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If you’re looking at the title of this blog post and thinking to yourself, “what in the world is that monstrosity?” then don’t worry, you’re not alone. Even to a German speaker, such as myself, a word like this (which, by the way, refers to “the law concerning the delegation of duties for the supervision of cattle marking and the labelling of beef”)¹ needs more than one read-through to be properly understood. Even so, long words are common –very much so– in German, a fact that even non-speakers frequently recognize. Why is that?

Well, that’s the magic of morphology. Morphology, in linguistics, is the study of how words are formed. We look at morphemes, the smallest units of language that carry meaning (smaller, even, than words!), and how they’re put together to form the words and phrases we use in our speech. It’s kind of like putting together a bunch of Lego bricks and ending up with a house.

English, of course, also makes use of morphology. You’ll all be familiar with prefixes (morphemes that are attached to the beginning of a word) like un- in unhappy, or suffixes (morphemes that are attached to the end of a word) like -ness in happiness.

However, not every language is the same in this regard. English is a language that uses lots and lots of separate words to say what it means. Other languages have far more complex morphology than English, and combine all these morphemes into one word!

Neither of these strategies is better or worse, because at the end of the day everyone ends up saying what they need to; they’re simply different ways of achieving the same goal. As they say (well… as I say), one man’s sentence is another man’s extremely long compound word!

German is precisely one of these morphologically-complex types of languages (though there are a lot of languages out there that are even more complex than German!). German uses lots of prefixes, suffixes, and even circumfixes (a prefix and a suffix that have to go together) to communicate precise meanings. Simply put, German is a master at taking many little components and creating one big, meaningful word out of it.

So, let’s take a look at how we would actually parse (break down) a word like �龱�Ի�ڱ��𾱲������پ����ٳپ�����ܲԲ���ü������ɲ�����ܲԲ������ܴڲ��������ü������ٰ������ܲԲ����������ٳ�:

First of all, we need to figure out what kind of a word this is. German compound words are “right-headed,” which means the right-most part of the word tells you its basic meaning. Everything else is just there to give you extra information, making the word more specific.

The rightmost part of �龱�Ի�ڱ��𾱲������پ����ٳپ�����ܲԲ���ü������ɲ�����ܲԲ������ܴڲ��������ü������ٰ������ܲԲ���gesetz is gesetz, meaning ‘law’. So, now we know that this gigantic word just refers to one hyper-specific type of law.

So, then we go from right-to-left to figure out exactly what type of law we’re talking about.

An ü������ٰ������ܲԲ���-gesetz is, literally, a ‘transfer law’. In legal speak, that gets translated as a ‘delegation law’.

Moving left again, an aufgaben-ü������ٰ������ܲԲ���-gesetz is a ‘law for delegation of duties’ (or, literally, ‘duties delegation law’).

On and on we go:

ü������ɲ�����ܲԲ���-aufgaben-ü������ٰ������ܲԲ���-gesetz

‘supervision duties delegation law’

Then:

etikettierungs-ü������ɲ�����ܲԲ���-aufgaben-ü������ٰ������ܲԲ���-gesetz

‘labeling supervision duties delegation law’

And finally:

Rindfleisch-etikettierungs-ü������ɲ�����ܲԲ���-aufgaben-ü������ٰ������ܲԲ���-gesetz

‘Beef labeling supervision duties delegation law’

Which is most elegantly translated as the ‘law for the delegation of duties for the supervision of cattle marking and beef labeling’… what a mouthful!

Et voilà: we have broken �龱�Ի�ڱ��𾱲������پ����ٳپ�����ܲԲ���ü������ɲ�����ܲԲ������ܴڲ��������ü������ٰ������ܲԲ����������ٳ� down into its component parts, understood them all individually, and pieced them back together to read the word as a whole!

Now, I think it’s time I let you in on a little secret…This post has been a lie.

Well, not entirely, since it is true that morphology really is all about the smallest meaningful components of language, German compound words really are right-headed, and �龱�Ի�ڱ��𾱲������پ����ٳپ�����ܲԲ���ü������ɲ�����ܲԲ������ܴڲ��������ü������ٰ������ܲԲ����������ٳ� really does mean ‘law for the delegation of duties for the supervision of cattle marking and beef labeling’.

However, the idea that German has ‘long words’ and English doesn’t, is totally made up! English compounds actually work the same way German ones do!

The only reason German words seem ‘long’ to English speakers is because they’re not putting spaces where we would expect them to.

There’s no salient linguistic difference between ‘lawforthedelegationofdutiesforthesupervisionofcattlemarkingandbeeflabeling’ and ‘law for the delegation of duties for the supervision of cattle marking and beef labeling’!

I mean, try saying them out loud, and you’ll see they’re actually identical! So, the difference we perceive in the German version of an identical English word is just an artefact of the languages’ different spelling conventions.

The crux of this issue really comes down to the fact that nobody knows what a word actually is! Trust me, ask any linguist what a word is, and they’ll tell you that they don’t have a clue.

Without getting too bogged down in the details and overwhelming you with jargon, it all deals with the fact that the domain of a “word” is different in the semantics (meaning), phonology (sound), and morphosyntax (structure).

The main reason we think of words as special is because of the lexicalist tradition in linguistics (but that’s a whole other can of worms!). Add in the fact that spelling conventions are an arbitrary mess, and it’s no wonder that we’re all confused.

At the same time, there seems to be something intuitively ‘real’ about the existence of words – so, in short, it’s a mystery, and I certainly won’t be the one to solve it.

All of this is why there’s so much disagreement about how to spell English compounds. Nobody seems to agree on whether it should be high school, high-school, or highschool – and really, it doesn’t matter! All three versions mean the same thing, the only difference is whether and how we’re indicating boundaries between the morphemes in the word.

So, the next time you stumble across a suspiciously long German word with what seems like a few too many consonants (Dampfschifffahrt, for instance, which means ‘steamboat ride’), don’t fret!

Remember: as an English speaker, your brain already knows how to do read these words! It may take some more time, but you’ll be able to process these words much more easily once you break them down into smaller, more manageable chunks.

If all else fails, consult your nearest German friend (or one of �Ӱ�ԭ��’s very own German teachers), and I’m sure they’d be more than happy to help you translate!

References

1 Crace, J. (2013). “The longest words in English: do you know what they mean?” https://www.theguardian.com/science/shortcuts/2013/jun/04/longest-words-english-what-they-mean.