Skrivet gant Ray Brown:
The problem is that most of these features are recent developements
which are not shared by ancient celtic languages.
> Both sets of languages:
> - are VSO
Gaullish was SVO. The shift to SVO is a late event.
>
> - have only maculine & feminine genders
Gaulish had a neuter gender. Note that all romance tongues (including
Romanian) have lost neuter
> - have a definite article but not indefinite
Gaulish has neither
> - favor post-posited adjectives
there too it's a recent development.
> - 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.
> - have conjugated preposition, e.g.
> GAELIC WELSH MALTESE ENGLISH
> leam gennyf bija with me
> leat gennyt bik with you (sing.)
> leis ganddo bih with him
> leatha ganddi biha with her
> leinn gennym bina with us
> leibh gennych bikom with you (plural)
> leotha ganddynt bihom with them
>
there too it's recent. Gaulish had none of this.
> Note: the Gaelic is the Scots version & the Welsh shows the literary
> forms
> (there is no need to tell me the southern & northern colloquial forms,
> please - I do know them :)
>
> Also the soft mutation of the Gaelic languages (at least in its earlier
> form where |th| = /T/ and |dh| = /D/) & unmutated forms are similar to
> Biblical Hebrew: (without dagesh) /f/, /v/, /T/, /D/ ,/x/, /G/ ~ (with
> dagesh) /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/.
>
> 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
> 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...."