Hello everyone,
and welcome to our German Word of the Day. This time we’ll have a look at the meaning of
deuten
You might not have thought about this verb before, but you certainly have used words related to it like bedeuten or deutlich or … deutsch.
“Wait, so you’re telling me that bedeuten, which means to mean, is related to deutsch, which means giving learners a hard time??”
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m telling you.
And there are more useful words in the deuten-family.
Today, we’ll find out all about it and walk away with some nice new vocabulary, so let’s jump right in.
And let’s start like every other super hero movie – with an origin story.
The origin of “deuten” and “deutsch”
It all started with the super mega ancient Indo-European root tē̌u-. The meaning of that root was something along the lines of to swell and it’s the origin of words like thumb (looks swollen compared to other fingers), thigh (looks swollen after Christmas) and thousand, which originally was just a word for large number, mass.
Now, another spin off of the Indo-European root was the Germanic word þeuðō. No idea how to pronounce that but the meaning it had was kind of similar to the original idea of thousand: *þeuðō meant large number of people and later became one of the Germanic words for tribe, people, folk.
The original meaning of deutsch wasn’t far from that – it meant something like of the people, people-ish. With the people referring to the Germanic tribes as opposed to the Romans. One context it was used for was language. You could speak “fancy Latin” or you could speak “deutsch“. And in the early days that could refer to several Germanic dialects, including old English. And one evening in a tavern over a whole bunch of brewskies the people that would later become Germans adopted the word for themselves**…
“Hey, we’re kind of like one people…”
“Meh… not really”
“Well, anyways, we should pick a name for us. Anyone got an idea?”
“Uhm… we could call us … uhm… people.”
“Nice, and our language people’s. And our land peopleland.”
“Hooray.”
(**: might not have happened in a tavern, may have been a process of hundreds of years)
Not very creative. English isn’t any better. They use the super generic word german and for the Germans and the german word for german for Dutch. Oh while we’re at it, the Finns say saksalainen, which is based on the Germanic tribe called the Saxons, in French german means allemand (Spanish, Turkish and many others use variations of that), which is based on the name of another Germanic tribe and the Slavic languages use something with the base niemi- (no idea where this comes from, I couldn’t find anything). Kind of crazy that there are so many different names for german across Europe.
Anyway, time to get to our actual word of the day deuten.
The meaning of “deuten”
We’ve learned that it comes from a word that meant as much as people, folk, usually referring to the Germanic people as opposed to the Romans. The verb deuten itself was to make clear for the common folk…. just think of it as the made up verb “to common-man”
“Hey, care for some Roman wisdom?”
“Sure, bring it on.”
“Cogito ergo sum!”
“Uh..what? Can you ‘common-man’ that.”
“Oh, sure: I think therefor I am.”
“Yeah… uh… I still don’t get it. Can you ‘common-man’ that some more?”
“Ugh, barbarians.”
This original idea of deuten isn’t used or understood anymore but it still shines through in the two meanings deuten has today: to point somewhere and to interpret. I mean… pointing at something is a very effective way of making something clear.
And interpreting something is basically making something clear for yourself first.
- “Warum, oh warum?” fragt Thomas und deutet auf die leere Kaffeekanne.
- “Why, oh why?”, Thomas asks and points at the empty coffee pot.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Wie deute ich das Verhalten meiner Katze?
- How do I interpret the behavior of my cat?
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Now, for both these meanings, German has alternative words that are more common. Zeigen is the more common choice for to point, deuten sounds a bit subtle, and in sense of interpreting it sounds less scientific than interpretieren or analysieren.
But still I’m sure you’ll see deuten used sooner or later. And I’m super mega sure that you’ll see all the related words. For the interpret-deuten, there is for instance umdeuten, which means to reinterpret and the noun die Deutung, which means interpretation, analysis… not in a strictly scientific sense but with intuition allowed.
- Der Trainer hat versucht, das Unentschieden in einen Sieg umzudeuten.
- The coach tried to sell, re-interpret the draw as a victory.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Maria hat sich in letzter Zeit viel mit Traumdeutung beschäftigt.
