In the above-linked BMW commercial, from Sweden, BMW talks about their new night vision system. The narrator’s voice and text on the screen are all Swedish, but rather than use whatever the Swedish term for “Night Vision” is, the English term is used for both audio and text.
Why are they using the English term, instead of the Swedish (or, for that matter, German) one? Is it trademark reasons or something? It seems odd that BMW, a global company, would only register trademarks in English - and how can they trademark something as generic as “Night Vision” anyway?
They certainly do not use English terms for everything. Even on cars sold in the US, the popup rollover-protection bars just behind the headrests in their convertibles are prominently labeled “Uberroll Schutzsystem”.
For the same reason we use foreign words in product names. We associate certain languages with certain qualities, and that goes a long way with brand identification. For example, give something a French name, and people associate it with elegance, or an Italian name might make it seem more romantic or passionate. Perhaps English has a connotation of “high-tech”???
When I was in Rome, I couldn’t help noticing how many stores, of all kinds, were called “bars.” It seemed very trendy to have a “shoe bar” or a “perfume bar” or a “leather bar” (no, not **that **kind of leather bar).
They might just not have a appropriate Swedish word for night vision. When I was studying danish they told me that Denmark doesn’t have an agency that finds new words for things like computers so it’s just computer in danish.
Years ago, a certain large oil company here ran an ad for one of its motor oils, a product called LazerWay. A big, obnoxious, middle-aged Texan stereotype had brought in his car for servicing, and a scrawny, pimply-faced Norwegian kid was about to add the product. The Texan asked what the kid was putting in his car, the kid told him, and the BOMATS, confused by the English name, asked, “Is that American?” No, the kid said in a ridiculous Norskie accent, it is Scandinavian. “Well, if it’s Scandinavian,” the BOMATS asked, “why do you call it LazerWay?”
The SPFNK replied: “We sell more of it.” Obnoxious laughter followed.
(BOMATS, sotto voce: “Smart@ss.”)
Sometimes the simplest explanation is the best. They sell more of it.
Pudmobile, Norwegian doesn’t have such an agency either, really. Oh, we have an agency that periodically thinks that’s its job, but we also have 4 1/2 million people who ignore that agency 99% of the time. Yet a computer in Norwegian is called a datamaskin, because that’s the word that caught on. Attempts to get people to call a PC a PD, on the other hand (for personlig datamaskin) failed entirely. It’s still a PC.
In Spain it’s often a case of being able to use the same package for several countries. We had Mr. Proper but now it’s Don Limpio, ooooooooh! Now it comes with the safety info in the four official languages instead of in Spanish and a couple “foreign” languages.
Other times, trying to translate the name from English produces several lines in Spanish. Not good. Marketing people are the kind of professionals who travel so much they’re likely to be bilingual. I know my brain sometimes just switches languages, I’m sure it happens to them as well. I’m more likely to think about a concept in the language in which I learned it first/have used it more/it’s more compact for the same level of detail. I do colors and cook in Spanish but for most computer stuff I think in English.
For trademarks, Don Limpio and Mr. Proper are different ones. So you have to pay twice if you want to register both (perhaps in two different places); if you want to make sure that someone won’t rip off your UK-brand for another market you still need to register it in the other markets*. IANA Intelectual Property Lawyer but it is my understanding that if you register a TM or Patent in all of the EU at the same time you can just do it centrally. Also I don’t know how different is the paperwork to register a brand in the USA and the EU but I assume a lot of it could be reusable… if you really are a global company (like BMW), it may be cheaper and more efficient to just get the same TM worldwide.
A chemical company where I worked had a lot of problems with labels because their main product lines had different TMs for the US and the rest of the world. They finally ended up printing the labels with both names while the lawyers got the “general” TM registered in the US (the US TM was unacceptable in the EU, from what the people from Sales said).
The Puma brand of sneakers sold in Spain for decades wasn’t owned by the Puma brand selling elsewhere. The logos were almost identical, but aaaaaah, the brand had been registered by a “local” business before the multinational thought of doing it. The multinational created a different brand for Spain but ended up paying the other guys for the TM.
We actually have people getting paid from the government to come up with Icelandic words for foreign ones. But it’s the same deal here that people decide if it goes into use or not, flatbaka(pizza) didn’t make it but tölva(computer) did make it into the vocabulary and is the one used.
I’ve noticed that this is done a lot in German advertising, especially in ads aimed at the business-travelling class. I remember a Hertz ad in Der Spiegel* where the title was, “Be a Hertz Number 1 Man”.
In the UK we use the Swedish term *ombudsman *(A government official who investigates citizens’ complaints against the government or its functionaries) because there is no English equivalent of the word.
Oh, we do have a word for night vision (mörkersyn or nattsyn), in this case it’s most likely that they felt it sounded cooler with English.
Sweden does not have any institution which makes up new words either. Like most languages we borrow terms from other languages and over time they become part of the language.
Take e-mail for example which is a fairly new phenomenon. In the beginning people were using e-mail (in English). Mail in Swedish is post so over time it has morphed into e-post or mejl (pronounced like mail but a more natural spelling for us). We also use e-posta or mejla as verbs.
In Swedish computer is dator. In German it’s Computer.
We use that in the States for the same reason (not just government), and etymology aside, it’s by all means considered an English word. You crazy Brits…