Re: Celtic languages?

Quoting Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>:

> On Monday, September 27, 2004, at 07:52 , Joe wrote:
>
> > Ray Brown wrote:
> [snip]
> >> I need to be convinced that the P ~ Q split occurred before the Gaelic
> >> and
> >> Brittonic languages developed. There is also a similar P ~ Q split among
> >> the Italic languages: for example Latin belonged to Q langs, Sabine
> >> belonged to the P group. Those who posit a Celto-Italic family sometimes
> >> put the Q ~ P split even earlier than Jo. But I see no need to do this.
> >> Similar divisions occurred in the ancient Greek dialects and AFAIK no one
> >> has suggested linking the division there either to the P ~ Q split in the
> >> 'Celtic' langs or in the Italic langs.
> >>
> >
> > There's no actual evidence, but I find it makes things easier for me.
>
> Right - so basically simplification of classification.
>
> If all the languages are related, the Q versions surely represents the
> oldest forms; P is an innovation. It could well be that Brittonic &
> Gaulish changed to P, and that proto-Irish remained Q, and other
> continental forms also remained Q. But without far more evidence than we
> have, I fail to see how we can certain.
Sounds rather "satemic" to me - the central members switch *q>*p, the outlayers
retain *q.

I was once taught (well, I read in a textbook) that shared innovations, never
shared retensions, make genetic groups. Labels such as Q-Celtic or Q-Italic
would thus be meaningless (which is not to say that the groups so called might
not be valid genetic groupings due to shared innovations in other areas).

[snip]
> On Monday, September 27, 2004, at 09:50 , Rodlox wrote:
>
> >> Galatian - are there any inscriptions? It seems that around 280 BCE a
> >> group of Galatai made their way from the Balkans into Asia Minor.
> >
> >  I'd once heard that they came from France, originally.
>
> I wasn't aware the Galatai were ever in Gaul/France. I thought all the
> ancient references referred to the Balkans & Asia Minor. What evidence do
> we have of a group moving across Europe from France before settling in
> Asia Minor?
FWIW, my encyclopaedia says that the Balkanic and Minor Asiatic Celts probably
consisted of a warrior elite of Western or Central European extraction ruling
over peoples speaking non-Celtic languages. It doesn't say anything about
whether these aristocrats retained a Celtic language for any considerable
length of time.

Is Gaulish, BTW, a monolithic entity? Its range seems very large for an Ancient
language spoken by a settled population without a central political authority -
cf the umpteen languages of Italy before Latin took over.

Livius.org claims that Celtic languages were spoken on the east bank of the
Rhine well into the Christian Era. No details beyond that they used clusters,
such as /gb/, ill tolerated by Latin phonology.

                                                      Andreas

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