The Committee for the German Language (Gesellschaft fรผe deutsche Sprache—see below) has announced its Wort des Jahres for 2024 as a nod to the collapse of the Red, Yellow, Green party coalition in the government and the call for snap-elections, but there were several other words being monitored as contenders, including Klimaschรถnfรคberei—essentially the German rendering of “green-washing,” kriegstรผchtig, war-like, Rechtsdrift, a shift to more conservative and populist politics, die Selbstbestimmung in Bezug auf den Geschlechtseintrag (abbreviated SBGG), a update to the outdated 1980 law on transgender identity enacted in November that allows non-binary individuals to register under a new first name and sex without the bureaucratic onus and Messerverbot, in reference to a few incidents of knife-attacks at public events earlier in the year and the response of authorities.
synchronoptica
one year ago: assorted links to revisit (with synchronoptica), the spelling of Christmas and Hanukkah plus Germany’s Word of the Year
seven years ago: the fraught and racist history of square-dancing, net-neutrality under threat plus a catalogue of spomenik of the former Yugoslavia
nine years ago: a real world copy of the Simpsons’ home
ten years ago: the historical Snow White plus the History of the World in 100 Objects
eleven years ago: decorating for Christmas, spies in the skies plus the languages of Switzerland