# All Slavic languages: Use of German loanwords for car parts



## dihydrogen monoxide

Do you use German loanwords for car parts and did grammarians/prescriptivists try to eliminate them from everyday use and label them substandard and uneducated speech? In other words, does the grammar tell you that you should use words of Slavic origin for car parts?


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## zigaramsak

Sure, loads of them in Slovenian: vertajler (Zündverteiler), vergazer (Vergaser), auspuh (Auspuff)... Normaly we don't write them. There is a Slovenian word for every car part available and if you go to a shop, I don't think you'll find a vertajler on the price list, though you'll be perfectly understood.


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## dihydrogen monoxide

I know for the Slovenian but I think the German words should be part of the Slovene grammar and some grammarian (I won't name him) thought we don't need German words (these were rooted in speaker's mind) and should replace them with artificially created Slovene words. But these German borrowings should become standard because they are widely used.


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## winpoj

I'm not great on car parts but concerning those zigaramsak mentioned, there seems to be no German influence in Czech: rozdělovač, karburátor, výfuk.


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## jazyk

Right now I can only think of one example in Czech: kufr (trunk AmE/boot BrE), I think from German Kofferraum (baggage room).


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## Jana337

The use of "kufr" is definitely not discouraged; it's just a part of our normal vocabulary.

I can only recall one German word - "šaltrpáka" instead of "řadicí páka", "gear lever". It's extremely colloquial and there's no need to discourage its use in standard Czech where no one would use it.

Then there's "špígl/špígel" for "mirror". Not terribly common and not limited to cars.

Ah, one more idea - blinkr. That's a bit colloquial but much more common than "směrovka".


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## zigaramsak

dihydrogen monoxide said:


> I know for the Slovenian but I think the German words should be part of the Slovene grammar and some grammarian (I won't name him) thought we don't need German words (these were rooted in speaker's mind) and should replace them with artificially created Slovene words. But these German borrowings should become standard because they are widely used.


 
No, I think there's no chance for these German loan-words to become part of the standard language. I don't even know how to write them correctly, you can't find them in books, dictionaries, anywhere, you can only hear them around and it has been like that for decades. I even think they are disappearing slowly (e.g. vergazer beeing replaced by uplinjač). There might be a couple of exceptions that have made it all the way to the SSKJ, but otherwise I think there's no room for them.


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## mietagosia

Hey! Even though Germany is our neighbour and we do have linguistic influences from German (especially in Western Poland, close to the border), I don't notice them that much in the ways we call elements of car in Polish. The only word that sounds German is "szyberdach" (from "Scheibe" - glass/pane and "Dach" - roof). I thought "klakson" (horn) might have been German but they call it "Horn" as well. Other car parts names are Polish, only few of them have Latin roots (like "reduktor" for example). As you can see, the phenomenon of borrowing German words related to technology is not that visible in Polish vocabulary. My Croatian friend told me though that she really notices that a lot in her native language. 

Cheers!
MietaGosia


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## njumi

Polish - German
-----------------
Szyberdach - Schiebedach,  Felga - Autofelge (part of a wheel),  Wentyl -  Ventil(part of a wheel), Hamulec - (from german Hemmholtz) Bremse or Hemmung.


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## Boniej

Actually "szyber" doesn't come from German "Scheibe" but from "schieben" - to push, move. A Polish word for "wentyl" is "zawór" but I'm not sure if you're allowed to use it when talking of cars.


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## mcibor

Boniej said:


> A Polish word for "wentyl" is "zawór" but I'm not sure if you're allowed to use it when talking of cars.




Wentyl vs zawór is a good question,

for sure wentyl is in a tyre and zawór is in the middle of the pipe.
But there can be also wentyl bezpieczeństwa (safety valve) at the end of pipe. 
The funniest thing about wentyl and zawór is that you cannot mix them, really.


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## trance0

Slovene is full of German loanwords for many technical gadgets and parts. Literally hundreds of such words exist and are used in daily colloquial language. During the last two decades English words started to emerge in our language as well, especially in IT. But most technical expressions outside of IT are still predominantly of German origin. Even I know dozens of such words, and I have no technical education at all. In the previous centuries there used to exist many non-technical German loanwords as well, although their number in everyday speech depended on the geographical location of these words` users.


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## Boniej

mcibor said:


> Wentyl vs zawór is a good question,
> 
> for sure wentyl is in a tyre and zawór is in the middle of the pipe.
> But there can be also wentyl bezpieczeństwa (safety valve) at the end of pipe.
> The funniest thing about wentyl and zawór is that you cannot mix them, really.


 

Do you think you can say "dach otwierany" instead of "szyberdach"?
Hmmm as I said I'm not sure about the difference between a wentyl and a zawór, however, this is what wikipedia says:

*Wentyl* — potoczna nazwa zaworu pneumatycznego jednostronnego działania, stosowanego w celu zachowania oraz umożliwienia regulacji ciśnienia (głównie łatwego zwiększania) w zbiornikach np. detkach, oponnach pojazdów.


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## BezierCurve

We also have them Pedals (pedały), Scheiben (szyby) and Pompen (pompy). 

I guess we got a few parts more from the Germans. 

I mean the vocabulary


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## Tolovaj_Mataj

trance0 said:


> Slovene is full of German loanwords for many technical gadgets and parts. .... In the previous centuries there used to exist many non-technical German loanwords as well, although their number in everyday speech depended on the geographical location of these words` users.


Yes, the everyday speech of Ljubljana was full of Germn loan words conjugated/declined in a Slovene way. But after WWII they were systematically erased and replaced by (sometimes even newly invented) Slovene words.

But all these loan words very modified, sometimes even so much that even Germans/Austrians cannot recognize them.


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## slavian1

Boniej said:


> Hmmm as I said I'm not sure about the difference between a wentyl and a zawór


 
A powiedziałbyś: główny wentyl gazowy?
Według mnie wentyl odnosi się wyłącznie do elementów pneumatycznych (poza wentylem bezpieczeństwa - który jest wyrażeniem idiomatycznym), zawór jest pojęciem ogólnym, obejmującym elementy mechaniczne jak i pneumatyczne.


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## mcibor

From what I know, there's something like główny wentyl gazowy, but it's not główny zawór gazowy.
Zawór can shut gas out, whereas wentyl is for ensuring that the whole pipe system won't blow.

So as I spotted before, though wentyl is a zawór, but not every zawór is a wentyl, you cannot mix them - you cannot say zawór instead of wentyl nor wentyl instead of zawór.

Hope this is clear.

Thanks Boniej for wikipedia 
And Slavian, you are right as well.


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## kelt

What about kapota / e Kapotte? Most probably German too, maybe with a Latin root.

I find it quite normal that Slovenian has German loanwords for car and generally technical parts. It is the same here. I may guess some 30% of Czech words might come from German [my guess]. The reason is the common history in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and also the geographical proximity to Germany and Austria.


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## jazyk

> It is the same here. I may guess some 30% of Czech words might come from German [my guess].


I think 30% is too much. I haven't read any figures, but I speak both languages and I'd think they hover around 10%, but of course I may be wrong.


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