Anglo-American Influence on German Sport Terms

Abstract

IN AN ARTICLE ENTITLED 'English and American Sport Terms in German,' Theodore McClintock states that 'even before the war [the First World War] the English word sport had found its way into the standard German dictionaries' and that 'since that time many more English words have been adopted by German sport writers.'2 He adds that some of these words were so well known that they were applied to other activities and that additional words were adopted which have a perfectly good German equivalent. Another, more complete, study3 of the use of English words in German by Agnes B. Stiven also mentions sport loanwords, including a few words not in the McClintock list. That these two lists now need to be brought up to date is obvious. Therefore it is the purpose of this study, first, to note which English sport terms current in German in the 193os according to McClintock and Stiven are still included in recent German dictionaries, and, second, to discuss a list of new English sport words found by the writer in typical German newspapers and popular weekly illustrated magazines published since I955.4 This list is, of course, not a definitive one since it represents the findings of one person reading in several German publications for a given period of time, but it will suffice to indicate the continued use of English sport loanwords in German since the McClintock and Stiven studies. Checking the McClintock and Stiven lists in several standard German dictionaries,5 we find the following words still listed: