impressum - KOPS - Universität Konstanz

words: A computer could be termed anlæg, datamat or EDB-maskine, EDB being the
Danish translation of computing: "Elektronisk databehandling".
The word list continues: Input was called inddata and output uddata. Instead of
hardware Danes would have to speak of maskinel, and software was programmel.
(On occasions the latter may still be used today.) A modem must be named
signalomsætter, your keyboard is a tangentbord, and don't say printer - that's a
skriveenhed!
The Danes have preserved a few of their peculiar words, but most have gone. It is
certainly no coincidence that the word datalogi is still in use: Meaning informatics, it
is the official denomination at Danish learned institutions. There is no substitute to
"datalogi" - to be understood one has to use the official word. It is what French
linguists call a "statalism", denoting a word closely connected to one particular
country's public sector. Incidentally or not, our case story has much in common with
the debate on the use of English words in France: Without an element of legislative
coercion, initiatives of this kind have no future.
Sadly or not, most Danish neologisms have have gone out of use. They may be
preferred by language-conscious scholars, but they will almost certainly not be the
choice of our days' teenage computer amateurs - those who live with the new
technologies.
Control is Control.
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