Witnessing evolution

By Richard Peters

One of the aspects of my work as a translator and editor that I particularly appreciate is how it lets me observe the process of linguistic evolution in real time. Every now and again something major happens in the world, and the way we talk about that event pushes human languages into new territory.

The unstoppable spread of new words

One ubiquitous recent example is the coronavirus pandemic. Not only has our preoccupation with the effect of Covid-19 on our lives brought obscure terms into the mainstream or given them a new twist – think “lockdown”, “comorbidity”, or “self-isolation” – it has also given rise to entirely new words and phrases. Among them are “infodemic” (for a proliferation of diverse, often unsubstantiated information relating to a particular topic) and “flattening the curve” (for the measures we take to reduce infection rates so as to keep the numbers from peaking).

That evolution can be subtle and surprising. Take “social distancing”: for many years, this was a reasonably obscure term that simply described how someone might prefer to keep a distance from the people around them in social situations, or perhaps avoid such situations altogether. Now, the coronavirus pandemic has propelled it into the popular consciousness: it is generally understood as an injunction to maintain a safe 1.5 metre distance from anyone at all so as not to inadvertently infect others or become infected oneself, on the basis that the droplets people exhale, which could harbour the coronavirus, don’t tend to travel further than that in most situations.

Of course, this wave of change is crashing across all languages, not just English. In Germany, for instance, the dictionary of neologisms kept at the Leibniz Institute for the German Language features hundreds of new expressions that relate to Covid-19 in one way or another. Perhaps some of them will soon fade into obscurity or cede their prominence to a more popular variant, but many will no doubt stay with us – at least as long as the pandemic endures.

A case of changing cases

I’ve been writing “Covid-19” in this blog piece – but why? In the English-speaking world, a divide has emerged between those who write it as I do and those who prefer “COVID-19”. My choice is aesthetic, and I dare say that’s also why most journalists and writers with a non-scientific focus agree with me. But in science writing, the preference seems to be for all caps. Not many publications have opted for full down style with “covid-19”, The Economist being a notable exception, or to nod to the disease’s full name with “CoViD-19”; this last choice is visually unappealing, at least to me.

Working in multiple cultures as I do, I’m struck by how different countries have shortened “coronavirus” differently. Here in Germany, it is referred to almost universally as just “Corona”. While some English-speaking communities have gone with “Miss Rona” or “the ’rona”, majority usage seems to prefer simply “Covid”. In France, too, the talk is more of “covid” than “coronavirus” – but there is still debate as to whether the word should be masculine (in accordance with popular usage) or feminine (as decreed by the Académie Française in a blog post on its website in May).

Another very recent example of language evolution in action, and one that has touched me personally, speaks to one of my bêtes noires as a German-English translator: the tendency for bad translations to perpetuate in English the tell-tale nominal style of a German source text rather than rewording in the active, verbal style that English speakers prefer.

Mind the meaning gap

For several months now here in Munich, face masks have been a must when travelling on public transport – and there are announcements over the tannoy to remind passengers of this duty. As a courtesy to non-German natives, the German-language announcement is followed by a rendering in English. In the beginning, this English announcement started with the terribly stilted words “Please observe the mask obligation” (a direct translation of the German “Bitte beachten Sie die Maskenpflicht”), which really rankled!

But on recent tram trips I’ve noticed that the frightfully German-sounding exhortation has been re-translated as “Please be aware that you must cover your mouth and nose” – an unequivocal improvement that both delights me and proves that someone at MVG, Munich’s public transport company, cared enough to push for this change.

I would like to thank MVG both for this attention to linguistic detail and for helping to keep Munich healthy as the coronavirus pandemic – and the language used to describe it – evolves.