The Long Words in German

[This is part of my series of posts on languages. You can find an overview here that I will keep updated: “Synopsis: Language Posts.”]

As far as I can see, a common perception is that German has extremely long words on a regular basis. I understand where this comes from, but mostly I think it is mistaken. Someone on Twitter asked whether there was an even meaner word for “Schadenfreude.” When I mentioned “Häme” all interest was gone. That does not look like a true German word.

Word stems in German — the part that determines the meaning — are usually rather short: one or two syllables, sometimes perhaps three. That is like in most other languages. It can be more syllables for words that are from other languages, but that is not the part that German brings to the table. So far, this is not very different from English, actually often quite parallel. For example “word” is “Wort” and “stem” is “Stamm.”

German has more grammar, so nouns, adjectives, and verbs change according to their function in a sentence and that works via endings. Yet, that is also rather modest compared to older Indo-European languages like Latin. You can get only one or perhaps two syllables out of it. So the plural for “Stamm” is “Stämme.” For “Wort” it is a bit tricky because there are two plurals: “Wörter” and “Worte.” The former refers to a number of specific words, the latter denotes words in a figurative sense: what someone has said. So “die Worte Goethes” would be some saying from Goethe, whereas “die Wörter Goethes” sounds strange because it means something like the words he has coined. However, “Wort” is very exceptional in this regard, and many Germans also get the plural wrong.

Occasionally, you can get more mileage out of such endings. “Delicious” is “lecker” in German (but means “beautiful” in some dialects and also in Dutch with a different spelling as “lekker,” which can sound funny in High German, eg. a “lecker” girl). English forms the comparative as “more delicious,” which is basically like in the Romance languages. Only for short words you append “-er,” eg. “faster.” But in German that is usually so, and so it is “leckerer.” Now, you might have to add another “-er” if it refers to a masculine noun, and so you can get “leckererer.” That is almost a tongue-twister. But it means you would avoid it and use some other expression.

In general, German is somewhat more productive than English when it comes to forming new expressions from word stems by means of prefixes or suffixes, parts that are attached before or after the main word. Those are short, though, and this is similar to English. For example, there is “-heit,” which is the same as “-hood,” and “-schaft” which corresponds to “-ship.” Usage is not always parallel. So “wahr” is “true,” and the “truth” is “Wahrheit,” literally “truehood.” The opposite is actually “Unwahrheit” and not “Falschheit,” which usually means something more like “deceit.” Or “landscape” is “Landschaft.” In German, you can add such endings to create new words although most are fixed as is also the case in English.

As for prefixes, there are many for verbs that can change the meaning. Again, you can create a new word in this way, but often that happened in the remote past and the meaning may have diverged from what it orginally was. That’s why you cannot always guess it just from analyzing the word. For example, the prefix “ver-” (like “for-” or “fore-” in some English words) usually means that something goes wrong like in “verlieren,” which is basically “lose,” but the “lieren” no longer exists as a separate word. “Verschreiben” can mean that you misspell something (“schreiben” is “write,” originally from the Latin “scribere”). But it can also mean that a doctor prescribes a medicine. And “sich verloben” means you become engaged (“sich” is “him/herself”). Hard to explain because “loben” means “laud” or “praise,” but excellent for puns like also with “sich verheiraten” (marry). Many such prefixes like “be-” or “ent-” can also add a perfective meaning, which is similar to what you have in the Slavic languages.

There are also some prefixes for adjectives, sometimes from nouns that can be poetic, eg. “stein-” (“stone”) can mean “very,” as in “steinreich” (“reich” is “rich”) or “steinalt” (“alt” is “old”). However, that goes only so far, and mostly it is fixed, so you would be wrong to form “steinarm” (“arm” is “poor”) or “steinjung” (“jung” is “young”), which sound very funny. But all in all, there is the possibility to add several prefixes and suffixes to create longer words. Still, those are not really all that long if you analyze them.

