Talk:Kassel conversations

Who do they help?

I found this sentence a little unclear:

The Kassel glosses are a collection of words and short phrases translated from Latin to Old High German. They appear to have been meant as a practical help for foreign speakers of Romance languages.

Are they intended to help foreigners, who are Romance speakers, learn Old High German? Or help native speakers of Old High German learn Romance as a foreign language? The grammar of the sentence above implies the former to me, but the fact that the text is insulting to Romance speakers sort of makes me think that Romans are not the intended audience. --Jfruh (talk) 21:01, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, the common opinion is that they were directed at Romance learners of German, yes. The author must have had a weird sense of humour. I mean, perhaps he was just a German novice in a monastery who was jotting this down for his Italian friend at the next desk, and making a few jests at his expense. It's not like it was a systematic textbook intended for publication, as far as I know. By the way, note that the second language in the glosses is Latin, the common "medium of instruction", not contemporary spoken Italian. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:09, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

This tome was certainly not intended for publication as there was no such thing as publication in 810. Books were copied MANUALLY which naturally limited the number of copies that could be made. Furthermore, paper was extremely expensive, so this book is certainly not a joke done by a novice. It certainly was a textbook but not in a way we would find suitable today. After all, education has progressed quite a lot in the last 1,200 years. 141.13.8.14 07:28, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I second the confusion---I came to the talk page looking for clarification. It should be reworded. Tesseran 23:29, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Xenophobic?

I'm not sure if that jibe should be called xenophobic. Sounds more like profound frustration on the part of a teacher over the lack of progress of his disciples. 141.13.8.14 07:34, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

uualha? peigira?

Is there any reference to the origins of these OHG terms for "Roman" and "Bavarian"? "Peigira" looks cognate with the Latin "paiori"--is it also cognate with Modern German "Bayern"? "Walha/uualha"/"Welschen" seems odd to me--what is that related to?

Yes, Peigir- would be rather regular for 'Bayer-'/'Bajuvar-' (Spelling <P> for what is /b/ in other dialects is common for Old Bavarian.) Walh- is originally the old Germanic term for Italic-speaking foreigners. Originally from the ethnonym Volcae, then generalised to 'foreigner'. Same root that was also transported to Wales in England, Wallonia in Belgium, Valachia and Vlachs in the Balkans. Still preserved in the Modern German pejorative term welsch for Romance-speaking foreigners. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:07, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

roman people

Note that according to http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsche that word designates the speakers of romance languages neighbouring the german-speaking area, and not the roman (inhabitants of rome) For non german speakers see also : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walha --Chris CII 09:10, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Hey, nice, let's include a link to that article. Didn't know it existed. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:18, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

denn

denn means 'because' in Modern High German, not 'than'. Indeed, it looks like a cognate taking /θ/ → /d/ in consideration, but the correct (though unrelated) word corresponding to English 'than' is als. I'd have corrected it, but would just like to check if I'm right first. Todor→Bozhinov 12:11, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Denn for than is okay though somewhat archaic. I guess the editor who inserted the Modern German version wanted something as close as possible to the original; that's why they also chose the rather contorted word order. Personally, I'm not sure why we would even need a Modern German translation in the first place. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:17, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I thought it might have been some archaic word I wasn't aware of. The Modern High German thing was most likely to illustrate cognates and later developments, but now, edited to have more sense and to sound more natural, it seems not to serve its purpose anymore. Todor→Bozhinov 12:24, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

You could have both the distorted and newer versions of the text. I would have used als, but I wanted it to be as close as possible to the OHG text.Ameise -- chat 19:07, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Uualha, Walha, Walh, Welsche, Walsche...

. . . even “ignorant”, and just “foreigner” in the end.

a) Substituted “uualha (current spelling Walha)” for Walh, as “uualha” is the term used in the manuscript, and it is obviously plural so the singular “Walh” doesn't concord at all.

b) Substituted “Old High German” for “German” every time the language spoken in early medieval times was meant, because if nowadays we just say “German” what we mean is “Current Standard German”, which didn't even exist then.

c) “Welsche” or “Walsche” is probably in its origin the Germanic designation for the Celts, then it got applied to the Romanic neighbors as well (cf. de.WP: Welschen: « Welsche oder Walsche ist vermutlich ursprünglich die germanische Bezeichnung für die Kelten. In der deutschen Sprache werden heute unter Welschen als Exonym jeweils die am nächsten wohnenden romanischen Völker bezeichnet... »). So this is an old word not to mean distinctly “Roman(ic)”, but generally “foreigner” instead.
Please have a look at what an anonymous but extremely shrewd contributer wrote some lines above: “Xenophobic? - I'm not sure if that jibe should be called xenophobic. Sounds more like profound frustration on the part of a teacher over the lack of progress of his disciples.” Spectacular insight, wow.

--Zack Holly Venturi (talk) 20:32, 28 May 2009 (UTC)