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Re: "Kauderwelsch" (was: LUNATIC SURVEY: 2005)

From:J. 'Mach' Wust <j_mach_wust@...>
Date:Sunday, February 27, 2005, 13:51
On Sat, 26 Feb 2005 13:31:05 -0500, Sally Caves <scaves@...> wrote:

>My copy of Kluge's Etymological >German Dictionary says that Kauderwelsch, "jargon," was first used in early >modern German, and that "kauder" comes from a verb of unattested origins: >kaudern, "to talk unintelligibly"--hence "strange, unintelligible, foreign >tongue." So the meaning might actually have meant in an earlier century >"non-German," in much the same way that "barbarous" meant "non-Greek."
The Duden provides a different etymology: It says that originally, it was _kaurer-welsch_ from _Kauer_ (that is, from the corresponding adjective _kau(e)r-er_), the Tirolean version of the city name _Chur_ /xu:r/ in the Swiss Rhine valley (compare e.g. standard German _sauer_ /'saw@r/ to Alemannic _suur_ /su:r/ 'sour' or _kaum_ /kawm/ to _chuum_ /xu:m/ 'barely'). In the region of Chur, they originally spoke a Romance dialects of which are still spoken in some remote regions and is nowadays known as Romansh, Rumantsch or Rhaeto-Romance. The modern form is said to be influenced by the vernacular verb _kaudern_ ('babble', but also 'peddle').
>The >second element in the compound is welsch: "foreign and outlandish" (of >course; the OE cognate was wealh, weallas, "foreign, foreigners," i.e., the >Welsh.) Old High German was "walhisc," MHG: "walch"--these words according >to Kluge were variously applied to the Romance languages and peoples. So >Kauderwelsch may mean "gibberish" now, but it may have meant "weird foreign >language" in previous eras. Do you think the title of the series is a >reference to that older meaning? > >I think Kauderwelsch is an excellent application to what we do, here, and >I don't find it uncomplimentary at all! :)
On Sat, 26 Feb 2005 15:41:44 -0500, Damian Yerrick <tepples@...> answered:
>Perhaps for those artlangers who share Tolkien's love for Welsh >patterns of phonology and morphology :)
There's an interesting essay by Tolkien ("English and Welsh") where he states that _welsh_ didn't mean 'weird foreign language' but involved a statement on the beauty of the sounds of the foreign language: Only nice-sounding languages rich of vowels were called _welsh_, that is, Romances and Welsh. kry@s: j. 'mach' wust

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Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>