German language adds 5,000 words

[Risto the Great]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8163541.stm

It appears the cancer is everywhere.

Around 5,000 new words have been officially added to the German language - many of them from the English-speaking world.

The newcomers appear in the latest edition of the respected German dictionary, Duden.

Germans can now go to "eine After-Show-Party", as long as it is not "eine No-Go Area", and meet "das It Girl" - if she does not have "der Babyblues".

Fans of social networking can also "twittern", which means to Twitter.

The financial crisis has inspired many of the new entries in the 135,000-word dictionary.

'Kreditklemme'

Appearing for the first time are "Kreditklemme" (credit crunch), "Konjunkturpaket" (stimulus package) and "Abwrackpraemie" (car scrappage bonus).

The word "Ehrenmord" (honour killing) also makes it into the dictionary, which was published on Wednesday.

The German language is known for its extremely long compound nouns.

And the new edition includes a 23-letter example: "Vorratsdatenspeicherung", which means telecommunications data retention.

The first Duden dictionary was produced in 1880 and consisted of just 27,000 words.

[King Makedon]

Good for them, but what about our language? We still have this from the 1940's of Blaze Koneski, and no new macedonian words are added but latin and english, even though that our language has the same abbility as the german language to enrich our vocabularies. Only that way we can evolve.

[Risto the Great]

Good for them, but what about our language? We still have this from the 1940's of Blaze Koneski, and no new macedonian words are added but latin and english, even though that our language has the same abbility as the german language to enrich our vocabularies. Only that way we can evolve.

Do you mean like the Croatians?
I think it has merit to follow their example.

[King Makedon]

Not just the croats, all slavic speaking nations did it.
we maceodonians only import words:latin,french,german,english, turkish. we don't develop our own words.
The turkish words slowly vanish from our language, what is good.
we take f.ex. a word like aiport (aerodrom)
air-port
vozdushno pristanishte or easier : letalishte.
aeroplane (avion)
letalo, or vozduhoplov
kind of that

For me it's hard talking macedonian sometimes when they have some strange administration blanks which i have to fullfill. they have so much latin in it. I bearly understand.
it would be for commons more understandable if it has words with macedonian roots. Even Macedonians from outside would understand them.
And i would recommend pupils to learn ancient macedonian in school. So far the governement approves such a proposal. So that every macedonian tourist in egypt can read the language of the masters the so called "demotic script", which we know is clearly ancient macedonian.

[Rogi]

The Macedonians are completely ignoring the most famous words and advice from Goce Delcev.

The world is, as he said, a field for cultural competition among nations.

Macedonia, unfortunately, is not interested in competing (which effectively means protecting, cherishing and promoting your cultural identity and uniqueness). This is why Macedonian has been declared a language that will be extinct within 100 years; we import language and culture, but we are not proud enough of our own to export it or even protect it.

This is true everywhere, by the way. Even here in Australia you will not see Macedonian cultural elements making up part of the Australian culture, instead Macedonians even here have adopted other cultural traits. You rarely see a Macedonian restaurant, despite there being more Macedonians in Australia than there is in the whole municipality of Bitola.

In Melbourne alone, you will find only a handful of Macedonian restaurants serving Macedonian food, yet the number of Macedonians here is about the same as there is in Prilep.

We are not exporting our culture, we are only losing it.

[Risto the Great]

We are not exporting our culture, we are only losing it.

Lack of pride in our identity.
A belief that others cultures are superior.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Rogi, I think your assessment is a tad extreme, who are you comparing us to? The Greeks? Consider the fact that they have arrived here earlier than us, not to mention the fact of their independent 'motherland' of 180 years that has been in a strong position to establish and retain contacts, communication and cultural links. They have a head start, in most fields, but we will catch them in time.

The Croats and Serbs are a more accurate comparison. I don't see many Croat and Serb restaurants around apart from in the western suburbs, which even there, they are among Macedonians. I don't see their cultural elements making up a part of Australian culture, Macedonians are as known as they are, if not more.

Macedonian will disappear as a language in 100 years? I don't think so mate, some Macedonians may not be as interested as others in the political and historical discussions, but the language will survive.

[Rogi]

Actually, I was thinking of the Croats because they are comparable in terms of generational settlement and numbers. There are quite a few Croatian restaurants in Melbourne, forget the western suburbs.

