The Welche Country in Alsace

The exact origin of the word is not known. Some suppose that it goes back to independent Gaule and the tribe of Volques, Volas in Latin. Others speak about the Celts, who populated Gaule and who would have been called Walsch in their language. In the 18th century, the word velche was used to mean cruelty, coarseness, ignorance, the lack of Romance taste. Voltaire, was one of the first to use it.

Littré of 1874 under Velche offers the following definition: name which the Germans gave to the French and the Italians. An ignorant and superstitious man.
Whereas the Larousse of 1876 offers: from the English Welch, Welshman; name of an ancient Celtic people. A century later, name that the Germans often use with contempt, to indicate what is foreign.
For Alsatians, Welches are protesters, who, in opposition to the Germanic dialect, speak a Romance language.

Welche - a language

On the heights it is a Romance patois which one will hear, but it is no longer heard as soon as one goes down to Kaysersberg: it is the Germanic dialect which resounds in the villages. It would have been introduced by legionnaires and passing merchants having used the Roman road.

This patois transformed over the centuries would have always remained in the area. Certain names of locality, such as Kermodé (house in low-Breton dialect), Kébespré, Brézouard (marvellous mountain) could as such imply it, if names of Germanic origin did not come to muddle these assumptions such as Altenbach (the old brook) or Barischire (mountain barn).