Derivations of German Words
Germanisms in foreign languages may have gone through a change of meaning, appearing as false friend to the learner's eye. For instance, in Russian language, a галстук galstuk is not a scarf (German literally: "Halstuch"), but a tie; nor would a парикмахер parikmacher (German literally: "Perückenmacher") be a "wig-maker", but actually denote a hairdresser.
Likewise, in Japanese, a messer is not a knife, but a scalpel. Two more examples would be Japanese アルバイト (transliterated to "arubaito", derived from German: Arbeit and abbreviated to "baito") and リュックサック (transliterated to "ryukkusakku"; derived from German "Rucksack"; abbreviated to リュック ).
Read more about this topic: Germanism (linguistics)
Famous quotes containing the words german and/or words:
“Immanuel Kant lived with knowledge as with his lawfully wedded wife, slept with it in the same intellectual bed for forty years and begot an entire German race of philosophical systems.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: “It might have been!””
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)