- Maria has delved into oneiromancy/dream interpretation.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
For the pointing-deuten there are hindeuten, which unlike deuten can be used for abstract pointing, and the super common andeuten, which is just the beginning of pointing… or in other words: to hint, to insinuate
- Leere Sektflasche, Unterwäsche überall, abgebrannte Räucherstäbchen… alles deutet darauf hin, dass Thomas nicht alleine geschlafen hat.
- Empty champagne bottle, underwear everywhere, burnt down incense sticks… everything points to Thomas not having spent the night alone.
(is that idiomatic English?? Danke) - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Willst du damit andeuten, dass ich Schuld bin?
- Are you trying to insinuate that it’s my fault?
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- “Ist das schon sicher, dass du eine Gehaltserhöhung kriegst?”
“Ne, aber mein Chef hat dahingehend Andeutungen gemacht.” - “Is it certian, that you’ll get a raise?”
“No, but my boss made dropped hints about it/implied it.”
(not sure if that’s idiomatic) - Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And these are not all.
Next up is the adjective deutlich and this one has actually preserved the original core of the verb because it means clear(ly), significantly…
- Bei einer Präsentation ist es wichtig, laut und deutlich zu sprechen.
- When you give a presentation, it is important that you speak loudly and clearly.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Maria versucht deutlich zu machen, wie wichtig ihr ein sauberes Bad ist.
- Maria is trying to make it clear how important a clean bathroom is to her.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Berlin ist deutlich teurer geworden.
- Berlin has (clearly) gotten a lot/significantly more expensive.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Very similar looking to deutlich is deutig. It’s not used as a stand-alone but it’s super mega common in combination with ein-.
- Ich mag Craft Beer aber 5 Euro ist mir eindeutig zu teuer.
- I like craft beer but 5 dollar 50 is clearly, definitely too expensive for my taste.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Maria sagt nichts aber ihre Körpersprache ist eindeutig… Thomas sollte wirklich duschen gehen.
- Maria doesn’t say anything but her body language says it all, makes it clear, leaves no doubt, is unequivocal... Thomas should really take a shower.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Eindeutig actually ties in with both the current meanings of deuten. You can see it as “pointing at just one thing” or offering “just one interpretation”. And of course, there’s also the opposite: uneindeutig. And zweideutig. And mehrdeutig. Oh, and vieldeutig. Looks like German is quite precise as to how unclear something is :)
- Der Satz von Marias Chef war eindeutig zweideutig.
- The sentence Maria’s boss said was clearly equivocal/suggestive/ambiguous.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Der Satz ist mehrdeutig.
- The sentence is equivocal, allows several interpretations.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Cool.
Now, these were already some really useful words. But they didn’t have their own headline. The next one does…
The meaning of “bedeuten”
When a word gets its own headline that means it must be very significant.
Hold on, let me say that again, this time in hint mode.
That MEANS that it must be very SIGNIFICANT.
Yep, bedeuten means to mean, to signify.
- Die Tatsache, dass das Wort seine eigene Überschrift hat, bedeutet, dass …
- The fact that the word has it’s own headline means that….
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
How did this meaning come about? Well, I think it’s kind of a mixture of pointing and making clear. Like in this use of the word, which is rare nowadays:
- Thomas bedeutet Maria zu gehen.
- Thomas “non-verbally communicates” to Maria to leave.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
But I always think of it purely as the pointing-deuten. The fact that I got 80% in the exam “points at” (“inflicts pointing”) at the fact that I passed. The word German word Tisch “points at” the concept of a table. It “means” table. Don’t know if that makes sense. Anyway, let’s look at some examples:
- Ich habe 80% im TestDaF… das bedeutet, dass ich bestanden habe!!!
- I made 80% in the TestDaF exam… that means that I passed!!!
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ja, ich habe gesagt, du kannst in meinem Zimmer fernsehen, wenn ich nicht da bin. Aber das bedeutet NICHT, dass du da einziehst.
- Yes, I did say that you can watch TV in my room when I’m not at home. But that DOESN’T mean that you can move in there.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Du bedeutest mir viel.
- You mean a lot to me.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
And now it’s time for a huuuuuuge pink but:
Bedeuten means to mean BUUUUUUT
!!! NOT IN SENSE OF THINKING !!!
