Celtic questions

Jan 12, 2006 09:39

Hey, gang ( Read more... )

irish, welsh, scottish gaelic

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markusn January 12 2006, 15:53:07 UTC
I assume they are Germanic, as there's "Welsch" for 'romance' in German as well.

Basically it means "Somebody speaking an unitelligible language".

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kvschwartz January 12 2006, 16:02:06 UTC
Thanks.

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kvschwartz January 12 2006, 16:02:34 UTC
I guess that makes it similar to "barbar" or whatever in Greek?

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markusn January 12 2006, 16:12:26 UTC
Yep, but I gather the "Barabara" of the Greeks was deeply derogatory. Don't know if welsh ever had that connotation.

If you go digging a bit in Linguaphiles you'll find that the word for "German" in slavic languages comes from the word for "mute"; somebody not being able to communicate in civilised speech.

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kvschwartz January 12 2006, 16:15:48 UTC
Interesting!

What connotation did "German" have in Latin? (It's a Latin word, right?) Did it imply what we now call "barbarian"?

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markusn January 12 2006, 16:43:06 UTC
From Etymonline.com

"Teuton," 1530, from L. Germanus, first attested in writings of Julius Caesar, who used Germani to designate a group of tribes in northeastern Gaul, origin unknown, probably the name of an individual tribe. It is perhaps of Gaulish (Celtic) origin, perhaps originally meaning "noisy" (cf. O.Ir. garim "to shout") or "neighbor" (cf. O.Ir. gair "neighbor"). The earlier Eng. word was Almain or Dutch. Their name for themselves was the root word of modern Ger. Deutsch (see Dutch). Roman writers also used Teutoni as a German tribal name, and Latin writers after about 875 commonly refer to the German language as teutonicus. See also Alemanni.

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kvschwartz January 12 2006, 17:05:31 UTC
"Teuton" derives from "Germanus"? Wow, my ignorance is staggering. I really should take a linguistics course (or two, or more) some time.

Also, I should bookmark Etymonline.com

This community never ceases to amaze me with its collective knowledge. Same with linguists.

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markusn January 12 2006, 21:44:24 UTC
I have an inkling that the article there is somewhat incomplete. Frankly, I fail to see the connection between germanus and teutoni.

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muckefuck January 12 2006, 21:50:11 UTC
That's why it's always best to check with more than one source, such as the American Heritage Dictionary at Bartleby.com.

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kvschwartz January 12 2006, 22:50:18 UTC
Ah, well, that seems like a more logical leap than from Germanus to Teuton.

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4thpandora January 12 2006, 18:40:04 UTC
Welsch? Ich kenn nur Kauderwelsch :)

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markusn January 12 2006, 21:41:31 UTC
Ernsthaft? In the Regions bordering to romance speaking neighbours it's in use, at least in dialect. In Swiss German there's "wälsch", we call our french region that, and I remember a film where folks in an alpine dialect (Bavarian or Austrian) were bitching about the "walsche"; that was set some time in the past, though.

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muckefuck January 12 2006, 21:51:35 UTC
IME, wälsch meaning "Romance-speaking" is unfamiliar to German speakers outside of Switzerland and neighbouring areas.

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markusn January 12 2006, 22:47:09 UTC
That's also my experience. Therefore I was quite surprised to hear "walsch" in that Film. It may be isolated/rare/outdated, though.

"Welsch" does exist in contractions like "Kauderwelsch" and "Rotwelsch", though, and in place names ("Welschenrohr"). So yeah, it's probably fallen out of use in German in general.

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muckefuck January 12 2006, 23:37:25 UTC
I've never known anyone outside of the field of Germanic linguistics who made the connexion between Kauderwelsch and churwelsch. The online Bertelsmann doesn't have a usage label on welsch, but it marks, say, Welschland as "veralt.".

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markusn January 13 2006, 08:25:31 UTC
Yep. "Welschland" is something my mother would use; I wouldn't. I'd say "im wälsche" for the region, but I'd usually use a more specific regional term or a humoristic workaround such as "jenseits des Röstigrabens" because "wälsch" does sound kind of awkward today. Probably because we mostly came in contact with the term through the "Welschlandjahr". This used to be a common station on the educational trail of a Swiss woman: They'd spend a year as au-pair in the Welschland to learn the language and household duties. It goes without saying that this isn't that popular these days.

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