Translated material
From Reichswehr to Bundeswehr
How the German language is changing
From the Reichswehr to the Bundeswehr. The editor-in-chief of the DUDEN dictionary, the most famous German publication, answered the questions of The New Times correspondent
Editor-in-Chief of the German Dictionary DUDEN Matthias Wermke - Kate Kollmann
Can you imagine Chancellor Angela Merkel suddenly announcing a Year of the German Language in Germany?
That would be good. People need to consciously use their native language. For example, in 2000, the UN announced Mother Tongue Day, so that we remember that there are languages that very few people speak. After all, big languages are a threat to small languages. For example, in the east of Germany, Sorbian is still spoken. It's a very old Slavic language, and it's going to die soon, because the children there are speaking German more and more. A lot of Austrian words disappear in Austria. Due to German tourists, due to the rather strong German culture in the current period, more and more German words come into the Austrian language. The Austrian language is losing ground.
Should the language be promoted?
Certainly. In Germany, German is the official language. But in our country there are more and more people for whom German is not their native language. And this is a big problem. Our task is to make sure that the Turks, Arabs and Russians who came to live with us learn our language as fully as possible. We need to create German language courses in kindergartens. Start with diapers. Otherwise, we may end up with more and more schools that Berlin already has: there are a lot of Turkish children in the class who speak German badly, and instead of starting to teach them to read and write, the teacher simply teaches children the correct German speech . And what about the Germans who grew up in families where they speak German at this time? This is a very serious problem for us, for the existence of our language, and so that it does not become threatening, we need to solve it right now.
Each region of Germany has its own dialect. Do you think the dialect has a future?
The dialect, like the German language in general, is changing because today people travel a lot, exchanging both words and the way they are pronounced. Today there is more communication between people who speak different languages and dialects. Now the Bavarian dialect is completely different than 60 years ago.
Is it possible to understand from dictionaries how the psychology of the Germans changed in different periods of history?
Undoubtedly. The language reflects the history of the people. If we look, for example, at DUDEN dictionaries of the 20s of the last century, a dictionary from the times of the Third Reich, the FRG of the 50s and united Germany, we will not only see how the appearance of the language has changed. We will feel the breath of history.
You can take for example the words that relate to the army. After the First World War, the German army became known as the Reichswehr (Reichswehr), which means "defense of the empire." With this new word, the Germans wanted to show other states that although we have little strength to unleash a victorious war, there is an empire that we are ready to defend. In the dictionary published under Adolf Hitler, a new word for the army appears - "Wehrmacht" (Wehrmacht). This word for many nations has become synonymous with something terrible. Do you feel how much aggression there is in it? Wehrmacht - protection and power. With this word, the Germans made it clear to other peoples and inspired themselves: our strength, our will to power is growing, now we can not only defend ourselves, but also attack.
After the division of Germany into East and West, the GDR had a People's Army (Nationale Volksarmee). The rulers emphasized that the new army belongs to the people and protects the people. So the ideology was reflected in the language. At the same time, Germany did not have its own army for a long time, since the United States and the allies did not give the Germans such an opportunity. When she nevertheless appeared, she was called the Bundeswehr (Bundeswehr), which means "protection of the union." This meant that other times had come, the Germans were now part of the alliance of democratic powers, counting on it and allies. This new word reflected a revolution in the minds of West Germans: a rejection of aggression and a commitment to an alliance of democratic countries. I'm only talking about "army" words, but in general, you can give a lot of other examples. The German language, like any other, reacts to changes taking place in the minds of the people.
The unification of Germany must have brought some problems to philologists: which "East German" words to include in the dictionary and which not? After all, there were many specific words associated with ideology. How did they deal with them?
Yes, in 1991 we published a new dictionary and faced such a problem. We have included words new to West Germans in the dictionary - after all, at that time they were full-fledged particles of the German language. Surprisingly, it was the East Germans who opposed the inclusion of these words in DUDEN. But we still decided that since these words are still alive, we should add them to the dictionary. And then the 1991 edition included the phrase "General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany" and other already outgoing words. Of course, they were not included in the next edition of the dictionary. As were not included, of course, in the dictionary that was published after the defeat of Germany in World War II, such words as "Gestapo", "Gauleiter", SS, SA. It is interesting how the political system influenced the language of East and West Germans during the Cold War. In the GDR, many words were taken from Russian - for example, "work." And in Germany, many words came from American English. Politics affects language, and this is inevitable.