Bandwurmwörter: Getting to Know Compound Words in German

Now that I have finished school, received my A-Level grades, and confirmed my place at University, I have received a long reading list to get me started with the next stage of my academic career. Amongst other things, this list includes a textbook containing extensive lists of German vocabulary. As I was leafing through the book, I couldn’t help but notice how long lots of those words were, especially the nouns. Now, as a student of the language, I’m familiar with the complex, almost agglutinative nature of many German words – a linguistic phenomenon which can be intimidating to many learners at first. However, if you can see past the character count, and begin to see these words as friends rather than enemies, they can be an invaluable aid in communication …

They’re super efficient

Many cultural stereotypes depict Germany as hyper-efficient. I’m not usually one to support the stereotyping of a whole community, however efficiency is definitely more evident in the German language than in any of the other languages I know. In addition to the case system, compound words (known in German as Bandwurmwörter, or ‘tapeworm words’) help to significantly reduce the number of words needed in a sentence. Forget your short prepositions (e.g. “for”, “of”, and “by”) – German’s morphology often renders them unnecessary – making word counts for essays a lot easier to meet! Take das Zusammengehörigkeitsgefühl, for example. To express the same concept in English, we use “the feeling of belonging together”. That’s three extra words! It’s clear that the German method is superior here.

They have very literal etymologies

Let’s break this example down a little further, shall we? Start by isolating the constituent parts of the German locution: the article das, of course, means “the” – for a singular, neuter noun in the nominative case. That’s the easy bit. The noun is a bit more complex. Zusammen means “together”, die Gehörigkeit translates as “belonging” (from the verb gehören), and das Gefühl refers to a “feeling” or “emotion” (from the verb sich fühlen). So literally, the word means “the together-belonging-feeling”. When you realise this, it’s a lot simpler to work out the translation of the word as a whole.

Their genders are easy to identify

The really key thing to remember about compound words in German is that their gender is determined by that of the final part of the compound. Consider the example above. It is the word Gefühl which tells us the gender of the whole compound Zusammengehörigkeitsgefühl. This rule applies to all words of this kind, no matter how many constituent parts the compound has. In fact, even the longest word still in German usage, die Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft (which roughly refers to “the association of subordinate officials of the main maintenance building of the Danube steam shipping electrical services”), takes the gender of its final part, die Gesellschaft.

And some personal favourites…

I’d like to leave you this week with a few of my favourite Bandwurmwörter. I can’t promise you’ll be able to use them very often in your day-to-day practice, but you might just be able to work one into a conversation with a German-speaking friend. I imagine you might make an impression, just by knowing what it means!

5) das Schneckentempo — lit. snail-tempo
This one is nice and straightforward: a snail’s pace

4) die Schnellimbissstube — lit. quick-snack-takeaway
This indicates a fast food takeaway provider, usually one of those seasonal ones that usually have queues which would normally seem irrationally long, but which draw you in by being conveniently placed somewhere where you might be using a lot of energy. It refers particularly to the kind of establishment from whence one might obtain, say, a hot dog or burger (or your favourite meat-free alternative!) at a summer fayre.

3) die Unübersichtlichkeit — lit. un-overseeable-ness
Again, nice and simple. Or is it? This one describes a complexity or complication: something which prevents one from having oversight of an otherwise simple situation.

2) die Hochzeitseinladungsrühreier — lit. high-time-invitation-stir-eggs
Okay so this one might take more explaining: it refers to the phenomenon whereby Germans make scrambled eggs for newly-engaged couples upon receiving an invitation to their wedding. In German culture, it is (or certainly was) traditional to deliver wedding invitations in person, and usually unannounced, which meant that the invités were often short of ingredients to cook a celebratory meal for the bridegroom-to-be. The ingredient which was most commonly available to the hosts was eggs, and thus my favourite German tradition was born! Unfortunately, there still wasn’t a word for it by 2021 when I did my GCSE, so, naturally, I had to make this one up myself…

1) das Eichhörnchen — lit. oak-croissant
This one is my absolute favourite. It means “squirrel”. The croissant bit presumably refers to the shape of its tail, but I like to imagine a tiny little French-speaking pastry running about gathering acorns for winter.