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

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.

> > 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.
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.

                                                   Andreas

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