Let’s examplain® that … get it… I mixed explain and ex… never mind.
- What does that mean?
- Was bedeutet das?…. correct
- What do you mean?
- Ich bedeute später…. WRONG!!
The second is WRONG because there’s though involved. Bedeuten does not work that way… like.. .not at all. I’m not sure if people would even understand the second sentence. So far is bedeuten from thought. If you say
- Thomas bedeutet A.
you’re NOT NOT NOT saying
- Thomas means A…. in sense of
- Thomas has A in mind.
That would be meinen. The version with bedeuten means that the fact that Thomas exist means A. Like, say, Thomas is real party pooper…
- Thomas means boredom.
- Thomas bedeutet Langeweile.
So even though bedeuten will often be a translation for to mean, maybe it’s better to think of it as to signify since this verb has the same usage pattern. And to signify is related to signal and sign and these are awfully close to pointing, which is one of the meanings of deuten. Tadah… everything nicely falls into place. Thank you languages, for being so orderly.
Now, this would be the perfect time to wrap up but instead let’s ruin the moment with a few random examples of words that are related to bedeuten and that are very commblah blah blah blah…
- Dieses Wort hat drei Bedeutungen.
- This word has three meanings.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Ich bin gespannt, ob VW in den USA an Bedeutung verlieren wird.
- I’m curious whether VW will lose significance/be less of thing.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Der Moderator guckt mit bedeutungsschwangerem Gesicht in die Kamera.
- The host looks at the camera, his face fraught with meaning.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Der ehemalige Star ist in der Bedeutungslosigkeit versunken.
- The former star sank into obscurity (lit.: insignificance).
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
- Mein Deutsch ist jetzt bedeutend besser als vor einem Jahr.
- My German is much, significantly better now than it was a year ago.
- Practice pronunciation – click once to start recording and again to stop
Yeah… the other moment would have been bedeutend better to wrap up. Anyway, we did it. This was our German Word of the Day deuten.The original idea was to make clear for the people and all the versions of today kind of orbit that idea in one way or another.
As always, if you have any questions or suggestions or if you want to try out some examples, just leave me a comment.
I hope you liked it and see you next time.
Oh, if you feel like a dose of German romanticism and heavy-heartedness to really drive the autumn home… here’s the perfect song.
The first line has bedeuten in it and it’s quite famous, that’s why I thought of it.
It’s a poem by the German poet whose name sounds like a super hero alias, Heinrich Heine, which was later congenially turned into a song by Silcher. It’s about the Loreley, a famous mystical, beautiful woman that sits on a rock next to the river Rhine combing her golden hair thereby distracting skippers from their skipping duties… well.. Heine’s version is a bit more poetic :)
“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0_PtHwbCiY”
(click here for the lyrics)
deuten – to interpret, to point
die Deutung – the interpretation
die Traumdeutung – dream analysis
auf etwas hindeuten – to point to something (abstract only)
andeuten – insinuate, suggest, imply, hint
die Andeutung- the insinuation, the hint (can be positive and negative)
umdeuten – reinterpret (not for pieces of music)
bedeuten – signify, mean (NOT for thoughts)
die Bedeutung – the meaning, the significance
bedeutungslos – meaningless, without any significance
bedeutend – significant(ly) , important (for people)
deutlich – clear (easy distinguishable)
die Deutlichkeit – the clarity (as in “understandability”, not claritiy of mind)
verdeutlichen – illustrate, make clear
eindeutig – clearly (as in “no doubt”), unambiguous, unique (in math)
zweideutig – equivocal, ambiguous, with two meanings suggestive (sexually) (two-fold)
mehrdeutig – equivocal, ambiguous, with a few meanings (several-fold)
vieldeutig – with many meanings
Yo Emanuel, I’ve noticed that a slavic language got mentioned, and as a proud Slav I’ll now tell you everything I know about my history!
Being serious, the root Niemi, I believe came from the fact that Slavs couldn’t understand a word of German back in the days, so they simply called them something like “Deaf prople”. We call you “Німці” in Ukrainian, which does look, sound and remind me of the word “Німі” (an adjective) and if I tried to make a noun I’d most likely come up with the exact same word as for Germans, “Німці”.
