (“education”) + Roman (“novel”), which is comparable to a “coming-of-age novel”.gestalt - literally meaning “shape,” this is an art term often distilled to “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”.bauhaus - while many artistic movements have come out of Germany, this early 20th century architectural style might be the most successful. ![]() realpolitik - a philosophy of politics that focuses on practical rather than ideological concerns.antifa - meaning anti-fascist, from the German Antifaschistische Aktion.kindergarten - Kinder (“children”) + Garten (“garden”). ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |