Re: To go "teita" and "atta" instead of "spazieren"

Hi all,

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005, Carsten Becker wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Now finally something language-related from me again ... I
> know most people here speak English, but I hope there are
> people who nevertheless have at least a guess about this: My
> grandma used to say "teita gehen" /"tAI).ta ge:n/ or "atta
> gehen" /"A.ta ge:n/ instead of "spazieren gehen" /SpA"ts)i6n
> ge:n/ (to go for a walk) when both my brother and my sister
> were young. These words do not seem to fit into German like
> native words do; the first one does not even resemble
> typical baby-speech (Mama, Papa, Pipi, A-a, ...). Sure,
> "teita dehn" and "atta dehn" are easier for small children
> than "pazieren dehn", but I wonder where those come from.
>
> NOTE: My grandma has lived all her life in Northern Waldeck
> and thus speaks a Westphalian coloured High-German dialect
> like everyone else here (Nei, mer spresche kaa Hessisch hier!
> Des dun se st hind Franggenbsch, na Giese nunn). My
> grandma tends to make up own words sometimes and claims
> "they say it like this here", though. Might be a case of
> this.
>
> Yours,
> Carsten
I haven't heard either of your examples, tho it is common in
Australian English baby-talk at least to say "Let's go ta-tas",
meaning "let's go out [for a walk, or for a ride]"; and "ta-ta"
is of course baby-talk for "good-bye".  (Toddler-talk for the
same thing is "bye-bye".)

My mother's father, Alfred Aloysius Houstein (né Haustein),
was German-born, and arrived in Australia as a young man;
while her mother was Australian-born, of an English father
and German mother.  They clearly spoke quite a bit of German
at home, but mostly to each other and not their children.  My
mother and her six siblings all used a couple of words I have
heard nowhere else:

1.  "Sorny", meaning "sulky or bad-tempered", which seems quite
like German "zornig", meaning "angry", to me.  However, they used
it intransitively eg "Don't be so sorny!", whereas I understand
"zornig" to be used mostly transitively eg "Er war zornig auf das
Kapitan" - "He was angry at the captain".

2.  "Cogger", meaning "cute, pretty, sweet", and related mostly
to small children and small pets.  As in my mother saying, "She's
so cogger!", praising my pretty little girl-cousin in order to please
her parents, my mopther's sister and her husband.  The only
German word I can think of that might have morphed into
"cogger" is the adjective "kokett", itself presumably a loan-word
from French "coquette".  While the spelling of the German
adjective suggests word-final stress, that of the (family) English
was definitely word-initial.  I know of no more likely source for
"cogger" than "kokett".

Regards,
Yahya

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.344 / Virus Database: 267.11.6/111 - Release Date: 23/9/05