Germans from beyond the Danube are cold heartless people who don't chat. No, seriously, I'm not really an expert when it comes to dialects, and there doesn't seem to be a proper etymological German dictionary online. And just because they don't appear to have a dialect (which is wrong anyway, it's just that their dialect is now "proper" German) doesn't meant that there aren't slang words. And it seems that a lot of the words for chit-chat area onomatopoeic...

Just saying that there are words for mindless chatter that don't mean gossip per se (i.e gossipy "Klatsch" vs. chatty "Tratsch").