Talk:Alpen
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Supposedly an English adjective. Really, with this capitalization? The (uncapitalized) derived term looks like it was borrowed from German as one word, not derived from a (capitalized) English adjective. If this doesn't exist as Alpen, does it exist as alpen? Alpen-stock and alpen-stock get some hits, but alpenstock gets far more, and again seems to be a borrowing, not a formation from some English word *alpen. "More alpen than" and "as alpen as" get no hits. The hits for "was alpen" are using it as someone's name, or part of the placename Alpen-Adria, or part of "alpen-glow" (a partial borrowing, partial calque). - -sche (discuss) 05:53, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
- I would describe its English usage as a prefix for nouns describing someone or something related to the Alps. I can't remember seeing it used as an independent word, but most English speakers are familiar with its use in words such as alpenhorn or alpenstock. As for capitalization, I think that may be variable, as some people who write English prefer to capitalize nouns or adjectives derived from proper nouns, whether or not the derived words are considered common. There's no entry for Alpen-, alpen-, or alpen. Perhaps this should simply be moved to alpen- with a usage note, (sometimes capitalized). P Aculeius (talk) 12:47, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
- In my experience, we don't describe the individual parts of borrowed words as being English parts except (1) when the parts also exist independently in English (hence e.g. the -ism on Marxism can be treated as -ism even though the word was basically taken whole from French), or (2) in the case of a few suffixes on words borrowed whole from Semitic languages, by a controversial one-off RFV-vote. Here, most words containing alpen were borrowed, or at least the alpen part was borrowed: and in the partial cases, partial calques like alpen-glow, it doesn't seem to mean "Alpine", since alpen-glow happens outside the Alps. - -sche (discuss) 21:53, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
- Hence RFV-failed a while ago. - -sche (discuss) 03:45, 21 May 2016 (UTC)