July 1, 2011

Letters to the Editor

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No letters were printed this week; here is the letter from last week:

Is there more than one way to say ‘Father’ in German? Possibly, reader says

I found the “Be Our Guest” column in the June 17 issue of The Criterion very interesting.

When I got to the terms “love” and “father” in other languages, I was very surprised to see the term “Papi” used for father in German.

Having been born and raised in the German central part of Minnesota, having taken two years of German at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minn., and having lived three plus years in Germany, the only German word for “father” was “Vater,” closely related to the Dutch word “Vader.”

“Papi” could be used in some small areas close to either France or Italy since it is more a romantic language word than from German.

- Norman Lorsung | Indianapolis

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