Re: Another Essentialist Explanation

On Nov 21, 2006, at 4:43 AM, Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:

> Weld S Carter, Jr. skrev:
>> I wonder how relevant we might consider the following
>> comparison: In English we say 'It's Greek to me', but in
>> German: 'es ist mir Spanish". And, in France, one
>> dismisses a speaker of imperfect French with the insult:
>> 'you speak French like a Spanish cow!' I don't try here to
>> render it in French, since my grasp of that language
>> probably warrants that description.
>>
>> Weld
>
> In Sweden we say "It's Chinese to me!" There is also the
> expression "Det är rena rotvälskan" -- literally 'it's real
> mangled Romance' though the etymological meaning of
> "rotvälska" as 'a mangled Romance language' is unknown to
> the average modern speaker. (Of course "välsk" is cognate
> with 'Welsh'. The Anglo-Saxons distinguished between
> "Rumwealas" 'Roman foreigners' and "Bretwealas" 'Celtic
> foreigners'!)
So rotvälska means a mangled, specifically Romance, language? What's
the etymology of rot-?