An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/lallen

by Friedrich Kluge

lallen, verb, ‘to stammer,’ from Middle High German ‘to speak indistinctly, stammer’; the corresponding Old Icelandic lalla, ‘to totter like a child walking,’ shows a curious figurative application of the word. Greek λαλεῖν, Latin lallâre, and High German lallen are scarcely cognate; they are rather independent imitative words separately coined in each language.