Pseudo-Loanwords in German

As I was writing an entry over on Geek Notes about “a new LaTeX solution for slide presentations”:http://semantics-online.org/geek/2003/08/beamer_class_for_latexpdf_presentations called “beamer”, I was reminded that when I go to Germany, I am always struck by the many cases of English words in common discourse that are not really English words. In German linguistic terminology, they are called “Scheinentlehnungen”, something like “Pseudo-Loanwords”. My two favorites are ubiquitous:

  • “Beamer”, for multimedia or data projector.
  • “Handy”, for cellphone.

There’s a decent “article”:http://www.macmillandictionary.com/MED-Magazine/june2003/08-German-English-false-friends.htm on this and related topics in the monthly webzine of the MacMillan English Dictionary. A Google search also turned up “Professor David Yeandle”:http://www.kcl.ac.uk/kis/schools/hums/german/yeandle.html in the German Department of King’s College London, who has a forthcoming paper with the title ‘Handy Callboy Seeks Evergreen Dressman for Flipper Fun’: Pseudo-Anglicisms in Modern German, which is unfortunately unavailable electronically.

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4 Responses to Pseudo-Loanwords in German

  1. Pingback: languagehat.com

  2. clair h. mealy says:

    Where can one find Professor David Yeandle’s article?

    I am very interested in this article as I am doing research on loanwords in the technological sector; Mouse, Laptop, etc.

    Best regards, Clair H. Mealy University of Texas at Austin.

  3. I suppose you could find out by writing to him at the email address on his homepage which I linked to in my entry: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/kis/schools/hums/german/yeandle.html

  4. David Yeandle says:

    My article on this theme has now been published: ‘“Handy Callboy Seeks Evergreen Dressman for Flipper Fun” or “Pseudo-Anglicisms”: An Aspect of the “Flood of Americanisms and Anglicisms” in Modern German’ in ‘Vir ingenio mirandus’: Studies presented to John L. Flood, edited by William J. Jones, William A. Kelly and Frank Shaw, two vols. (Göppingen: Kümmerle: 2003), vol. II, pp. 955–982, Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik 710, ISBN 3-87452-961-4. I hope people will find it useful.

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