Today’s NY Times has a story about Swiss cartographers called “The People Who Draw Rocks” (archived); it’s fascinating, especially if you love maps as much as I do, but what brings it to LH is this sentence:
Known around the office as “felsiers,” a Swiss-German nickname that loosely translates as “the people who draw rocks,” Dähler, along with Jürg Gilgen and Markus Heger, are experts in shaded relief, a technique for illustrating a mountain (and any of its glaciers) so that it appears three-dimensional.
Of course I wanted to know about “felsiers,” clearly based on German Fels ‘rock,’ but I couldn’t find it anywhere, even on the internet — googling [felsiers rock] gets you only the Times story, and googling [Schweizerdeutsch felsier] gets you “Your search did not match any documents.” I realize Swiss German isn’t well represented online — you can’t google up a comprehensive Schweizerdeutsch dictionary the way you can French or standard German — but I’d like to be sure this is an actual word and not a Times distortion, so if any German-speaking Hatters can help out, I’ll be grateful.
Perhaps “known around the office as ‘felsiers'” means that this is lingo internal to that particular office and not used outside of it. After all, these are cartographers in Switzerland’s Federal Office of Topography, and there are only three of them who are “allowed to tinker with the Swiss Alps, the centerpiece of the country’s map.” If, in an analogous U.S. office, such artists were called, by their office mates, “the rock guys” or the “mountaineers,” that usage would probably not spread and become part of the lexicon. Same for “felsiers” over there?
Schweizerisches Idiotikon
Started in 1806. 16 volumes have already been published, the 17th and last is in preparation. 150,000 entries.
There’s no entry for “felsier”.
# Das deutsch-alemannische Dialektkontinuum in der Schweiz besteht aus Hunderten von Deutschschweizer Mundarten. #
I agree with Martin.
I’m curious whether it’s intended to be felsier with -ier the German suffix or -ier the French suffix, /fɛlsir/ vs. /fɛlsje/.
I also think that it is a nonce formation. Maybe by analogy with Füsilier.
Perhaps “known around the office as ‘felsiers’” means that this is lingo internal to that particular office and not used outside of it.
Yes, that’s very plausible.
I’m curious whether it’s intended to be felsier with -ier the German suffix or -ier the French suffix, /fɛlsir/ vs. /fɛlsje/.
That’s exactly the issue that led me to try to look it up! If it had been, say, felser I probably wouldn’t have bothered.
“I’m curious whether it’s intended to be felsier with -ier the German suffix or -ier the French suffix”
The fun thing with Swiss German is it could be both! See also “Merci vielmal”.
Felsiers is presumably the (English-writing) reporter’s plural. in any variety of High German the plural should be Felsiere, should it not?
Yes, that’s why I googled [Schweizerdeutsch felsier] using the presumed singular.
What everyone is saying.
But do you have any thoughts on /fɛlsir/ vs. /fɛlsje/?
But do you have any thoughts on /fɛlsir/ vs. /fɛlsje/?
I would guess /fɛlsje/, parallel to Bankier, Rentier.
Portier gets a spelling-pronunciation. But given the Swiss context in particular, -/je/ is probably more likely. There is a bit of a tradition of tacking French suffixes, more or less in jest, on German roots (Schmierage, Stellage… BTW, ŝmiraĵo is actually in Esperanto as it happens.)
Portier gets a spelling-pronunciation.
Duden marks that as specifically Austrian. I’ve ever only heard it with /-‘je/.
Interesting.
Gallicisms are generally sprinkled over the German-speaking landscape at random. Vienna is where retour has practically replaced zurück in its literal meaning. And while I’m used to Redakteur, the Idiotikon site has introduced me to Redaktor…
Speaking of spelling-pronunciations, the Russian for “banker” is банкир, presumably from Bankier.
@dm
Is Retourfahrkarte general or only railway-office speak? Can you say Retour or Retourfahrt, or is Rückfahrt preferable?
Rückfahrkarte (from Rückfahrt) is general, Retourfahrkarte strikes me as Viennese. I’m not sure if I’ve encountered Retourfahrt, but (hin) und zurück is universally (hin) und retour in Vienna.
Oh, if the -s plural is original and not just part of the English rendering, it must be French, and must mean the whole word is pronounced as French. Otherwise, the plural ending would be -e.