Auntie
Aunt is an older German relationship name and usually means aunt or base , but can also generally describe social proximity, such as how today children are instructed to the word "aunt" to use. Aunt's male equivalent is uncle . The term is now considered out of date and is sometimes used at most as a joke as a confidential address or literary.
There used to be a kinship system in the German-speaking countries in which the relatives of the female / maternal line were designated differently than those of the male line. One of the mother's sisters was referred to as “aunt”, while the father's sister was the “aunt” (analogous to “ uncle ” versus “ uncle ”). A mother-sister by marriage, i.e. the wife of a mother-brother, was also referred to. In some regions the aunt simply referred to an older woman. The term can also be found in the origin of the word Möhnen .
Furthermore, an auntie can also designate a nurse . Then one speaks of a child's worm . A woman who oversees the cattle is regionally also referred to as a cattle cow (instead of cattle mother ).
etymology
The Middle High German word muoma (documented in the Monsee glosses ) initially only referred to the mother's sister, until it became a general term for all female relatives.
In the 14th century it is found in Upper German in the form of Mümmey , in Swabian as Muemel .
Other dialect variants are: Austrian Maim , Mamb , Moam , Lower Saxon Moje, Moie, Möne , Dutch Moei, Maeye , Ripuarian Möhn (e) . The word in favor of aunt has disappeared from High Dutch , but it still occurs frequently in (mainly northern) dialects ( moeie ) and in Frisian ( muoike ).
In Austrian, the word Mühmling denotes any relative (originally only on the mother's side).
Like Mama , it goes back to a babble word in children's language.
In poetry
- The cousin and the aunt is a poem by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
- In the prologue, Mephistopheles in Goethe's Faust I names the snake that Adam and Eve tried: “my aunt, the famous snake”, and tells a student to whom he read the Bible quotation Eritis sicut Deus, scientes bonum et malum. wrote in the stud book, after: "Just follow the old saying and my auntie the snake, / you will certainly be afraid of your likeness to God!"
- A nursery rhyme from the 19th century reads:
- I want to tell you something
- from Aunt Rälen ,
- from Aunt Zitzewitz
- with the pointed hat ,
- from the long liver meat ,
- where the Zippel eats a threesome.
- Aunt Kunkel is a poem by Christian Morgenstern .
- Aunt Rumpumpel is a witch in Otfried Preußler 's children's book Die kleine Hexe .
- As a German proverb , Simrock cites in 1846 :
- Aunt's crumb, the child's bark
- In the aria Wir poor, poor Mädchen from Albert Lortzings The Armory , "Muhm and Basen put their noses together ...".
- In the poem September by Georg Britting it says "... and joke with the auntie, the snake".
In folklore
- The Roggenmuhme is a field spirit.
- Muhme Mühlen is a manifestation of Frau Holle in her form as an old woman.
literature
- Auntie . In: Heidelberg Academy of Sciences (Hrsg.): German legal dictionary . tape 9 , issue 5/6 (edited by Heino Speer and others). Hermann Böhlaus successor, Weimar 1994, ISBN 3-7400-0966-7 ( adw.uni-heidelberg.de ).
