Hühnergott

Etymology

 * with epenthesis of -er including umlaut.
 * The origin of the word is unclear.

For a time it was suspected that the word was introduced into German via the loan translation made by Thomas Reschke in 1966 of an expression already occurring in the original title of the Russian called “Куриный бог” written in 1963 by Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Owing to the novella the stone and its name gained, from 1966 onwards, great popularity in the former GDR. In 1985 it was introduced in the 18th revision of the East German version of “Der Große Duden” dictionary of German orthography. Widely unknown in Western Germany, the word appeared for the first time in 1999 in the 3rd edition of the – now all-German – ten-volume dictionary “Duden, Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache”; one year later it found its way into the 22nd edition of the dictionary of German orthography, “Duden, Die deutsche Rechtschreibung”. However, the word seems to already have existed in German before 1966. : in the year of publication of the Soviet original version in 1963, it already occurs in a first translation made by René Drommert published in the West German daily “Die Zeit”. A decade before, it is attested in the first volume of the German translation – made by Alexander Böltz and published by the publishers Rütten & Loening – of the Russian novel “Iwan Ⅲ.” by Valery Yasvitsky. The oldest known attestation up to now occurs, however, in a book by Dmitry Tselenin about the Russian (East-Slavic) folklore published in German in 1927 by de Gruyter publisher′s in which the Russian expression “Kuriny bog” [written in Latin letters] is translated into German as “Hühnergott”. And yet, there is even now, however, no solid proof and no reliable evidence for the usage of the word “Hühnergott” in German before 1966. From a folkloristic point of view it is interesting that the word first only existed in the GDR, but not to the west of the river, which is without a doubt attributable to the distribution of Yevtushenko′s novella in the translation by Reschke. Even though the German word existed – for instance in reference books or through private contacts – sporadically here and there, Thomas Reschke′s credit for introducing the word “Hühnergott” into the German language usage and its ultimate canonization in the “Duden” dictionaries remains therefore irrefutable.

Noun

 * 1)  A stone (to be found at the coasts of the Baltic Sea) with generally one, but at times several, naturally formed holes (usually used as amulet, talisman or mascot) being in most cases a flint nodule whose chalk deposits are washed out or weathered; self-bored stone, ≈ adder stone