Of victims and sacrifices - Opfer

Today it occurred to me that the German word "Opfer" is used in two senses that have very different words in English. 

The "Opfer" of giving up something (involuntarily, painfully, or for someone elses benefit) is called "sacrifice", and the "Opfer" who's had their wallet stolen is a "victim". 

Now, the two are close together, as the one who is the victim is also in a way doing the sacrificing, so it's maybe not so strange German uses the same word for both.

What struck me, however, was that both English words in use here are non-Germanic. So I wondered: what is the Germanic word? And what came to mind was: "offer". 

Certainly close enough in sound and looks to be the corresponding word. And you can "offer up" something as a sacrifice. The English word, though, appears to have travelled far and wide in the realm of usage and thus retained a general sense of "here, have this" as its meaning, quite neutral and everyday, whereas the German version settled on the much narrower context of a painful parting or loss, so that we needed to come up with a different word for 'suggestion (willingly or in a commercial context) for someone else to take something' (i.e. "here, have this" or 'offer'): Angebot. Which has to do with bidding and opens up a whole new other kettle of fish. 

"Erzittre, feiger Bösewicht!" - "Ich bin zwar Verbrecherin"

 These are lines from "The Magic Flute" that jumped to my mind recently and made me go 'hmmmh'.

A "Bösewicht" is an evil guy, from "böse" = "evil" and "Wicht" ... yes, well, that's probably the rub.

"Wicht" would seem to be related to "Wichtel" which is a dwarf/pixie/elf - but then the suffix -el is a diminuitive, so maybe a "Wicht" is not per se a "small guy" (which is what it would seem to mean today, though today it's not a word you'd really use at all), but just a word for 'guy' with negative connotations (it certainly has those) - so, an evil guy, really (making "Bösewicht" a bit of a tautology in order to stress the "evil" part). 

(Also (and supporting the above, I think), a "Wicht" is a close relation to a "wight" (those silent "gh" combos in English used to be pronounced in Old English and sounded like the "ch" in German words) - and those are not exactly nice guys, either.)

The thing is that nowadays (maybe because of "Wichtel", still in common use) you would not use "Bösewicht" to refer to something seriously evil or scary. If you use it, it'll be slightly tongue-in-cheek and generally rather harmless. In "The Magic Flute", by contrast, it is clearly seriously evil. The implication here is an habitual evildoer, someone who is evil by nature.

- which brings us to the second quote and the next part of this entry, the concept of the word "Verbrechen".

A "Verbrechen" in modern German is serious. It translates as "(serious) crime" and a "Verbrecher" - which translates as "criminal" - in common usage is really a bit more than someone who has committed a crime, it's someone who commits crimes because that is what they do - a habit or (you'll guess what I'm getting at by now) something in their nature.

However, in "The Magic Flute", we have sweet Pamina calling herself "Verbrecherin", something she certainly isn't by modern usage of the word. So, extreme hyperbole? Maybe a bit, but I think it's a case of change of meaning. It's a curious word, that one. The prefix "ver-" is very common but has no one clear meaning or derivation. The "brechen" part is easier - it means "break". A crime is a breach of a rule. So if you break a rule what you do is a "Verbrechen". In fact, one online dictionary entry informed me, with apparent astonishment, that "Verbrechen" is an old word and in medieval times was used for small infringements as well as proper crimes. And that would seem to me to be exactly the point. You break a rule, it is a "Verbrechen". Pamina has certainly broken a rule (i.e. done what she knew she wasn't supposed to). What in this context it is not, however, is something that marks you as evil by nature. That is only the modern connotation of the word. 

So, what I see here are two words that basically swapped their connotations:

Bösewicht 

• 18th century: person of evil nature
• today: somewhat naughty boy

Verbrecher

• 18th century: someone who breaks a rule 
• today: evildoer