Patty Popp

March 14th, 2017

HONORS 211 C
Angst: An Emotive German Keyword

Indulge me for a moment and consider the following images. A bill that needs to be paid.

An ominous creaking sound coming from the basement. A fire alarm going off in the middle of

the night. All three of these images tend to evoke strong, distinct emotions, but are any of those

emotions Angst? In this paper, I have chosen to explore this salient German word and the

meaning and significance it carries in German culture and society. I aim to not only understand

the cultural underpinnings of this term, but to also compare and contrast it with the English

words afraid, fear, fright, horror, terror, dread, alarm, panic, worry, and apprehension, as well

as the German word Furcht.

Angst, as we know it today, was originally derived from the Old High German word

angust, and before that from the Latin angustus which both roughly translate to straight, narrow,

compressed, contracted, small, and not spacious (Angust). According to the Collins German-

English Dictionary, Angst shares close ties with the notions of fear, worry, emotional turmoil,

painful sadness, and anxiety, but as we will see upon further study, Angst is a much more

multifaceted and complex term than first meets the eye. Provided that Angst represents an

emotion or state of being, one must recognize that it is hardly reducible to a simple meaning and

so we must practice caution in assigning objectively valid categories in our attempt to define said

word, for fear of misrepresenting or distorting the original word’s intent (Wierzbicka2). As

individuals, we remain within a certain culture and thus are inevitably guided by certain

principles, values, and ideas which we must recognize to not be necessarily shared by the

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entirety of the human race – a common oversight made in describing human emotions

(Wierzbicka1). To combat this, in the subsequent pages, I will do my best to make use of the

culture-independent analytical framework of universal semantic primitives, as proposed by Anna

Wierzbicka, known as the Natural Semantic Metalanguage in the form of explications in order to

go about defining the aforementioned emotions.

Before delving into a more in-depth discussion of the German Angst, I will first analyze

the English concepts of afraid, fear, fright, horror, terror, dread, alarm, panic, worry, and

apprehension and their many differences and similarities. Firstly, it is important to recognize that

afraid is an inherently personal emotion, while fear is not. Afraid implies that something bad can

happen to me or to someone whom I identify with, whereas fear implies that some bad things can

happen, in general (Wierzbicka2). Fear can be, and typically is, used in situations in which

something bad can happen directly to the experiencer, but this is not always the case. In addition,

fear, as we know it, primarily focuses on a lack of knowledge as to what the future holds (i.e. “I

do not know what will happen”), but afraid, on the other hand, does not carry the same

connotation and it tends to be more compatible with situations where the danger is immediate

and tangible (Wierzbicka2). Because of this, afraid tends to be more specific than fear – when

one is afraid, one has something specific in mind (i.e. “something bad can happen to me because

of X”), whereas fear can refer to some unspecified and unknown “bad things” (Wierzbicka2).

Finally, fear is more likely to mobilize one to action (specifically to run away from a potentially

dangerous situation), whereas being afraid is more likely to stop or prevent one from doing

something (e.g. “she was too afraid to speak”). With these components in mind, I would propose

the following explications for afraid and fear, respectively:

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 Afraid (X was afraid):
(a) X felt something because X thought something like this:
(b) “something bad can happen to me because of this
(c) I don’t want this to happen
(d) I don’t know if I can do anything now”
(e) when this person thinks this, this person feels something bad

Fear (X felt fear):

(a) X felt something because X thought something like this:
(b) “I don’t know what will happen
(c) some bad things can happen
(d) I don’t want these things to happen
(e) I want to do something because of this, if I can
(f) I don’t know if I can do anything”
(g) when this person thinks this, this person feels something bad

The next word that I am going to look into is the English fright which Merriam-Webster

Dictionary defines as “fear excited by sudden danger”. The key element in that definition is the

notion of “sudden” which alludes to the fact that something has just happened and that one was

unaware that it would happen. Much like afraid, fright refers to what is perceived as an

immediate and tangible danger (Wierzbica2). Horror, on the other hand, is accompanied by the

realization that something very bad has just happened and is, in fact, still happening. In a similar

fashion to fright, one cannot be horrified for a very long time, as both are reactions to a sudden

trigger. This provides a stark difference from terror which, in turn, lacks the sense of a sudden

discovery (Wierzbicka2). In the case of horror, the experiencer is internally opposing the terrible

event and would greatly want to do something to avoid it, but cannot help but feel powerless in

the moment (Wierzbicka2). With these two descriptions in mind, I would propose the following

explications for frightened and horrified:

Frightened (X was frightened):

(a) X felt something because X thought something like this:
(b) “something has happened now
(c) I didn’t know this would happen

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 (d) something bad can happen to me now”
(e) when this person thinks this, this person feels something very bad

Horrified (X was horrified):

