About the Scholar: Zehan Zhou grew up in Canada and attended St. George’s School in Vancouver, Canada.
The Research:
Kiezdeutsch is a hybrid dialect combining elements of Standard High German and the languages of Southern Europe. Originally “a form of self-empowerment for second- and third-generation immigrant Germans,” it is now associated “with the cliché of the aggressive masculine Turkish youth.” Zehan concludes that youth use it to form community, especially through rapping, but not in formal settings or in writing. Critics condemn it as limiting users to welfare and unemployment. Although a few linguists are trying to promote its value, Zehan observes that it does not have the acceptance in Germany that a similar hybrid language enjoys in Denmark.
Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia. It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth.
