# Why did English borrow so few German words? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 10, 2001, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-borrow-so-few-german-words/57461 "2001-03-10T18:20:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2001, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-borrow-so-few-german-words/57461/21 "2001-03-11T02:17:55Z")
**rocking chair** and **wastelands** , you are talking about a different set of words. Yes, English is a Germanic language and shares many cognates with German and Dutch because of that. But in addition, many German and Dutch words have been borrowed in more recent times (almost entirely in the last 500 years, long after the Anglo-Saxons expanded their lebensraum[sup]1[/sup]). That’s the kind of words that Tom has in his list and that I saw in my scanning of the dictionary. In etymologies, the cognates are shown as being from Old English, while recent borrowings have the specific language borrowed from. [sup]1[/sup] Another WWII borrowing from German. ---
**Author:** ![keeper0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@keeper0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keeper0)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2001, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-borrow-so-few-german-words/57461/22 "2001-03-11T02:25:45Z")
> [@](#): > > **from Coldfire** > William of Orange went to England, not the other way around. Yup. I knew that. Sorry about the lack of clarity. Let’s just say the Netherlands and England were strongly affiliated. 🙂 Reminds of my tour guide at Edinbugh Castle talking about James VII of Scotland become James I of England and Scotland. “This is when we like to say England became part of Scotland.” ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2001, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-borrow-so-few-german-words/57461/23 "2001-03-11T02:35:59Z")
Dont forget about the whole group of German words that were borrowed by annoyingly pretentious people. Angst Schadenfreude Lebensraum gestalt(actually that may be from a name, not a stolen word, I don’t know) and many others Most people who spoke German made an effort to stop using German completly in WWII, so there would be less of those words leaking into the language from that period onward. In addition, Many Yiddish words that have become well known lately have an obvious strong German component. ---
**Author:** ![Major\_Feelgud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3be4f8/32.png) [@Major\_Feelgud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Major_Feelgud)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2001, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-borrow-so-few-german-words/57461/24 "2001-03-11T08:04:52Z")
You got the question the wrong way around. English came from German. The Angles and Saxons were Germans who pushed out the Celts and pretty much colonized the island which is England/Scotland/Wales. The roots of the English language is German, the grammar, language structure etc. The reason why there are so many French words in the English language is that in 1066 the Normans came from France and beat the then English King Harold. After that, a lot of French noblemen came over and took over the aristocracy. French was spoken at first but then the languages kind of merged into today’s English. When I studied German my instructor told me it’d be easier than learning French because the structures were similar. I’ve studied both. But it’s easier to guess read French because so many words are similar. I could hardly guess read German at all. That makes sense because when you are guessing a foreign language tenses like past perfect, future perfect etc, mean nothing. You just need to know enough to guess what they’re saying. ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2001, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-borrow-so-few-german-words/57461/25 "2001-03-11T08:10:21Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by wastelands \* > \*\* Linguists almost unanimously agree that English and German are closer than any other 2 languages._\* Linguists agree on no such thing. Sorry, but that’s nonsense. English and German both belong to the Germanic group of languages, part of the Indo-European family. That group also includes Frisian, Dutch/Flemish, Afrikaans, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Frisian, and Icelandic. **All** of these languages are close enough to one another that their relationship is fairly obvious even to the untrained eye. Linguists differ on how they subdivide this group, but no one puts English and German closer than any other pair within this group (let alone among all the thousands of languages of the world). The closest living relative to English is, in fact, Frisian - a small language spoken in some coastal areas in NW Germany and the Netherlands. ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2001, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-borrow-so-few-german-words/57461/26 "2001-03-11T09:15:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Major Feelgud \* > **You got the question the wrong way around. English came from German.** No, English and German share a common ancestor, which is referred to as Proto-Germanic. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2001, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-borrow-so-few-german-words/57461/27 "2001-03-11T09:43:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by rocking chair \* > \*\*oh no! when i say kaka, i’m really speaking dutch??? \*\* Not necessarily. The Indo-European root word is _kakka_ (to defecate) and cognates include the following: Nouns Spanish _caca_ Irish/Scottish Gaelic _cac_ Manx _cackey_ / _keckey_ Welsh _cach_ Breton _kac’h_ Cornish _caca_ German _kacke_ Verbs Middle English _cucken_ Old Norse _kuka_ Latin _cacare_ The Greek word _kakos_ (= “bad”) also comes from the root, as does English _cacophony_. I’m told there’s a similar word in Sanskrit, but I can’t find it. Finnish apparently also has _kakka_ meaning the same thing, which is interesting as Finnish isn’t an Indo-European language. ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2001, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-borrow-so-few-german-words/57461/28 "2001-03-11T09:48:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by wolfman \* > **Most people who spoke German made an effort to stop using German completly in WWII,** Earlier than that. Up until the First World War, German was the second most common language in the US, behind of course English. (There are in fact a number of parallels between the position of German at that time and the position of Spanish today.) But once the US entered WWI, anti-German feeling became so intense that the language suffered a remarkable decline. A few towns actually passed laws making it illegal to _speak_ German in public. Even when the law wasn’t against them, German speakers found it safer to hide their language, and in many cases rejected it totally in favor of English so there could be no doubts about their loyalties. So there was little need for any action against Americans of German heritage during WWII… they’d already “learned their lesson”. (Incidentally, “Gestalt” is indeed a German word. And anybody using the term “Lebensraum” today outside of its historical contest needs a boot to the head.) ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2001, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-borrow-so-few-german-words/57461/29 "2001-03-11T16:24:16Z")
I agree with flodnak. The “Old English” spoken by the inhabitants of England was apparently mutually intelligible with the “Danish” spoken by Canute in the mid-11th century. The differentiation of various Germanic dialects into separate languages was a very gradual process and only began to have any real significance in a political context with the rise of nationalism. And I will note that really the words “dialect” and “language” have little precise meaning anyway and are more political than anything else. It has been observed that some of the various “dialects” of Chinese have considerably less similarity than some of the different “languages” of Europe. - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2001, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-borrow-so-few-german-words/57461/30 "2001-03-11T16:33:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jomo Mojo \* > \*\*In _Metamagical Themas_, Douglas Hofstadter examined the oddities of mapping one set of symbols onto another. > > > [@](#): > > > > ACHTUNG! > > > > Alles touristen und non-technischen lookenpeepers! […] Relaxen und watchen das blinkenlights. > > \*\* I don’t have the book to hand right now, but I think he made the point that native German speakers could not see what was funny about this. It’s only funny for English-speakers. **keeper0** , the personal union between Britain and the Netherlands was very brief and indeed did not survive the reign of William III. After he fell off his horse and they imported some German royals, it was back to business as usual, including serious rivalry for control of the seas. Final nitpick: it was James VI, not VII, who became first Stuart king of England. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2001, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-borrow-so-few-german-words/57461/31 "2001-03-11T19:26:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by dtilque \* > … long after the Anglo-Saxons expanded their lebensraum. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by flodnak_ > And anybody using the term “Lebensraum” today outside of its historical contest needs a boot to the head. Note to self: avoid personal meetings with flodnak. ---
**Author:** ![weapons\_grade\_bullonium](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c68b51/32.png) [@weapons\_grade\_bullonium](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/weapons_grade_bullonium)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2001, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-borrow-so-few-german-words/57461/32 "2001-03-11T19:59:39Z")
The Angles and Saxons were Germans. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2001, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-borrow-so-few-german-words/57461/33 "2001-03-11T20:06:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Major Feelgud \* > The reason why there are so many French words in the English language is that in 1066 the Normans came from France and beat the then English King Harold. After that, a lot of French noblemen came over and took over the aristocracy. French was spoken at first but then the languages kind of merged into today’s English. This is the abbreviated high school version of the influence of French on English. The reality is more complex, almost as complex as the history of the relationship between England and France. There were some French words borrowed into English before the Norman Invasion and some were borrowed as recently as the 20th century. As far as what languages were spoken after the Norman Invasion, the vast majority of the people still spoke English. But the new aristocracy and their scribes spoke and wrote only French and Latin. So for a couple hundred years (roughly 1100 to 1300), there are virtually no English-language records. But this did not mean that no one was speaking English. ---
**Author:** ![Major\_Feelgud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3be4f8/32.png) [@Major\_Feelgud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Major_Feelgud)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2001, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-borrow-so-few-german-words/57461/34 "2001-03-12T02:54:48Z")
Quote: “As far as what languages were spoken after the Norman Invasion, the vast majority of the people still spoke English.” Oops, yes, that’s what I meant. The aristocrats spoke French but the commoners continued to speak English, and they didn’t like each other that much. Over several generations the aristocrats became “English”. And that is an abbreviated version. ---
