Beautiful belongings

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28. Oktober 2004 By Heidi Sylvester

The verdict is in. The public relations campaign to improve the image of the German language failed miserably. What better way to strengthen prejudices about Germans than to pick the word Habseligkeiten - meaning belongings, possessions, or effects - as the most beautiful word this language has to offer.
I'm being unfair. It was the “coolest, sassiest, most valuable word“ that the competition was seeking to unearth.
Welcome to the land of materialists. Welcome to the country where belongings are more important than love or the feeling of being safe. Welcome to a nation that finds bliss (Seligkeit) in owning things (haben).
That's right. The runner-up entry in the quiz organized by the German language council and the Goethe Institute was Geborgenheit. It means security or perhaps more accurately the feeling of being safe, cared for, even loved. What makes it especially compelling is that many languages don't have a word to express this feeling.
The jury's selection is curious, especially since the language guardians wanted to show that German could be every bit as romantic and glamorous as French or Italian. You're going to need a skilled rhetorician to convince the world that the word “belongings“ would top lists in those countries.
We shouldn't be misled though by the language spin doctors who'd have us think that Germans are completely object-obsessed. The simple word “love“ was indeed the most popular choice, and many people liked the explanation given by the winning love entry: Lieben (to love) “is only an ‘i' away from leben (to live).“ All hope is not lost for this country.
What went wrong then? Let's turn to the argument given by the contenders because it was here that the competition's fate was sealed. Our bronze-medal winner, she who chose love, needed 18 words to argue her case. Holding silver was a woman from Slovakia, who required around 60 words.
In typical German style, the winner wrote a philosophical-etymological exegesis to explain how Habseligkeiten actually means the opposite of what everyone understands by this word. The time for damage control has begun.

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