Physiognomy of a Woman - Chapter VIII. - Mother Tongue

Posted on Mar 10th, 2008 by

The book The Mother Tongue - english and how how it got that way (by Bill Bryson) isn't telling us how moms speak with babies, not at all. It's about English vs. other languages, as French, Japanese, Creole's, German, Italian, Spain and so on.
As Swiss, born in Zurich, my "Mami" spoke SwissGerman, so mother tongue (mothers tongue) was a Swiss Dialect (as spoken in Zurich).
Back to Bill Bryson's book in which he stated, that English didn't adopt of German words. Hmmm? Since 1995 I'm living in the U.S.A. (Colorado). I got the impression (and facts) that quite a lot of German words are in use in English, like :::
Achtung ( ) + Angst (n.) + Blitzkrieg (n.) + Dreck (n.) + Eigenwert (n.) + Hinterland + Kindergarten (n.) + Lebensraum (n.) + Noodle (n.) + Poltergeist (n.) + Rucksack (n.) + Schmooze (v.) + Schnitzel (n.) + Shlep (v.) + Verboten (adj.) + Wunderkind (n.) + Zeitgeist (n.) + Dachshund + Delikatessen + Ersatzkaffee (coffe substitute) + Götterdämmerung + Schutzhund (protecitve dog) + Sturm und Drang + Schadenfreude . . .
+++
and SPITZER and SPRITZER

SPITZERdigicollage670x447

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