Re: Names of countries and national languages

Aha! Thanks for that. I was taking vols- as being a parallel form.
Mike
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lars Finsen" <lars.finsen@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2007 9:02 PM
Subject: 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
>