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I just came across this Tweet saying that

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

is a complete English sentence because buffalo can be an animal, a place and a verb (meaning to outwit or intimidate).

I wondered if it's possible to create a similar sentence in German.

I thought a while about it but the best I came up with was:

Essen essen Essen.

Where the first Essen is Die Essen, the collective noun for all people of the City of Essen. The second essen is of course to eat and the third Essen is the noun for food.

I wonder if it's possible to create a longer "single word sentence" in German. I have the feeling that German grammar rules don't allow this. I already cheated a bit in my example by leaving out the die of die Essen and although I heard it a few times most people probably wouldn't use die Essen to refer to the people of Essen.

πάντα ῥεῖ
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Takiro
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    Welcome to German.SE. As far as I understand your english example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo, there is also some tweaking in it which leaves out "filling words: "Buffalo bison, that other Buffalo bison bully, also bully Buffalo bison." So no "shame" on that. – Shegit Brahm Feb 21 '20 at 15:38
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    Famous honorary mentions: Wenn Robben hinter Robben robben, robben Robben Robben hinterher or Wenn Fliegen hinter Fliegen fliegen, fliegen Fliegen Fliegen hinterher. – infinitezero Feb 21 '20 at 15:39
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    Similiar with tweaks: "Die, die die, die die Dietriche erfunden haben, verurteilen, tun ihnen Unrecht." – Shegit Brahm Feb 21 '20 at 15:45
  • @infinitezero Yeah, now that you mention it, I remember these from my childhood. However I would like to know if it is possible to have a sentence just as extreme as the buffalo example, having only one word. I'm still scratching my head about this. – Takiro Feb 21 '20 at 15:50
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    The Essen example does not work, since the town name/collective name would require a singular verb form. – guidot Feb 21 '20 at 16:05
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    @Shegit Brahm The filler words would sometimes be included, but the English sentence is actually totally grammatical as it stands and uses standard constructions. – xish Feb 21 '20 at 17:27
  • @ShegitBrahm. ""Die, die die, die die Dietriche erfunden haben, verurteilen, tun ihnen Unrecht." This is recursion and has nothing to do with the OP which addresses lexical vagueness. – Nico Feb 21 '20 at 17:34
  • I am with @infinitezero's inspiration. "Robben robben!" would be a valid and complete sentence (e.g. as an answer to a question "Was tun Robben?"). Same for "Fliegen fliegen!" – πάντα ῥεῖ Feb 21 '20 at 17:36
  • @ShegitBrahm. ""Die, die die, die die Dietriche erfunden haben, verurteilen, tun ihnen Unrecht." This is recursion and has nothing to do with the OP which addresses plurifunctionality of lexemes. – Nico Feb 21 '20 at 17:40
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    @Takiro Unfortunately Essen isn't actually used as "the collective noun for all people of the City of Essen". So your example is not a valid sentence. The correct term is Essener. – πάντα ῥεῖ Feb 21 '20 at 17:42
  • Why 8 items? A place cannot be introduced without a preposition. Provide a concrete example please! – Nico Feb 21 '20 at 18:26
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    @πάντα ῥεῖ "Robben robben!" would be a valid and complete sentence (...) Same for "Fliegen fliegen!" - und wenn wir Sächsisch sprechen und geinen Underschied machen zwischen harden und weichen Gonsonanden, dann geht's auch mit Griechen... – Volker Landgraf Feb 21 '20 at 18:34
  • @Volker That would be a bit offensive though ;-) Ausserdem sagen Sachsen eher geen als geinen,# – πάντα ῥεῖ Feb 21 '20 at 18:36
  • @πάνταῥεῖ: Eine Esse kann m.W. nicht essen und mehrere Essen auch nicht. – user unknown Feb 22 '20 at 16:39
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    The closest thing I know - does exactly the opposite .. split as few words over as many sentences as possible .. - A quick talk in a shop for sea food - "Morgen" - "Morgen" - "Karpfen?"- "Morgen!" -"Morgen?" - "Morgen!"-"Morgen"-"Morgen" ;-) – eagle275 Feb 24 '20 at 11:18
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    Bonus trivia: "Buffalo buffalo ..." is grammatically correct for any number of "buffalo"s (even 1). – user253751 Feb 24 '20 at 12:46

4 Answers4

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As others said in the comments this is quite difficult in German language, because most sentences need some kind of "beginning". But this Website gives an example with 8 words.

