Linguistics discussion (split from new factions thread)

[Viking_Wårlord]

I'm now getting a bit sceptical about that list and Duridanov's determination to link Thracian to Baltic and Slavonic... which just happened to have been done by a Bulgarian in the middle of the Cold War. We already know how politics could muddy the waters in Romania and Albania at this time.

My studies have shown that Slavonic is linked to Baltic and Thracian dialects only by it's Indo-european consistence.
Linking them closer is childish.

[Ayce]

The consensus is that the Sinaia plates are forgeries, and I have to agree with that. Apart from the language being strange, and there being what seems to be a fully developed logographic writing system appearing out of nowhere (with what look like modern mathematical signs accompanying them?) The heads look as if copied straight from the Turda coins and the little robed people stuck in the middle of the writing look more like something taken from the Aztec or Maya Codices than anything from the time and place they are supposed to belong to.

I have to disagree with that, the consensus was reached before any real work on them even began. Too bad the book isn't fully translated so the most relevant passages are out of reach for anyone that doesn't speak Romanian. What I find striking is the fact, that the plate containing the plan of the capital city was found well before it's layout was explored by archaeologists, and it is a perfect match. The author also managed to pour his own fragment using techniques that the Dacians had access too, so method of production isn't an issue. I would like to see some work being done on them (with an open mind). I know that because they are not an official source of documentation, you aren't going to use it.

[Elmetiacos]

The best forgers put small pieces of real material in among the faked material. The Welsh forger, Iolo Morgannwg, who invented modern Druid orders, did this: he had some genuine mediaeval Welsh manuscripts which he "padded out" with lots of his own faked material. To this day, nobody can be 100% certain which parts of his forgery may be actually genuine.

[Cartaphilus]

About lusitanian language:

http://www.celtiberia.net/articulo.asp?id=250

I warn you that the link is in spanish.

[Viking_Wårlord]

Isn't Elohîms coming from the cannan word 'El' designing god,if it is,then it also gave the arabic 'Allah'.

[Ibrahim]

Isn't Elohîms coming from the cannan word 'El' designing god,if it is,then it also gave the arabic 'Allah'.

*smacks VW in the nape*

Canaanite didn't lend the word El to the Arabs; arabic already had a cognate, ilah (allah being a contraction of al-ilah lit. the god). but yes, they are similar to each other in that they are of the same source.

otherwise, this is interesting information concerning the european languages.

[Viking_Wårlord]

*smacks VW in the nape*

Canaanite didn't lend the word El to the Arabs; arabic already had a cognate, ilah (allah being a contraction of al-ilah lit. the god). but yes, they are similar to each other in that they are of the same source.

otherwise, this is interesting information concerning the european languages.

I know it's a semitic language but I don't see why we wouldn't be allowed to talk about it,as you talked about Melqart earlier.

[Ibrahim]

I know it's a semitic language but I don't see why we wouldn't be allowed to talk about it,as you talked about Melqart earlier.

that wasn't me man. I asked about something else rlated to Indoeuropean words resembling semetic ones, and a nice fellow answered with melqart as his guide:

Originally Posted by Cartaphilus
Malik came from the semitic root mlk and the meaning is obviously king or lord.
In fact the God Melqart would be the King of the City.

[Viking_Wårlord]

that wasn't me man. I asked about something else rlated to Indoeuropean words resembling semetic ones, and a nice fellow answered with melqart as his guide:

ok,then i have a question that my studies did not solve,I studied the Basque language for a long time and I wanted to if the word ezker was linked to Spanish izquierda,co's it's so similar and because I didn't get the time to check.

[Viking_Wårlord]

ok,then i have a question that my studies did not solve,I studied the Basque language for a long time and I wanted to if the word ezker was linked to Spanish izquierda,co's it's so similar and because I didn't get the time to check.

I found it!....on...wikipedia!(crap,i must be blind then!)they say
"The Romance languages of Gascon, Aragonese, and Spanish display marked Basque influence, as a result of substratum, language contact, and bilingualism. A notable example is that of the Pyrenean and Iberian Romance words for "left (side)" (izquierdo, esquerdo, esquerre, quer, esquer) derived from Basque ezker[15] to avoid the ominous connotations of Latin sinister."

