You know how America’s cuisine comes from just about everywhere, and then they Americanize it? 

Chicago is famous for a few things, but particularly meat. I think the meat packing industry was big there? Anyway, deep dish pizza is a Chicago thing, and “Vienna hot dogs” are another Chicago thing. 

So some fun facts. A lot of the stereotypical American foods are actually often German. 

Hot dogs are also called wieners, which makes a lot of children giggle. But “Wien” is the German name for Vienna, and all over the German speaking world there are sausages named after cities or regions where they’re specialized. 

Therefore a “Wiener” is a sausage in the Vienna style, or more specifically it’d be called a Wienerwurst. 

Since Wurst is the word for sausage, that’s why “Wiener Schnitzel” doesn’t actually involve sausages at all. It’s a schnitzel in the Vienna style. 

Americanization takes the emphasis in a weird way. Bratwurst is a white sausage that’s made for frying, or “braten” which is the verb for frying. But in America, the colloquial name is “Brat.” So Americans will ask if you want a Brat, not a Wurst, which makes sense in America but sounds very weird if you know German. 

The more you know. 

Someone pointed out to me that what makes German special, compared to other languages, is its relationship with its dialects. When you travel across German speaking Europe you will hear distinct and separate accents and dialects of German spoken within each region. Across Switzerland you have Zurituutsch and Wallisertuutsch. In Germany you have Sachsisch and Schwabisch. 

But nevertheless, there is “High German” or Hochdeutsch, which is the ideal “clean” German that everyone can understand. When a Sachse talks to a Bayer, if their accents are too difficult (and if they get along in the first place) they will speak Hochdeutsch. 

To my knowledge, no other language has this. The closest I can think of is Indonesian. 

Indonesia is also a collection of many, many cultures, each with their own languages. There is significant difference between Javanese and Sundanese, though they share some similarities. But Bahasa Indonesia serves as an umbrella language for everyone to have in common. 

The interesting thing that both German and Indonesian share is a lack of inhibitions about absorbing English words and Englishisms into their languages. There is no taboo in speaking Denglish, or Indlish. it’s a little funny to say “Wir hangen aus” but everyone understands it. Most languages are similarly pragmatic. 

One of the few languages that I know of which vehemently fights against this is French. The French are rather famous for stubbornly resisting Anglo-Saxon culture (and the Anglo-Saxon world in general) and for them it’s generally a terrible crime to import English words or English sayings into their language. It happens, but they try their best to resist it. 

Aren’t languages just so fun? 

Gegen Knäste und die Gesellschaft die sie braucht

or

Against prisons and the society they require

I’m also fascinated by thoughtful graffiti. 

…und als ihnen ihre Tempel nicht mehr genügten, bauten sie neue, grösser as jemals zuvor.

Or:

… and as their temples were no longer satisfactory, they built new ones, larger than ever before. 

Dear McDonalds, 

I know it rhymes, but… really?

One of my challenges, that I was never taught in any of my language courses, is in German initialisms. 

English does this a lot. We write “etc.”, “eg.” and so on and take it as given, but there are a lot in German, possibly more than I commonly find in English. 

“u.s.w.” means “und so weiter” which works like “etc.” 

“z.B” means “zum Beispiel” so literally “eg.” though I don’t know how “eg.” becomes “for example.” 

“d.h.” means “das heisst”, in English which works like “and this is called…” or “and this means…” 

But there are all these other ones I still just don’t know… 

I just wanted to say that one of the most endearing things I’ve seen in a while is an article I just saw in the seasonal magazine from the University of Zürich. 

Well I think it’s seasonal. I just received it, but it says “#04/12”. Makes sense this way. 

Switzerland is a country with 4 languages, of which German is the largest proportion. But among the German speaking cantons, there are several different accents and dialects. Züritüütsch is probably the more understandable to anyone with some knowledge of German, but general consensus agrees that Wallis (in French ‘Valais’) has the absolute worst, most incomprehensible, and strangest form of Swiss-German. 

