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

staving Jörg 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,
> > 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 was wondering if there could have been a VSO Germano-Celtic ancestor, of
which a dialect developed topic-fronting, which then branched off to become
Germanic with TVSO developing into V2.

Pete

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