>Look what I've found:
>http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szkop
>http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szkop
>as derogatory term for Germans = Scheffe?
They say the etymology for szkop is unclear. But this word (which I
see for the 1st time) reminds me of something I recently read on
this list: what were those words meaning "peasant; simpleton;
clodhopper" in some Slavic languages, esp. in "Äesko-polski"?
Something containing "sk(l?)Vpec-" or so (I didn't pay enough
attention, I'm afraid :)).
>And why pick on Swabians, of all German peoples? The Sueui/Swabians >haven't been near the Poles for the last two millenia.
My assumption is that Poles got it in the context of the European
"reconguista" of East-European territories after European forces
managed to defend Vienna in 1683, esp. with the help of Polish
forces led by Sobieski, and pushed Turks gradually back to South-
East Europe in the next several decades.
This period of time coincided with a major mass emigration of
German-speaking colonists who built new German diaspora
communities in Yugoslavia, Hungary, and even farther in Ukraine
and Russia. This mass emigration was matched only between circa
1880-1920, when from East-Central Europe there was the mass emigra-
tion to the United States and Canada (cf. "Bohunk").
Many of the emigrants of the 18th and early 19th c. traveled via
the Danube and got embarked in Ulm (which is a Suebian city); many
of them were Suebians, but of course most of them came from other
provinces: Austria, Switzerland, Bavaria, Franconia and even from
lower Rhine provinces. In South-East Europe all these were soon
called "Swabians" and thus have they themselves called up to day
(e.g. those in Hungary are called "Donauschwaben", those in Banat,
both in Romania and Serbia, "Banater Schwaben", although they very
well know that many of them aren't genuine Suebians at all, but
of Bavarian/Austrian or Tyrolian or Alsatian or else descent). And
thus, up to day, the autochtonous populations have called them "Swabians". So do esp. Hungarians, Serbs, Croats and Slovenians.
I.e., colloquially, one rather says /Svab/ and /Svabitsa/ than
/NyemaÄki, Nyemetski/ and the like. (The same applies within the
Hungarian language community: sváb /Sva:b/, plural svábok. But not
to the Romanian-speaking, except for the south-western Banat region,
where most of the so-called Swabians live.)
I had the occasion to speak with various German natives coming to
W-Germany in the 70s-80s-90s from the former USSR as well as from
Poland: most of them told us they had "Swabian" origin, even if it
was not true! In some cases, when they were in some command of
German, the kind of German learned from their grandparents, one
could distinguish certain lexical or phonetical patterns or "shib-
boleths" which immediately pointed to other (chiefly South) German
provinces, i.e. other provinces than Württemberg (which is the
genuine area of the Swabian dialect).
So since approx. 1750 up to day, the east-european and Asiatic
German diaspora (excepting Silezia, Pommerania, Eastern Prussia,
Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia) is also called (and they call themselves
so as well) "Swabian". ("Mir sind/seien Schwob'n.")
Five centuries earlier, in almost the same regions, Germans were
called "Saxons", because Hungarian kings (who called German colonists)
and other feudal luminaries mostly had to do with Saxon kings and
emperors (so, in those times, in the 10th-11th-12th centuries, the
main representatives of Germans were "Saxons", despite the fact that
*ethnically and dialectally" their immediate German-speaking
neighbors were Bavarians and Franconians). Hence, a population
emigrated chiefly from the Cologne-Trier-Luxembourg area, but also
from the French-speaking Vallonia, and colonized by the Hungarian
kings in Transylvania (at the end of the 12th and start of the 13th
centuries) were called officially "Saxones", and they themselves
say they are "Siebenbürger Sachsen" or (in dialect) "Sieweberger
Sachsen", although they have no roots in Saxony or in Saxony-Anhalt
or in Saxony proper, which is called today Lower Saxony
(Niedersachsen; capital: Hannover). By and large, they are Ripuarian
Franks, speaking Middle German dialects with some Low German, but
very many High German elements because betw. roughly 1700-1918 they
were heavily influenced by Austrian German. (Their Vallonian French
part was linguistically assimilated in medieval times.)
A similar thing happened in the West: to some European peoples,
Germans are called "Alemanians", although strictu sensu only the
population of Baden-Württemberg, Switzerland, Alsatia and Western
Austria might be entitled to this name. (Actually, "Swabian" is
a continuation of Old German variants spoken by the Alamanians.)
My 2c
George
PS: As far as Schöffe is concerned: it is quite clear now that we
have three main categories for this - (1) the Phoenician-Hebrew
shopet/shofet (with a variant as a loanword in classical Latin);
(2) an Iranian notion conveyed by the Prototurkic world Äaban or
Å¡aban (with main double general meanings: some leader & shepherd),
and (3) the Slavic župan, which is either a Slavic development
or the adaption of the Turkic Äaban/Äoban/Äolpan. We've seen the
German Schöffe is rather connected with the župan vicinity, and
not some Punic relic of Roman times when Cologne was Colonia
Agrippinensis, Bonn Bonnonia and Trier Augusta Treverorum.