Re: Supposed Celtic semiticisms

On Sunday, January 30, 2005, at 08:20 , damien perrotin wrote:

> Skrivet gant Ray Brown:
>
>>
>> A sprachbund might explain the shift to SVO, similae development of def.
>> article and the development of wide use of periphrastic verbs (English to
>> quite a degree shares the latter develoment). The mutation system of the
>> Gaelic langs is IMO different from that of the Brittonic langs (the
>> latter
>> are far closer to sound changes going on in western Romance).
>>
>> Ray
>
> I am not sure, but tha might not be a coincidence.  Western Britain was
> a part of the Roman Empire and all brythonic languages have extensively
> borrowed from Latin.
They have indeed.

>  A phonetic influence is not imposible.
A very valid point - thanks for suggestion. It is more than likely that
the sound change was already under way in British Romance before the
legions quit this country in the early 5th cent CE. indeed, if the British
urban centers had not collapsed or been abandoned under the advancement of
Saxons & other Germanic settlers, there would have been no English and we
might be speaking and writing Brithenig   :)

Ray
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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" ]