the celtic languages are a branch of the greater indo

8/12/2019 The Celtic Languages Are a Branch of the Greater Indo

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The Celtic languagesare a branch ofthe greater Indo-European language family.

The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward Lhuyd1 in 177.The most ancient remnants of a Celtic dialect in written form ha!e been found in northern Italy#esto Calende$ % &.C.$ Castelletto Ticino$ '7'-'' &.C.(. It is relati!ely recent ac)uisitionthat these Lepontic( inscriptions are actually written in a Celtic dialect Le*eune$ "Lepontica"$1+71(.The story of the Celts begins in prehistory$ the time before written records were ,ept. riginatingin what is now Eastern Europe$ the Celts appear to ha!e mo!ed west along the main tradingroutes of that time$ especially the ri!er anube$ into modern /ermany$ 0ustria$ #witerland and

2rance.&y the beginning of the classical period about ' &.C.($ they were a large group of tribes andraces spread o!er a wide area of Europe$ from #cotland and Ireland in the north-west to 3ussia inthe east$ and to 4editerranean in the south. The earlier archeological e!idence associated withthe Celts places them in what is now 2rance and western /ermany in the late &rone 0ge$

1 Edward Lhuynd (1660 - 30 June 1709) was a Welsh naturalist, botanist, linguist,geographer and antiquary !e is responsible "or the #rst s$ienti#$ des$ription o" what wewould now re$ogni%e as a dinosaur& the sauropod tooth Ruttellum implicatum


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around 15 &.C. In the early Iron 0ge$ they are associated with The 6allstatt culture which wasthe predominant Central European culture from the th to %th centuries &.C.&y the time the e8istence of the Celts was recorded by the /ree, writer Ephorus in the 9 th

century &.C. They were so numerous that he named them as one of the four great barbarianpeoples in the world.

The ancient Celts had no written records$ and their poets and musicians$ the &ards$ and their wiseholy men$ the ruids$ were in training for many years in their orally learnt crafts. They didhowe!er ha!e a system of mar,s or stro,es that e)uated to letters$ called "gham"$ normallycar!ed across the edge of an ob*ect. The ruids are said to ha!e car!ed messages or records onstic,s. The only e8amples that sur!i!e to our times are on memorial stones and mar,ers$ whichcan still be seen in the Celtic lands today$ most commonly in Ireland and #cotland. 0n ghaminscription on an upright stone normally reads from the bottom upwards.

The Celtic languages are divided into two classes:

InsularContinental

- Continental Celtic languagesare no longer spo,en$ but consisted of Celtiberian #pain($/aulish #wiss: ;orthern Italian !ariant ,nown as Lepontic( and /alatian in Tur,ey./alatian was spo,en until about the 'thcentury. The Continental Celtic languages werespo,en by the people ,nown to 3oman and /ree, writers as ictish(.

4an8 is a form of /aelic spo,en on the Isle of 4an. The last nati!e spea,er of 4an8 died 1+79but many are learning the language today. There are many medie!al Irish manuscripts containingIreland?s national epic the T@in &A Cuailnge and other Irish myths$ poetry and lore. There aremany nati!e spea,ers of both Irish and #cottish /aelic today$ not only in Ireland and #cotland$but also in ;o!a #cotia.

=e ha!e fewer medie!al =elsh manuscripts preser!ing the Mabinogi and other traditional=elsh tales$ poetry and lore$ than we ha!e of Irish. There are still many nati!e spea,ers of =elshtoday. The last nati!e spea,er of Cornish died in the late 1 th century$ but there are a number of


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through the 3oman period. It was historically spo,en through what are now mainly 2rance$;orthern Italy$ #witerland$ eastern &elgium$ Lu8embourg and western /ermany before beingsupplanted by ulgar Latin and !arious /ermanic languages from around the 9th centuryonwards. /aulish is paraphyletically grouped with Celtiberian as Continental Celtic. Lepontic isconsidered to be either a dialect of or a language closely related to /aulish. /alatian is the form

of /aulish spo,en in 0sia 4inor after 51 &.C. /aulish is a >-Celtic language. It has a !eryclose relationship to Insular Celtic /oidelic and &rythonic. Epigraphical remains ha!e beenunco!ered across all of what used to be 3oman /aul$ which co!ered modern 2rance$ as well asparts of #witerland$ Italy$ /ermany$ and &elgium. Today$ the 2rench language containsappro8imately 1' to 1 words ,nown to be of /aulish origin$ most of which concern pastoralor daily acti!ity. If dialectal and deri!ed words are included$ the total is appro8imately 9words$ the largest stoc, of Celtic words in any 3omance language.

#,etchy ,nowledge of the /aulish language comes from notices in classical authors and from asmall number of /aulish inscriptions. The longest and most famous of these is the Coligny

calendar$ preser!ed on two brone tablets found in 1+7 at &ourg in eastern 2rance. This is alunar calendar with months of 5+ days.

4any /aulish words closely resemble their Latin counterpartsD

Gaulish Latin

-cue andes out of

are before!er over

allossecondtar!os bull

tri threemoreseari8 king

-)uee8

antesuperalius

taurustres$ tria

marere8

In the Coligny calendar$ the !erb di!ertomu appears at the end of each month and means ?we turnaside to a different month(?D its Latin e)ui!alent is the !ery similar di!ertimus. The !erbcomeimu means ?we go together? Latin con- ?together? imus ?we go?$ from eo$ ire(.

