„Meine liebe Frau! Soeben Deine Post mit großer Freude erhalten… Viele Grüße an Schofel und Bock!“ So steht es auf einer Postkarte, die ein deutscher Kriegsgefangener 1946 aus der Sowjetunion ins heimatliche Lützenhardt im Schwarzwald schickte. Mit dem scheinbaren Gruß an zwei Verwandte oder Freunde tarnte der Schreiber die Mitteilung seiner elenden Lage: „Schofel“ bedeutet „schlecht“ und „Bock“ „Hunger“.
Beide Wörter gehören zum Rotwelschen und sind auch in der deutschen Umgangssprache heimisch geworden: Als „schofel“, dem ein jiddisches Wort mit hebräischer Wurzel zugrunde liegt, bezeichnen wir jemanden, der sich schäbig verhält, und „Bock“, das aus dem Romanes, der Sprache der Roma und Sinti, stammt, findet sich in der Wendung „auf etwas Bock haben“. Auch wenn wir „Stuss“ reden, etwas „ausbaldowern“, „Bammel haben“ oder der nötige „Kies“ fehlt, sprechen wir Rotwelsch.
Etwa 400 solcher Wörter gehören zum deutschen Allgemeinwortschatz. Dem Daseinszweck des Rotwelschen, dessen Anfänge im dreizehnten Jahrhundert liegen, läuft das eigentlich direkt zuwider. Denn diese Sprache des fahrenden Volkes, der Hausierer und wandernden Handwerker, Gauner und Bettler, der Schausteller und reisenden Musikanten diente der Geheimhaltung gegenüber der Obrigkeit sowie den Bauern und Bürgern, zu denen die Vaganten in einem gespannten Verhältnis lebten.
Schmus, Schmusbacke, Schmuskaffer
Deshalb entstammen zahlreiche rotwelsche Substantive, Adjektive und Verben anderen Sprachen, insbesondere dem Jiddischen mit seinen vielen hebräischstämmigen Wörtern und dem Romanes. Hinzu kommen slawische und romanische Einflüsse. Oft veränderten die entlehnten Wörter im Rotwelschen ihre Bedeutung. Für die Aufnahme deutscher Ausdrücke war die Umdefinition sogar die Voraussetzung. Nur so konnten sie dem Zweck der semantischen Verdunkelung dienen.
Today, Rotwelsch exists almost exclusively as a folkloristic accessory, apart from the sprinklings in colloquial speech. As a living medium of communication, however, this secret language, which is based on German in terms of grammar and phonetics, is on the verge of extinction. In a monumental dictionary, the Münster-based Germanist Klaus Siewert, together with students and academic staff, has documented Rotwelsch in its most recent – and probably last – phase in linguistic history. In doing so, he has not only created a standard linguistic work, but has also secured an important cultural heritage.
The reference work lists 30,000 Rotwelsch words that are spread across 68 dialects throughout the German-speaking region – from Bernese Mattenenglisch to Harzer Laufdibbern and Killertaler Pleisle to Neuerner Bettfedernhändlersprache and Sauerländer Schlausmen. The fact that the originally nomadic, non-local Rotwelsch developed dialects at all is mainly due to the fact that in the eighteenth century absolutist rulers settled many of the wandering groups in permanent locations.
Look, Hacho is crumpled again
As a result, these speakers adopted the characteristics of the respective dialects into their Rotwelsch. The keywords are arranged in word families, each of which has a basic expression at its center. For example, under “schmusen” (to say, to chatter, to persuade) you can also find “Schmus” (speech, nonsense, lie), “Schmusbacke” (gossip), “Schmuskaffer” (teacher) or “einschmusen” (to ingratiate).
Numerous examples show the language in action: “span, do den hautz as nicht doft, der sperrt die flippflappen op, schmus nobes!” (“Be careful, the man is trying to eavesdrop on our conversation, he’s opening his ears, you’d better be quiet!”). In addition to the expressions that served as camouflage, the dictionary also provides dialect words that did not necessarily have this function, but were nevertheless counted by the informants as part of their Rotwelsch. Differentiating information is occasionally missing here.
The dictionary is based on research that began over thirty years ago. Siewert and his students tracked down the last surviving Rotwelsch speakers and interviewed them. With several informants, it was necessary to overcome initial mistrust; for them, Rotwelsch was associated with ambivalent memories of times of social marginalization. Many of them only had patchy memories of the secret language, which had long since been out of use.
Once the supreme discipline of philology
The questioning using word lists compiled from written sources, however, brought to light buried linguistic knowledge and also many previously unknown words that would probably have been lost forever without this “rescue excavation”. The reviewer, although not a Rotwelsch speaker, also experienced a linguistic journey through time. As he leafed through the books, he was greeted by old, almost forgotten acquaintances from his youth such as “Hacho” (idiot) or “knülle” (drunk). The questioning was supplemented by the evaluation of newly discovered sources. These include a glossary of the “Hundeshagener Kochum”, spoken by traveling musicians from the Eichsfeld region. The Stasi had created it for the purpose of unmasking.
In addition to semantic, grammatical and dialect-geographical information, the dictionary also provides information on etymology. However, this is often limited to listing the respective word in the donor language without tracing its history back to its roots. Anyone who would like more detailed information can consult the dictionary by Siegmund A. Wolf, which was published almost seventy years ago and contains 6,400 entries, especially when it comes to older Rotwelsch.
However, many of the etymologies there are disputed. This includes the derivation of the police term “Bulle” from the Dutch “bol” (smart head), which Siewert also cites. A more plausible and better documented root is the Rotwelsch-Yiddish “Balchochem” meaning “detective who can speak Rotwelsch”, which Siewert also lists.
The “Bergedorfer” also asks for a small correction – an insecure type of person who no one knows exactly where he belongs. The name is derived from the Hamburg district of that name; it is explained by the fact that Bergedorf used to be “governed alternately by Berlin and Hamburg”. But the changeability was not quite so great, because in fact Hamburg did not share the government with Berlin, but with Lübeck – after all, also a Hanseatic city.
But these are marginal remarks that cannot diminish the linguistic and cultural value of this multifaceted work and the impressive scientific achievement that underlies it. An achievement that is all the more important given that the research-political climate for long-term lexicographic projects – once the supreme discipline of philology – is not exactly favorable.
Klaus Siewert: “Dictionary of German Secret Languages”. Rotwelsch dialects. In collaboration with Rudolf Post. De Gruyter Verlag, Berlin 2023. 907 pp., hardcover, 310,– €.
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