Vom kulturgebundenen Ausdruck zum Internationalismus: Das deutsche Wort Kitsch im Kontext usueller und normativer Integration im Finnischen

There are various explanations for the origin of the German word Kitsch. One of its earliest domains of use is in painting, where it has partly been characterized by a relatively strong connection to German culture. The oldest evidence of use in the Finnish language dates back to 1908. Parallel to the very modest increase in usage frequency in Finnish, the lexeme developed into an internationalism that is also widespread in other languages. Based on an extensive newspaper corpus, this article examines the path of the German word Kitsch from its earliest use in the Finnish language to its firm establishment in the vocabulary, as well as the subsequent phonetic-orthographic integration phenomena. The early presence of this lexeme in Finnish raises such questions as how long it can be labelled occasional, and at what point it begins to occur outside contexts related to German culture. Regarding phonetic-orthographic integration, the main focus of the article is on the relationship between linguistic standardization of the lexeme and its actual use in the press and casual internet communication.