1349: Additions to German Compounds Aug 21, 2018

German is known—fairly or unfairly—for having long nominal compounds. These are by no means the longest words possible in a language, nor are they any different from English compounds grammatically, but they do allow for something which does not happen in English. Occasionally, certain German compounds will insert an extra sound, often [s], [e], [n] or a combination of the, in between two elements being compounded together. For instance, 'Maus' and 'Falle' become 'Mausefalle' ('mousetrap'), 'Bauer' and 'Brot' becomes 'Bauernbrot' (farm-bread), and 'Staat' and 'Polizei' becomes 'Staatspolizei'. Although these are sometimes inconsistent, they do make it easier to pronounce frequently-used German compounds rather than inserting a glottal stop as would likely happen otherwise.
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