Victim (swear word)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The word victim has also been used as a swear word in German-speaking countries around the 2000s . Contrary to traditional usage, it expresses a derogatory and contemptuous attitude towards someone.

In the meantime, it is sometimes also weakened in the sense of “uncool”, “boring”, “stupid”, seldom used as an ironic-friendly address.

etymology

The use of the word in this context is probably a loan translation from Turkish , where the word kurban , which actually means “victim, sacrificial animal”, can also be used regionally or anciently as a simple salutation interjection in the meaning of “Hey you!”. The usage is similar to the Turkish word lan for "boy" (originally from ulan or oğlan "young man"), which has also entered the German youth language , but usually refers to a person who comes from the same environment as oneself, for example when you discover that you are from the same city. It is also used among loved family members and then means something like "You, for whom I would sacrifice myself." How exactly this was used as a salutation in Turkish is historically unclear. Possibly it is a shortened formula with reference to the Islamic Festival of Sacrifice ( Kurban Bayramı ).

Word usage

“Sacrifice” (also “Opfa”) in the context discussed here is usually reinterpreted against the background of the German word meaning. Due to the lack of a cultural context, the original Turkish semantics and actually completely neutral and by no means pejorative usage pragmatics in Germany are unknown or inexplicable and thus probably have been lost in the meantime even with parts of the Turkish native speakers.

The German native speaker does not like the fact that this does not express empathy for any suffering suffered, the term therefore has a derogatory and contemptuous effect and is therefore probably meant to achieve a corresponding shock effect. In street jargon, the term is aimed at people who cannot defend themselves adequately or who show weaknesses in other ways and who generally do not correspond to a concept of tough, strong and defensive masculinity. In this sense, the word “victim” is roughly synonymous with failure or loser . As a loser, the so-named was responsible for his marginalized group situation.

The phrase, in the sense of an intimidating threatening gesture, gained particular popularity among young people through the sample set "Give me a jacket you Opfa, otherwise make it messy" from the sketch "German course for Turks" in the program Ladykracher by Anke Engelke .

Today the term is sometimes used in the sense of “uncool”, “boring”, “stupid” etc., also as a joking address among friends and acquaintances, and its pejorative meaning is toned down. Sometimes it is used as a friendly salutation in the sense of "age": "Hey, victim, are you going to the cafeteria too?"

Attempts at social psychological explanations

Carol Hagemann-White explains: “One motive for exercising violence, especially among young people, is the need to overcome an uncertain relationship to reality and to have the feeling that you can definitely make a difference [...]. To be a victim, to reveal oneself as a victim or to put oneself in the victim situation of one's peers, could increase this uncertainty and diffusion of the self in an environment that has become unstable and create the desire to be a perpetrator rather than not really to exist."

At the same conference Joest Martinius added: “When young people whose development has been injured by severe and long-term deprivations and experiences of violence, abuse others, who are also affected, as 'victims', this is an unsuitable attempt to compensate for their own weakness . The humiliation of the weak and the weaker and the superiority experienced is the real explanation for the emergence of the insults mentioned and for the abuse of the concept of victim. "

Norbert Dittmar explains the strong increase in the use of the word “victim” - also due to the effort to portray oneself as a “victim” of problematic conditions - with the fact that the world is increasingly seen in terms of competition . As a result, there are countless winners and losers in the world , the latter being increasingly referred to as “victims”.

The question of whether it should be assessed positively is controversial if those who have been overwhelmed (e.g. raped people) do not want to be "victims" and are praised for their "strength", which consists in the fact that they are not "victims". by being able to constructively manage their experience. According to critics of this point of view, the term “victim” rather appropriately expresses the helplessness and defenselessness of those who have been exposed to the violence of an offender or to an overwhelming process.

See also

literature

  • Gabriela Herpell / Mechthild Schäfer: You victim! When children kill children . Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek 2010, ISBN 978-3-498-03006-3

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Trend office: Duden, the new dictionary of scene languages. Dudenverlag, Mannheim 2009, p. 24, ISBN 978-3-411-71092-8
  2. ↑ a b c James Redfield: Youth language in Berlin-Neukölln: We say “You victim!” . TAZ , April 2, 2008
  3. ^ Karl Steuerwald, Turkish-German Dictionary, Wiesbaden, 1972
  4. ↑ Stefan Voss: You victim ... ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2013 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. (PDF; 92 kB). Berlin Forum for Violence Prevention No. 12. 2003 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.berlin.de
  5. ↑ Carol Hagemann-White : Sacrifice - the social dimension of a phenomenon (PDF; 373 kB). Contribution to the Berlin expert group against sexual abuse of girls and boys. June 25, 2007, p. 32
  6. ↑ Joest Martinius: The concept of victim in psychology, psychotherapy and psychiatry (PDF; 373 kB). Contribution to the Berlin expert group against sexual abuse of girls and boys. June 25, 2007, p. 36
  7. ↑ Norbert Dittmar : "You victim ...!". The term “victims in the past and today” ( MS PowerPoint ; 994 kB). Panel discussion of the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future”, January 17, 2011
  8. ↑ Anneli Borchert: In the adventure pool of violence - a reply to the text "You victim" . diestoerenfriedas.de . February 14, 2017