The Denglish Patient: Think first, English second!

The FDP wants (once again) to make English the second administrative language.

The Denglish Patient: Think first, English second!

The FDP wants (once again) to make English the second administrative language. The proposal is good because it is timely and even overdue. The question remains whether it can be realized with our offices - and with this FDP.

The FDP has a gift for standing out from other parties with political dreams. That's why it's easy to take them for elections - theoretically. Political practice, on the other hand, is not so easy. This is shown by the proposal for an "easy tax" that FDP politicians are happy to call for. What the party presents as a "Wishful Prophecy" - a wish that comes true if you really believe in it - is often just "Wishful Thinking" or - sorry! - "Bullshit". In plain English: pipe burst. A classic was the demand for the abolition of the church tax. No free democrat is talking about it anymore, although it really is about time (for church critics and fans alike).

Another example from the 2021 election campaign, which I would like to continue to believe in, is the so-called alternating model in separated families, so that children can spend the same amount of time with fathers and mothers. But what do my own children say? "TW - keep dreaming!" Or: "Dream on!"

A not entirely new dream of the FDP is that of a bilingual society. And since the roots and the outgrowths of every society lie in administration, the new edition of this dream story is about an additional administrative or official language: English!

How nice it would be if our citizen's offices were on the same level of English as well-run hotels, museums and corporations, not to mention innovative family businesses and urban property management companies. No joke: anyone who wants to become a janitor or facility manager in German cities today has to be able to speak English, especially at the upper end of the market. After all, more and more wealthy people who can afford to own property come from abroad. Downside: Homeowners' meetings are becoming dreaded meetings for everyone who speaks "little or little English" - according to the Allensbach Institute (AWA), there will be 36 million people in Germany in 2020.

This is where the FDP comes into play, which has been calling for a "Germany Upgrade" for years and preaches "Digital first, concerns second". She seems to prefer to stick to the 35 million Germans who, according to the AWA, claim to have a good or very good command of English - or at least pretend to. Where this can lead is demonstrated not only by the party's Denglish slogans, but also by various programmatic demands such as "top sharing" - a kind of job sharing for executives that sounds as if they should swap tops with each other.

The FDP chairman Christian Lindner also embodies less English language skills than the motto "Loss babble" - which is okay in informal situations, but not in the political or administrative arena. It was one of Lindner's minor mistakes that he declared to his colleagues in the EU in Brussels at the beginning of the year: "I am open for arguments", i.e.: "I am open to arguments", as if he were deliberately looking for trouble. Cracked prepositions, Lindner may think of such criticism. A typical linguistic confusion of Denglish patients, which is also widespread at political receptions, shows how careful you have to be: "To you!" means "Here's to you!" "On you!" means, on the other hand, that the other party pays.

The fact that it is this FDP, which often acts and argues like a Free Denglisch Party, that is demanding English as a second official language, does not mean that the demand is absurd or fundamentally wrong. The Federal Education Minister of the FDP, Bettina Stark-Watzinger, is even right when she states that, as an immigration country, Germany must be as attractive as possible in the competition for the most capable specialists and that existing language barriers in the administration should be broken down. "The point here is that we introduce English as a second language in administration so that those who come to us can also find access."

In fact, public institutions increase their attractiveness to Old World people when they are not monolingual. If I only think of the drivable entrances to the world-famous Autobahn, which are signposted with "Exit". Guests from the USA or elsewhere who enjoy this "journey" in their mouths and don't understand German sense bad air and prefer to keep going.

I've never understood why Autobahns don't say "Exit" - or "left shoulder"...huh? The side strip! We have long lived in a paradoxical and unpredictable, multilingual reality. German cars have "on/off" buttons, "airbags" and all sorts of English-language alerts. And of course we have had the "Km/h" display for decades - the "h" always stood for the English "hour" and never for the German "hour".

Last year's party programs showed just how hybrid-language our politics is, and by that I don't mean the stupid pseudo-Anglicisms of the FDP or the other parties, such as "Midijob" or "Ehegattensplitting" - known as "spouse splitting". would be classified as a capital offense anywhere in the world. What is striking is the increase in operational and innovative English-language terms, for which there are often no or no better native equivalents: "Gender Budgeting", "Community Health Nurse", "New Space" ... More than 60 such Anglicisms found in 2021 in the program of the FDP. There were more than 30 in the Greens - and around 20 in the CDU/CSU and the left. The reason for this is often the much-cited "connectivity" - because the world is turning faster than our policymaking experts can still write poetry in German. For this reason, politics and administration have long since spoken a lot of English.

What bilingualism means in the meantime in contact with real clients and customers can be experienced on Lufthansa's boiling hot line - the "Hotline". In order to have to wait a little less than 50 minutes, you are asked if you want to have the conversation in English - there is no question of "can"! Bilingualism is simply a requirement and provided by the airlines in the guise of a male or female agent in a sunny and/or cheap and/or tax-friendly place. I can't think of a more unsuitable example than the administration to transfer this model to Germany - if only because authorities from Berlin or Buxtehude cannot open "lean" call centers in Ireland, India or South Africa.

For the various required chats, our offices have to work with the local staff. These are the same, undoubtedly creative people who, in the past, used public statements such as "Don't spring from the margin" (Berlin baths), "We wish you a good improvement" (University Clinic Göttingen) or "personnel input" (University of Greifswald ) have noticed. In case you didn't understand the last one, it should mean "Staff entrance". (You can find more of this in my picture book "Lost in Trainstation - we only understand the station".)

I don't want to downplay the FDP's proposal at all - on the contrary. I think it's good because it's timely and even overdue. However, naming him whoops what feels like last place in a "professional program" so belittles the real challenge of the bilingual dream that a reality check is required before serious talk about realizing it. Shooting a language re-education program from the hip is about as philistine in relation to the language culture in our society as it is to federal reality: no member of the federal government has ever had the authority to push through such a plan in municipalities and states - not even the FDP.

I can understand when a spokeswoman for the German Association of Civil Servants ASAP shoots back that the plan is not feasible. The FDP - and all other parties - would do the same if suddenly the competence for a ministerial office had to be proven with a fully completed specialist degree or even a professorship. Many incumbents would have to stop work. In other words, such plans take time, probably a generation or two, and very often new staff!

There is no doubt that it is important for politicians to finally take a serious look at the language gap that runs through Germany: a gap between those who use English every day as a matter of course, to have relationships, make money, have fun and, when in doubt, get involved in politics. And those who are "lost in translation" - and only understand "trainstation"!

Because professionals or not - it's not just about who communicates what in English, but who also understands it. Even in the case of skilled workers from abroad, it is not clear whether they have sufficient command of the English language - it is an assumption by the FDP. In the meantime, we are struggling with a linguistic chaos in Germany that can only be solved in the long term with more competence - not only in administration, but in society as a whole.

The Anglicization of everyday language has progressed so far that in many areas I would like to speak of a hybrid expression that pools German and English parts - and corresponding knowledge of English is a mandatory requirement. At least since the last election campaign, which was conducted in a rather hybrid language, a broad political initiative by the federal government for multilingualism is overdue - led by the Free Denglish Party, I think!