gibberish

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Gibberish is a name for a confused way of speaking, an incomprehensible mixture of several languages or an incomprehensible foreign language.

etymology

The etymology of the word, which originated before the 16th century, is ambiguous. The second word component welsch is an old German term for the Romance languages and their speakers, which can be found in geographical terms such as Welschschweiz , Welschtirol , Wallonia , Wallachei or Wales . Different derivations are mentioned for the first part of the word.

  • According to the specialized dictionaries (Kluge, compatriot, Wolf) the word of dates kaudern "Between Trading, toggle" so that originally the "Nova" (Romance) Italian merchants and money changers (see. Fish species , "the French-speaking peddler, talk jargon Lamparter" So Lombards ) or more generally the secret language ( Rotwelsch ) of traveling traders and peddlers. The dictionary of the Brothers Grimm also listed onomatopoeic kaudern (to chop the rumbling of the Tauber, küttern from the tap and the Kodderschnauze ) with the meanings "like a turkey gobble" and "babble unintelligible talk."
  • Luther related the word to the Rhaeto-Romanic ( the Chauderwelschen or Churwallen kahle glosses ), so that it originally meant the "Welsche language of the inhabitants of Chur in Graubünden , Churwelsch, Churer-Welsch" and then assumed the general meaning "incomprehensible language". According to the Duden dictionary of origin , the connection to Chur is that the place name is called Kauer in Tyrolean and therefore the word would actually mean Chur Romanic .
  • The first part of the word goes back to early New High German kūder ' Werg '. Initially, the gibberish is said to have been the derogatory term for the Italian flax and tow trader.

literature

See also

Web links

Wiktionary: gibberish  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl I. Trübner: Trübners German dictionary . In: Walter Heuer : Can you say that? Critical and enjoyable glosses on our contemporary language (German under the magnifying glass, Volume 2). Book publisher of the NZZ , Zurich 1976, p. 24.