Denglish for All

Der unterschiedliche Schwierigkeitsgrad zu anderen Episoden erklärt sich in dieser und einigen anderen dadurch, dass es sich in dieser Episode um meine ersten Versuche, auf Denglisch oder Denglish zu schreiben handelt. An nur einem Nachmittag, während der harten Manuskriptverkaufs-Verhandlungen mit Horseface, erlernte ich spielerisch die denglische Sprache.

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A first perusal of his diary seems zu indicaten, dass Horsefaces stylistic refinements, with more “real” and idiomatic English mit hier und da interspersten truly Einfach-Denglish, den Text sogar for native speaker Denglish learners suitable macht, with some knowledge of German, that is. Naturally, this is bound to give rise to endlosen Diskussions as to whether there should be different kinds of Denglish at different levels of communicative Kompetenz, und dadurch die the old class distinction sustained werden.
Der first part of Horseface`s diary was, however, devoted to Aribert`s teachings, wobei Horseface, being the eifrige disciple he was, an den very lips of this great master of Denglish hang. Wegen fehlender spelling rules for Denglish, hat Horseface die Rechtschreibung ausgelegt wie er wantete, as is customary with many other languages these days aus anderen reasons. You will find that there is absolutely no pattern erkennbar from his spelling and grammar. Sometimes behielt er the English spelling bei, sometimes he would capitalise English Wörter. Likewise, he has entschieden the original correct English word or expression zu usen. In other cases, he has brutally eingedeutscht English words and thus both languages verstümmelt.
Horseface zog vorrübergehend aus dem doss house aus when he got a job. After a few years` interlude, he returned ever more ready seine studies of Denglish zu continueen. Like many other Bewohner, he has now a computer with a mobile internet connection and the whole gamut of the usual allerneuester elektronischer devices modern man cannot do without.
He confeidete to me that during his absence from the doss house, er begonnen häd, Steinzeitsprachwissenschaften zu studieren, prehistoric linguistics that is, in der Hoffnung, this könnte ihm helpen, die evolution of Denglish zu understanden and um eine a deep-seated apprehension about the development of languages in the 21st Jahrhundert zu overcomen. Seine sprachwissenschaftlichen Stärken waren, wie er mir im Vertrauen sagte, “grunting noises through the ages” and “high-pitched emittances of prehistoric females groaning in lust”.
Nicht nur das, he has also taken up the study of prehistoric cave paintings um ihn zu enablen the dominance of colourful pictures in all internet media better zu understanden. The upshot oder Fazit of his argument was that even Stone-Age men sich an bunten pictures, die ihre Höhlen schmückten, erfreuten. Though, of course, their works of art were not animated unlike those you find on the internet.
His diary entries neueren Datums may be of great Wichtigkeit. He has taken to using chat-speak, mingled freely with the cool and carefree style of his Denglish. Und, as we will soon see, he uses chat-speak adroitly in der Alltagssprache. He now fears that his copyrighted chat-speak incorporation in Denglish könnte eine Welle von copycat lawsuits sparken.

Sweaty-Socks-Aribert und Horseface, diese beiden kühnen dipsomaniacs had a sort of master – disciple relationship. Horseface recordete gewissenhaft every Denglish word uttered by “Stinkefuß Aribert”, as he was endearingly von seinen Mitbewohnern genannt. Werden Horsefaces Bemühungen, die Entwicklung der Denglischen Sprache peinlich genau aufzuschreiben, nun belohnt – mit einer post-mortem Ehrennpenner-Würde für Aribert?

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Hätte Ariberts women libber Ex wife, had not sent him packing, the world might have been deprived of Denglish, wie wir es heute knowen. Als er, as he had told Horseface, tried to make her sleep in the wet spot, warf sie ihn aus dem Flat. Und dennoch, immer when Aribert got the blues, he would say he missed rodgering that foxy little tinker.
In the banishment and cultural isolation of a doss house, in der Verbannung und kulturellen Absonderung eines Pennerwohnheims, was einen gewissen degree of tranquillity begünstigt, Sweaty-Socks Aribert spent his idle time running his life experience through the alembic of his mind. And lo and behold, out came Denglish wie wir es heute knowen.
In wie weit his woman’s libber ex-wife has a part in this creative process, remains vorerst a mystery. Aber die notion that women’s lib daran beteiligt war, ist not entirely an unpleasant one.

