Linguistic cleansing
Ye Germans, rid your speech and writing of Anglo-Americanisms! Use Gallicisms instead! Out with "OK" and in with "d'accord"! That's the call to action coming from a body called "Sprache in der Politik" (Language in politics). And what has prompted this? "The unacceptable face of imperialism," says the organization. It's talking about what it calls an "illegal war against Iraq" led, it says, primarily by English-speaking countries.
As any visitor to Germany knows, the English language has enriched the native one enormously since the end of the Second World War. German today is peppered with borrowings from English and, despite some mutterings, there are no official attempts to purify the tongue of Goethe and Grass. The affinity for English is understandable, seeing that Germans were saved from fascism and communism in the 20th century by Anglo-American forces, and, more pragmatically, Germany, an export-driven economy, knows full well the value of using an international language to further its interests.
So what's the new order going to look and sound like? Well, if the "Sprache in der Politik" initiative is successful, these are some of the replacements the people (das Volk) will be using:
Adieu/Ade for bye bye, bassin for pool, coupe for cup, d'accord for okay, equipe for team, formidable for cool, ordinateur for computer, trikot for t-shirt? " The list goes on.
One of the reasons given by "Sprache in der Politik" for replacing Anglo-Americanisms with Gallicisms is that German already has lots of French words that could be used more often. It mentions examples such as "Portemonnaie" (purse) and "Pl䤯yer" (plea). And to which famous linguist and anti-imperialist do they owe their presence in German? Why, Napoleon! By the way, I'm only joking (nur ein Witz/je plaisantais) about his being a famous linguist.
Diarist of the day: Queen Victoria, 8 April 1871"Still dreadful news from Paris. The Commune has everything their own way, and they go on quite as in the days of the old Revolution in the last century, though they have not proceeded to commit all the same horrors. They have, however, thrown priests into prison, etc. They have burnt the guillotine and shoot people instead. I am so glad I saw Paris once more, though I should not care to do so again."
