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muckefuckOne curious fact I did uncover from reading various dictionaries last night and today: The word for executioner varies a lot in the Western European languages. So far I have:
What resemblances there are seem to be purely coincidental. Catalan botxí, for instance, is ultimately related to English butcher and doesn't seem to have any connexion to French bourreau or Italian boia, both of which are of rather obscure origin.
I wonder if we aren't dealing with cases of rampant taboo formation or pejorisation. That is, in many of these language, the word also means "cruel person; brute". Perhaps this was the case with earlier terms as well, leading to their replacement by more neutral coinages. Or pehaps people began to superstitiously avoid naming the hangman, just as some people hesitate to name the Devil, and came up with various nicknames and euphemisms, some of which eventually ousted the existing terms. (This would help explain a metonymic like Spanish verdugo which originally means "branch; switch".)
I'm leaning toward taboo, since pejorisation hasn't led to the demise of the oldest terms for the similarly despised profession of prostitution. Although there are plenty of euphemisms about, whore, puta, and their relatives (Hure, putain, etc.) have never completely gone out of style or completely lost their etymological denotation
- Greek (Ancient and Modern): dêmios
- Latin: carnifex
- Italian: boia
- French: bourreau
- Catalan: botxí
- Spanish: verdugo
- Portuguese: carrasco
- English: hangman
- German: Henker
- Rumanian: călău
What resemblances there are seem to be purely coincidental. Catalan botxí, for instance, is ultimately related to English butcher and doesn't seem to have any connexion to French bourreau or Italian boia, both of which are of rather obscure origin.
I wonder if we aren't dealing with cases of rampant taboo formation or pejorisation. That is, in many of these language, the word also means "cruel person; brute". Perhaps this was the case with earlier terms as well, leading to their replacement by more neutral coinages. Or pehaps people began to superstitiously avoid naming the hangman, just as some people hesitate to name the Devil, and came up with various nicknames and euphemisms, some of which eventually ousted the existing terms. (This would help explain a metonymic like Spanish verdugo which originally means "branch; switch".)
I'm leaning toward taboo, since pejorisation hasn't led to the demise of the oldest terms for the similarly despised profession of prostitution. Although there are plenty of euphemisms about, whore, puta, and their relatives (Hure, putain, etc.) have never completely gone out of style or completely lost their etymological denotation
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