Military slang
Soldiers language refers to the customary among soldiers jargon. They must be distinguished from the command language, and the military jargon.
Features
The soldiers language is a language group within the army and developed mainly in the field of simple forces. It is characterized by a large number of substitute terms for official designations of job-specific objects and actions that are highly variable not only in the historical use and regional distribution, but sometimes differ greatly between the armed forces of the same army. It is sometimes also characterized by deviations from the standard grammar. Common to all variants of a " peculiar image force, wit and humor." In particular, older words went over in the general vocabulary. Furthermore, the needs of the respective time within the army are reflected in the language again. It arose in the course of time many buzzwords that disappeared shortly after. Many new words and metaphors but went on in the common parlance, and are now detached from the temporal and military backgrounds used " bite the dust " for example, " dud " or " tattoo ".
Historical background and current state of research in Germany
The soldiers language has its historical roots in the time of the Thirty Years War and developed under the former mercenaries. She is described as related to the argot. Other elements came from the dialect and language of the boys.
The Linguistics first worked in 1900 with the soldiers of the language. In addition to the soldiers language were all the other so-called special languages as the students language and slang in the focus of science. The preoccupation with the soldiers language was shaped by militarism. The former linguistics differed accordingly between technical language, regulating element and the argot.
During the period of National Socialism, the soldiers language was considered both as a command language to another as the language of the military organization. A distinction was the language of the so-called " Kommisssprache ", what is meant as soldiers language today.
Was investigated as well as the " German soldiers " within the German Army, which was marked at the beginning of the Landsersprache the First and Second World War, on the other hand but also by a proliferation of anglicisms on the contacts with NATO. A specific language developed in the National People's Army, and was much influenced by the levels of hierarchy.