Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: Q- and P- Celtic

From:Thomas Leigh <thomas@...>
Date:Wednesday, January 21, 2004, 18:08
Ciao, Luca!

Sgrìobh thu...

> I'm working on a short paper about the languages > of Scotland and the way they relate to Scottish > identity/-ies.
I'd be very interested to see this paper when it's done! This is something I have a big interest in, having gone to university in Scotland and knowing Scottish people of all different linguistic backgrounds (Gaelic, Scots, and English).
> I'm now writing a couple of lines about the > evolution of Gaelic, and I was thinking of inserting > a hint to the differences between the Goidelic (Q) and > Brythonic (P) branches of insular Celtic.
It might be worth pointing out that while many people consider P-Celtic to be synonymous with Brythonic and Q-Celtic to be synonymous with Goidelic, this is not the case. It is true that all the surviving P-Celtic languages are Brythonic and all the surviving Q-Celtic languages are Goidelic, but there used to be P-Celtic languages which were not Brythonic, and Q-Celtic languages which were not Goidelic. In other words, Brythonic and Goidelic are sub-classes of P-Celtic and Q-Celtic, respectively.
> I wanted to include an example showing how the two different > branches handle PIE *kw, just to explain why they are called
Q-
> and P-Celtic, and I've chosen Latin _quattuor_ vs. Sc.Gaelic > _ceithir_ (or _a' ceithir_?)
Just _ceithir_.
> vs. Welsh _pedwar_. So far so good. But how are these last two > words actually pronounced? I suppose something like [kheir;]
and
> ['pedwar]... can anybody suggest me an IPA trascription?
Eww. I'm not good with real *phonetic* (rather than phonemic) transcription. Attempting to use X-SAMPA, my best guess would be something like ["k_h'ehI4] or ["k_h'ehID]. The initial _c_ is both aspirated and palatalised; the final _r_ may be realised in a variety of ways, ranging from a tap to a voiced interdental fricative, depending on the dialect. The _i_ in the second syllable may vary from [@] to [I] to [i] too. BTW, the _th_ in _ceithir_ was originally [T]; the sound was lost sometime during the Early Modern Gaelic period (roughly 1200-1650) and merged with [h]. Spero che questo ti aiuta! Thomas

Reply

Costentin Cornomorus <elemtilas@...>