East Germany's Bizarre & Lost Language

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[NameExplain]

What's your favourite East German word?

[Venatoris]

The term "Antifaschistischer Schutzwall" from the DDR does not mean "anti-racist protective wall." The translation is incorrect. "Antifascist" is not the same as "anti-racist." In the DDR, it wasn't about racism but about defending the political and economic model of the DDR against the West. Interpreting it as "anti-racist" is a modern perspective that was not used in the DDR.

[gescheharm]

Dear, this one is realy sown with a hot needle, as we tend to say in Germany. Fascism is not translated to racism. It contains a lot of racism, that`s for sure, but it does not cover it all. Antifaschistisch is just antifascist. Name explained?

[SpeedOfTheEarth]

German born 1994 here: The division of germany into west and east germany is only really a relic of the past if you grew up outside of germany. It's still apparent to this day how reunification hasn't made two separates into one equal so far.

[billkammermeier]

I would like to strongly recommend that next time you a do a name explain for a foreign language you get a guest native speaker. That was rough to listen to lol

[martinbruhn]

As a german, I had to look at the words written out to understand them

[justboot]

1. You're right, East Germans after reunification suddenly had to learn a whole new set of concepts and vocabulary, especially regarding economy, politics and bureaucracy. In addition to being thrown into a completely new labour market. Basically like a person today moving from one country to a completely different one. And the differences in dialect, pronounciation and social customs certainly didn't make it easier.

2. You could have differentiated more between words and phrases that developed naturally and stuck around, and those made up by the socialist propagandists. Words from the normal Eastern dialects include Datsche, Broiler, Rennpappe etc. Most of your examples were manufactured "newspeak" rarely used day-to-day. You touched on this towards the end of your video but it wasn't clear enough IMO.
3. Pronounciation. I would love to recommend this video to others but can't. What's the point of a language video if a native speaker can't even understand what you're saying? There is always text-to-speech if you can't say some of the words.

4. Inaccuracies. It's anti-fascist protective wall, Führerschein and Fahrerlaubnis are used interchangeably (Führer can mean leader or driver), the country officially reunified less than one year after the border was opened. Konsum refers to a cooperative society that sold many consumer goods in their stores. Some shops continue operating today, even in the West.

As always, I really enjoy your videos and am always curious because of your varied selection of topics. Just had to get this off my chest 😊 Danke!

[Jan_Koopman]

There actually is a Dutch (NL) song about the Berlin wall and how it divides people. The chorus translates to something like this:
"Only the birds fly from East to West Berlin,
Are not whistled back
Nor shot down,
Over the Wall, over the Iron curtain,
Because sometimes, they wanna be in the East
And sometimes, they wanna be in the West"
The song is called "Over de Muur" by Klein Orkest.

[tkgsingsct]

I was born in 1965, seeing that wall come down was extraordinary.

[frakturfreak]

Vieheinheit is and was also used in West Germany in tax laws for agricultural producers. 1 VE = 1 cow. 0.08 VE = 1 alpaca

Both Fahrlaubnis and Führerschein are used in modern Germany by the official authorities. The Führerschein is only the card that documents that you have the Fahrerlaubnis. So think of it as "driver card" and "driving permit". The GDR didn't make this distinction.

[urquizabr]

German is my second foreign language, but I would say this video was poorly executed, considering the pronunciation for the most part, but the translation into English lack a deeper research. I know you love the linguistics and try hard to bring good information, but this wasn't your best video.

[RenardoJS]

Btw, there acutally IS a real almost lost language in east germany! Its called Sorbian. It has slavic roots, no real relation to German and so few people speak it, that its been granted protected status by the government. Public tv broadcasters are required to have Sorbian programming as well. Might be a Story for another vid

[Jan_Koopman]

Dear Name Explain,

While I love your content and think it's very interesting, your pronunciations are often off, as are your translations (antifasistisch = anti-fascist, not anti-racist; Brüderländer = brother countries, not brother country...). For this reason, I would like to suggest you try to get the help of people who actually speak the languages you're talking about. I, for example, speak Dutch, English, German, French, and Hungarian. I would be delighted to help you with videos that contain these languages, for which I would ask no compensation!
Please, consider the offer.

[jayayebee]

I empathize with 1990s babies, but imagine being a 1980s baby. Our elementary educations were often outdated the next year. Textbooks weren't updated until we hit late middle school, at best. Then, you don't realize countries like Eritrea exist until you're in high school because American teachers really aren't thinking about Africa. It's like you were equipped for a time you hardly lived in.

[mescalero_]

For me as a german born in East Germany, the concept of East and West Germany still exist to this day. And I say that even tho I was only born in 2006, so quite a bit after the reunification. Unfortunately however the east west split in Germany is still to this day a sad reaity, if not by borders on a political map, even worse by wealth, financial and social security, and so on and so forth.

[jerrywood]

I remember a friend of mine in college who told me about a paper he was writing for a sociology class that argued that whatever happened politically or economically, East and West Germany would never unite. He contended that the social change had been so profound that they were now distinct nationalities, as different as Germans are from Austrians. I thought he was full of it.

[markusd.]

As a German I have some interesting aspects to add:
- "Großvieheinheit" GVE is a term used in agricultural science (still today) to measure the grazing of pastures. A cow and her calf equal 1 GVE, if you switch from cows to young cattle or even sheep this allows you to calculate with other animals, since over- or undergrazing the area could be problematic it is recommended to keep a certain ratio of GVE per area. So even if it sounds hilarious to foreign ears it's just a technical term and no everyday word.
- How you translated anti-fascist as anti-racist is unclear to me - the words are surely not interchangeable.
- As far as the "geflügelte Jahresendfigur" goes - it's still a common practice in German today to rename christian elements. This time not in the name of communism but "cultural diversity". To not offend non-christian people living in Germany some of the famous christmas markets were renamed to winter market, the St. Martin lantern-processions traditionally held on his name day were renamed to light or lantern fests and the school holidays in the all hallows week are better known as autumn holidays now. There are more examples but you get the point.

[DieZeitungsente]

As a (West) German myself, I found that quite bemusing. I think we have a general penchant for inventing overly bureaucratic terms for mundane things - it shouldn‘t come as a surprise that this „admin-lingo“ evolves differently in different political/administrative environments.

[RenardoJS]

I was born in east germany in 1988, so i dont have any recollection myself, but loads of stories from my family. Seems to me that hardly any of these phrases actually caught on with the people. It was something implemented by the dictatorship, so dient really find too much love

[ShawnRavenfire]

I remember just starting high school at the time, and my geography textbook was suddenly out of date. It was actually color-coded separating the "free" countries from the "not free" countries. I took a pen and tried to update the new borders myself.

(I'm in the U.S., by the way.)