Anglizismen im Deutschen meiden - warum das nicht so leicht ist

There has been a long tradition of discussing the advantages and disadvantages of using foreign words in the German language. In the first part of this paper, an historical example of this discussion will be presented. It shows that at the end of the 18th century a highly differentiated approach to this question had been developed. The type of functional reasoning applied there could also be useful for the present discussion about the influence of English on the German language. A functional interpretation of the use of indigenous and foreign words respectively in a language like German unavoidably leads to the conclusion that the use of elements of foreign origin is an integral part of what it means to be a modem European language. Of course languages differ in the wavs in which they technically deal with this fact. To document the fact that the integration of the European tradition o f mutual cultural and linguistic contact is a characteristic feature of European languages, and that different languages deal with this in technically different ways, the second part o f this article compares a German non-fictional text with its counterparts in seven other European languages