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Rotwelsch or Gaunersprache is a secret language, a cant or theives' argot, spoken by covert groups primarily in Germany, Switzerland and the Low Countries. The word cant can mean more than one thing: Cant is insincere speech, similar to hypocrisy. ...
Argot is primarily slang used by various groups, including but not limited to thieves and other criminals, to prevent outsiders from understanding their conversations. ...
The Low Countries are the countries on low-lying land around the delta of the Rhine and Meuse rivers— usually used in modern context to mean the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg (an alternate modern term, more often used today, is Benelux). ...
Origin and development Rotwelsch was formerly common among travelling craftsmen and vagrants. The language is built on a strong substratum of German, but contains numerous from other languages, notably from various German dialects, as well as from Yiddish, and Romany languages, notably Sintitikes. There are also significant influences from Judæo-Latin, the ancient Jewish language of the Roman Empire. Rotwelsch has also played a great rôle in the development of the Yeniche language. In form and development, it closely parallels the commercial speech ("shopkeeper language") of German-speaking regions. Vagrancy is a crime in some European countries, but most of these laws have been abandoned. ...
A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος) is a variety of a language used by people from a particular geographic area. ...
Yiddish (Yid. ...
Romany (or Romani) is the language of the Roma and Sinti, travelling peoples often referred to in English as gypsies. They came originally from northern India and parts of Pakistan, and their language belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language group. ...
Sinti is the name nomadic people of north-western Europe prefer to call themselves by, who were referred to by the local population as Zigeuner in German or gypsies in English. ...
Judeo-Latin, or La‘az is the Jewish language of the many scattered Jewish communities of the former Roman Empire, but especially by the Jewish communities of the Italian Peninsula and Transalpine Gaul. ...
Jewish languages are a set of languages that developed in various Jewish communities, in Europe, southern and south-western Asia, and northern Africa. ...
The Roman Empire is the term conventionally used to describe the Ancient Roman polity in the centuries following its reorganization under the leadership of Octavian (better known as Caesar Augustus). ...
The Yeniche, or Jenisch, are the third-largest population of nomadic people (or Travelers) in Europe, living mostly in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and parts of France. ...
Vocabulary Because of its development as a means of conveying information about goods and transactions, it has no terms for abstractions. For example, it has no direct translations for the seasons such as Spring and Autumn. Instead, it uses Bibberling (lit., "shivering") and Hitzling (lit., "heat") in place of season names. An abstraction is an idea, concept, or word which defines the phenomena which make up the concrete events or things which the abstraction refers to, the referents. ...
A season is one of the major divisions of the year, generally based on broad climatic patterns. ...
Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Spring, 1573. ...
Autumn colours at Westonbirt Arboretum, Gloucestershire, England. ...
Other vocabulary examples, compared to their German counterparts, include:
- Schokelmei = Kaffee (coffee)
- schenigeln = arbeiten (to work)
- Krauter = Chef eines Handwerkbetriebes (master artisan)
- Kreuzspinne = Weste (waistcoat)
- Wolkenschieber = Frisör, Barbier (barber)
- Stenz = Wanderstock des Handwerksburschen (stencil)
- fechten = betteln (to beg)
- Platte machen = Unterkunft suchen (to seek lodging)
- Puhler = Polizist (police)
a political stencil by Josh McPhee A stencil is a letter, number, cartoon, typographical symbol, illustration, or any other shape or image in cut-out form (it can be cut out of paper, cardboard, metal or other material). ...
Current status Variants of Rotwelsch, sometimes toned-down, can still be heard among travelling craftsmen and funfair showmen as well as among vagrants and beggars. Also, in some southwestern and western locales in Germany, where travelling peoples were settled, many Rotwelsch terms have entered the vocabulary of the vernacular, for instance in the municipalities of Schillingsfürst and Schopfloch. A travelling funfair has many attractions, run by different showmen, who all converge for the duration of the fair, then go their separate ways to set up at fairs in other towns. ...
Reference - Wolf, S.A.: Wörterbuch des Rotwelschen. Deutsche Gaunersprache, 1985/1993, 431 S., ISBN 3-87118-736-4
Other cants Argot is primarily slang used by various groups, including but not limited to thieves and other criminals, to prevent outsiders from understanding their conversations. ...
The word cant can mean more than one thing: Cant is insincere speech, similar to hypocrisy. ...
Lunfardo was a colorful, slangy argot of the Spanish language which developed at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century in the lower classes in and around Buenos Aires. ...
External links - http://www.petermangold.de/default.htm (in German)
- http://linguistik.yauh.de/rotwelsch.html (in German)
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