The close similarity of /aulish and Latin declensions is clear from this e8ampleD


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Cases Singular Plural

Nominative

GenitiveDative

Accusative

-os :-us earlier -os(-i : -i

-u earlier -o( : -o-om : -um earlier -om(

-os$ : -oi -i earlier -oi(-om : -orum earlier -om(

-obis : -is earlier -ois(-ons : -os earlier -ons(

#ome /aulish words ha!e no Latin e)ui!alent$ because they refer to things un,nown at 3omeDsapo"soap" 3omans used oli!e oil instead($ cervesia?beer? 3omans dran, wine($ tunna?barrel?

3omans preferred clay storage *ars($ bracae ?trousers? 3omans wore a toga or tunic(. =ord?bea!er? is related to beber$ the /aulish name for this animal$ from which comes the /aulishtown-name &ibracte.

The similarity of /aulish to Latin helped it to disappear. Fnder 3oman rule$ the /auls found itrelati!ely easy to learn Latin$ and e!entually forgot their own language. &y the Late Empire$when /aul was o!errun by the /ermanic 2ran,s$ /aulish was close to e8tinct. This e8plains whymodern 2rench is based on Latin and 2ran,ish rather than /aulish.

The Brythonic or Brittonic languages WelshD ieithoedd &rythonaidd:>rydeinig$ CornishDyethow brythone,:predenne,$ BretonD yehoG predene,( form one of the two branches of theInsular Celtic language family$ the other being /oidelic.

The &rythonic languages deri!e from the &ritish language$ spo,en throughout &ritain south ofthe 2irth of 2orth during the Iron 0ge and 3oman period. ;orth of the 2orth$ the >ictishlanguage is considered to be relatedH it is possible it was a &rythonic language$ but it may ha!ebeen a sister language. In the 9th and 'th centuries emigrating &ritons also too, &rythonicspeech to the continent$ most significantly in &rittany. uring the ne8t few centuries thelanguage began to split into se!eral dialects$ e!entually e!ol!ing into =elsh$ Cornish$ &reton$

and Cumbric. =elsh and &reton continue to be spo,en as nati!e languages$ while a re!i!al inCornish has led to an increase in spea,ers of that language. Cumbric is e8tinct$ ha!ing beenreplaced by /oidelic and English speech.

The &rythonic branch is also referred to as >-Celtic li,e /aulish( because the &rythonic refle8of the >roto-Indo-European phoneme ,w is p as opposed to the /oidelic c.


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ther ma*or characteristics includeD

the treatment of -m$ -nas -am$ -an.

initials-followed by a !owel was changed to h-

=elsh hen"old"$ hir"long"$ hafal"similar"

&reton hen"ancient"$ hir"long"$ haval"similar"

Cornish hen"ancient"$ hir"hong"$ haval"similar"

Irishsean"old"$sior"long"$samail"similar"

&rythonic retains original nasals before -t

&reton kant"hundred" !s. Irish cad

sp, sr, sv /swbecamef, fr, chwwhin Cornish(

swero"toy$ game" became =elsh chwaraeand &reton c'hoari

srokna"nostril" became =elshffroenand &retonfroen.

all other initials-fell before consonants

smerubecame =elsh mr"marrow"

slemonbecame =elsh llyfn$ Cornish levenand &reton levn"smooth"

wwritten uin Latin te8ts and ouin /ree,( becamegwin initial position$ winternally$where in /aelic it isfin initial position and disappears internally

windos"white" became =elshgwyn$ Cornishgwynn$ &retongwenn

wassos"ser!ant$ young man" became =elsh$ Cornish and &retongwas

double plosi!es transformed into spirantsD pp$ cc$ tt became f$ ch c?h($ th ( before a

!owel or li)uid

cippus J &reton kef"tree trun,"$ =elsh cyff

cattos J &reton kaz$ Cornish kath$ =elsh cath

bucca J &reton boc?h, boch


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single !oiceless plosi!es and !oiced d$ b$ and min an inter!ocalic position became softspirants

=elsh ddKM$ thKNM$fK!M

&retonz$zh$ v

&rythonic languages in use today are Welsh$ Cornishand Breton. =elsh and &reton ha!e been

spo,en continuously since they formed. Cornish nearly died out during the 1+th and 5th

centuries$ retained only by a few elderly people and some families as a language of the home$ but

a process of re!italiation since 1+9 has seen numbers of natural spea,ers increase. 0lso

notable are the e8tinct language Cumbric$ and possibly the e8tinct >ictish although this may be

best considered to be a sister of the &rythonic languages. The late


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due to inherent tendencies. Thus the concept of a common &rythonic language ends by 0.. %.

It is thought that substantial numbers of &ritons remained in the e8panding area controlled by

0nglo-#a8ons$ but the only information on their language may be obtained from place names.

!er time it is thought they gradually adopted the English language. The &rythonic languages

spo,en in what is now #cotland$ the Isle of 4an and what is now England began to be displacedin the 'th century through the influence of Irish #cots($ ;orse and /ermanic in!aders. The

displacement of the languages of &rythonic descent was probably complete in all of this territory$

e8cept Cornwall and the English counties bordering =ales($ by the 11th century date of

e8tinction in !arious parts of the territory is debated(.

F;IE3#ITQ 2 >3IRTI;0

20CFLTQ 2 >6IL#>6Q

CELTIC L0;/F0/E#


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4entorD >rof. dr ragana #pasiS #tudentD I!ana 3ado!iS

%..515.

the celtic languages are a branch of the greater indo

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