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

Andreas Johansson wrote:

>Quoting "J. 'Mach' Wust" <j_mach_wust@...>:
>
>
>
>>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.
>>
>>
>
>Were the Gaelic langs considered "Welsh" by the Anglo-Saxons? Apart from the
>other Germanic languages, they're about the only non-Welsh, non-Romance
>languages the Anglo-Saxons will have had much exposture to. Well, possibly also
>Pictish.
>
>
I'd be surprised if they actually had much contact with them during the
colonisation period.  The Scots only arrived in the 6th century, about a
century after the English.  By that time, the original meaning of the
word may have been lost, and simply been applied to the Britons.