Saturday, April 23, 2022

 

The Same Brown Sauce

Victor Klemperer (1881-1960), The Language of the Third Reich. LTI – Lingua Tertii Imperii: A Philologist's Notebook, tr. Martin Brady (2000; rpt. London: Continuum, 2006), p. 11:
[E]verything that was printed or spoken in Germany was standardized to conform to the official party line; anything which deviated in any way from the accepted pattern did not make it into the public domain; books, newspapers, official communications and forms issued by administrative departments all swam in the same brown sauce, and it was this absolute uniformity of the written language which explained the homogeneity of the spoken language.

[A]lles, was in Deutschland gedruckt und geredet wurde, war ja durchaus parteiamtlich genormt; was irgendwie von der einen zugelassenen Form abwich, drang nicht an die Öffentlichkeit; Buch und Zeitung und Behördenzuschrift und Formulare einer Dienststelle — alles schwamm in derselben braunen Sauce, und aus dieser absoluten Einheitlichkeit der Schriftsprache erklärte sich denn auch die Gleichheit aller Redeform.



<< Home
Newer›  ‹Older

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?