Oh nvm, I just checked and realised others have already said that
Also it should be “dumb, mute” I messed the words up
Yeah, I was confused for a second :)
Thank you for the great word expression.
For following sentence, I have a question:
“wichtig ihr” means “important to her”, right? I only know the usage as “wichtig für sie”, so is “wichtig ihr” also common in German?
Actually, to me personally the combo with Dative is the more common one. Especially if you’re talking about “ich” or “du”
– Das ist mir wichtig.
– Das ist wichtig für mich.
The first one sounds a tad bit more personal.
Thanks for your answer! Maybe I should have added an example there:
Um mich über die Stelle besser zu erkundigen, habe ich in der Email auf ein Personalgespräch hingedeutet.
“To inform myself better about the job position I suggested/pointed to a personal meeting in the email.
Nah, that doesn’t sound very idiomatic. The suggesting you’d do is much more obvious than “hindeuten” even if it’s not straight forward. You’d use “vorschlagen” or “anregen” or “ins Gespräch bringen” here. I think it’s best to keep “hindeuten” limited to things and facts pointing at something.
Thanks again for your big posts! I have a quick question. Can hindeuten also be used by persons or only things and situations can auf etwas hindeuten? That is, can I/you/he/we auf etw hindeuten?
Hmmm, there’s not really a rule that forbids it and it’s not completely odd, but it’s much much more common with things and facts. And if you use it with a person then NOT in a literal sense of actually pointing at something with your finger.
Thank you so much for this blog – such a life saver as I learn German.
Is there a difference between “eindeutig” and “bedeutend”? Would the meaning of the sentence “Mein Deutsch ist jetzt bedeutend besser als vor einem Jahr” change if I used “eindeutig”?
Yes, there’s a difference. “Eindeutig” is about there being no two ways to interpret something. “bedeutend” is about being significant.
In your example, they both work but they express slightly different things
– Mein Deutsch is bedeutend besser….
– My German is much/significantly better…
– Mein Deutsch ist eindeutig besser…
– My german is no doubt/clearly/definitely better…
Hope that helps
I have been reading your blog for some time and must say: this post is great!! I almost laugh by myself with: ‘“Nice, and our language people’s. And our land peopleland.”’. Thank you!
Freut mich :)
Haven’t read much beyond the title yet, but fast forwarded to see if die Lorelei got a mention. How could she not? Not just a mention, but also a link to recording! Vielen Dank. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAHBbdt6kv0 is another version.
The slavic words for “german” are explained here – https://masterrussian.net/f15/where-do-words-%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%B5%D1%86-%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%B5%D1%86%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9-come-13843/
Thanks in anticipation for the rest.
Great article! By the way, I think “bedeuten” is more “interpret-deuten” than “point-deuten”, and the magic lies in the prefix “be-“. It makes usually intransitive verbs transitive, and transitive verbs kind of passive (= the action becomes more direct), so that if “deuten” is “to interpret”, than “bedeuten” is “to be interpreted as…”. In Swedish, “betyder” means exactly that!
“to be interpreted as” makes sense too. I’m not so sure if that really ties in with the classical “be-” though. Like… what do you mean by “transitive verbs kind of passive” . I might be misunderstanding you but do you have examples for that?
I started following your blog some time ago and I’m really impressed. Thank you for taking the time to create such an impressive content. You’ve helped a lot of language learners (like myself :). Keep up the great work!
Will do, thanks for the nice feedback.
Vielen Dank für die Erklärung! Ich weiß es besonders zu schätzen, dass du Gedichte von deutschen Dichter manchmal zitierst. Ich ermutige dich, dies öfter zu tun! Ich denke, dass eine Sprache durch ihre Poesie lernen sehr, sehr lohnend und hilfsbereit ist. Nochmals vielen Dank!
Um ehrlich zu sein kenn’ ich mich mit Poesie fast garnicht aus. Ich kenn fast nix, und habe da nicht so eine Zugang zu. Daher fällt mir nur ganz manchmal was ein, was zum Post passen würde.
