Re: USAGE: USAGE north-west IE diffusion (Re: USAGE:Yet another few questions about ...

Ray Brown wrote:

> On Tuesday, July 6, 2004, at 02:06 , Doug Dee wrote:
>
>> In a message dated 7/6/2004 3:32:23 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
>> andjo@FREE.
>> FR
>> writes:
>>
>>> Exactly whom did the Ancients include in these terms [Celtae/Keltai]?
>>> In particular, did they include the Gauls?
>>
>>
>> Julius Caesar famously wrote that one of the three parts of Gaul was
>> inhabited "by a people called in their own language Celtae, in the Latin
>> Galli
>> [Gauls]." [H.J. Edwards' translation]
>
>
> I now have it :)
>
> Gallia est omnis diuisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae,
> aliam
> Aquitani, tertiam, qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra appellantur. Hi
> omnes
> lingua, institutis, legibus inter se differunt.
>
> Gallos ab Aquitanis Garunna flumen, a Belgis Matrona et Sequana diuidit.
>
> Horum onmnium fortissimi sunt Belgae, propterea, quod a cultu atque
> humanitate Prouinciae longissime absunt, minimeque ad eos mercatores
> saepe
> commeant atque ea, quae ad effeminandos animos pertinent, important,
> proximique sunt Germanis, qui trans Rhenum incolunt, quibuscum
> continenter
> bellum gerunt.
>
<snip>

How about an Italo-Celtic dialect continuum?  Is that at all possible?
It doesn't seem too much of a stretch to me...

We have Q-Celtic, P-Celtic, P-Italic, Q Italic.  Now, since they were
all originally 'Q', as it were, we can have the central Italo-Celtic
dialects having the *kw>*p change dispersing throughout them, but the
extreme ends of both are unaffected.  On the other hand, a feature found
only in the 'Celtic' dialects, have a *p>0 sound change.  Those are just
two features, but they give a general idea.

Something like this:

Q-Celto-Italic
Found in Spain, Ireland, Latium - extremities, southern or northern.

P-Celto-Italic
Found in Gaul, Northern Italy - central area(also Britain, perhaps due
to being colonised from Gaul, or being in close contact with it,
something not found in Ireland, which was quite difficult to get to).

P-lessness(Celtic characteristic)
Found only in 'Celtic' areas - maybe originating further away from the
Celto-Italic centre.

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