diction and contradiction

[Mag. Hans-Joachim Alscher]

Anton Sherwood schrieb:

> Slightly closer to topic, why is Italy called <Olaszorsza:g> in
> Hungarian?  (I was in Urbana yesterday, popped in to the Slavic & East
> European department of the university library, where I once had a job;
> and happened to see there a Hungarian map of Europe.)

> --
> Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/

Olasz-ország means welsch-land (cf. olasz-riszling = German
Welsch-Riesling, a sort of white wine, cf. also Rhein-Riesling).
Hungarian "olasz" / German "welsch" is used for Romanian people, in this
case for Italians.

Cf. Wales and Welsh, Wallonen (in Belgium), Wallis (in Switzerland),
Walachei (in Romania) and so on.

The name of the Celtic tribe "Volc-i" = Germanic "walh-" was first used as
name for Celtic people and later transferred to Romanian people.

--
Best regards,
Hans-Joachim Alscher