Was Stinkefuß Aribert kudd not have foreseen was the overwhelming success of his Denglish und die adverse influence on “real” English. Das resultete oft in break-downs in communication since about 60% of Germans do not speak English at all and many of those who do do so at a very basic level, manchmal sogar nur auf Vorschool standard. So would, for instance, many a German traveller auf railway stations umherirren und nach der “Auskunft” searchen, not knowing that the “service point” was the very counter den sie suchten.

Little did Stinkefuß Aribert know, way back in the 80ies des letzten Jahrtausends, dass er später ganze Scharen von Wissenschaftlern dazu bringen würde zu establishen, what makes people speak Denglish. Was it a sense of self-importance gained through inane talk?

Oder um etwas besser aussehen zu letten und over unpleasant facts zu glossen? Or was it the zeitgeist der people koßste blindly and unthinkingly any fad zu followen? Um so zu confirmen what Dorothy Sayers once said in einem Aufsatz on the English language (real English), namely ”most people would die sooner than think, and most of them do”?

Oder waren these people even deluded into thinking that indem sie a kind of arcane specialist jargon usten um sich vom the rabble zu distinguishen they were regarded as sophisticated and worldly-wise? Last, but not least, gibt es noch all jene Denglish speaking journalists, TV and radio presenters, advertising agencies, and anyone trying to sell a product indem sie sich obsequiously and uncritically ihrem clientele, ihren customers and readership or audience zum Sklaven machten.

From what I gathere von Horseface, Aribert da etwas more modest in his Bestrebungen, or um das the catch word of today zu usen “mission”. Admittedly, he wollte jünger than he was appearen and this may have been a reason why er uns sein Denglish hinterließ. Ganz davon abgesehen, he was an erbitterter critic of any form of Apartheid, be that the Spaltung der Gesellschaft into scheinbar nützliche groups, for instance, into conversation groups only for immigrants, martial arts nur for Frauen, or language courses for senior citizens only. And in so doing, wollte er vielleicht so geschaffenen the rifts in society bridgen indem er sein Denglish as a kind of local Esperanto uste, Horseface speculated with Zunge in Backe (tongue in cheek).

Be that as it may, Aribert hätte heftig gegen das Argument protestiert that his Denglish was a sort of linguistic imperialism through the import of English words. Aber er did lay claim to being the first person to speak it throughout den Rest seines Lebens, or rather, stay at the doss house.

Die Konzernsprache Denglish, wie wir sie kennen, dank Sweaty-Socks-Aribert (Stinkefuß-Aribert) sprachwissenschaftlichem Eifer?
Was wäre der hohe Entwicklungsstand der Konzernsprache Denglish ohne Stinkefuß-Ariberts Denglish-Hinterlassenschaft?
Zur Denglishdidaktik: Alle Episoden aus Horsefaces Aufzeichnungen können individuell als self-Lernmaterial benutzt werden. Hier mit Verbesserungen seiner wörtlichen Übersetzungen aus dem Deutschen.


Aribert was a natural. Although he had nicht einmal a wee bit of Grundkenntnisse in linguistics. Instead, he häd sorgfältig constructed almost all language and grammatical Formen, wie sie im Denglischen natürlich occörren (occur) mit großer Präzision und Sorgfalt but also with missionarischem Eifer.

Er hatte sich aus beiden Sprachen bedient, as if it were the most natural thing auf der Welt, at a time when Denglish was still in its children`s shoes (in its infancy). In der Wahl der sentence structures, he betrayte seinen military background since he would, more often than not, rigidly die im Deutschen übliche Satzstellung retainen, even when er slippte in a longer passage in what he thoughte was English.

Geschickt translatete er words, phrases and even complete sentences wörtlich into either language, just like Machine Translation Software would. This phenomena kommt in many official documents these days vor, making texts look stupid and the Schreiber like 10 year olds. Anything goes was his Motto. Es gab no boundaries he wasn’t prepared zu crossen in a great variety of contexts, wenn es darum ging, entirely new words or phrases zu inventen or similar sounding words no-one häd dared before zu usen. Vielleicht wollte er auch nur to the limeys annoyen by confronting them with words no English person could understand.

All das, was man als wrong English or German considerte, anything that was difficult or impossible to verstehen, wurde durch die Zunge of this great master of Denglish zu Gold. He was unerreicht at twisting German and English idioms, words and grammar rules. Er mixte happily anything that came to his mind, unthinkingly, uncritically and komplett (sublimely) unaware of any problems this may cause in communication, which is, nebenbei bemerkt, not only found in the Denglish, wie es von einem Teil der elite gespoken wird, but also in the speech of children , in Globish and Basic Global English.