Pig hedgehog

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Schweinigel (Low German: Swinegel , Swienegel ) is a German swear word and describes an unclean or immoral person. The term Schweinigelei for sexual permissiveness or rioting is also common.

origin

In the dictionary Adelung appears dirty pig or Sauigel first as a name for a subspecies ordinary hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus), which is characterized by a pig-like snout, unlike the so-called dog hedgehog . These different popular names are "apparently" based only on coincidences of the exterior (whereby the hedgehog should be larger and lighter in color) and are not part of the modern zoological system. The perceived difference should be explainable by the age or gender and age of the hedgehog.

This meaning corresponds to the appearance of the hedgehog in the well-known fairy tale The Hare and the Hedgehog , there in the Low German form Swinegel as a clever opponent of the hare and clearly recognizable in all depictions as an ordinary hedgehog. - Furthermore, so-and-so loud Adelung the name of the porcupine (Hystrix) .

Pig hedgehog as a term for a worthless, depraved person can be traced back to the German Shakespeare reception, which began increasingly in the 18th century - this is also the case in Grimm's dictionary. In Shakespeare's Richard III. there is the following place:

ANNA.
You were irritated by your bloody mind
Who never dreams of anything other than butchers.
Didn't you kill this king?
GLOSTER.
I admit it.
ANNA.
Do you admit it, hedgehog? Well, give God too,
That you are damned for the evil deed!

“Do you admit it, Igel?” Is the original: “Do'st grant me Hedge hogge?” And here (referring to the villain Gloster) the talk is of “hedgehog” (literally: “hedge hog”), the hedgehog. Therefore hedgehog or just so-and-so as a term for "rogue" or "reprobate" in German.

Why the hedgehog appears at this point remains unclear at first. In the old Leviticus translations the hedgehog appears in the list of unclean animals where the gecko appears in modern translations ( 3 Mos 11,30  EU ). So in the Luther Bible of 1545:

These should also be unclean for you among the animals / which crawl on the ground / the wisel / the mouse / the toad / each with its kind. The Jgel / the Newch / the Aydex / the Blindworm / and the Maulworff.

Accordingly, the hedgehog also seems to have belonged in the catalog of unclean animals for Shakespeare, for example in A Midsummer Night's Dream :

Colorful snakes, tongued!
Hedgehogs, newts, get away from here!
That you don't bring your poison
In the queen's precinct!

In the original:

You spotted Snakes with double tongue,
Thorny Hedgehogges be not seene,
Newts and blinde wormes do no wrong,
Come not neere our Fairy Queene.

The dirty pig and Sauigel related training of abuse abound: dirt hedgehog hair hedgehog (not to be confused with the stingless hedgehog relatives Hair hedgehogs ), Saumichel and Saunickel, Sauniggel, where Saunickel probably not "hedgehogs", but of "Nickel" within the meaning of Geizhals or, in view of the synonymous Saumichel, much more likely, derived from "Nick (el)" in the sense of Niklaus.

The Sauigel also appears as a carnival figure of the Alemannic carnival in Empfingen .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Johann Christoph Adelung: Grammatical-Critical Dictionary of High German Dialect, Vol. 3, Leipzig 1798, Sp. 1734 (in the dictionary network) .
  2. ↑ Brehm's Thierleben. Second volume, first division: mammals, third volume: Hufthiere, Seesäugethiere, 2nd edition, Leipzig 1883, 2nd volume, p. 245.
  3. ^ Pierer's Universal Lexicon
    • Volume 8. Altenburg 1859, p. 618, keyword dog hedgehog ( zeno.org )
    • Volume 8. Altenburg 1859, p. 620, keyword Hundsigel ( zeno.org )
    • Volume 8. Altenburg 1859, p. 812, keyword Igel ( zeno.org )
    • Volume 15. Altenburg 1862, p. 615, keyword Schweinigel ( zeno.org )
    • Volume 15. Altenburg 1862, p. 616, keyword pig urchin ( zeno.org )
  4. ↑ The hedgehog, an eater of the little enemies of agriculture and forestry. In: The Styrian Landbote. Organ for agriculture and national culture. Published by the Steiermärkische Landwirthschafts-Gesellschaft. Edited by Professor Dr. Gustav Wilhelm. Ninth year. 1876. p. 53
  5. ^ The zoologist, or Compendios library of the most worth knowing from animal history and general natural history. Published by Christian Carl Andre. First volume. Book V – VIII. Eisenach and Halle 1797, p. 5
  6. ↑ Natural history for children. From Mr. Georg Christian Raff. After the author's death, obtained from Mr. FAA Meyer. Latest revised edition. Vienna 1846, p. 394
  7. ↑ Franz Schlegel: Our hedgehog and its resistance to poison. In: Monthly newspaper of the Styrian Animal Protection Association. No. 7 & 8 July and August. 1871. p. 11
  8. ↑ German Dictionary , Vol. 10, Col. 2044 s. v. Hedgehog m. 3): “igel as a swear word, in eastern central Germany for a dirty or unchaste person (compare piggy, sauigel); after the English but for a contemptible person, a worthless person ”.
  9. ↑ Richard III. 1st act, 2nd scene. German translation by Schlegel and Tieck .
  10. ↑ A Midsummer Night's Dream 2nd act, 2nd scene.
  11. ↑ German Dictionary , Vol. 14, Col. 1922.
  12. ↑ Schweizerisches Idiotikon , Vol. IV, Col. 705, Article Sû w -Niggel .