(a) X felt something because X thought something like this:
(b) “something very bad has happened now
(c) I didn’t think that something like this could happen
(d) I want to do something because of this, if I can
(e) I can’t do anything”
(f) when this person thinks this, this person feels something very bad

Dread, a word which Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines as “great fear especially in the

face of an impending evil” and “extreme uneasiness in the face of a disagreeable prospect”,

refers to an event which is seen as not just “bad”, but “very bad” (Wierzbicka2). Unlike the

previously-defined terms, dread refers to a future event, and not even necessarily an imminent

one. Because of this, the reality of the dreaded event is purely subjective: one does not really

know that it will happen, but one thinks that one knows exactly what will happen to oneself if

and when this hypothetical event happens, thus engaging one’s vivid imagination (Wierzbicka2).

In considering all of these components, I would propose the following explication for dread:

Dread (X felt dread):

(a) X felt something because X thought something like this:
(b) “if this happens, something very bad will happen to me
(c) I know what
(d) I don’t want this to happen
(e) I want to do something because of this, if I can
(f) I can’t do anything”
(g) when this person thinks this, this person feels something very bad

In analyzing the word alarmed¸ on the other hand, one must recognize that the

experiencer has just become aware of some event which serves as a warning, and as a result, he

or she feels the need to do something now, or else something bad will happen (Wierzbicka2).

Despite the strong components of suddenness, mobilization to action, and the awareness of an

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impending danger, alarmed also tends to have an element of uncertainty, such that the

experiencer lacks a clear plan of action (Wierzbicka2). Panic shares many similarities with both

alarm and terror, specifically in the sudden realization that something is wrong and must be

done immediately, as well as the vividness, immediacy, and intensity of the impending danger

(Wierzbicka2). Panic mobilizes one towards action, but prevents one from effectively acting on

that sentiment due to feelings of confusion, unfocused agitation, and the inability to fully collect

one’s thoughts (Wierzbicka2). For the purpose of highlighting the similarities and differences

between these two words, I would propose the following explications for alarmed and panic:

Alarmed (X was alarmed):

(a) X felt something because X thought something like this:
(b) “something has happened now
(c) because of this I know: something bad can happen in a short time
(d) I don’t want it to happen
(e) because of this I have to do something
(f) I don’t know what I will do”
(g) when this person thinks this, this person feels something bad

Panic (X felt panic):

(a) X felt something because X thought something like this:
(b) “something is happening now
(c) if I don’t do something now, something very bad will happen to me because of this
(d) I don’t want this to happen
(e) because of this I have to do something now
(f) I don’t know what I can do
(g) I can’t think now”
(h) when this person think this, this person feels something bad

To conclude my analysis of the English words which are often misconstrued as

appropriate, all-encompassing translations of German Angst, I will look into the words worry and

apprehension. Unlike alarm which suggests a sudden onset of emotion, worry suggests a long-

term thinking process which is deeply rooted in uncertainty (Wierzbicka2). It refers primarily to

the present, but it also has a future dimension in that what is happening now may lead to

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something bad on the horizon (Wierzbicka2). One does not want anything bad to happen and one

wants to do something because of this, but one does not know what course of action to take,

leading to a further state of internal conflict and agitation (Wierzbicka2). Apprehension, on the

other hand, is a much milder emotion as the experiencer lacks concrete certainty as to whether

these bad things will happen at all (Wierzbicka2). Taking all of these components into account, I

would propose the following explications for worry and apprehension:

Worried (X was worried):

(a) X felt something because X thought something like this:
(b) “something is happening now
(c) something bad can happen because of this
(d) I don’t want it to happen
(e) because of this I want to do something
(f) I don’t know what I will do”
(g) when this person thinks this, this person feels something bad

Apprehension (X felt apprehension):

(a) X felt something because X thought something like this:
(b) “something bad can happen
(c) I don’t want this to happen
(d) I don’t know if it will happen”
(e) when this person thinks this, this person feels something bad, not very bad

Now, after a thorough analysis of the relevant English words falling under the broader

umbrella of terms related to the notions of fear and anxiety, it is important to shift our focus back

to the peculiarly German concept of Angst. The English language popularized the loan word in

the early 20th century through translations of Sigmund Freud’s work and its usage in English

suggests a definition pertaining to an existential condition which relates to a long-term state of

deep-seated anxiety and alienation (Wierzbicka2). As is often the case with loan words, the

English version of angst does not mean exactly the same as its German root but it reflects a

similar sense of indeterminacy and an existential nature.

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 In order to fully comprehend the linguistic weight that Angst carries in German culture

and society, one must first compare it with its German counterpart Furcht (or simply fear).

Firstly, in German speech, Angst is significantly more common than Furcht (Wierzbicka2).

