Rogue
The expression Schalk stands for someone “who likes to have fun with others”. The word goes on Ahd. scalk , " servant ", "unfree", " slave " back. In its present meaning it is a synonym for rogue or joker used and does "veraltend" as.
etymology
The word Schalk for, deceitful man, rogue, sly joker 'comes from the Old High German scalc of the 8th century and was available, serf , servant, servants, subject' (see. Also Marshal ). From this in Middle High German the meaning “ malicious , evil, devious person” develops, which in the 18th century changed into “mocker, rogue, jester”.
The origin of Germanic * skalka- is not clear. There have been attempts to derive the name from the name of a subjugated people, e.g. B. for megalithic residents of northern Germany. This happened under the assumption of the meaning * kal- 'rock, stone' (Greek chálix (χάλιξ) 'small stone, gravel', Latin calx 'stone, limestone'), which led to the assumption of a name for 'stone workers' . Feist and de Vries made further attempts to explain this by deriving from late Latin * scalcus , Middle Latin scalcius 'barefoot', scalciatus 'bareheaded, shorn'.
Change of meaning
Schalk, in its original meaning servant or servant , was used in Old High German especially in compositions such as Seniscalc (oldest servant, seneschal ) and Mariscalc (overseer of the horses, marshal ). In Middle High German , this expression - according to Meyer's Großes Konversations-Lexikon from 1909 - applied to a person with a " servile " and malicious disposition, as also used by Martin Luther . Johann Christoph Adelung defined the Schalk among other things as:
“A person who has the ability to harm others through seemingly innocent behavior; where it is used by both sexes, and is a so-called middle word, which can denote a gross malicious deceiver, as well as a person who tries to deceive others through seemingly innocent behavior only in jest. 1) Actually. The prophets are Schälke, Jer. 23, 11, cheaters. Hold your Feyertage, Judah - because the rogue will no longer come over you, it has even been exterminated, Nahum. 2, 1. Some are astute and yet a rogue, sir. 19, 22. The rogue can hang his head and see seriously, and is still vain deception, v. 23. "
Pierer's Universal Lexicon of 1862 also cited other meanings:
“A person who has the skill, under the guise of innocent behavior, to harm others and, be it out of malice or as a joke, with the help of cheerful disguise, performs cunning tricks; therefore in compositions u. outdated so vw fraudulent . "
It was only later that the term rogue got its current meaning for a person who makes cunning jokes in witty disguise without malicious intent. In his Faust poem Goethe lets the devil appear as a rogue. The Lord during the prologue in heaven : "Of all spirits who deny, [...] the rogue is the least burden to me". As Schalksnarr the figure of is Till Eulenspiegel known worldwide by the end of the Middle Ages.
The idioms "someone has the rogue on their neck" or "someone has the rogue on their neck" assign the aforementioned the quality of a rogue, but actually mean "someone has a roguish demon on their neck".
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Schalk on duden.de, accessed on February 27, 2012.
- ^ Etymological dictionary of German according to Pfeifer, online at DWDS , accessed on February 27, 2012.
- ^ Meyer's Large Conversational Lexicon. Volume 17. Leipzig 1909, p. 684, online at zeno.org , accessed on February 27, 2012.
- ↑ online at zeno.org , accessed on February 27, 2012.
- ↑ online at zeno.org , accessed on February 27, 2012.
- ↑ Werner Wolski: PONS Large School Dictionary German , 2006, p. 897 ( preview )
- ↑ Schalk on duden.de, accessed on February 27, 2012.