Kanaille
Kanaille [ kaˈnaljə ] ( French ), also Canaille , is a swear word and means something like "common guy" or "villain". It was adopted from French ( canaille ) into German in the 17th century . There it comes from the Italian canaglia (pack of dogs), which in turn goes back to the Latin canis (dog).
Canaille was also used for a long time as a disparaging term for a group of people (“the pack”, the “ Janhagel ”, “the lower folk”) and became a Geusen word during the French Revolution , which those reinterpreted as an honoring self-name who fought against the Ancien Régime (see also the French song La Canaille ).
In German, the collective meaning is little known; This is stronger with the ajar creation of the word journaille . The expression " treat someone en canaille " is used to describe openly disrespectful, contemptuous behavior.
literature
- Joachim Heinrich Campe : Canaille. In: ders .: Dictionary for the explanation and Germanization of foreign expressions that have appeared in our language. A supplement to Adelung's dictionaries. 2nd, improved edition, enlarged with a third volume. Braunschweigsche Schulbuchhandlung, Braunschweig / Franz Xaver Miller, Grätz 1808 (first edition 1801), Volume 1: A – E. P. 164, digitized version , OCLC 15737865 .
- Adolf Josef Storfer : Kanaille. In: ders .: words and their fates. Atlantis, Berlin / Zurich 1935; Reprint: Vorwerk 8, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-930916-37-1 , pp. 204 f., Digitized.
- Henning Scheffers: Courtly Convention and the Enlightenment. Changes in the Honnête-homme ideal in the 17th and 18th centuries (= studies in German, English and comparative literature. Volume 93). Bouvier, Bonn 1980, ISBN 3-416-01587-X (Dissertation, Technische Universität Berlin, 1978), Chapter I. 4: L'honnête homme and la canaille or the art of pleasing at court (Nicolas Faret). Pp. 37-56, especially pp. 53-56.
