Germany’s longest word is no more.
Mark Twain said they were not words, but “alphabetic processions … marching majestically across the page”: the compound words the German language uses to capture precise or complex meanings, which are a cause of irritation for novices and a delight for those who manage to master the tongue.
But one compound noun has proved too much for German bureaucrats, who have decided to ditch what had been celebrated as the longest word in the German tongue.Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz has now been confined to the linguistic history books by authorities in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
The word, which means “the law concerning the delegation of duties for the supervision of cattle marking and the labelling of beef”, was introduced in 1999 during the BSE crisis. It was given the abbreviation RkReÜAÜG – which was itself unpronouncable.
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So the longest word to be found in the German dictionary isKraftfahrzeughaftpflichtversicherung – “motor vehicle indemnity insurance”.
Try that on for size, Arvind!
And here I was thinking the longest word in German was schnitzengruben.
