Re: Supposed Celtic semiticisms

On Friday, January 28, 2005, at 05:54 , damien perrotin wrote:

> Skrivet gant Ray Brown:
>
> The problem is that most of these features are recent developements
> which are not shared by ancient celtic languages.
Another problem also is that our knowledge of ancient 'Celtic languages'
is fragmentary and controversial. But the claim, as I understand it, is
not that 'proto-Celtic' shared 'Semitic features' but that _Insular
Celtic_ does. So references to Gaulish are not strictly relevant, except
perhaps to emphasize that we are talking about Insular phenomena.

Those who posit a connexion usually AFAIK suggest a AfroAsiastic
substratum in Britain & Ireland, tho I have met other theories like a
'trade pidgin/creole' developed in the Cornish peninsular as a result of
Phoenician trading with the 'Tin Isles' - but why that should then affect
the languages of the rest of Britain & Ireland, I do not know.

[snip]
>> - express the genitive relation in a similar way, e.g.
>>    ARABIC beet ir raagil
>>    WELSH   ty  'r dyn
>>    ENG.   house the man = the man's house
>
> Gaulish used a latin-like genitive. Gaelic still does.
No, even Gaelic is not like Latin. It is true Gaelic has retained a
genitive case, but the word order is as fixed as Welsh: possessed noun +
def. art. + possessor:
taigh an fhir = the man's house

It true _an fir_ is genitive, But we cannot have things like *_an taigh an
fhir_ or *_an taigh fhir_ (the house of a man). The order is, to my
knowledge, as fixed in Gaelic as it is in Welsh.

I suppose it should be added that if the second noun is not definite or is
a proper name, the 'infixed' artice is omitted (except in Breton with its
indefinite article), which I believe is also the case in Arabic.

[snip]
>> I believe there are one or two other feature that some have cited also.
>> Personally I am far from convinced by all these 'similarities'.
>>
>
> neither do I
Yep - all that references to Gaulish show is that - as the "Semticist
theorists" claim - these are features of 'Insular Celtic.'

The question nevertheless remains as to why these developments took place
in Ireland & Britain.

>> BTW Breton has developed an indefinite article under French influence and
>> its default word-order is now SVO.
>>
> Breton SVO order developed from a generalization of an emphic
> construction of the kind "It is me who...."
Yes, I do know that. But in Welsh it remains the emphatic "it is I
who..."; the unmarked, default order is still SVO. I still think the
Breton generalization of the "it is me who.." construction to become the
normal, unmarked form is the influence of SVO French.

(BTW - before someone wastes their time to point it out: Yes, I _do know_
that pronoun object are place before the verb French, unless the verb is
imperative.)

IIRC 'Unified' and Kemmyn Cornish, which are revivals of Middle Cornish,
have VSO order, but 'Modern Cornish' (Cornoack) has SVO in the Breton
manner. But English influence on 'Modern cornish' is obvious which
presumably is one reason Kemmyn, I am informed, is the most widely used
version of revised Cornish.

Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
ray.brown@freeuk.com
===============================================
Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason."      [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]

Reply