Re: Germanic and Celtic (was Re: Verb-second ... verb-penultimate languages?)

Andreas Johansson wrote:
> Quoting Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...>:
>
>
>>Hallo!
>>
>>On Mon, 24 Apr 2006 09:59:20 +0100, Peter Bleackley wrote:
>>
>>
>>>This raises a question - how closely are Celtic (VSO) languages related to
>>>Germanic (V2) languages? I know that the Germanic peoples acquired their
>>>exonym because in Caesar's time they were allies (germani) of the Celts,
>
>
> Sorry for missing the original post here, but is this a known fact? I've seen a
> couple other etymologies of the name asserted with perfect confidence, so I'm,
> understandably I think, somewhat suspicious.
So am I, both because, like Andreas, I have seen other etymologies
asserted with similar confidence and because _germani_ does not mean
"allies"; it means 'people sharing a common father'.

Also on a linguistic note, the so-called V2 Germanic langs do not use
the same word order in subordinate clauses; the verb must come last in
such clauses. There is nothing comparable in the modern 'Celtic' langs.

Is there any evidence that ancient Gaulish was VSO? Or is the
characteristic VSO order an innovation (like, e.g. conjugated
prepositions) of later insular Celtic?

The word order of modern Breton is, in fact, V2 and I believe is so in
the revived form of Cornish known IIRC as 'Cornoack' or 'modern Cornish'
- the other revived forms of Kernewek retain the VSO order of Welsh &
the Gaelic languages. The modern Breton word order developed from the
earlier VSO order of insular Brittonic. Is it being suggested that the
Germanic word order, in main clauses, developed from an earlier VSO
order or what?

>>>and that Celtic culture originally appeared around the headwaters of the
>>>Danube, which is now a German speaking area.
>>
>>Of course, both are Indo-European, and have been neighbours for centuries
>>- but other than that, Germanic and Celtic are not considered especially
>>closely related by most linguists, I think.
There is a stratum of non-IE vocabulary shared between the two, e.g.
landa, comba etc. But this would surely suggest nothing more than
borrowing from a common source, maybe some non-IE spoken around
headwaters of the Danube, who knows?

> I posted a "cladogram" of IE languages that had Celtic and Germanic as sisters
> (and Italic as the next group out) some time ago here, but as was pointed out
> in the attendant discussion thread, the assuptions on which the tree was based
> were not beyond question.
Indeed not.

--
Ray
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