Celtic [was: peri-IE (was: Kentum/satem)]

Sgrìobh Ray:

> Odd orthography? Neither Cornish nor Breton look particularly odd.
Have you ever looked at "Modern Cornish"? The version whose proponents
do what the last writers of Cornish in the 18th century did -- spell it
as if it were English, so a word like tir/tyr (land) becomes "teer" or
"teare". That sort of Cornish is a bit odd, in an endearing, quirky,
Manx-like way. :)

(And yes, I adore Manx!)

> I suppose Welsh is odd to anglophones because it's so
> uncompromisingly regular :)
:)

> True, Irish & Scots Gaelic have a pecular and interesting system of
> their own. But there is, surely, great variety of orthographic
> conventions in the modern so-called 'Celtic' languages (a term
> coined in the 18th cent and no one has yet been able to give me any
> evidence that they are related to the language spoken by the
> peoples the Greeks & Romans called Celts - but that's another
> story).
Hey Ray, have you ever read a book by Simon James called "The Atlantic
Celts: Ancient People or Modern Invention?" (British Museum Press 1999,
ISBN 0714121657) -- I highly recommend it if you haven't read it
already!

There's another book on the subject by Malcolm Chapman called "The
Celts: Construction of a Myth", which I *really* want to read, but it's
out of print and I can't find it anywhere.

Regards,

Thomas

Reply