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The Awful German Language (1880)

(faculty.georgetown.edu)
186 points nalinidash | 3 comments | 16 May 25 04:09 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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rawbert ◴[16 May 25 06:21 UTC] No.44002326[source]▶
As a developer working in a German company the question of translating some domain language items into English comes up here and there. Mostly we fail because the German compound words are so f*** precise that we are unable to find short matching English translations...unfortunately our non-native devs have to learn complex words they can't barely pronounce :D

Most of the time we try to use English for technical identifiers and German for business langugage, leading to lets say "interesting" code, but it works for us.

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oytis ◴[16 May 25 09:09 UTC] No.44003276[source]▶
I don't know where the idea about the preciseness of German language comes from, especially in anything computer-related. For one, German language famously fails to distinguish between safety and security as well as between an error, a fault and a mistake. Whenever Germans discuss any software matters, they seem to be "code-switching" to English terms themselves.

Compounds have to be translated using multiple words, yes - that's just a few extra white space, it doesn't result in loss of precision.

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1. dahauns ◴[16 May 25 12:39 UTC] No.44004729[source]▶
There very much was a well defined distinction between safety and security: Sicherheit and Schutz, as in Datensicherheit and Datenschutz.

And yeah, you can see with those two latter terms where the issue lies :)

Those two were traditionally actually used this way in the safety and security context - I think I even have the script for the "Datenschutz und Datensicherheit" lecture I had on uni in the '90s lying around somewhere in the attic.

But their meaning has changed and muddled so much over the years - probably not helped by the fact that "Sicherheit" is much closer to "security" in colloquial usage, and probably vice versa(?) - that they stopped being useful and used in this context.

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2. oytis ◴[16 May 25 14:06 UTC] No.44005706[source]▶
I meant the difference between safety-critical and security-critical systems, safety goals and security goals etc. It's all Sicherheit in German.

Schutz is protection. Can refer to both I guess. E.g. Datenschutz would be about security, while Arbeitsschutz is about safety.

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3. globalise83 ◴[16 May 25 15:24 UTC] No.44006597[source]▶
Datenschutz is about legal protections for personal information (protection of the rights of the individual). Datensicherheit is about technical measures to ensure security of information (security).