As a consequence of a system upgrade, I ended up with 3 DECT-handsets (connected to the same base station and extension) in my room. So I set them to 3 different languages, NL, DE and DK.
When I activate the handsfree loudspeaker, I get
NL : Handsfree (same as in EN)
DE : Lautsprecher
DK : Medhør
which is interesting, as a lot of German telecoms equipment from the 20th century still had a label “Achtung! Feind hört mit!” – in German Mithören means to (covertly) listen in to a telephone circuit. This DECT terminal can (unusually) connect to an already seized line from a different handset (in the same way parallel wired telephones can); but it is hardly covert; the other person would hear the background noise from the “listening” extension, it can be set into privacy mode anyway and if I did require to listen in to a phone call I can do that directly from the telephone exchanges I build using the right codes….
I also found an old Nortel end user guide to one of their featurephones in Danish; it does seem like Medhør more commonly means to “listen in” without necessarily taking part in the conversation (or listening to a music line in a radio or sound studio). Maybe the Japanese used this translation because they wanted to (or were required to) comply with DK privacy laws?
