Re:My Favourite German Word
by FearNotDaniel on Tuesday July 22, 2025 @12:57AM
(#44643374)
Once you get into learning German, it’s surprising how many compound words like this are actually direct translations of the Latin or Greek roots of the same English words. Hydrogen = Wasserstoff (water material); television = Fernseher (distance seer) and so on. It’s almost as if they had their own uncleftish beholding moment.
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Your examples are relatively modern, but there is a huge number of compound German words that are calques of French words, Latin words or Greek words, and which have been coined several centuries ago.
For instance: circumstance => Umstand, or depend => abhängen, or expression => Ausdruck, or participate => teilnehmen.
German looks unfamiliar for English speakers mostly because all the words that English has borrowed as such from French or from classical languages have been translated into compound German words.
Not necessarily these words, but a lot of these translations stem from linguistic purism:
Re:My Favourite German Word
by WalterBright on Tuesday July 22, 2025 @01:23AM
(#44643488)
The rocket fuel for the Me-163 Komet is T-Stoff and C-Stoff. A fuel leak would dissolve the pilot.