Re: Low German and Dutch (was Re: Aesthetics)

On 10/21/07, Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...> wrote:
> BTW: The word _Dutch_ once meant 'German' (as it still does in
> _Pennsylvania Dutch_) and is a cognate of _Deutsch_ (which is
> ultimately from Germanic *theudiskaz 'of the people').
That reminds me of reading a bit about "Notker theodiscus(?)" -- IIRC,
an abbot who lived in St. Gall in what's now Switzerland; his name is
sometimes interpreted as meaning "Notker the German" but apparently
it's more likely that back then it merely referred to someone who
wrote in "the language of the people", not necessarily that people
called their own language specifically "deutsch" back then. (Again
IIRC, he wrote not in standard German -- inasmuch as such a beast even
existed as a notion back then -- but in Old Alemannic.)

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>