So one article here is a comparison and response article, titled “Ach, du bist Walliser. Das heisst Sina, Freyinger und Fendant!” with a response under “Stimmts? Ein Walliser atwortet.” The first article seems, from a casual glance, to suggest that Walliser students should try to fit in more, rather than just hang out together and stick to Walliser things like Fendant, Cholera (a Walliser pastry, not the disease) and so on. 

The first part of the article is written in Hochdeutsch, more or less. The response is, however, written in Wallisertüütsch. There is no technical written form of Swiss German, but people write it anyway because German pronunciation of its alphabet and phonetics is quite consistent and standardized. 

The second begins with:

Ja, ich bi en Walliser und seg mer ja nit Grüezi. Denn di Grüezinji sid ier da, wa nördisch va de Alpe läbet. Es tüet scho weh, wenn mo am Sunntagabond schich ine volle Zug richtig üsserschwiiz quätscht und z Land wa Fendant und Raclette fliesst, hiner schich laht. Da, wa Chircha und Staat no Hand in Hand gehnt, wo di Vetterlji-Wirtschaft no nit va der Korruption verdrängt wordo isch und wa immer d Sunna schiint. 

I will award a million cool points to any non-Swiss person who can translate that well. 

Wir Sind Helden - Bring mich nach Hause

Ich brauche einen Freund mit weiten Schwingen,
Der mich heil nach Hause bringen kann,
Durch die Dunkelheit, den Wind, den Regen
Um mich dann vor meine Tür zu legen
Und dort erst auf der Schwelle will ich verbluten,
Wenn ich still bin, soll der Regen jede Zelle fluten,
Ich brauch, ich brauch, ich brauche Nichts

germannn:

Most of them are German classics or classics translated into German, so you can’t expect contemporary German in most cases. But maybe you are interested anyway. I think the audio files could at least be helpful to get used to the general sound of the language. 

Some speakers are less pleasant to listen to than others. I personally like the voice that reads Kafka’s Hungerkünstler. Just one tip. :)

P.S. If you are actually interested in this site and if you have problems to find what you are looking for, just ask. Unfortunately, the site is completely in German.

Handy. 

German films in the background for today’s revision: 

1. Das Boot - One of the best films ever made, recommended to anyone. A journalist joins a German submarine crew during the Second World War and experiences the claustrophobic terror of their work. 
2. Goodbye Lenin! - Also an excellent film. An east German mother falls into a coma before the Berlin Wall falls, and when she wakes up her son concocts increasingly wild explanations to prevent her shock at how much the world is changing. 
3. Lola Rennt - A very stylishly shot film, in which Lola has 20 minutes to get 100,000 Deutschmarks to save her boyfriend, bumping into people along the way and affecting their lives in fascinating ways. 
4. Das Leben der Anderen - A Stasi (East German secret police) agent is tasked to spy on a poet for subversive activity, discovering he’s one of the few real believers in the system, and watching the system turn him against it. 

Really I would recommend these films to anyone. In the case of the three more historical films, it’s better to know the context… but you can always find reason to learn. 

What’s interesting when you watch these is that they depict a German context. When you watch films from different countries, you see what they make films about, which tend to have different themes based on their histories, culture, and so on. 

Because I’ve spent too much time on Tumblr, I think “What would an Americanized SJ activist think when watching this?” Would they think there aren’t enough PoCs? Would they complain? Would they say “Ha, white people?” 

Maybe they’re not as bad as that. One hopes that they would see the benefit of looking at the world from a different perspective. 

Fifty Shades of Schwarz-Gelb

Video. 

“Das Missen Massaker” 

For some reason the “Miss Schweiz” competition is taken somewhat seriously here in Switzerland. I think it’s because of the various cantons, competing to see who has the prettiest girl from year to year. 

In any case, they made a horror film starring them. It looks like a terrible movie. 

But what makes this trailer really cool is that you get to hear all these different kinds of Swiss German.