Social distancing

[Linguaphile]

social distancing
soziale Distanzierung

distanciamiento social
distanciation sociale
distanziamento sociale

sotsiaalne distantseerumine
sosiaalinen etäisyys

保持社交距離

การรักษาระยะห่างทางสังคม

[h34]

+ da, lv

social distancering
social distancing
soziale Distanzierung

distanciamiento social
distanciation sociale
distanziamento sociale

sociāla distancēšana

sotsiaalne distantseerumine
sosiaalinen etäisyys

保持社交距離

การรักษาระยะห่างทางสังคม

[linguoboy]

social distancing
soziale Distanzierung

I actually asked a German friend about this only yesterday and he told me that what he hears most often is the English term untranslated. The German Wikipedia article insists on the translation räumliche Distanzierung because "Es geht aber nicht um eine soziale Isolation der Individuen, sondern um die räumliche Distanzierung von (möglicherweise) infizierten zu nicht infizierten Personen." ("It's not about social isolation of individuals, but rather the physical distancing of (possibly) infected persons from those not infected.").

[Iván]

+ catalan, russian

social distancing
soziale Distanzierung

distanciamiento social
distanciation sociale
distanziamento sociale
distanciament social

социальное дистанцирование

sotsiaalne distantseerumine
sosiaalinen etäisyys

保持社交距離

การรักษาระยะห่างทางสังคม

social distancing
soziale Distanzierung

I actually asked a German friend about this only yesterday and he told me that what he hears most often is the English term untranslated. The German Wikipedia article insists on the translation räumliche Distanzierung because "Es geht aber nicht um eine soziale Isolation der Individuen, sondern um die räumliche Distanzierung von (möglicherweise) infizierten zu nicht infizierten Personen." ("It's not about social isolation of individuals, but rather the physical distancing of (possibly) infected persons from those not infected.").

Soziale Distanzierung is the most commonly-used term, in my opinion. At least, I have seen it quite often in the news.

https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/coronav ... orbereitet
https://www.mdr.de/wissen/mensch-alltag ... st100.html
https://www.derbund.ch/sonntagszeitung/ ... y/27357077
https://www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/coro ... 56946.html

[Naava]

sosiaalinen etäisyys

We don't have a translation or any other term for this. We just speak of "staying at home" and keeping a "turvaväli" (lit. safety space, a term usually associated with cars and driving) when going out. Some people say they're in quarantine when they mean they're self-isolating.

//Edit: I googled the term and there were some hits, but it looks like it's used as a direct translation from English because Finnish doesn't have a word for distancing yourself from other people. However, the problem with "sosiaalinen etäisyys" is that it also (and IMO mainly) refers to the metaphorical distance between people, like a peasant meeting a king -type of scenario. That might be why it hasn't become super common yet, although maybe it'll spread when the lockdowns continue.

[awrui]

sosiaalinen etäisyys

We don't have a translation or any other term for this. We just speak of "staying at home" [...] Some people say they're in quarantine when they mean they're self-isolating.

Same for Sami languages. I think translations of "social distancing" are just anglicisms in most languages.

[Linguaphile]

Thanks for the additions and comments!

We don't have a translation or any other term for this. We just speak of "staying at home"

Same for Sami languages. I think translations of "social distancing" are just anglicisms in most languages.

he told me that what he hears most often is the English term untranslated

Yeah, I've seen the English version left untranslated sometimes in Spanish and Estonian and German as well, and various alternative translations scattered here and there in each language (like distancia social in Spanish and sotsiaalne eemaldumine in Estonian, among others). I've also come across räumliche Distanzierung in German too, but it's just not as common right now. (More about that below.)

Even in English, the widespread use of the term "social distancing" with this meaning is new (since the discovery of how the practice can help with slowing the spread of COVID-19; before that it existed but many people wouldn't have known so specifically what it referred to in the context of contagious disease until recently) and certainly not uncontroversial. And in English I've also heard people advocating for the use of the term "physical distancing" in place of "social distancing", just as Wikipedia and some other sources are advocating for the use of "räumliche Distanzierung" in German. For example, this article explains why (and it makes sense to me). But at the moment "social distancing" is still the more common term in English (and "soziale Distanzierung" still more common in German from what I've seen) - for now.

