More strong verbs for German / Starke Verben werden unterstützt

A report in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, ‘sagen, sug, gesugen’, describes a society for the promotion of strong verbs in German (Gesellschaft zur Stärkung der Verben). Strong (irregular) verb forms are being avoided, so in a kind of affirmative action, this society is trying to make more weak verbs strong. Gesellschaft zur Stärkung der Verben (and they do more, see the heading Rettet des Genitivs!).

It reminds me of Matthias Koeppel’s poems in what he calls Starckdeutsch. I haven’t got the book here, but I found two on the Web (originals and translations here):

Arrckiteikturr
Arr, di Arr; di Arrckitucktn –
jarr, di sünd tautul pfarrucktn.
Pauhn onz euburoll Quaduren,
vo se gurrtücht henngehuren.
Vn demm Hurz büsz ze denn Ullpn
snd di Häusur steitz di sullpn.
Duch di Arrckitucktn tschumpfn:
Onzre Pauhörrn snd di Tumpfn!
Olle zullte mon kastruren,
düßße auff ze pauhin huren;
odur stott ünn rachtn Winkuln
se dönn pauhin, wi se pinkuln.

I wondered if Koeppel was still in print, and I found that the site I just quoted misspells starckdeutsch and matthias, so I hope it spelt the poem right! For instance, I suspect gurrtücht should be gurrnücht… It may be possible to get second-hand copies of Starckdeutsch and Starckdeutsch II, or Koeppels Tierleben. In Starckdeutsch.

But there is a CD available.

7 thoughts on “More strong verbs for German / Starke Verben werden unterstützt

  1. [via Uncle Jazzbeau’s Gallimaufrey, via Transblawg] The Gesellschaft zur Stärkung der Verben is on a crusade to “strengthen” German verbs, i.e. make them inflect not via regular inflectional endings but via stem-internal Ablaut. …

  2. German-related links from all over: 1) A list of grammatical terms, with each Latinate term followed by a native one and one or more examples: Adverb / Umstandswort / dort, heute, dabei so. (From UJG.) 2) The Gesellschaft zur Stärkung…

  3. German-related links from all over: 1) A list of grammatical terms, with each Latinate term followed by a native one and one or more examples: Adverb / Umstandswort / dort, heute, dabei so. (From UJG.) 2) The Gesellschaft zur Stärkung…

  4. One of the many things that students of German have to deal with in the course of their language study is a pretty long list of about 175 (rough guess) strong and irregular verbs. Regular verbs are easy in English…

  5. matthias koeppel (his website is here: http://www.matthiaskoeppel.de/mkoeppel.htm) is indeed out of print, at least as an author (he’s working mainly as an illustrator for books and also paints a lot).

    but you’ll find him in antiquariats in germany everywhere (his books had been extremely famous during the 70ies and 80ies, so there’s a lot of them on the market)

    here is a link to a german antiquariat site where you can order him online:
    http://www.abebooks.de/servlet/BookSearchPL?an=%20Matthias%20Koeppel&ph=2

    cheers
    michael AKA eidea

Leave a Reply to semantics etc. Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.