On the historic and cultural development of the French-German contacts
The article provides insight into the historic and cultural development of the French-German contacts. The geographic position of the two European countries and the history of their political, economic, scientific and cultural cooperation brought about the process of linguistic amalgamation which resulted in linguistic borrowing from one language into another. The French language has enriched the German language by introducing the terms from the sphere of fashion and gastronomy while coining from the German language military, scientific and technical terms. The present-day situation in Europe has drastically changed. Multifaceted cooperation of the two superpowers no longer leads to the linguistic exchange. The process of borrowing has radically changed giving way to the loanwords from the English language. The principles of the linguistic diversity proclaimed by the EU have suffered a lot because of the expansion of the English language. Excessive borrowing from the English lan-guage has become a dangerous tendency influencing both German and French cultures and languages. The article examines the factors which encourage such ten-dency, more precisely the leading role of the USA in the world politics, the influence of mass media on the language of fashion and advertising and on the youth slang. The article also gives examples of the English loanwords which are effectively functioning in the French and German languages.