Re: USAGE: Yet another few questions about Welsh.

At 07:34 7/4/2004, Ray Brown wrote:

>>Secondly, how
>>tenuous is the 'Italo-Celtic' link?  They do seem fairly similar in some
>>ways, different in others.  One similarity I've noticed, though it may
>>seem tenuous, is that they both have *k_wenk_we(Welsh 'pump', Irish
>>'coic', Latin 'quinque') as 'five', rather than *penk_we.
>
>Depends who you ask, I guess. Personally, I think it's strong. It has been
>claimed that one reason Gaul became Latin speaking so soon after Caesar's
>conquest was that Gaulish was structurally quite close to Latin.
My comparative philology professor said that Italo-Celtic is tenuous
because there are no securely demonstrable common innovations.
While common retentions or lack of innovations would yield a
structural similarity it cannot serve as proof of prior unity
below the protolanguage node.

/BP 8^)
--
B.Philip Jonsson mailto:melrochX@melroch.se (delete X)

         Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant!
                                             (Tacitus)

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