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What is the origin of the strange idiom "einen Türken bauen"?

I have already checked wiktionary, and they present a few alternatives. All these alternatices are insufficient IMO, as they all smell like someone invented them to make the idiom sound plausible.

These stories all are hard to refute, but I don't believe them.

Short overview:

Story 1:
When the "Kaiser-Wilhelm-Kanal" was inaugurated, the hymn of every State that had sent a representative was played. Because the hymn of the Turks was not available and instead the musicians played "Guter Mond, du gehst so stille durch die Abendwolken hin."

Story 2:
In the age of Rokoko Johann Wolfgang Ritter [..] built a so called "Mechanischer Türke" who won chess against some of the most renowned masters. Later it was revealed, that in fact the puppet did not think, but a human inside played.

Story 3:
Swiss Military speech: Türgg - maneuver

Story 4:
In the 15th to 17th century, there was great fear of a turkish invasion. This seems to have been used to create high taxes from nothing (to be used for a counter-invasion), which were used for something completely different then.

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rogermue
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1 Answers1

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Obviously my question will not lead to a discussion of the problem. So I'm going to add my story to those of wikipedia. I learnt the expression in the German Army in the sixties where it was currently used for special effects during manoeuvres. In my old French dictionary Sachs-Villatte the French noun truc with the general meaning fraud is also indicated as a special theatre expression for machinery used to produce special effects on the stage, eg special transformations. In my view the French military took over this theatre term for their similar devices in manoevres and this term came to the German military as well. But it was transformed from truc over *Trück to Türk, and finally to Türke, a simple metathesis of the sound r. So when a German officer said "man hat einen Türken gebaut" he meant the special effect was produced by tricks with specially built machinery and devices. He did not speak of a person from Turkey or a turc who played chess.

rogermue
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  • So you have your theory, which in my eyes is neither more nor less plausible than the ones already listed in Wikipedia. By this I mean it IS plausible. Add it to the Wikipedia list! – Walter Tross May 14 '14 at 21:29
  • BTW, the most common colloquial meaning of un truc (a trick) nowadays is ein Ding, so that jdm einen Türken bauen would be jdm ein Ding bauen. – Walter Tross May 14 '14 at 21:32
  • before you go and edit Wikipedia though, I will tell you that truc really means trick, and it would have been hard for the meaning as theatrical machinery to overshadow the generic meaning outside of theaters. – Walter Tross May 14 '14 at 21:41
  • Today the meaning of truc is a bit more harmless, but at first the meaning went from trick, dodge to fraud. And the expression "einen Türken bauen" did not come up in our generation, it is older. But it is up to you whether you want to believe the story of the chess turc, at least for wikipedia it was worth relating. – rogermue May 14 '14 at 21:55
  • I don't understand why you despise the theory that the expression originates from the Mechanical Turk – Walter Tross May 14 '14 at 21:59
  • I don't despise it, it find it improbabable. It is a pity I have not the means to check when the French military used the term, and when the German military used the term. Perhaps it would be possible to show that the expression was in use before the chess turc. But for me they story of the chess turc is etymologically no explanation. The use of "bauen" is a first indication. – rogermue May 14 '14 at 22:08
  • I don't agree. But this would be and endless discussion. Have also a look at the link I posted as a comment to your question (Wikipedia instead of Wiktionary - I should have said Wiktionary in my previous comments...) – Walter Tross May 14 '14 at 22:12
  • I have been studying this problem for years and know what wikipedia has written. But they have not found that French truc was also an expression for special theatre machinery. – rogermue May 14 '14 at 22:16