German social classes are rarely called classes these days

What do Germans call a social class? From our impurist language department.

 It's a "Schicht", a layer, a stratum, and sometimes it is a "Klasse".

And what's with the French calling their politicians "classe politique"?

We'll ignore the French one in this post and stick with the German terms. The K-Landers believe to have found a few interesting tidbits.

Historically, you find Klasse a lot, in contemporary German far less often, and - note - generally when talking about those close linguistic relatives from an Anglo nation, the "middle class", the "working class". If you do a Startpage (anonymized Google search) for the German term "Mitttelklasse", the first three results pages all return motor vehicle (car) results. We didn't check subsequent results pages.

So, most of the usage of Klasse in modern German sociology or economics comes "back" or "lives on" via translation from English, French, or other languages.

The German usage of "stratum" can further  be interpreted as proof that you don't have to call something a "class" for it to be a "class". All the physical and cultural trappings associated with a social class exist as attributes to the German use of "layer" -- the fancy homes, the extra yacht, the more sophisticated language, the presumably refined consumer tastes.

It would be interesting to get opinions from linguists about the wider implications of this usage difference. In the US, we have seen a popular cable TV channel use class warfare with abandon in the last few years when many lamented the decline of the American middle class and some wanted to enact measures seen as hostile to the "upper class". The historic connotation was exploited quite openly.

You cannot expect anything but bewilderment if you tried to use the German "stratum" and declare "stratum warfare". Not even Star Wars fans would be impressed.

What we should really do is get some other examples, in particular from Swedish society,  where they have a monarchy but where you can also go and look up exactly how much money your neighbor makes.

Feel free to write one or more doctoral theses about the subject, and don't forget to quote us.

We thought, publishing this post on carnival would be a fitting day.