Word of the day

[de_eekhoorn]

The word of the day over here is the German Kauderwelsch, which the internet tells me means ‘an unintelligible mixture of various languages’, or, from there, any gibberish.

This word I had known only as its Dutch cognate koeterwaals, n., meaning 1. ununderstandable nonsense language, 2. a foreign language not understood by the speaker. This word is of course verbed, as koeterwaalsen, v., the act of speaking, imperfectly but enthusiastically, a language foreign to the speaker but not to the interlocutor, as e.g. to the owner of the campground while on summer vacation.
I had always expected this word to be a construction of the type ‘pig Latin’, with the ‘waals’ part referring to French, as in the Wallon region of Belgium. I had also expected it to be an only-in-Dutch word with no cognates in other languages.

But no, it also exists in German! Kauderwelsch! Further etymological researches will be needed.

[The same source has also already provided me with versteigen, v., the act of going in the wrong direction while climbing a mountain. Stay tuned.]

Comments

[jjhunter]

Hello! Always intrigued to be introduced to new words (and new people with interesting things to say). Thank you for sharing.

[de_eekhoorn]

Thanks, and likewise!
You remind me that I actually did find out a bit more about the etymology - soon...