According to a frequency dictionary from the late 20th century of spoken German, Angst

occurred 52 times in a corpus of half a million running words, while the verb form of Furcht

(roughly, to be afraid) occurred only 4 times and the noun form did not occur at all

(Wierzbicka2). The primary semantic difference between the two terms has to do with the basic

“indeterminacy” of Angst, reflected in the fact that one can say Ich habe Angst, “I have Angst”,

without having to specify the reasons for that Angst, while one cannot normally say Ich fürchte

mich, “I am afraid”, without explicitly specifying what one is afraid of (Wierzbicka2). In that

sense, Angst acts more like a state, whereas Furcht tends to refer to a feeling, or to a disposition

to a feeling which is commonly linked with a thought about someone or something

(Wierzbicka2).

Particularly during the seventies, a state of Angst was especially widespread. Scholars

like Bernard Nuss have attributed the prevailing use of the word to the time in Germany’s past

when Germans had Angst of seemingly everything possible: nuclear power, the issue of

unemployment, the Japanese, environmental pollution, the police state, the future, etc.

(Wierzbicka2). Every time one danger was overcome, another one would emerge, perpetuating a

vicious cycle in the lives of many German people. According to a German dictionary from the

seventies, Angst was defined as not only an oppressive emotional state linked with nervous

agitation in the face of danger, but also as a vague feeling of threat (Wierzbicka2). At its core,

uncertainty generates Angst and the more Germans were confronted with uncertainties, the more

reason they had to be worried, thus morphing into a permanent state of Angst, much like

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quicksand (Wierzbicka2). In this way, Angst became an omnipresent part of everyone’s lives, as

everything potentially represented a threat or danger such that no one is truly safe. I believe that

the German value of Ordnung, or order, lies at the heart of this phenomenon. Due to the strong

desire for certainty that is hardwired into the minds of the German people, a German person’s

greatest fear is the unknown. Not knowing what will happen, what problem one has to deal with,

or what opponent one will face evokes much more Angst in a person than any real, physical

danger (Wierzbicka2).

Modern German dictionaries posit two separate meanings for Angst, one focused on a

vague sense of anxiety and the other focused on fear (Wierzbicka2):

1. Angst: Zustand von jemandem, der bedroht wird oder sich in Gefahr befindet
“A state of someone who is threatened or finds him or herself in danger”

2. Angst: die ernsthafte Sorge, daß jemandem etwas Schlimmes passiert, daß man
jemanden/etwas verliert
“The serious concern or worry that something bad will happen to one, that one will
lose someone or something”

Both definitions refer to the notion that “something bad will happen to me”, but the first

proposed meaning focuses on the experiencer’s state, while the second focuses on the thought

itself and the feeling caused by it (Wierzbicka2). This collective insecurity that is tied to the

notion of Angst is closely intertwined with the phenomenon of weltschmerz, the vague sense of

melancholy and world-weariness which became increasingly popular during the German

Romanticism movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries (Zudeick). Similarly, following

the Second World War, Martin Heidegger, the 20th century German philosopher, introduced the

term Sein zum Tode, or “being toward death”, which highlights the duality of one’s death

(Zudeick). Heidegger found that death is determinate in its inevitability, but the nature of one’s

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own inevitable death is highly indeterminate – one never truly knows when or how it is going to

come. Heidegger believed that an authentic human life can only be found by confronting this

finitude and trying to find meaning in the inevitability of our death – thus driving more Germans

to fear the uncertainties which permeate their lives and to be increasingly more Angst-ridden

(Zudeick). According to Heidegger, among all the moods and feelings that people experience,

Angst revealed the most about the fundamental nature of human existence (Bramann). Angst is

not fear of anything specific, but rather a state of dread in which that which is feared cannot be

pinpointed or described in any articulate way, thus becoming an all-pervasive feeling that has no

object (Bramann). Heidegger concluded that in the unspecified dread experienced in Angst¸ the

world in its entirety morphs into something remote and strange – even the familiar things which

make up the ordinary environment of everyday life turn into alien and uncanny objects

(Bramann). In Angst, one feels profoundly dislodged from his or her ordinary positions,

connections, and orientations in life, causing one to no longer feel at home in a perfectly familiar

world and to essentially become a stranger to oneself (Bramann).

