Abstract

This paper discusses two hypotheses concerning the etymology of German Kaff ‘sleepy village, backwaters’, which derives from Rotwelsch Kaff ‘village’: (a) Rotw. Kaff derives from Romani gāw ‘village’ (Wolf). (b) Rotw. Kaff is a Yiddish acronymic abbreviation of Yiddish kefar ‘village’ (Avé-Lallemant). It is argued that Wolf's hypothesis is phonologically unlikely, that his argument against a Yiddish origin cannot stand up against scrutiny and that he either overlooked, or did not understand, Avé-Lallemant's hypothesis, which is phonologically likely and in accordance with a certain linguistic practice of older Yiddish.