The exhibition is about secret or covert communication. This was developed by the Tüötten, travelling hawkers from the northern Münsterland region of Germany, from whose trade the C&A company emerged. A second focus of the exhibition is therefore the company jargon at C&A, which has developed from a special coding system called Alberdingk. This was originally used to encrypt business figures.

My conclusion from the exhibition: dead or forgotten languages often have an unexpected afterlife. I think we were able to demonstrate this in this exhibition, for example by decoding a codeword for Alberdingk at a media station. Here you could practically experience what it was like when someone called and gave the account-assigned business figures and you were supposed to decode them. So in conclusion, I can say “Quäss humpisch!” – “Speak the secret language!”

Creating a Future Vision
How is the motto reflected? The exhibition strongly emphasizes the cultural significance of the secret language of the Tüötten, but also of C&A's later vocabulary. This cultural heritage must be preserved and passed on so that future generations are also informed about it and can engage with the concepts. Incidentally, the fact that the Tüöttensprache is also officially recognized as a cultural asset is demonstrated by the fact that its secret language was added to the list of intangible cultural heritage of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in 2024.