Let's stay on the theme, I guess.
Monday, I wrote about my upcoming driving expedition in Germany. Yesterday, I wrote more about cars. So today we'll continue the thread with a bonus of throwing a language lesson in, as well. I had mentioned that I needed to dig out the sheet I have explaining what German traffic signs and lights mean, and I was immediately reminded of my favorite aspect of the German language--
Compound words.
The German language seems to believe that the more syllables a word has, the better. And that's often shown in their use of compound words, words that take two words in another language to form one German word.
As an example, the German word for “glove” is handshuh, which would translate into English as “hand shoe”. And as a side note, it sometimes IS hard to believe that German is actually the mother language of English.
Really, it is.
Anyway, while looking at the sheet of traffic signs & lights I remembered my favorite German compound word of all time. I'm not quite sure how they get this many syllables from a single term, but would you like to see the German word for “traffic light”? Here it is--
Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzungsschild
Oh, those wacky, wacky Germans and their wacky, wacky language.
8-)
In English, “traffic light” is three syllables. But in German, the language from which English is descended, it's (if I'm reading this correctly), ten. And what's even more amazing, the German word for “light” (Licht) isn't even part of the compound word. Neither is the word for “traffic” (Verkehr) Yet somehow, that 33-letter word is what a German would say if I were to point to a traffic light.
So if you ever need a good word for Scrabble, there you go. And if you ever get bored on a rainy day, head over to Google translate, type an English word in, and see what the German translation might be.
Because, I'm guessing, that's not the wackiest compound word that's out there.
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