«Weichen Weichen weichen Weichen, weichen Weichen weichen Weichen.»

With

weich - soft

Weiche - Switch

weichen - give way to

(although one may say this is also some kind of cheating, because it does not sound 100% natural.)

EDIT:

For our wondering non-German speaking friends ^^: It is a nonsense sentence which can be translated as

(If) Switches give way to soft switches, (then) switches give way to soft switches.

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mtwde
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Similar to the already existing answer, and unfortunately two words less :(

Grillen Grillen Grillen, grillen Grillen Grillen.

Raketenolli
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I just made up the following stupid family of examples.

  • First, let's start modest, using the fact that the verb "sagen" (to say) is also a noun (myth / legend / saga):

    Sagen Sagen Sagen, sagen Sagen Sagen, sagen Sagen.

    If myths say legends, then legends say myths, (as) legends say.

  • Using a further property of the German word "Sage", we can actually push this much further: In German it is possible to refer to a myth that tells a story about X as an "X-Sage". For example:

    eine Ritter-Sage, eine Prinzessinnen-Sage, eine Helden-Sage.

    Now, it might happen that a myth tells a story about another myth or legend, in which case we will have

    eine Sagen-Sage.

    This is particularly useful in our case, as our sentence above says that a legend says something about a legend, which means precisely that it is a legend about a legend: eine Sagen-Sage.

    Thus, our sentence becomes actually more accurate regarding its content if we change it to

    Sagen Sagen Sagen, sagen Sagen Sagen, sagen Sagen-Sagen.

    If myths say legends, then legends say myths, (as) legends about myths say.

  • Finally, we can "cheat" by nesting this principle indefinitely, producing arbitrarily long sentences. After all, why should a myth not be allowed to tell something about legends that refer themselves to other legends? The next step would be

    Sagen Sagen-Sagen Sagen-Sagen, sagen Sagen-Sagen Sagen-Sagen, sagen Sagen-Sagen-Sagen.

    If myths about legends say legends about myths, then legends about myths say myths about legends, (as) legends about myths about legends say.

You get the idea ;-)

DISCLAIMER: What makes me feel slightly unhappy about these examples is that in normal German language usage one would not say "Sagen sagen" but rather "Sagen erzählen" (legends tell). Still, I believe that from a purely formal (grammatical) point of view the sentences above are correct.

B K
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  • Very good observation that you can basically have arbitrary many words by connecting them with hyphens. This seems to work better with some words than with others. Like with "Weichen Weichen-Weichen-Weichen-Weichen... weichen [...]" in mtwde's answer whereas with "Essen-Essen" or other words it would be weird right from the start. – Takiro Feb 24 '20 at 13:45
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I can think of one myself:

"Fräsen Fräsen Fräsen, fräsen Fräsen Fräsen-Fräsen."

Which would translate to "If milling machines mill milling machines, then milling machines are milled by milling machine milling machines."

RollingCompass
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  • I would reverse the word order in the second half: "..., fräsen Fräsen-Fräsen Fräsen" (because the milling machine milling machines mill milling machines and not the other way round). In fact, this works just as well with many other words: Sägen Sägen Sägen, sägen Sägen-Sägen Sägen. Tragen Tragen Tragen, tragen Tragen-Tragen Tragen... – B K Feb 24 '20 at 06:43
  • Binden Binden Binden, binden Binden-Binden Binden. Bleichen Bleichen Bleichen, bleichen Bleichen-Bleichen Bleichen. – B K Feb 24 '20 at 06:52