The name is an example of the virtually unlimited compounding of nouns that is possible in many Germanic languages. German orthography uses “closed” compounds, concatenating nouns to form one long word. This is unlike most English compounds, which are separated using spaces or hyphens.

Strictly speaking, it is made up of two words, because a hyphen at the end of a word is used to show that the word will end in the same way as the following. Consequently, the two words would be Rinderkennzeichnungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz and Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz.

This is the official "short" title of the law; its full name is Gesetz zur Übertragung der Aufgaben für die Überwachung der Rinderkennzeichnung und Rindfleischetikettierung, corresponding to Law on delegation of duties for supervision of cattle marking and beef labeling. Most German laws have a short title consisting of a composite noun.

Words as long as this are nowhere near common in German. When the law was proposed in the state parliament, the members reacted with laughter and the responsible minister Till Backhaus apologized for the “possibly excessive length.” In 1999, the German Language Society nominated Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz for its Word of the Year award, but it lost to Millennium.

See also

• Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft
• Longest word in English
• scriptio continua

External links

• Gesetzestext (full text of the law, in German)
• Official parliamentary record of the debate (pdf, in German)