Kleine Korrektur:
– “hilfsbereit” können nur Menschen sein. Es heißt soviel wie “willing to help”. Für Sachen sagt man “hilfreich”.
You know how you are a genius at explaining german in english snd everything…. can you possibly explain these double perfekt construction…
Ich habe es gefragt gehabt. What does that mean in english? I had got/had/arranged for it to be asked? It would be unusual but possible to say that in english – in particular contexts – but it kind of has a ‘passive’ association… (while at the same time a sense of having forced something to happen). Does it have this meaning in German???? Hilfe!!
It’s called “doppeltes Perfekt” and while it’s considered colloquial, by some even wrong, it has actually been around for hundreds of years, so as far as I’m concerned language purists should shut up (there’s one guy in particular who has sold LOTS of books criticizing people for how they speak and I hate him).
Whether or not people use it depends on the region. In Berlin for instance people do use it from time to time. As for meaning… the idea is to establish a past before the past. So it’s roughly equivalent to the past perfect
– Ich habe gelesen gehabt = Ich hatte gelesen.
Some authors do use it, but scarcely and you certainly shouldn’t use it in a language test or class. You can use it in spoken but not in discussions about philosophy, unless you want to create a contrast between the topic and the very low brow phrasing.
…dass ich Schuld bin .. Habe ich nicht fruher gesehen. Ich wurde “dass ich schuldig bin” gesagt haben oder ich bin schuldig daran. Ist das such richtig? Vielen dank fur die post interessant wie immer.
Mit “schuldig” ist es auch richtig, aber es klingt ernster. Man benutzt es zum Beispiel vor Gericht (in context of court) oder in der Kirche. Aber nicht, wenn man irgendeinen kleinen Fehler oder so gemacht hat. Man kann es verstehen, aber es klingt ziemlich komisch.
Your blog is just great, greetings from Brazil! :)
When I read that the word of the day would be “deuten” I was immediately reminded of Freud’s “Die Traumdeutung”, and the word was indeed one of the examples you used. But I’d like to know what else”deuten” could mean in this case. You said it “sounds less scientific than interpretieren or analysieren”, but I don’t think Freud would name his book that way if he agreed with this meaning of “deuten”. By the time he wrote “Die Traumdeutung” he had a very “scientific” approach to Psychoanalysis, much more than he had in his last years. Sorry if my question sounds “kleinlich,” but I’m a Philosophy student and this word is VERY important in Philosophy. Thanks! :)
Nice question! You’re right that Freud’s approach is very sciency. Still in comparison with a brain scan it is pure guess work. He made up all the stuff in his mind and he never verified with scientific methods that there is an ego for instance.
Now, for a German native speaker who like you has a background in Philosophy or Psychology the word might/may have a different connotation. But to me “Traumdeutung” sounds a bit esoteric. At least more than “Trauminterpretation” which would sound like analyzing a poem. But don’t get me wrong… I’m not saying that “deuten” sounds completely esoteric. There’s just more intuition involved than with interpreting, in my opinion.
My apologies for joining this interesting discussion eight years after the fact!
As soon as I learned that the real the title of The Interpretation of Dreams is Die Traumdeutung, the translation struck me as wrong. I have very little German, and so did not appreciate at first the subtle differences between “deuten” and “bedeuten” that have been so well explained here. (Also, why did Strachy (a notoriously unreliable translator) render the singular “Traum” as “Dreams”?
Emmanuel, you, yourself offered “Dream Analysis” as a translation, which I think is correct, but that translation of yours is more in line Boshevique’s observations than your apparent disagreement with them.
“Interpretation” is a loan word from French, just as Dolmetscher is a loan word from the Turkish. My position (my tentative hypothesis, as a rank beginner) is that in echt Deutsch there was no room for interpretation, in the sense of the Deutscher nationality.
The guards at the fontiers of the Ur-Deutchland with the lands of the Romance language speakers, on one side, and the lands of the Slavic speakers on the other, had to make a decision whether a stranger spoke (or was) Deutsch or not. It was a life-or-death, yes-or-no decision, with no room or time for effete interpretations.
