Dear Stewart, no offense was intended, and I'm sorry if my words caused offense, nevertheless. All I wanted was to make clear that "-tschek / -tscheck" offers no allusions nor connotations in German to Czech. English speakers will pronounce "Czech" the same as "check" (just as there will not be much of a difference between Bach and a buck in terms of phonetics). In German, however, the ch-sound in words like Tschechen (people), Tschechien (country), tschechisch (being Czech) is not pronounced ck. German ch after vowels e,i,ö,ü, is pronounced something between [y] like in yes and [x] like in loch. That much for German. As for the Czech themselves, Ceska is the word. Russian also has ????? as well as ???????. Either [sk] or [x], but def. not [k].
IOW, you will have to be an English speaker of German to connect -tscheck with Tscheche. Yet in German or Czech there is no way to connect -tscheck / -tschek with words for Czech. Curious how the Russian script will come through, Mathias "Stewart McCoy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> schrieb: > Dear Mathias, > > I am reliably informed that a stock term of abuse in Bavaria for the > North Germans is "Saupreußen". It is not unreasonable to suppose that > their abuse levelled at Prussians extends to people from Czechoslovakia > with the word "Sautscheck". We have learned that there are two spellings > of the name, one ending -eck, and the other -ek. Either spelling would > give the pronunciation of the word "Czech" as pronounced by a Czech > person. This seems a plausible etymology to me, however distasteful it > may be. > > I am sorry you think my friend's suggested etymology is "pure > non-sense". What he actually wrote in his email to me was: "... the > second part of the pseudonym might be a transliteration of Czech ... The > German for Czech is Tscheche, which is not very far off the English > sound, or indeed the spelling Tscheck." That seems reasonable enough to > me. > > If you have an alternative etymology for the word "Sautscheck", I would > be interested to know what it is. > > Best wishes, > > Stewart. > -----Original Message----- > From: "Mathias Rösel" [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > He suggests that the "-tscheck" part of "Sautscheck" might be > > derived from the German word for Czech. He was looking at the word > from > > a purely etymological point of view. > > Please excuse my rude wording, but that is pure non-sense (in the very > sense of the word) because there are no bridges from -tscheck to > Tscheche (Czech) in German, neither phonetically nor etymologically, > since -ck- is a mute while the 2nd -ch- in Tscheche is a fricative > (there is no corresponding sound in English, I'd describe it as > something between -ch- in loch and -y- in yes). The two phonemes sound > entirely different. > > Besides, the modifying use of the prefix sau- is fairly confined to the > estates of Bavaria, btw not always pejorative (saugut, saugeil). Most > other parts of German speaking countries use Arsch- or Scheisz- instead > (arschkalt, Scheiszwetter, both pretty rude). > -- > Mathias To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