By the way, this seems relevant: Tässä vielä niille, joita häiritsee termi "sosiaalinen etäisyys" and there they use fyysinen etäisyys in the second graphic. I quite like what it says: Tarvitsemme fyysistä etäisyyttä, mutta henkistä läheisyyttä.* I have a feeling the meaning of fyysinen etäisyys (physical distancing) is going to be becoming the more common phrasing in many languages soon.
( physical distancing
distanciamiento físico
füüsiline distantseerumine)

* "We need physical distancing, but mental/spiritual closeness."

[awrui]

I wouldn't use any of those terms in German. I think the use of "Distanzierung" is heavily influenced by US media and internet speech, as in German it's rather used in connection with moral and ethics (like: "Ich distanziere mich vom Rechtsextremismus."). Something like "Abstandseinhaltung" sounds much more natural to me. "Distanzierung" sounds just... weird.

[Linguaphile]

I wouldn't use any of those terms in German. I think the use of "Distanzierung" is heavily influenced by US media and internet speech, as in German it's rather used in connection with moral and ethics (like: "Ich distanziere mich vom Rechtsextremismus."). Something like "Abstandseinhaltung" sounds much more natural to me. "Distanzierung" sounds just... weird.

Interesting. Does being influenced by US media and internet speech make it invalid, though? Because I do agree with Iván regarding this:

Soziale Distanzierung is the most commonly-used term, in my opinion. At least, I have seen it quite often in the news.

https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/coronav ... orbereitet
https://www.mdr.de/wissen/mensch-alltag ... st100.html
https://www.derbund.ch/sonntagszeitung/ ... y/27357077
https://www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/coro ... 56946.html

Based on having seen it quite a bit myself too:
Soziale Distanzierung ist wichtig - und unser Ziel!
Soziale Distanzierung wird zum Habitus werden
Der beste Weg ist soziale Distanzierung
Abstand halten: Warum soziale Distanzierung hilft
Spass mit Abstand: Sonnenschein und soziale Distanzierung
Fakten zum Wort des Monats "Soziale Distanzierung"
Die Macht der sozialen Distanzierung
Deutsches Rotes Kreuz: Soziale Distangzierung oder: Wie wir gemeinsam die Kurve abflachen!
And so on. Some newspaper seem to prefer it more than others; Der Tagesspiegel from Berlin uses it a lot (I noticed both Iván's examples and mine included articles from them), Die Welt quite a bit, some others don't use it at all.

Then there are these two, from Austria and from Switzerland, which take issue with the term soziale Distanz (acknowledging its existence while offering alternatives). The first line of the first one jumped out at me: In der Corona Berichterstattung dominiert derzeit der Begriff der "Sozialen Distanz"...
Soziale Distanz - das falsche Wording!
Räumliche, nicht soziale Distanz ist gefragt

(Whew! This topic lead me down quite a rabbit hole, but good for freshening up my German in a subject area for which it's fairly new to me.)

[Car]

I've only seen soziale Distanzierung and the English version so far, I think. Yes, I've seen people criticise the term, but that's what people actually use.

[Linguaphile]

I've only seen soziale Distanzierung and the English version so far, I think. Yes, I've seen people criticise the term, but that's what people actually use.

Thanks for the confirmation!

[Car]

I've only seen soziale Distanzierung and the English version so far, I think. Yes, I've seen people criticise the term, but that's what people actually use.

Thanks for the confirmation!

You're welcome!

[Tenebrarum]

From what I've seen, they just straight-up use the English "social distancing" on all types of German media, like Car said. Most media outlets don't even bother with the awkward translation soziale Distanzierung. It doesn't crop up that much in daily spoken language because there's German terms / phrases that are way more useful. "Bitte Abstand halten!" for a request/command, or Kontaktverbot when referring to the official directive/policy. "Wir bleiben zuhause" for a sticker etc. (So far I still haven't seen the heretic "Wir bleiben daheim" stickers anywhere in this region, thankfully.)

