English influence on German spelling

Below is a guest post by Andreas Stolcke.

This is an item maybe worthy of a note on Language Log — Philip Oltermann, "Germans decry influence of English as ‘idiot’s apostrophe’ gets official approval", The Guardian 10/7/2024:

A relaxation of official rules around the correct use of apostrophes in German has not only irritated grammar sticklers but triggered existential fears around the pervasive influence of English.

Establishments that feature their owners’ names, with signs like “Rosi’s Bar” or “Kati’s Kiosk” are a common sight around German towns and cities, but strictly speaking they are wrong: unlike English, German does not traditionally use apostrophes to indicate the genitive case or possession. The correct spelling, therefore, would be “Rosis Bar”, “Katis Kiosk”, or, as in the title of a recent viral hit, Barbaras Rhabarberbar.

However, guidelines issued by the body regulating the use of Standard High German orthography have clarified that the use of the punctuation mark colloquially known as the Deppenapostroph (“idiot’s apostrophe”) has become so widespread that it is permissible – as long as it separates the genitive ‘s’ within a proper name.

I couldn't believe they did this, and looked up the new rule. The relevant part is

2. Der Apostroph steht zur Verdeutlichung der Grundform eines Personennamens vor einer Endung:

• • gelegentlich vor dem Genitiv-s, sofern der Personenname mit dem folgenden Substantiv zusammen einen Eigennamen (z. B. Firmen namen) bildet ‹§ 80 E1›;

Zum Beispiel:

• • Willi’s Biomarkt
  • Andrea’s Kiosk (hier auch verdeutlichend zur Unterscheidung vom männlichen Vornamen Andreas)
  • Aber nur: Willis Karotten, Andreas Ware

• • vor der Adjektivendung -sch ‹§ 62, § 80 (2)›.

Zum Beispiel:

• • die Grimm’schen Märchen (neben: die grimmschen Märchen), der Ohm’sche Widerstand (neben: der ohmsche Wider stand)

2. The apostrophe stands for clarifying the base form of a person name before a suffix:

• • occasionally before the genitive -s, as long as the person name together with the following noun forms a proper name (e.g., of a company)

For example:

• • • Willi's Biomarkt
    • Andrea's Kiosk (here also to differentiate from the male given name "Andreas")
    • but only: Willis Karotten, Andreas Ware [These cases require the forms without apostrophe, because the whole phrase is not a proper name]

• • before the adjectival suffix -sche

For example:

• • • Grimm's fairy tales, Ohm's resistance

Are you aware of other languages (e.g., English) where spelling or punctuation rules are specifically different for named entities?  Of course I recognize that, being names, their spelling is always de facto less regulated and often idiosyncratic.  But, Germans being rule-loving folks, they come up with a rule for when the rule has an exception ;-).

BTW, another area where I noticed English having exerted definite influence on German is in the segmentation of noun compounds.   Unlike in English, in German you traditionally must either join or hyphenate compounds.  However, recently I'm noticing more and more simple juxtaposition (separated by spaces) of nouns to form compounds.  So where you would traditionally write

Taylor-Swift-Konzert

you now occasionally see

Taylor Swift Konzert

A more extreme example is  "Tailor Swift Eras Tour Kleidung" —

Anecdotally, I find this often involves English borrowings or proper names, as you might expect.

Language evolving …

Above is a guest post by Andreas Stolcke.

A few of our many past posts about apostrophe usage in English:

"A soul candidly acknowleging it's fault", 6/9/2004 "Angry linguistic mobs with torches", 4/16/2008 "'Grammar vigilantes' brought to justice", 8/22/2008 "Apostropocalypse Now", 1/15/2012 "Apostropocalypse again", 12/1/2019

And a couple about spaces, hyphens, and nil:

"Prescriptivism and national security", 10/4/2005 "Level(-)headedness", 3/3/2010

Update — Andreas explains the "neben" parentheses in the quoted section of the new rule:

die Grimm’schen Märchen (neben: die grimmschen Märchen), der Ohm’sche Widerstand (neben: der ohmsche Wider stand)