禁止使用德式英语

German business and English
德国商业和英语

No Denglisch
禁止使用德式英语

Willkommen to linguistic purity
欢迎来到纯净语言的世界

Jun 29th 2013 |From the print edition

TRAVELLERS on Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s state-owned railway, are used to  being addressed in a peculiar language peppered with ponderous English  words and phrases, such as Neue Snackbox für Kids. But rail bosses have  decided that this creeping use ofDenglisch has gone too far. They have  issued staff with a glossary of 2,200 Anglicisms which they are  henceforth discouraged from using.

乘坐“德国铁路”（Deutsche Bahn，德国的国有铁路公司）的旅行者已习惯听到一种德语中掺杂大量英语词汇的奇怪语言，例如“Neue Snackbox für Kids（注：New snack box for kids）”。但铁路老板们认定这种逐渐养成的德式英语太过泛滥了。于是他们向员工印刷了一份词汇表，里边的2200个英语舶来词今后禁止使用。

Words such as bonus, business class, lifestyle, non-stop and package  deal must be replaced by their German alternatives, though some are  deemed to have been sufficiently absorbed into German to be acceptable:  brunch, container, sandwich and VIP, for instance.

例如bonus（额外奖励）, business class（商务舱）, lifestyle（生活方式）, non-stop（直达）,  package  deal（全套服务）等英语词汇必须替换为德语的同义词，不过有些英语词汇已经充分融入了德语，因此可以接受，例如：brunch（早午餐）,  container（容器）, sandwich（三明治） 和VIP（贵宾）等等。

Germany has no official guardian of linguistic purity; the very idea of  it would bring back unpleasant memories of the 1930s. France has two:  the Académie Fran?aise and a separate committee, reporting directly to  the prime minister, that monitors businesses and other organisations for  neologisms, especially ones imported from English. Offenders are told  to use papillon for flyer, tablette for iPad and vignette for widget.  However, Germany’s transport minister, Peter Ramsauer, has appointed  himself German shepherd. For the past three years he has been gently  guiding firms like Deutsche Bahn back on to the path of linguistic  fidelity.

德国没有官方机构来保护语言的纯粹性，因为“纯粹性”这一概念会让人想起二十世纪30年代的不愉快回忆。法国则有两个这类机构：“法兰西学院”(Académie Fran?aise)和一个直接向总理汇报的独立委员会，负责监督企业和其他机构使用新词汇的情况，尤其是英语的舶来词。犯规者会被告知要使用papillon代替flyer（传单），iPad 是 tablette，widget（微件【1】）是vignette。然而，德国交通部长，彼得-拉姆绍尔自命为德语的守护者，在过去的三年间，他一直都在温和地引导“德国铁路”这类企业回归语言纯粹性的道路。

Advertising in Germany is particularly prone to Anglicisms. “There is  the illusion that using English shows you are livelier, younger and more  modern,” says Holger Klatte of the German Language Association, founded  in 1997 to preserve and promote Goethe’s mother-tongue. Zalando, an  online clothes shop, is a typical offender with its “Must-haves”,  “Basics” and “Shop by Style”. Deutsche Telekom’s slogans include the  baffling “Call & Surf Comfort via Funk”.

德国的广告业尤其容易遭到英语舶来词入侵。德国语言协会(German Language Association)成立于1997年，旨在保存和推广歌德【2】的母语，该协会的霍尔格-卡拉特表示，“人们有个错觉，仿佛说英语显得你更活跃、更年轻、更现代化，” 德国的网络服装店Zalando就是明知故犯者的典型代表，其广告充斥着“Must-haves（必入手款式）”，“Basics（基本款）”和 “Shop by Style（按风格购买）”等英语词汇。德国电信(Deutsche  Telekom)也在宣传语中使用英语，例如令人费解的“Call & Surf Comfort via Funk”。

Most English slogans used in Germany fall flat because they are so  garbled, says Bernd Samland of Endmark, a brand consultancy. A recent  survey by his firm showed that only one-quarter of the English slogans  used to advertise cars were understood by those polled. Most bewildering  was Mitsubishi’s “drive@earth”. Ironically, among the reasons for the  worldwide success of Audi, a German carmaker, is its slick marketing,  which even in English-speaking markets features a German slogan,  Vorsprung durch Technik.

品牌咨询公司Endmark的贝恩德-萨姆兰德表示，德国的大多数英语口号都反响平平，因为这些标语难以理解。近期一个调查显示，汽车广告中只有四分之一 的英语口号能被读懂。最不知所云的口号是三菱汽车的“drive@earth”。具有讽刺意味的是，德国汽车制造商奥迪在全球范围内取得成功的一个原因是 其聪明的营销策略，而奥迪就连在英语国家的市场中也使用德语口号：Vorsprung durch Technik.【3】*

From the print edition: Business

注【1】：widget一词基本意思是“小装置、小玩意”。译者考虑语境，在这里取用的“微件”一词实际对应的是计算机用语web widget，即HTML网页上的小部件，它的表现形式可能是视频、地图、新闻或小游戏等等。
注【2】：歌德（1710年-1782年），德国国宝级作家，代表作品《少年维特的烦恼》《浮士德》。
注【3】：Vorsprung durch Technik在一汽官方口号中是“突破科技，启迪未来”。翻译为英文是 taking the lead through technology（感谢crazybaofulusha同学提供的德语翻译）.