Re: Etymology of "Ketzer"


"Neeraj Mathur" <neemathur@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Heidi Graw" <heidigraw@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Pierre Jelenc" <rcpj@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Heidi Graw <heidigraw@xxxxxxx> writes:

I'm curious about the etymology of the German word "Ketzer" which means
"heretic" in English.

Pierre wrote:
Said to be from the Greek "katharos" (pure, unblemished) which was
applied
during the middle-ages to various neo-manichean religious sects
(Cathars,
Albigeois). However Hellquist's Swedish Etymological Dictionary points
rather to a Middle-Low-German "quetsen" (to defile, pollute, desecrate)
that is akin to German "quetschen" (to crush).

Heidi wrote:
Thanks, Pierre.

I had come across information that claims "Ketzer" was a German word play
on "Cathars"... Kat-ars...kitty butts.
Word play is simply that...word play designed to insult the Cathars.
Word play is not scientific etymology. Apparently, tales were told that
heretics (witches) kissed kitty butts and that the word "Ketzer" is in
reference to a cat worshipping cult.

Neeraj wrote:
Well this is obviously wrong - the idea that a word play based on the
Modern English plural of 'Cathar' to the Modern English words 'cat' and
'arse' could yield a German word like 'Ketzer' is clearly ridiculous, as
you rightly say.

All right, Neeraj...just to be clear in my own mind: Does the word Ketzer
have anything to do with the word "cat," "Katze" or "Kater?" Because this
seems to be the issue in this other forum regarding the work "Ketzer". For
example: Someone who keeps a bunch of cats might have been considered a
"Kätzer". It's not too far a leap to go from "Kätzer" to "Ketzer." Witches
and cats tend to be associated together. One can't be a witch unless one
owns a cat, preferably a black one.

Heidi wrote:
Going from quetschen to Ketzen appears more reliable and realistic. If
anyone else has more information to add about this word, I'd love to hear
about it.

Neeraj wrote:
This I find less plausible than you do. There is no reason why 'quetschen'
should give 'Ketzer' at all - the sound changes are highly unlikely, and
you certainly wouldn't get both reflexes. It could only work if there was
a double borrowing - if another language borrowed 'quetschen' or its
ancestor, lost the labial element and moved the affricate, and then this
was later re-borrowed back into German. If this were the case, it should
be relatively easy to find the other language, and my guess is that the
dictionaries would know about it. It's not an uncommon scenario, but it's
also far more complicated than seems likely on the evidence; I certainly
wouldn't commit to this myself unless I knew what the intermediary
language was.

Yes, it's seems a bit of a stretch. ;-)

Neeraj wrote:
Based on the evidence presented here, the most likely seems that it comes
from 'Katharos', from a language that pronounced the stem [katar-] (which
could well have been as the name for the group). The change of [t] > [ts]
(written <tz>) is absolutely regularly in this position in German, as part
of the High German sound shift. With an early enough date for the
borrowing (before 800 I think) the data fits perfectly.

Where the analysis you referred to was wrong was in pretending this was
some sort of pun; that is clearly the view of the uninformed (with a bit
of linguistic nationalism and/or linguistic racism to boot). But the
evidence does seem to support the idea that that was the origin of the
word.

I find your last sentence in the above paragraph a bit confusing. Given
what has been posted about this word Ketzer, what is your best guess of this
word's origin?

Heidi


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