**Author:** ![Major\_Feelgud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3be4f8/32.png) [@Major\_Feelgud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Major_Feelgud)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2001, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-borrow-so-few-german-words/57461/35 "2001-03-12T03:02:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by flodnak \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by Major Feelgud \* > > **You got the question the wrong way around. English came from German.** > > No, English and German share a common ancestor, which is referred to as Proto-Germanic. \*\* No. The root is Germanic. Modern English and German share a common ancestor which is West Germanic, from which also comes Yiddish, Dutch and Flemish. And WG is only a branch. North, E and W Germanic all sprung from the common ancestor. So Modern English did come from German, by way of West Germanic, and so did Modern German. ---
**Author:** ![snac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90db22/32.png) [@snac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snac)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2001, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-borrow-so-few-german-words/57461/36 "2001-03-12T03:18:01Z")
Bill Bryson, in his book Made in America (about the development of American English), says that many of the words we usually think of as coming into English via Yiddish may actually have come in from German (or Dutch) instead. He mentions nosh, schlemiel, and phooey as three words that could have come from any of three directions…in his phrase, “are as likely to have entered American English from German sources as Yiddish.” (quote on p. 142 of my copy, in the footnote) I think most people would say that Yiddish has had a strong influence on English, American English anyway; if Bryson is to be believed, some of those borrowings might better be attributed to German instead, thus expanding the pool. ---
**Author:** ![snac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90db22/32.png) [@snac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snac)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2001, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-borrow-so-few-german-words/57461/37 "2001-03-12T03:28:08Z")
On the subject of Bryson…dtilque said, “IIRC, Bryson said something to the effect that there were only two common English words (kindergarten and hinterland, I believe) that are borrowed from German. I have no idea what he based this on, but it’s easily the most ridiculous statement in that book.” Odd, because in Made in America Bryson states that German “prospered on American soil.” (p. 140) The contrast is with Gaelic (“gave us only a handful of words”), the various Scandinavian languages (“imparted even less”), and Italian (“slightly more productive, though…only with food words”). He then has a couple of paragraphs listing what he makes clear are only a few of the terms borrowed from German, most of them from the wave of immigration that took place during the middle and end of the nineteenth century. While he doesn’t give figures, it’s clear that he sees German as one of the most productive sources of current English borrowings. Will the real Bill Bryson please stand up? ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2001, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-borrow-so-few-german-words/57461/38 "2001-03-12T08:24:55Z")
OK, I dug out my copy of _The Mother Tongue_ and found the text in question: > [@](#): > > _p 75 of the hard cover edition_ > A final curious fact is that although English is a Germanic tongue and the Germans clearly were one of the main founding groups of America, there is almost no language fom which we have borrowed fewer words than German. Among the very few are _kindergarten_ and _hinterland_. We have borrowed more words from every other European language, and probably as many from several smaller and more obscure languages such as Inuit. Well, besides the fact that we have borrowed lots of words from German, he’s mistaken about how many we’ve borrowed from other European languages. For instance, we’ve only borrowed one word from Finnish (sauna), maybe three or four words from Serbo-Croatian and none at all from Bulgarian, Slovenian or Latvian (among others). And less than 10 from Inuit. Compare these numbers with the 3 dozen or so that Tom gave earlier in this thread. (That list is hardly a complete one; with a little bit of work, I could come up with 3 dozen more and still not exhaust the category.) Bryson is a journalist, not an expert on languages. He didn’t make up any of the facts he gives, but he doesn’t check them out thoroughly, either. I’d still like to know where he got this “fact” about German. As far as him contradicting this in another book, well, he must have used a different reference. Or maybe someone sent him a letter telling him how off-base he was. ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2001, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-borrow-so-few-german-words/57461/39 "2001-03-12T13:55:18Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by ruadh \* \*\* > [@](#): > > Finnish apparently also has _kakka_ meaning the same thing\*\* If that is the case (I really should know, but I don’t) the Finns have most probably borrowed it from Swedish. We did have some exchange of words when present day Sweden and Finland were just the Western and Eastern halves of the realm. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2001, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-borrow-so-few-german-words/57461/40 "2001-03-12T15:55:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dr\_Paprika \* > \*\*English is a scavenger tongue that borrowed _boondocks_ from Filipino Tagalog and _poppycook_ from the Dutch. Many of the words are stolen from the French and anglicized, same goes fro Aboriginal place names. Why so few words borrowed from the Germans despite the sizable emigration? Was it because our salivary glands weren’t big enough? > \*\* _ **STOLE** _ from the French??!? Yeah, sure, in the same way the goose whose liver is destined for the kitchen steals the food that is forced down her unwilling throat. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-borrow-so-few-german-words/57461.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-english-borrow-so-few-german-words/57461.md?page=3)