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From: lambert@boring.UUCP (Lambert Meertens)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Call for Proper Noun Idioms
Message-ID: <6716@boring.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 1-Jan-86 15:13:48 EST
Article-I.D.: boring.6716
Posted: Wed Jan  1 15:13:48 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 2-Jan-86 05:04:43 EST
References: <161@aero.ARPA> <868@kuling.UUCP> <869@kuling.UUCP>
Reply-To: lambert@boring.UUCP (Lambert Meertens)
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 38
Apparently-To: rnews@mcvax

In article <869@kuling.UUCP> andersa@kuling.UUCP (Anders Andersson) writes:

>>> I am interested in idiomatic expressions in English and other languages
>>> that uses proper nouns, from linguistic and cultural perspectives.

> As speaking of the "exotic" Greek language seems to be common for at least
> English and Swedish, I would like to add "rotvaelska", which is a Swedish
> idiom for a non-understandable "nonsense language". It seems to me that the
> origin of this word might be found in some old German dialect. Isn't there
> a dog (breed) called Rotweiler to be related to some geographic area? Could
> you Germans please elaborate on this..?

I don't know about Swedish and am not German, but according to my
dictionary German ROTWELSCH means slang, argot, rather than gibberish.  An
expression for "gibberish" in Dutch is "Koeterwaals".  This could mean
something like "the language spoken in Koeterwaal" (several Dutch place
names end in -WAAL) except that there is no such place.  There is an
interesting corresponding between the ending -WAALS here and the ending
-VAELSKA in ROTVAELSKA.  Also, in Danish the expression is KAUDERVAELSK and
in German, next to ROTWELSCH, KAUDERWELSCH.  Before the spelling reform of
1947, the official spelling of Dutch WAALS was WAALSCH.  The German verb
KAUDERN by itself already means "to speak gibberish", as does WELSCHEN.
There is no Dutch word *KOETEREN.  WAALS in Dutch does not mean Welsh, but
French, in particular pertaining to the French-speaking part of Belgium
(Walloon).  Also, German WELSCH means French (not confined to Belgium) or
even Italian.  Etymologically, this is related to WELSH, both being
descendants of a Germanic word meaning "foreign", i.e. not Germanic, i.e.
Celtic or Roman.  Quite possibly, the expression KOETERWAALS goes back to a
time when the "foreignness" of WAALSCH was still a primary meaning.

I doubt that there is a connection with Rottweil (a German town in Baden-
Wuerttemberg, after which the breed of dogs is named), if only because that
is spelled with TT.
-- 

     Lambert Meertens
     ...!{seismo,okstate,garfield,decvax,philabs}!lambert@mcvax.UUCP
     CWI (Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science), Amsterdam