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Goethe-Schiller monument in Weimar: "The concept of identity is an anchor for right values"
Photo: kamisoka / Getty Images
SPIEGEL:
Mr. Lobin, who owns the German language?
Lobin:
Common to all of us.
All who speak and write it.
Everyone who is still learning it or who has already learned it.
SPIEGEL:
And who can decide what good German is?
Lobin:
We all too.
Whereby our idea of what good German is was shaped to a large extent in the 19th century - in the wake of German classical music, by Goethe, Schiller, Wieland.
Because of them, the standard German language has found its home in high school, at the place of classical education.
To this day, the idea of what good German is, closely linked to educational milieus, is more likely than in many other countries.
Language is also an instrument here to locate oneself socially.
SPIEGEL:
Your new book is dedicated to the "language war" (*).
Who is facing each other in this fight?
Lobin:
On the one hand there is left-wing identity politics, from which many emancipatory movements have emerged in recent years and decades, also in terms of language.
This includes feminist linguistics, which calls for gender-equitable language.
On the other hand, there are those who follow a linguistic ideal that goes back to the 19th century.
Letters to our institute like to say: "Where has the language of Goethe gone?" Alternatively, Luther or Thomas Mann can also come into play.
This site is well organized, for example by the German Language Association.
Some of his positions can be found in the AfD's party program.
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