XPost: alt.usage.english, alt.language.latin   
   From: naddy@mips.inka.de   
      
   On 2024-09-15, Ed Cryer  wrote:   
      
   > Another feature in this question is the coining of new words.   
   > Neologisms in English are usually pulled from Latin or Greek; but not in   
   > German.   
      
   But German is full of neologisms built from Latin and Greek roots.   
      
   > Helicopter = Hubschrauber   
      
   And "Helikopter" is a common synonym.   
      
   > Aeroplane = Flugzeug   
      
   Right. "Aeroplan"(?), if it ever existed, hasn't caught on.   
   ... It did indeed exist, I found it listed in a Fremdwörterbuch   
   (see below), marked as obsolescent.   
      
   > Computer = Rechner   
      
   But "Computer" is a ubiquitous synonym, and you'll need to perform   
   a corpus analysis to see which term is actually more common.   
      
   There must be a bigger picture here, but I don't think you're going   
   to find it by looking at a small number of individual words.   
      
   > I've always loved the German word "Durchfall". It seems to illustrate   
   > this question somehow. Could it be that we English like to veil things   
   > in an aura of respectability? I.e. we're somewhat pretentious?   
      
   "Diarrhö" exists but is medical jargon.  There you have touched on   
   something.  English medical terminology as used by laypeople is   
   full of Greco-Latinate vocabulary.  The equivalent terms exist in   
   the extended German vocabulary, but they are medical jargon that   
   is used when doctors talk to each other, not to their patients.   
   Something like "femur" is a fairly ordinary English word, but "Femur"   
   came up as an obscure term in a German quiz show.  German medical   
   jargon is more accessible to me than to the average German nonmedical   
   person simply because I know many terms from English.   
      
   More generally, German has the cultural concept of "Fremdword".   
   That is difficult to render in English.  In a linguistic sense it   
   means "unassimilated loanword", but in everyday usage it shares   
   connotations with "big word".  A Fremdwort is borrowed from a foreign   
   language or coined from foreign morphemes, typically belongs to an   
   educated register or jargon, and can't be expected to be understood   
   by everybody.  There are in fact whole dictionaries dedicated to   
   collecting such vocabulary (Fremdwörterbuch).  This distinction   
   between native and foreign vocabulary doesn't exist in the English   
   language world.   
      
   Is that a reason Latinate vocabulary hasn't penetrated German as   
   much as English?  Or is it an effect?   
      
   --   
   Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy@mips.inka.de   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)