Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: Names of countries and national languages

From:Michael Poxon <mike@...>
Date:Tuesday, September 25, 2007, 0:24
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 >