Names of the Engadine villages
The nicknames of the Engadine villages are a cultural peculiarity, especially of the Lower Engadine in the canton of Graubünden and, historically later and somewhat less common, also in the Upper Engadine , where each village has received a nickname ( Romansh in the Ladin idioms surnom ). The name is associated with legends that entwine around the respective village. The tradition of using the nickname for residents has been preserved in the Engadine to this day .
history
The nicknames correspond to centuries-old oral tradition and go back to the early modern period . They were first recorded in writing by the Scuol lawyer Nott Arquint in 1880. They appear in poetic form in a collection of poems Burlescas d'Engiadina ('Engadin antics'). This collection does not include the Upper Engadine towns, which are all subsumed there under the name ils puters (also the expression for the Upper Engadine language ).
In 1909, Gaudenz Barblan supplemented the stories about the Upper Engadine towns on the basis of old traditions and published the entire Gadin collection in the Annalas da la Società Retorumantscha ('Yearbooks of the Rhaeto-Romanic Society').
The nicknames
Lower Engadine
- Compatsch / Champatsch ( Samnaun ) - the skilled (advises: ils indschignaivels )
- Tschlin - the gypsies ( ils tschiainders )
- Ramosch - the Ahlentreiber ( ils süblats )
- Sent - the donkey ( ils asens )
- Scuol - the pigs ( ils porchs or ils tschucals )
- Tarasp - the fair eaters ( ils magliamessas )
- Ftan - the ox ( ils muois )
- Ardez - the sheep ( la bescha [collective plural])
- Guarda - the speculators ( ils speculants ), cf. below Celerina / Schlarigna
- Lavin - the cow strangler ( ils stranglavachas )
- Susch - the murderers ( ils morders )
- Zernez - the dog-eaters ( ils magliachognas )
Upper Engadine
- general: the flour mash ( ils puters )
- Susauna - the nightmares ( ils buzibaus )
- Zuoz - the Bellos [dog name] ( ils Bellos )
- Samedan - the Flayers ( ils scurchets )
- La Punt - the fishermen ( ils pas-cheders )
- Bever - the doctors ( ils duttugrs )
- Pontresina - the B'hietigotten [from the farewell greeting on the Punt Ota Bhüti Gott ] ( ils pietigots )
- Celerina / Schlarigna - the speculators ( ils speculants ), cf. above Guarda
- St. Moritz / San Murezzan - the dragons ( ils draguns )
- Silvaplana - the fire strikes ( ils battafös )
- Sils im Engadin / Segl - the locusts ( ils sagliuots )
See also
literature
- Helen Gysin, Lia Rumantscha , Anita Gordon-Steinrisser (eds.): Ils surnoms da noss cumüns - üna particularità engiadinaisa . The nicknames of our villages - an Engadine peculiarity. 2nd Edition. Scuol 2007, ISBN 978-3-03301422-0 .
Web links
- The collector of nicknames, Gaudenz (Gudench) Barblan , on sent-online.ch (Rhaeto-Romanic-German)