Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1996 20:39:32 EDT

From: Larry Horn LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU

Subject: Re: kimmelwick



Jason Wilke writes,









I think the PA Dutch argument is plausible. I'd take the kuemmel idea,

except that she's describing something with heavy salt, not caraway.





Many Dutch words do seems almost German. I can't udnerstand it spoken,

but I can read it, and they are greatly alike.



Actually, the last comment is technically a non sequitur, since the Dutch in

Pennsylvania Dutch is really Deutsch, i.e. German. This is presumably why

Lynne, in the posting responded to by Jason, referred to it as 'Pennsylvania

[or PA] "Dutch"', with scare quotes. I was going to suggest the caraway

derivation myself, because although I know very little German, I do happen to

have a bottle of "Ku"mmel", which is a caraway liqueur (think spiked rye

bread), and the unrounding of high front vowels is of course quite common.

I don't know enough about PA D(e)ut(s)ch to

know if unrounding is a symptom of that dialect as it is of Yiddish (e.g.

"shtick").



Larry