2024-08-19 06:09:40
Social changes are also reflected in language. Duden publishing house wants to show such trends. The new edition of the dictionary has been expanded by 3000 words. There is also a trial and error rule that is binding for everyone again.
It’s thick again: the new Duden has been added to contain 3,000 words, including “Balcony Power Plant”, “Deutschlandticket”, “ChatGPT”, “Granola”, “Climate Glue” and “Ukraine War”.
“Duden is a mirror of his time. These words say something about what happened in the last three to four years,” said the editor-in-chief of the German News Agency Kathrin Kunkel-Razum. On Tuesday, after a four-year hiatus, the 29th edition of the most popular German spelling reference work will be published.
With 151,000 subjects, the print edition is wider than ever before. According to Kunkel-Razum, the biggest language changes in recent years can be boiled down to three areas: crisis, war and cooking.
For example, “epidemic” has become a new topic – next to “rapid antigen test” or “corona collector”. Terms such as “extreme weather event,” “air defense system,” “gas shortage” and “combined relief” are reminiscent of conflicts in other regions. Changing eating habits are reflected in terms such as “meat replacement”, “vegetable box”, “tahini” and “contact chamber”.
Spelling variations such as “tuna” or “spaghetti” have been deleted
In addition to new additions, Duden’s editorial team is also removing rarely used words. In the current edition, 300 words have been removed, Kunkel-Razum said.
No longer is “Frigidär” (refrigerator), “UMTS mobile phone” or the term “Rationalizer” used in the GDR for personnel with decentralized tasks. Spelling variations that are no longer allowed, such as “tuna” and “spaghetti,” were also deleted.
The linguist said: “Eliminating words is more difficult than writing words that follow it. It is more difficult to prove that one word is rarely used than another. And sometimes the deletions are reversed. The word “Hackenporsche” (joke for shopping cart) did not disappear from the last dictionary and has now made a comeback. Kunkel-Razum said: “We received complaints that the text had been deleted.
The reference work, named after Konrad Duden, was considered authoritative for decades. The Spelling Amendment of 1996 broke the monopoly. Those who deserve authority are German Spelling Councilwhich announces the “official process”. It has a rules section and a glossary. Reference services such as Duden make these techniques suitable for everyday use.
According to Kunkel-Razum, the new edition also contains spelling changes that the Committee for German Spelling accepted at the last meeting of the third session of the office at the end of 2023. This includes the rule that the comma before the infinitive is again mandatory.
dpa/krott
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