I could be totally off-base on this, and apologize in advance if this is no more than the blunder of a beginner. My impression, however, is that German (and therefore Germans) are more inclined to put things in clear categories than speakers of English and the Romance languages are. The latter have more tolerance for fuzziness and ambiguity.
I cite in favor of my thesis the new words that you’ve taught me, Ein- and Zwei- Deutung, which I take as evidence that German insists on in clear numbering of each different interpretation, while in other languages, interpretations form an uncountable continuous spectrum, the way the real numbers are an uncountable continuum, unlike the countable counting numbers (1, 2, 3, 4 , , , the integers.)
To me, the very idea of “interpretations” seems somehow un-German, since there is only one correct interpretation, in other words, one meaning. A re-interpretation is the substitution of the correct meaning, for an older mistaken one, and one of however many possible interpretations is the correct one.
It therefore does not feel to me that German has as much room in it for the superposition of many different interpretations, all of which are valid, than the Romance languages and English do.
Hallo !
Ich studiere Deutsch als Hauptfach bei der Sorbonne in Paris, und im Geschichtsunterricht wurde mir gesagt, dass “niemi-” aus dem Namen eines anderen, im Gebiet des Rheins um Speyer lebenden Volkes wäre, nämlich den “Nemetern” (the Nemetes in English, les Némètes in French, and apparently Νεμῆται in Ancient Greek). Deshabl werde “Deutsch” ins Ungarische als “Németország”, ins Tschechische als “Německo”, und ins Polnische als “Niemcy” übersetzt.
Macht Sinn für mich. Aber die andere Version mit “stumm/murmeln” klingt auch sehr sinnvoll (keine Ahnung, ob du die anderen Kommentare zu dem Thema gelesen hast). Hat man dir das nur erzählt, oder hast du richtige Quellen dazu gelesen?
Oh I picked up a couple of other things ( Phew there was a lot in that post! :) )
Maybe it’s just me, but univocal/equivocal seem obscure; any of the others are fine (“says it all, makes it clear, leaves no doubt” for the first, “ambiguous” for the second. But not “suggestive” unless you mean as in sexually suggestive.)
Re: “Der Moderator guckt mit bedeutungsschwangerem Gesicht in die Kamera” – maybe it’s just me, but I wouldn’t say someone’s face was “fraught with meaning”, but you could say their face or expression or look (or voice) was “laden with meaning”.
Fraught is a funny word, it literally means “laden” but it seems to be more idiomatically restricted; things are usually “fraught with danger” or “with risk”. And it is related to “freight”, i.e. the stuff that a ship is laden with: https://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/fraught.
It’s interesting that “schwanger” is the German word here – maybe English-speakers are just prudes, but it seems that the metaphorical use of “pregnant” is now reduced mainly to “pregnant pauses”. (Though funnily enough, I’ve found “a development pregnant with implications”, referring back to a previous point… https://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/pregnant)
Oddly enough, to me “unequivocal” would sound less obscure than either “univocal” (its synonym) or “equivocal.” I think “unmistakable” could work well in a lot of the contexts where you’d use “eindeutig” too.
I think the way I’ve most often seen things like the “Der Moderator guckt…” sentence phrased is, “The host looks [or “glances,” depending on how “gucken” really sounds here] meaningfully at the camera.”
I’ve seen “fraught” used in a more general (and positive) way, but it’s definitely unconventional. “Fraught with emotion” gets a pretty decent number of Google hits too.
Speaking of metaphorical pregnancy, it strikes me that prägnant could be a potentially amusing “false friend”…
Weird, I’ve actually a post on that coming up (prägnant vs pregnant)
Ah! Yes, unequivocal is common. And penny just dropped for me… Because I saw “univocal” and “equivocal” together, I didn’t recognise “equivocal” at all – because in my head I was pronouncing it equi-vocal, with stress on the 1st syllable. But the stress is on the second. So Emanuel, if you just replace “univocal” with “unequivocal” then it works.