I'm too out of touch with the media from Vietnam and can't tell you whether they use a translation of social distancing there. The policy there is closer to an Ausgangssperre, due to the incredible population density in the cities. But I don't think the Vietnamese language would need such clunky phrasing anyway, seeing that it functions very differently to European languages and has plenty of ways to express the same concept.

[linguoboy]

(So far I still haven't seen the heretic "Wir bleiben daheim" stickers anywhere in this region, thankfully.)

I couldn't help but do a quick search on "Mir bliibe deheim!" to see if my old college town had come out with a Mutterschbroch-Kampagne yet. If so, alas, it hasn't made it to the Internet.

[Saim]

I feel like something similar is going on in Serbian. I've seen socijalno distanciranje and društveno distanciranje in some news sources, but I've generally heard people refer to it as izolacija or samoizolacija (self-isolation). My mum says socijalno distanciranje but I don't think that's necessarily typical of people who don't read or use English regularly.

[Tenebrarum]

(So far I still haven't seen the heretic "Wir bleiben daheim" stickers anywhere in this region, thankfully.)

I couldn't help but do a quick search on "Mir bliibe deheim!" to see if my old college town had come out with a Mutterschbroch-Kampagne yet. If so, alas, it hasn't made it to the Internet.

Well I caught this attempt at writing in a Mundart:

Blievt zeheäm

[Multiturquoise]

+tr, ka, ku, el

social distancing
soziale Distanzierung

distanciamiento social
distanciation sociale
distanziamento sociale
distanciament social

социальное дистанцирование

mesafeya civakî

κοινωνική απόσταση

sotsiaalne distantseerumine
sosiaalinen etäisyys

保持社交距離

การรักษาระยะห่างทางสังคม

sosyal mesafe

სოციალური დისტანცირება

[Gormur]

social distancing
soziale Distanzierung
samskiptafjarlægð
sosial distansering

distanciamiento social
distanciation sociale
distanziamento sociale
distanciament social

социальное дистанцирование

mesafeya civakî

κοινωνική απόσταση

sotsiaalne distantseerumine
sosiaalinen etäisyys

保持社交距離

การรักษาระยะห่างทางสังคม

sosyal mesafe

სოციალური დისტანცირება

[md0]

correcting el

social distancing
soziale Distanzierung
samskiptafjarlægð
sosial distansering

distanciamiento social
distanciation sociale
distanziamento sociale
distanciament social

социальное дистанцирование

mesafeya civakî

κοινωνική αποστασιοποίηση

sotsiaalne distantseerumine
sosiaalinen etäisyys

保持社交距離

การรักษาระยะห่างทางสังคม

sosyal mesafe

სოციალური დისტანცირება

[h34]

+ pl, cz, based on this Wikipedia article.

It's interesting that Czech and Polish use a derivation of 'society' rather than a more literal translation of 'social' (socjalne < socjalny; sociální). Is it because similarly to German sozial, Polish socjalny can carry the notion of 'public-spirited' or '(acting) socially responsible, in a socially responsible manner'? But even then, IMO at least in German the idea of social responsibly makes sense in this context: acting responsibly by allowing others some additional space … But I agree with what has been mentioned about the word Distanzierung: it's rarely associated with physical distance, so it seems a bit counter-intuitive in this context. Then again, soziale Distanzierung is probably the most commonly used term.

social distancing
soziale Distanzierung
samskiptafjarlægð
sosial distansering

distanciamiento social
distanciation sociale
distanziamento sociale
distanciament social

společenský odstup
dystansowanie społeczne
социальное дистанцирование

mesafeya civakî

κοινωνική αποστασιοποίηση

sotsiaalne distantseerumine
sosiaalinen etäisyys

保持社交距離

การรักษาระยะห่างทางสังคม

sosyal mesafe

სოციალური დისტანცირება