NEW NAZI WORDS

Evening Star, Issue 22572, 13 February 1937, Page 14

NEW NAZI WORDS

PURIFYING THE LANGUAGE German Nazis are now proceeding to “ purify ” the German language, in line with National Socialist ideals, by ordering the elimination of alien constructions. That there may not be too much confusion at first, the authorities will permit certain most familiar foreign forms to be printed in parentheses beside the Nazi versions. Eventually, however, only the new words wiU appear. Readers will have to get used to changes like these— Bezueglichkeitsanschauungsgesetz, instead of Relativitaetsthearic (theory of relativity). Kraftwagen (power wagon) for automobil, aim for aluminium, Nahglas for opernglas (opera glasses). The reader may remember Marik Twain’s gibe at the German language and its ‘‘portmanteau ” words. “ The German long word is not a legitimate construction, but an ignoble artificiality, a sham (wrote the famous humourist). It is made by jumbling a lot of words into one, in a quite unnecessary way; it is a lazy device of the vulgar and a crime against the language.”