Persönliche

Persönliche is a German term related to the adjective persönlich, meaning "personal" or "private." In discourse, the capitalized noun form das Persönliche refers to the private or subjective aspects of life as a distinct thing, often contrasted with the public or general. The word appears in debates about privacy, identity, and the boundary between an individual's private sphere and public discourse.

As an attributive adjective before a noun, persönlich is written in lowercase: persönliche Daten, persönliche Gründe, persönliche Angelegenheiten. When the phrase is nominalized, the result is a capitalized noun: das Persönliche, used to denote "the personal" as a topic or matter under discussion. The capitalization rules reflect German orthography: only nominalized adjectives are capitalized.

Common contexts include data protection and privacy law, where persönliche Daten (personal data) play a central role; psychology and sociology, where the personal sphere is distinguished from the public. In everyday language, the term helps to specify what is intimate, individualized, or related to a person, rather than to a group or institution.

Historically, the concept derives from Person and the suffix -lich. Its usage ranges from formal to informal, and it is frequently seen in media, legal texts, and academic writing. The term remains a flexible linguistic tool for marking the boundary between the private and the public in German.