Duden's Words of the Decade

For this week's AMD blog assignment, I decided to read the article "Duden Publishes 'Words of the Decade' Volume." I found the historical and linguistic information very interesting. According to the article the German language has been undergoing many changes in the past decade, like many other languages, and some of the crazt new words have been recorded in the dictionary. Words like Babyklappe (baby flap), and Hüftgold (Hip Fat or Hip Gold), are perfect examples of the German languages tendency to just smash words together to make a new word with a different meaning. Both these words have two parts and the parts stand on their own as accepted German words, but when putting them together they take on a new meaning, so baby and flap becomes babyflap. This happens with some words in English, but not nearly in as informal a manner as in German or as nearly as often. This tendency of German leaves nearly an endless array of options for the the German language to deviate toward. Also interesting was the historical impact of the USSR occupation of East Germany on it's linguistics. Russian words and syllable usage were introduced to the East German region, but not the west due to the political turmoil which caused a slight diversion in language in the two regions. Now that the two regions are reunited the Russian influences are widely considered inauthentic and are no longer in as frequent of use as when the nation was under Russian control. The potential of politics to totally change language blew me a way and intrigued me. Other terms from other nations have also become common in Germany, especially American slang like Hoax, Gangsta-rap, and buzzer. This once again shows how a more global community is changing how we communicate everywhere. A couple other cool words in German I thought were Fettabsaugung (liposuction) and Gammelfleisch (rotting meat). Overall the variety and versatility of the German language intrigued me and I am eager to learn more. Here is a link to the site.

http://www.germany.info/Vertretung/usa/en/__pr/GIC/2011/07/20__Duden__PR.html