Looking back, I see you say German has uneindeutig too. In English I’ve never heard/seen anyone use univocal, so I assume it’s a synonym for unequivocal. Are zweideutig and uneindeutig synonymous? I suppose not quite because uneindeutig could be zwei-, mehr-, viel-. (Ok that is a really precise level of clarity! I can’t even get my head around having to specify exactly how many meanings something has. Since I am a pedant, I think the conversation would stall while I try to figure out the precise level of ambiguity! Ich hätte Angst, obwohl ich nur an zwei Bedeutungen denken könnte, gäbe es tatsächlich vielleicht mehr…) But in English since we don’t have to specify number, unequivocal is a good translation for any of those.
Und als berlingrabers sagt, “unmistakable” ist oft ein gut Synonym für “unequivocal”. Sie sind legerer.
I’ve only ever seen “univocal” in fairly technical contexts (philosophy and such), so I’d definitely never put it in a conversation example. I’d take it as basically synonymous with “unequivocal,” though without the sense of emphasis that “unequivocal” brings. It’s just sort of a more technical or bildungssprachlich term for “unambiguous, having only one meaning.”
Wait, bildungssprachlich?? Is that a thing in English?
Oh, don’t worry :). It’s not like people actually think about how many options there are. “vieldeutig” and “mehrdeutig” are completely interchangeable and I’m pretty sure “zweideutig” is used often when there are three or more options. Though the focus of that is on 2. Anyway, no need to think to hard. Just use “zwei” if that’s your focus and “viel” if you think it’s a lot.
I like “laden with meaning”… as for “suggestive”, “zweideutig” can definitely be sexually suggestive (but doesn’t have to be).
If you have some time to waste you can check out the search results for it :)
https://www.google.de/search?q=%22eindeutig+zweideutig%22&rlz=1C1DVCJ_enDE430DE443&espv=2&biw=1093&bih=522&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAGoVChMIy8-Ywb7OyAIVw1UaCh15mwJM&dpr=1.25
Danke!
Note that “suggestive of [something]” would be different. But “x is suggestive” just on it’s own is going to be taken as “sexually suggestive”.
Hi Emanuel, danke für die sehr interessante Post. Ich fragte mich, über diese ähnliche Worter Deutsch, bedeuten, deutlich.
Übrigens wurde/verändert zu das Datum dieser Post “22 September” (seltsam!)…
Ein paar Korrekturen…. Als Lynn sagt, “points to” bedeuten hier “hindeuten”. “Points at” ist ein gut Übersetzung für “deutet auf”.
Also for “Mein Chef hat dahingehend Andeutungen gemacht”, I think the most direct idiomatic translation would be “My boss has made hints to that effect”; “make implications” isn’t idiomatic. You could also say: “been hinting at it” or “implied it”, or more colloquially, “dropped hints [about it]”. (Note: an action or event can “have implications”.)
Bah my comment about the date is all grammatically messed up… something like: Das Datum dieser Post verändert geheimnisvoll zu “22 September” (Did I say that right? The date of this post has mysteriously changed to 22 September.”)
Haha… yeah it was. The closest translation for the English version would be:
– Das Datum hat sich irgendwie zu 22. September verändert.
or an alternative with “werden” (passive)
– Das Datum wurde zu 22. Sept. geändert.
Das mit dem Datum ist wegen WordPress … hat irgendwas damit zu tun, wann man den Entwurf speichert oder so. Passiert nicht immer, aber manchmal und ist total nervig. Dank dir für die Korrekturen!
Hello, how can you be contacted, for questions regarding the post? Thanks
Right here in the comments would be best.
What is the meaning of “den das” in the example below, taken from the original:
Der Trainer hat versucht, den das Unentschieden in einen Sieg umzudeuten.
The coach tried to sell, re-interpret the draw as a victory.
That’s just a bad editing mistake. The “den” is too much there. Thanks for pointing that out!!
Great, thanks!! A small correction:
5 dollar 50 is clearly, definitely to expensive for my taste -> 5 dollar 50 (for half a pint), is clearly, definitely **too** expensive for my taste
Oh man, the classic. I hate making this mistake. Thanks for pointing it out!!
“The former star sank into insignificance.”
This works fine. I might say “obscurity” though.
Would somebody actually say “eindeutig zweideutig”?
Yeah, “obscurity” is more idiomatic for what former stars sink into. When you’re comparing things, something can “pale into insignificance”.