I know this because I've been to quite a few of them with my Croat friends (Dalmatino on Bay Street in Port Melbourne is nice). They've taken me to well over 20 Croatian restaurants in the last couple of years, and all I could show them is less than a handful Macedonian ones.

I know that soon enough there will be a modern Macedonian restaurant opening up (a friend of mine is out in Macedonia looking for a chef), but we do pale in comparison.

Look, let's not get emotional about it, I hate that fact too, but it is what it is - our community was completely focused around building churches, but never really established itself in any other area.

SoM, I didn't make it up about our language either.

Macedonian is on the list of languages in danger of extinction, by the end of this century (by the year 2100). I'll have a look for the link to the source for this, but it was posted on some time ago either here or on maknews.

The language will not just 'survive' on its own, it will only survive if we keep it alive, but with Macedonian language classes seeing record low enrolments outside of Macedonia, you can see where things are going for the Diaspora.

As for in Macedonia, with their current mentality, when they join the European Union, they'll all be adopting English, French, German or any language except Macedonian, purely because they want to be cool and think that is cool. They only place it will survive, is in the villages, but unfortunately, the villages in Macedonia are dying out very, very fast.

Globalisation and Internationalisation, in the way that the Macedonians are affected by it at the moment, is harmful to the survival of our language, culture and identity as Macedonians - and it is purely because we are not actively protecting it.

[NikodimMKD]

Language is an evolving thing, not something static. All languages evolve based on interaction with other cultures. English is currently the "Latin" of our time so all languages will be influenced by it to some level.

[Risto the Great]

This is true Nikodim.
This is why the modern Greek language bears very little resemblance to the ancient Hellenic dialects. However, there can be some useful influence exerted on the people.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Rogi, the Croats are not on par with the Greeks, I don't know where you've seen these 20 restaurants, perhaps you can name them? They don't have a Lygon or Londsdale of their own, for example.

Croats were first noticeable in Australia during the gold rushes of the 1850s in Victoria. At this time Croats were coded as "Austrians" because most of Croatia was a part of the Habsburg Empire. By Australian federation in 1901 there were many Croats - mainly from Dalmatia — in Australia, counted with Czechs, Hungarians, Serbs, Slovaks and others as "Austro-Hungarians". The establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes from Austria-Hungary after the First World War — and its replacement Yugoslavia in 1945 — continued to make it difficult to separate out Croats from other ethnicities in Australia. Croats were not recorded separately until the 1996 Census.

Despite the large influx of Macedonians, Croats and Serbs during the 70's and 80's, they have been in Australia longer than us, so probably even they are not the best comparison, considering also their difference in cultural background and influence before they came to Australia (Austro-Hungarian compared to Ottoman for us).

Our community did focus much of their attention of churches, preserving the culture in this way, but there has been progress made in other areas, that is not emotion, that is fact. We are behind, but we are not starting from a level playing field with Greeks nor even with Croats. Let's compare ourselves to the Serbs or Bosnians, do we pale in comparison? I don't think so. What have they achieved here?

Show me the link to the language 'extinction' when you find it, i'd like to see what it bases its theory on, and how its points differ where it concerns other immigrant languages.

I agree that we aren't doing enough, but you make it sound like these type of problems are exclusive to Macedonians here in Australia and not any of the other immigrant groups, which isn't accurate. Things may not be looking good now, but that isn't a reason for doom and gloom, I haven't given up yet, and I know you haven't either, the task at hand isn't easy but it is possible and probable, we should focus on that.

[King Makedon]

In most countries there are institutions who decide what will be added into a language what not and what will be changed.
In Germany for example it's the decision of "Duden".
Duden is the most selling dictionary for german language. they started with a dicitonary in the 19th century. Now they are the institution in this country.
In Macedonia however, nothing has changed since Blaze Koneski.
Of course language develops with the time and it's not static. but the macedonian instution seems to be static the last 60years.
People are using new words which are nowhere mentioned in the macedonian dicitonary. Most of these newcoming words are of foreign origin.
English, Serbian, German.
Of course we cannot exclude all foreign words, but we shall at least insist on having macedonian alternative words for them, which will be implemented with the time automatically by the new generations who have to come and learn them in school.