Newsgroups: alt.usage.german,alt.usage.english,sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!cam-news-feed3.bbnplanet.com!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!howland.erols.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uchinews!not-for-mail
From: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: German/English words
X-Nntp-Posting-Host: ellis-nfs.uchicago.edu
Message-ID: <E4D9xu.Lvs@midway.uchicago.edu>
Sender: news@midway.uchicago.edu (News Administrator)
Organization: The University of Chicago
References: <32c5e8d0.11522930@news.muc.de> <6P3GBUmJnrB@ibm.franken.de> <5bpusg$k98@news.NetVision.net.il> <79lq7FAmy74yEwF5@redwoods.demon.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 16:32:17 GMT
Lines: 33

In article <79lq7FAmy74yEwF5@redwoods.demon.co.uk>,
John Davies  <john@redwoods.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>In message <6P3GBUmJnrB@ibm.franken.de> - 17 Jan 1997 16:11:00
>>+0200zwanziger@ibm.franken.de (Ralf Zwanziger) writes:
>>:>
>>:>Additional there are some german words that have no equivalent in
>>:>the English language, like Kindergarten or Sauerkraut...
>>
>Weltanschauung, Weltgeist, Weltpolitik, Realpolitik, Schadenfreude...
>all listed in Chambers, though I think only the last two have any wide
>currency.

I hear "Weltanschauung" all the time.  Whenever I ask someone why they
can't just as well use "world-view" instead, I hear something like "It's
not as all-inclusive".  Pfui!  Even if this were true (and, as a
reasonably fluent speaker of German, I don't think it is), it wouldn't
take much substitution of "world-view" for "Weltanschauung" before the
former had all the connotations of the latter--except the added cachet of
using a foreign polysyllablic, of course.

And speaking of "Schadenfreude", I was more than I little impressed that
it has an almost exact equivalent in modern Arabic:  shamaata.

Oh, and as for "angst", which another poster brought up, I think it should
count as a partial false friend.  In English usage, "angst" usually means
"lingering existential dread", although I've even heard it used as a
synonymn for "stress" (e.g. "She's angsting about her bio paper").  In
German, it's simply "anxiety", sometimes "fear".  (E.g. "Hab keine Angst"
= "Don't be afraid" NOT "Don't get angsty".)
-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
