Re: Names of countries and national languages

Den 24. sep. 2007 kl. 20.04 skreiv Michael Poxon:

> What about Sigurd the Volsung (Nibelungenlied, but I seem to
> remember originally Icelandic) who certainly wasn't Celtic.
That's a different word, related to Norwegian velge and distantly to
English will.


Den 24. sep. 2007 kl. 18.19 skreiv Daniel Prohaska:

> I doubt it ever meant "foreigner" even in Old English. I think
> "Welsh" was the Germanic word for "Celt", as pointed out either
> from the Celtic word for the people the Romans called <Volcae> or
> borrowed from Latin.
Most probably not from Latin, as it was borrowed before the Germanic
sound shift (Grimm's Law): uolc- became walh-.

Dictionaries I have consulted give a double Germanic meaning "Celt,
foreigner", no doubt because it was used for Romance speakers later.
But this shift could be late, perhaps.

Interesting that walnut also is related, it's originally "Welsh nut".
Nielsen says the usage spread from the lower Rhine area. Apparently
this is an old translation of the Latin nux gallica, so named because
the Romans imported the nuts from Gaul.

LEF

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