Whore

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In  more modern German usage, the word dirne denotes a prostitute , shortened from the older word “lust dirne”. In Old High German it was still a general name for girls and it is still regional today, especially in the form Dirn or Deern (see also Dirndl ).

The word whore 'is one of a number of female names (also maid , wife , housekeeper , females , etc.) that etymologically an important deterioration have undergone.

etymology

The Old High German word diorna is etymologically traced back to a developed West Germanic * þéornōn , older old Germanic * þewernōn 'unfree, servant' and appears in the Old High German glosses as a translation for virgo (virgin), puella (girl), adolescentula ( adolescent ) and puerpera (natal) , Mother ), but also for dulia (servant or serf), famula (servant) and ancilla (maid).

Linguistic historical significance deterioration

Deterioration in the meaning of the word 'prostitute'

Already in the Middle Ages , different word meanings existed side by side: on the one hand the original and general meanings of ' virgin ', '(young) marriageable girl ', 'unmarried woman ', regardless of the class , on the other hand the narrower meanings' maid ',' servant ',' Serfs ' specifically for a lower class female person, who has been thematized from the 13th century onwards from the point of view of their sexual availability, but has only appeared in connection with the topic of gainful prostitution since the 15th century . The neutral or classically derogatory usage persisted in addition to the narrowing of meaning to 'prostitutes' until around the 18th century , today the neutral meaning 'girl' is only established in dialect .

In Middle and Early New High German , di (e) rne retains both the more general meaning as well as the status narrowed to "servant, maid, serf", whereby within the latter in the 14th century the prostitute occasionally also as unpaid servant and therefore probably serf ( the umme sust dinet or ûffe genâde / “who serves in vain or for the sake of grace” ) is differentiated from the “ maid serving for wages and food” ( di umme lôn dinet and umme kost ).

The neutral in the vote and class assignment manner of use is demonstrated for example in sets with " pride " ( proud diern ), in the name of a king's daughter as a whore and in some names of the Blessed Virgin Mary or other saints as a prostitute, in such cases In religious literature, however, it should be noted that the humility formula of the ancilla Dei (“handmaid of God”), and thus the class-degrading meaning , is often in the background.

Since the 13th century, the word has also been used as a name for the young woman of lower class, which is specifically thematized from the point of view of her sexual availability, for example by sharing the secret supplement with the servant ( Steinmar ), as the landlady of a passing traveler King is impregnated ( Altes Passional ) or as a maid is happy to be at the master’s sake in all things ( Carnival game ). With the emergence of urban brothels in the late Middle Ages , the word then also appears in relation to the commercial prostitute ( "a dirne uß dem frauwenhuse" ). A further narrowing of the meaning in the sense of prostitute compared to the narrowing down to the class lowering meaning is not yet necessary, since unmarried women of lower class follow the prostitution and they can therefore also be called prostitutes in the older sense. The further significance of narrowing then manifests itself but since the 16th century in dictionary entries , the word to massacre lat and. Meretrix ( whore make) or the adjective dirnisch with hürisch equate.

Until the end of the 18th century, the word was also used in both medieval meanings, but Johann Christoph Adelung already characterized the use "in noble understanding" (for unmarried women also of high class or for " nuns " and the Virgin Mary) already as "almost out of date in High German" and ascribes the class-restricted (single woman of low class, maid) only to the German "in Lower Saxony". The word appears in the meaning of “girl” in the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood : in the Grimm editions of 1812 (first edition) and 1819 as “Dirn”, from 1837 as “Whore”. A prostitute is mentioned in the nursery rhyme Spannenlanger Hansel, noodle-thick dirn , which has been documented since about the middle of the 19th century .

Today the word is only used in dialect with the neutral meaning "girl", so in southeast Germany and in Austria in Bavarian dirn rsp. Dian ( diminutive : Dirndl , Diandl , Deandl ) and in Northern Germany in Low German Deern .

Theodor Fontane , who was born and grew up in the Low German area of Neuruppin , in his famous ballad Herr von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck im Havelland (1889) lets Herr von Ribbeck speak partly Low German and partly High German and then uses the in the verses that are actually meant in Low German Salutation lütt Dirn , in which lütt is actually Low German, Dirn, however, just like the rhyming word Birn ( Lütt Dirn, / kumm man röwer, ick gew 'di' ne Birn ) is High German: the embedding of these High German forms is probably due to the rhyme, since Low German Deern  - Beern would not have made any rhyme.

