Re: P- and Q-Celtic (was Re: Reasonable sound changes.)

On Monday, January 10, 2005, at 08:01 , Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:

> Hallo!
>
> On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 18:19:55 +0100,
> Carsten Becker <naranoieati@...> wrote:
>
>> BTW, I've always wondered why there is P and Q-Celtic. So
>> it's because on the Isle, people changed /k_w/ -> /p/ and
>> on the continent they didn't?
>
> The geographical distribution of P- and Q-Celtic is different.
> They shifted /k_w/ to /p/ in Britain and Gaul, but not in Ireland
> and on the Iberian peninsula.
Yes, the /k_w/ is the older form inherited form inherited from PIE. The
shift /k_w/ --> /p/ happened in the central area, leaving the outlying
areas unaffected. We find similar things happening in the Italic dialects
which is one of the factors that have led some to postulate a Celt0-Italic
group.

> The Scots Gaels, who also speak a
> Q-Celtic language, immigrated from Ireland in early Medieval times.
Very early - 6th cent, I believe - the same sort of time the various
Germanic waves of settlers were moving in to the south.

>
> A feature that seems indeed to be confined to the British Isles
> (with the exception of Brittany, which was settled by British Celts)
> are initial mutations, which are found in both Goidelic (insular
> Q-Celtic, i.e. Irish, Manx and Scots Gaelic) and Brittonic
> (insular P-Celtic, i.e. Welsh, Cornish and Breton), but not in
> Celtiberian (continental Q-Celtic) or Gaulish (continental P-Celtic).
Absolutely! This feature which some seem to regard as quintessentially
'Celtic' developed only in Ireland and Britain; also, tho there are
superficial similarities, the Gaelic and Brittonic systems of initial
mutations are different.

> VSO word order is also an insular phenomenon, it seems.
> Why that?  It just happened.  Blame the Elves ;-)
Possibly - but it is more often the Semites who get blamed, leading to all
sorts of wild theories  :)

I have seen it postulated that the 'Insular Celtic' languages developed
from a creole that evolved in the Cornish peninsular as the result of
trade contacts between Phoenician traders to the 'Tin Islands'. I am not
sure how Old Irish would fit into such a theory.

Others have suggested a substrate population that was related to the
modern Berbers and migrated up through western Europe in the age of the
megalith builders (who were certainly pre-Celtic).

Who knows?

Just to add to the fun, other features common to Insular Celtic and the
Semitic langs are:
- all nouns are either masculine or fem. (common also to romance langs)
- adjectives follow the noun (a few excptions in Celtic langs - and
Romance :)
- definite article only
- prepositions are conjugated
- common way of expressing genitive, thus:
	Arabic: beet ir raagil   (double vowels indicate long vowel)
       Welsh:  ty'r  dyn
              house the man = the man's house

Perhaps after all the elves are indeed to blame   ;-)

Ray
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Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason."      [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]

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