Here is a word that looks intimidating: “Vergangenheitsbewältigung.” I guess the problem for those who don’t know German is that you view it as one long string of characters and have a problem chopping it into shorter pieces. This is how it works:

• “gehen” is “go”
• “vergehen” is similar to “forgo” in English, and means something like “go away,” but in a narrower sense of time that passes.
• “vergangen” is the participle, similar to “forgone,” and means “past.”
• Adding “-heit” (“-hood”) makes it into a noun. So “die Vergangenheit” is “the past.”
• The “-s” could be a genitive as in English, but it is there mostly for aesthetic reasons to make the word easier to pronounce, the so-called “Fugen-s” (a “Fuge” here is a “groove”).
• “bewältigen” has the now archaic “walten” as its root, which is basically the same as English “wield” and once meant that you have some power. “Wältig” must have been an adjective (“-ig” is as “-y” in English) and would be parallel with “wieldy.” The “be-” (like the same suffix also in some English words, eg. “bemoan”) adds a perfective slant, and so the whole meaning is: to overpower something, get a handle or grip on it.
• “Bewältigung” is the corresponding noun where the “-ung” is parallel with English “-ing.”

Hence the formidable word could be rendered in English as “forgonehood-bewieldying” and just means “getting a handle or grip on the past.” If you analyze it, it is perhaps not as mysterious as it may seem at first sight.

And here’s now why German often looks like it has these extremely long words. In English, if you paste different words together, they might still be written separately or with hyphens. I am always confused whether it is “time frame,” “time-frame” or “timeframe.” There is no hard and fast rule what is right. It depends on how people use it. But in German, the rule is simply that if it is one concept, it is written as one word. So it is “Zeitrahmen” (“Zeit” is “time” and “Rahmen” is “frame”). It looks longer, but actually it isn’t, only intimidating for someone who doesn’t know how to split the word up into its components.

I would say that the German spelling makes more sense than the variable spelling in English. If it is one concept, it should also be one word. However, Germans are by now somewhat confused because it is different in English. It is even worse when you use words from English that in German should be spelled together, but aren’t in English. Is it really “Computerharddrive?” So you often see people add a hyphen or even write the words separately. The latter usage looks ugly in German, but then it can also look ugly if it is different in English, and so you have to make a call. Hyphenation was actually much more common in the 19th century and is perhaps a more elegant solution: You write the word together, but help a reader with spotting the components.

There is this one word that is often used as a poster child for the long words in German: “Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaft,” with the additional quirk that there are three ‘f’s in the middle. It is made up of:

• “Donau” = the river Danube
• “Dampf” = steam
• “Schiff” = ship
• So: “Dampfschiff” = steamship
• “Fahrt”: travel or just moving from one place to another with some vehicle (the verb is “fahren” like English “fare”).
• “Geselle” = someone you are associated with, eg. a companion in a business or a journeyman working with a master.
• “Gesellschaft” = society.

Hence the word would be “Danube Steamship Travel Society” in English, which is roughly as long, just not spelled in one word. And there is an irony here: When the actual “Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaft” was founded in the 19th century, it was spelled “Donau-Dampfschiffahrts-Gesellschaft” with hyphens, not as one word. In the older spelling, there was also a special rule to avoid three ‘f’s in a row when two words come together, but that is no longer so.

All in all, I would say that you really have slighly longer words in German because prefixes and suffixes are somewhat more productive than in English, ie. you can create new words more easily, but only to some extent. Mostly, the long German words are only apparent. The reason is not that they are really that long, only that you write them as one word. And often English can be much more brutal when words are strung together. Take “Senate committee chairman.” You could translate that as “Senatskomiteevorsitzender” (“vorsitzen” is literally “sit before,” and the “-ender” is a participle like “-ing” in English). But I would balk at such a monstuous word and break it up into smaller chunks like “Vorsitzender des Senatskomitees” while in English it is perfectly okay.

The long words in German are like the “Scheinriese” Herr Tur Tur in Michael Ende’s “Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer” (Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver) — a truly splendid book by the way that you should not miss out on, also with a fascinating backstory, see the Wikipedia entry. “Führer” is actually not only Hitler in German, but is literally a “leader” and appears also in innocuous words like this one or “Reiseführer” (travel guide). A “Scheinriese” is a giant (“Riese”) that only appears as one (“scheinen” is “appear”), an apparent giant. Herr Tur Tur does not become bigger as you approach, but shrinks the closer you come. That’s what is is also with the long German words.