In standard German as well as in most dialects , the word is only used today to mean “prostitute”, although it is now felt to be out of date (just like lusty whores ) and by whores , whores , easy girls or just prostitutes has been displaced.

The word 'prostitute' as an example of the deterioration in the meaning of women's names

In said historical entries in the change in meaning of the historical process serves meaning deterioration of woman designations as mainly used for teaching Example pejoration (whore maid , woman , Mamsell , females , etc.). It can be observed in many languages.

See also

Web links

Wiktionary: Whore  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Peter von Polenz : German language history from the late Middle Ages to the present: Introduction, basic concepts, 14th to 16th centuries. 2nd Edition. Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-11-016478-7 , p. 52.
  2. ^ A b Gerd Fritz: Historical Semantics. Stuttgart 2006, p. 52.
  3. ^ A b Damaris Nübling , Antje Dammel, Janet Duke, Renata Szczepaniak: Historical Linguistics of German: An Introduction to the Principles of Language Change. 4th edition. Tübingen 2013, p. 123.
  4. ↑ Kluge: Etymological dictionary of the German language . edited by Elmar Sebold, 23rd, extended edition, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1995. p. 183
  5. ↑ German legal dictionary . Art. Whore, § 1
  6. ^ A b German dictionary by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm, 16 vols. [In 32 sub-volumes], Leipzig 1854–1960, vol. 2, column 1185 ff .; Art. "Whore"
  7. ↑ German legal dictionary . Prussian Academy of Sciences (Ed .; edited by: Eberhard Freiherr von Künßberg), Vol. 2, Weimar 1935; Art. "Whore"
  8. ↑ a b c Grimm: German dictionary . Art. Whore, § 3: mulier impudica
  9. ↑ a b German legal dictionary . Art. Whore, § VI: Whore in today's bad sense
  10. ↑ Grimm, German Dictionary, Art. Dirne, § 1: virgo
  11. ↑ a b c Grimm: German dictionary . Art. Whore, § 2: ancilla
  12. ↑ Grimm: German Dictionary . Art. Dirnisch
  13. ↑ Johann Christoph Adelung: Grammatical-critical dictionary of the high German dialect . 2nd, increased and improved edition Leipzig 1793, vol. 1, p. 1503; Lemma "Dirne" from the edition of 1811 ( Memento of the original from September 19, 2003 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / mdz.bib-bvb.de
  14. ↑ Children's and household fairy tales, collected by the Brothers Grimm: Little Red Riding Hood
  15. ↑ Werner König: dtv atlas on the German language . 14th edition Munich 2004, p. 167
  16. ↑ Astrid Wierling: Does Mr. Ribbeck von Ribbeck really come from Havelland? A dialect geographic gimmick with Theodor Fontane's ballad “Herr von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck im Havelland” . In: Maik Lehmberg (ed.): Language, speaking, proverbs: Festschrift for Dieter Stellmacher on his 65th birthday . Steiner, Wiesbaden 2004 (= supplements to the journal for dialectology and linguistics, N. F. 126). Pp. 251-257
  17. ↑ See for example Julius Rosenbaum : History of the lust epidemic in antiquity for doctors, philologists and antiquity researchers. Hall 1839; 7th, revised edition, enlarged with an appendix, Verlag von H [ermann] Barsdorf, Berlin 1904 (title: History of the lust epidemic in antiquity together with detailed studies on the Venus and phallic cults, brothels, Νοῦσος ϑήλεια of the Scythians, paederasty and other sexual ones The debauchery of the ancients is represented as contributions to the correct explanation of their writings. ) Reprint: Central antiquariat of the German Democratic Republic, Leipzig 1971 (edition for S. Karger, Basel / Munich /…). Pp. 80–108 ( brothels and whores ).
  18. ↑ Muriel Schulz: The Semantic Derogation of Woman . New York 1975.
  19. ↑ Muriel Schulz: Women: Terms for women. In: Cheris Kramarae, Dale Spender (Eds.): Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women: Global Women's Issues and Knowledge. New York 2000, p. 2131.