Despite contrary belief, Angst has not come to mean the same thing as fear, but rather the

concept, which is, so to speak, a cross between “fear,” “anxiety,” and “angst” looms large in

contemporary German culture as one of the basic human emotions (Wierzbicka3). Angst denotes

a much more intense feeling than its English counterparts and specifically, denotes a state of

mind with significantly stronger cultural underpinnings (Jackson). The common (mis)translation

of Angst into “anxiety” is a sort of stripping or negating of certain aspects of the German, and

specifically Freud’s, understanding of the concept, thus leading to erroneous conclusions about

both Freud and psychoanalysis, in general (Castrillón). Despite their shared derivation from the

same Latin root, Angst captures both fear and anguish, while anxiety is a duller, less primitive

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term (Castrillón). Real Freudian Angst refers to an apprehension and terror regarding an

unknown danger that speaks of an ordinary trauma that has been displaced into the future – quite

different from commonplace “anxiety” (Castrillón). From a comparative perspective, the most

striking feature of Angst is that it evokes neither an impulse to freeze nor an impulse to flee, but

rather it implies something like indecision and uncertainty (Wierzbicka3). With all of these

components in mind, I would propose the following explication for Angst:

Angst (X feels Angst):

(a) X felt something because X thought something like this:
(b) “something bad can happen to me now
(c) I don’t want this
(d) it can be good if I do something because of this
(e) I don’t know what I can do”
(f) when X thinks like this, X feels something bad because of this
(g) like people often do when they think like this

In order to avoid getting lost in mistranslations which distort a word’s original intent, we

must be sure to make appropriate cultural translations that carry over the connotations and social

significance which aptly convey a word’s true meaning. The use of Wierzbicka’s Natural

Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) for this purpose broadly accounts for the core meaning of

emotion categories, such as Angst. In addition, from a psychological perspective, NSM coincides

with the Cognitive Appraisal Theory which states that emotions are first assessed cognitively and

then an appraisal of a situation leads to a good or bad emotional response (Soloshenko). This

sequential train of thought can be clearly identified in all of the explications outlined above. In

order to eliminate the large gap between emotional meaning and emotional experience, the

linguist Zoltán Kövecses points out the direct dependence between the most frequent

metaphorical expressions – with conceptual source and target domains – and the strongest bond

between them in the brain (Soloshenko). Therefore, in considering such dimensions as OBJECT

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or FORCE, we find frequent source domains for the conceptual mapping of words such as Angst

(Soloshenko). Upon analysis of a dynamic corpus of the German language, DWDS, Angst often

is paired with other emotion markers or related notions mainly with negative connotations such

as Angst und Schrecken (i.e. fear and terror) which co-occurred in DWDS 440 times

(Soloshenko). The most frequent conceptualization of Angst is as a physical or animate object,

often related to possession (examples include: Angst bekommen – “to get Angst” and ein

Labyrinth der Ängste – “a labyrinth of Angst”) (Soloshenko). Other instances of Angst present

themselves as an autonomous force, an antagonist in the form of attack (e.g. von Angst

überkommt werden – “to be overcome by Angst”), a powerful entity inside the body (e.g. mit

Angst in der Augen – “with Angst in the eyes”), or as a container (e.g. voller Angst – “full of

Angst”) (Soloshenko).

Through studying the cultural foundation of Angst, the prevalent instances of Angst in the

German language, the related words in English and German, and its fundamental ties to the field

of psychology, I hope that it has become clear that there is more to Angst than first meets the eye

and we must continue to practice caution in glossing over definitions of such salient culture-

specific terms, in order to avoid distorting the original meaning.

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 Works Cited

"Angst." Collins German-English Dictionary. Collins, n.d. Web.

"Angust, Adj." Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, n.d. Web.

Bramann, Jorn K. "Heidegger: Nothingness and Authentic Existence." N.p., n.d. Web.

Castrillón, Fernando. "Translating Angst: Inhibitions and Symptoms in Anglo-American

Psychoanalysis." European Journal of Psychoanalysis (n.d.): n. pag. Web.

"Dread." Def. 2. Merriam-Webster. Merriam Webster, Incorporated, n.d. Web.

DWDS = Das Digitale Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, < https://www.dwds.de>

"Fright." Merriam-Webster. Merriam Webster, Incorporated, n.d. Web.

"Furcht." Collins German-English Dictionary. Collins, n.d. Web.

Jackson, Laura (Riding), John Nolan, and Alan J. Clark. Under the Mind's Watch: Concerning
Issues of Language, Literature, Life of Contemporary Bearing. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2004. Print.

Soloshenko, Alena. A Contrastive Study between English and German: Fear/Angst and
Guilt/Schuld in Decision-Making. HAL Archives-Ouvertes, 22 Dec. 2016. Web.

Wierzbicka1, Anna. Cross-cultural Pragmatics the Semantics of Human Interaction. Berlin:

Mouton De Gruyter, 2003. Print.

Wierzbicka2, Anna. Emotions across Languages and Cultures: Diversity and Universals.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. Print.

Wierzbicka3, Anna. Imprisoned in English: The Hazards of English as a Default Language.

Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013. Print.

Zudeick, Peter. "Germans and Why They Worry about "German Angst"." Deutsche Welle.
Deutsche Welle, 12 Mar. 2012. Web.

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