These are linguistic processes. No one organizes them, to say nothing of regulating them. And yet they occur with a regularity that one can formulate as a law. It is a refreshing realization. Languages that have written traditions, languages that are registered and monitored and brought to our consciousness by all the disciplines of linguistics—such languages are rather overburdened with rules telling us what is correct and what is incorrect. Oral dialects take care of all that with perfect precision and without the aid of academies or even of a written tradition. That is, the dialect doesn’t take care of it, the people do—for example, the people in the village. Like all natural things, however, the dialect dies when conditions no longer favor its continued existence or, to express it in the language of today, when its logotope is destroyed. Then the time is at hand to prepare a eulogy. And gradually, such a time is becoming imaginable.
Glossary
Ankerkette
anchor chain
Ata
a brand of scouring powder
Beatrijs
The eponymous heroine of a fourteenth-century Dutch poem recording the legend of a nun who leaves the convent for the man she loves. After seven years, he deserts her. She spends the next seven years as a prostitute to support her children. When she asks outside the convent what became of the nun Beatrijs, she learns that she is still at the convent. The Virgin Mary has taken her place for fourteen years and she can now return, her absence unnoticed.
Bienenstich
“bee sting” cake
Brennabor
German manufacturer of automobiles, motorcycles, and bicycles from 1871 to 1945
“Dein ist mein ganzes Herz”
“My Whole Heart Is Thine,” an aria from Franz Lehár’s operetta The Land of Smiles (1923)
Dominik, Hans
German science fiction author, 1872–1945
Erb, Karl
German tenor, 1877–1958
Flaggleine
flag halyard
Heesters, Johannes
Dutch-German actor, 1903–2011
Henkel
a brand of German sparkling wine
Horney, Brigitte
German-American actress, 1911–1988
“Jägerlied”
Jungvolk
Nazi organization for boys ten to fourteen years old
KDF
Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy), Nazi organization for leisure and vacation activities such as group tours
Knoteck, Hansi
Austrian actress, born 1914
Kommerzienrat
“councilor of commerce,” an antiquated honorific conferred on a businessman
“Kommet ihr Hirten, ihr Männer und Frau’n”
“Come, Ye Shepherds, Men and Women,” Bohemian-German Christmas carol
“Komm zurück”
“Come Back,” hit song from 1939
Krahl, Hilde
Austrian actress, 1917–1999
Kreisleiter
National Socialist county administrator
Kyffhäuser Bund
Kyffhäuser Association, an umbrella organization for veterans’ and reservists’ groups
Leuchtturm
lighthouse
NSKK
Nationalsozialistisches Kraftfahrerkorps (National Socialist Motor Vehicle Drivers Corps), provided instruction in the operation and repair of motorcycles and automobiles, especially to young people
NSV
Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt (National Socialist Public Welfare Service)
Obersturmführer
“Senior assault leader,” SS rank equivalent to a first lieutenant
“Oh You Joyful, Oh You Blessed” (grace-bestowing Christmas time), German Christmas carol
Ordensburg
Originally a fortress built by a medieval German military order; during the Third Reich a training school for Nazi and SS leaders
Persil
a brand of laundry detergent
Regenbogen
rainbow
Röhm, Ernst
(1887–1934) leader of the SA, the paramilitary wing of the National Socialist Party, homosexual, assassinated on Heinrich Himmler’s orders
Rökk, Marika
German-Austrian actress, 1913–2004
“Sag beim Abschied leise Servus”
“When Parting Just Whisper ‘So Long,’” hit song from 1936
Schlageter, Albert
Nazi martyr, court-martialed and executed by the French in 1923
Section 11
A Nazi law making it illegal to christen a child with a Jewish name
Section 175
An 1871 law, repealed in 1994, criminalizing homosexual relations between men
Signalgast
signalman
Steuerbord
starboard
Steuermann
helmsman
Stifter, Adalbert
Sturmführer
See Obersturmführer, Untersturmführer.
Tauber, Richard
Austrian tenor, 1891–1948
Untersturmführer
“Junior assault leader,” SS rank equivalent to a second lieutenant
“Von Apfelblüten einen Kranz”
“A Wreath of Apple Blossoms, ”an aria from Franz Lehár’s operetta The Land of Smiles (1923)
Wer hat dich du schöner Wald
Who [raised you up], you lovely forest, opening lines of “The Hunter’s Farewell” by Joseph von Eichendorff, set to music by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and others
Werner, Ilse
German actress, 1921–2005
Wer nie sein Brot mit Tränen ass
Who never ate his bread in tears, opening lines of a poem, often called “Song of the Harp Player,” from Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, set to music by Franz Schubert (opus 12, no. 2) and others
Werwolf
Werewolf, a member of a group of irregular fighters organized in 1944 to resist the Allied invasion of Germany
Winnetou
Wild West novel by Karl May (1842–1912). The eponymous hero is an Apache chief and the friend of the first-person narrator, a German immigrant nicknamed Old Shatterhand.
WHW
Winterhilfswerk (Winter Relief Organization), collected donations of money, clothes, and food for needy citizens
Zürnewible
name of a local bogeyman