Re: Okay, so it *didn't* work

Sally Caves <scaves@...> writes:

> If you scratch the surface, it's pretty
> Celtic.  Initial mutations, verbal nouns,
> preverbal particles, definitely Brythonic
> vocabulary.  If you listen to it, it has
> some of the nasal sonorities of French.
That, and the fact that <u> is pronounce /y/, so it sounds very French. In fact, I
like to describe it as incomprensible French..although I can understand large
amounts of it..if spoken slowly.

> Remember that Manx, Irish Gaelic, and
> Scots Gaelic are of the Goidelic (q-Celtic)
> branch, and differ fairly considerably from
> their southern neighbors, the Brythonic
> (or p-Celtic) branch.  Breton is a dialect
> developed from the Britons who fled to
> the continent in their escape from invading
> Saxons, so its affinity with Cornish and
> Welsh (the p-Celtic languages) is much
> stronger.  But I'm sure it's picked up a lot
> of French vocabulary in the same way that
> Welsh picked up a lot of English: plismon,
> for "police man," lico, for "like," etc.
Minor point:
it's leicio or licio, I don't think lico is a word.
But Welsh also retains the original Celtic word: Hoffi "to like", for use in some circumstances.

Any here are some French/Gallo-Romance Loan-words in Breton:
fresk <fresh>
feunteun <fountain>
labour <work>
lizher <letter>
lunedou <glasses>
laer <thief>
legumaj <vegetable>
medisinez <woman doctor>
mignonez <female friend>
naetaat <to clean> (not sure about this one, but it looks like nettoyer)

But then there's a lot of things that are not loan words but Celtic-Italic cognates like:

noz ~ nuit ~ night
laezh ~ lait ~ milk
mar plij ~ s'il vous plait ~ please
mor ~ mer ~ sea
nevez ~ nouveau ~ new

and lots more.


Elliott

Reply