At least for me, “fade into insignificance” would be more idiomatic than “pale,” which I mostly see (as a verb) in the phrase “to pale in comparison.” For that matter, I think you can “fade into obscurity” as well as sink into it.
I do think “insignificance” or maybe “irrelevance” feel like closer equivalents to “Bedeutungslosigkeit” here, though. “Obscurity” feels more like “Vergessenheit” or similar. Not to say that any of them would be inappropriate to the situation, of course, but I’m just thinking about translating the German sentence as given.
But yeah, “obscurity” would be what an English speaker would think first to use to describe the situation of the once-famous.
Oh yes, I prefer “fade into insignificance” for the meaning you describe. But I was thinking of the comparative use: “it pales into insignificance in comparison”, which to me is just a more emphatic form of “pales in comparison”.
Would people say “eindeutig zweideutig”? Oh definitely
The results of Google image search for the term are a real treat :D
https://www.google.de/search?q=%22eindeutig+zweideutig%22&rlz=1C1DVCJ_enDE430DE443&espv=2&biw=1093&bih=522&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMI-7fXub7OyAIVRVwaCh1qMAoO
First, thank you for the terrific blog. Super enjoyable and informative reading. I’m late to the party so going through your words of the day and learning more than from any book/course I’ve come across.
Second, as a native Russian speaker perhaps I could help with the Slavic root of neme- (Nemetski yazyk = German language; Ukrainian “Nemecchina” = Germany). I believe it comes from “Ne Moy” (not mine), referring to the Germanic tribe being a different, though neighboring, tribe. Would be curious to know otherwise.
Again, thanks Emmanuel for your fantastic work.
The Russian word немец (nemets) for German comes from a Proto-Slavic root *немъ (nem’), which meant “mute”. That is, it’s related to немой. It’s pretty common for one group of people to call another group of people who speak a completely unrelated language by something along those lines. As another example, the classical Greeks called the Persians “βαρβαροι” (barbaroi), because to them that was what the stereotypical Persian sounded like (“They just say ‘bar bar bar’.”).
Interesting, thanks. Actually, in addition to mute, the root nem’ had another meaning that never made it into modern Russian – muttering, not speaking clearly or comprehensively. That makes a clearer connection to a foreign language.
Also learned the origin of “barbarian”. I knew it referred to some kind of foreigner, didn’t know it was Persians to Greeks.
Cool, thanks. Is that just a theory or is that accepted knowledge though? Like… do you have a source? Because the theory about the Germanic tribe “nemetes” made a lot of sense to me too.
Oh by the way, I didn’t know about the origin of “barbarians”. That’s great.
That is the same definition that I read in Prof. Norman Davies book ‘EUROPE – A History’, although he says that Nemets means ‘the dumb’. Which is a little more blunt.
He states that it is also the Russian word for ‘foreigner’ – so that, in the Russian language, all foreigners are ‘Germans’. This is similar to the Amish describing all non Amish Americans as ‘the English’.
Cool, thanks for that nice theory on “neme-“. There are two other theories here that came in after yours, not sure if you’ve read them… one was saying that “neme-” comes from the same stem as “mute” (and formerly “mumble”) so the name would be based on the fact the Slavic tribes simply didn’t understand the weird Germanic language. And then someone said it was based on the name of the GErmanic tribe called the “Nemeten”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemetes
No idea who’s right though. All theories make sense to me :)
The common folk called all foreigners ‘nemets’ back in the 18th-19th centuries. So this makes a bit more sense to me. There were many Germans and French in the Russian Empire back then, but since the French language was commonly spoken by the elite (check War And Peace by Leo Tolstoy for example), it probably did not sound that foreign for them any more. At least that’s what I suggest. :D
Cool, thanks for the insights!
I believe that George’s version is correct: “Nemetz” (a “german” in russian) definitely came from “немой” (“stumm” auf Deutsch).
You can find this explanation e.g. in the english version of wiktionary or one of the best (and, surprisingly, the very first) russian etymological dictionaries compiled by Max Vasmer who was a “Sankt-Petersburg” “немец”. Vasmer was not only an outstanding linguist but an extraordinary person as well – see https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Vasmer