Re: Celtic Consonant Mutation

The mutations in Celtic langs are due to the process of assimilation (one
sound changing to resemble a preceding one, in this case) earlier on in the
history of the languages. The process itself happens all the time in
everyday speech - if you say the phrase 'London Bridge is falling down" you
will find that you pronounced the final n in London as an m. Why? Because it
is followed by a bilabial sound; the alveolar nasal n becomes a bilabial
nasal m. It's just that in the Celtic langs this process occurs under
conditions which have now come to be defined grammatically. Some time in the
history of Cornish the article defining "female singular" must have ended
with a sound that caused certain following sounds to be affected.
Mike
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe" <joe@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 10:08 PM
Subject: Celtic Consonant Mutation


> Can you guys help me?  I'm wondering how Celtic Initial mutation happens,
as
> in Cornish:
>
> mam
> mother
>
> an vam
> the mother
>
> I'm just curious as to how the mechanism works, and under what
> conditions...maybe the Bretons on this list can help :-)

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