Langenscheidt's Abuse and Misuse of the German and English Language as Seen from Abroad

Dear Mr.Mueller,

Put yourself into the position of a foreign speaker who judges the German language from outside from its sound and structure. We now live more and more in a global environment, especially the German language, with its large intake of English words, has to be extremely careful of its choice and development. Many words like "handy" sound simply wrong, stupid and ugly. The British company Rolls Royce years ago called its car 'Silver Mist' but realised it was a global misjudgement. We cannot leave language development to narrow minded, blinkered German wordsmiths and new media "cleverdicks". Please don't confuse the natural language development e.g. the English language development which happened over centuries, with that which happened to the German language overnight. That was mainly artificially fashion driven by young media designers of popular culture without any deeper understanding and feelings for their own language. Unfortunately, the German masses take it on board. This fact doesn't mean that it is correct and mature enough to be present in a dictionary. Who are the German masses anyhow. No other country follows fashion in a copycat like way to such an extent. There are ample samples in everyday life.

English is the lingua franca and runs parallel to the German language and everyday life. You cannot just 'grab' words and artificially incorporate them overnight into the German language and give them an alternative and improper false meaning. The public at large will be totally confused about what is English and what is German. There is good language and there is bad language. The same goes for the sound of a language and its spelling.

We were slightly bemused by the way Germany handled its spelling structure over the last 10 years. The term 'power dictionary' definitely comes under the term bad language, for which you are responsible. There are people in Germany who welcome and even promote and foster this unnaturaly and artificial ugly development and anglisisation of the German language. Observing this development from the outside world, especially the Anglo-Saxon speaking world which gives us a vantage view with absolute clarity, we sadly can only witness a creeping corrosion and deterioration of the expressive German language. Instead of enhancing and enriching it, the language is being watered down from a good one to a bad one. Foreign students of the German language are not interested in a corrupted one. Foreigners are also extremely confused about the usage and ambiguous meaning of the so-called English loan words and strange slogans and idioms which have mushroomed overnight all over Germany. When German tourists and businessmen go abroad they cannot even ask for a handy. Nobody understands them and their strange language.

The young people of course are especially prone to this language development and for some reason they prefer American English to English English. They assume it is more cool and hip. It is almost like living in virtual reality. They have lost touch with the real world. There is a lot of fancy thinking going on, full of preconceived and false ideas. I would like to add that the introduction of English words into the German language was run like a massive PR campaign and well coordinated by certain factions of German society, from the media language institutions to political and industrial. They hoped the German language, its culture and Germany's image abroad would be enriched, enhanced and more popular. Foreign students would take up the German language more readily, the German music industry would sell more records, industry would sell more cars. The slogan possibly could read 'Vorsprung durch Sprache'. Overnight the English vocabulary, idioms and strange advertising slogans were force fed onto the German public. One could say the German language was 'overpowered' by the influx of English. Ask any foreign student, visitor or speaker of the German language, the general consensus is of utter bewilderment, amazement and astonishment. The German language has become less and less popular abroad as a result.

Yours sincerely,
F.Stehr

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