How could I not've spotted this?

[gamegeek2]

"Allah" was formed from the gemination of the "l"s in al-ilah, "the god." The semitic root would be ylh or lh.

In Semitic languages, there is a system of roots which can be used to form new words, this has been happening for a long time. Foreign words are easily incorporated with this system. Take the root k-t-b, which conveys the idea of writing. A very small sample of the many words in Arabic that are derived from this root.

kitab - book
kātib - writer (m)
kataba - to write
kutayyib - booklet
takātaba - to correspond
maktab - office
maktaba - library
miktāb - typewriter
maktūb - written

And a small sample of the Hebrew words derived from the same k-t-b root.

katab - reporter (m)
ktib - spelling
katub - written
ktab - handwriting

It is even seen in Maltese, the only Semtic language to use the Latin Alphabet as the primary alphabet

ktieb - book
kittieb - writer
miktub - written

A good EB example is the root q-d-$, meaning "holy/sacred." In Punic, "sh" becomes "s," so we have HaParasim HaQdosim (Sacred Band Cavalry). The same root is seen in Hebrew "Miqdash," as in HaBeit HaMiqdash, which literally translates as "The House [of] The Temple." Notice the pattern of adding "mi" or "ma" to the front of a root to get a building/object from an idea.

So we have the root s-g-d, "worship, bow." By adding "ma-" to the front we get Aramaic "Masgid," "place of worship," and Arabic "Masjid," meaning "mosque," most likely derived from an Aramaic dialect, likely Nabataean. And d-r-s, the root for "learn" is seen in Arabic "madrasa," "school."

[ThePianist]

For what's of military terms....here we go:

war>crīgā(gave german 'krieg' and danish 'krig')
fight>skermō(gave the word 'skirmish')
die>dhewə (gave Deyja(old norse))
kill>colḗjō (nothing to explain here)
destroy>dheukō (here neither...)

Fascinating. I add:

war>crīgā(gave german 'krieg' and danish 'krig')
(gave -possibly- 'cri' and 'crier', French "shout", noun and verb)
fight>skermō(gave the word 'skirmish')
die>dhewə (gave Deyja(old norse))
(and this word Deyja -possibly- gave 'déjà', French "already")
kill>colḗjō (nothing to explain here)
(gave -possibly- colère, French "anger")
destroy>dheukō (here neither...)
(gave -possibly- dragon, if you pronounce the "h" like in German)

[Ibrahim]

"Allah" was formed from the gemination of the "l"s in al-ilah, "the god." The semitic root would be ylh or lh.

In Semitic languages, there is a system of roots which can be used to form new words, this has been happening for a long time. Foreign words are easily incorporated with this system. Take the root k-t-b, which conveys the idea of writing. A very small sample of the many words in Arabic that are derived from this root.

kitab - book
kātib - writer (m)
kataba - to write
kutayyib - booklet
takātaba - to correspond
maktab - office
maktaba - library
miktāb - typewriter
maktūb - written

And a small sample of the Hebrew words derived from the same k-t-b root.

katab - reporter (m)
ktib - spelling
katub - written
ktab - handwriting

It is even seen in Maltese, the only Semtic language to use the Latin Alphabet as the primary alphabet

ktieb - book
kittieb - writer
miktub - written

A good EB example is the root q-d-$, meaning "holy/sacred." In Punic, "sh" becomes "s," so we have HaParasim HaQdosim (Sacred Band Cavalry). The same root is seen in Hebrew "Miqdash," as in HaBeit HaMiqdash, which literally translates as "The House [of] The Temple." Notice the pattern of adding "mi" or "ma" to the front of a root to get a building/object from an idea.

So we have the root s-g-d, "worship, bow." By adding "ma-" to the front we get Aramaic "Masgid," "place of worship," and Arabic "Masjid," meaning "mosque," most likely derived from an Aramaic dialect, likely Nabataean. And d-r-s, the root for "learn" is seen in Arabic "madrasa," "school."

just to add: Maltese is decended from a variety of Arabic releted to Siculo-Arabic (arabic in Sicily).

otherwise, nice work.

[gamegeek2]

It is descended from [Maghrebi] Arabic, this is seen by -in as one of many plurals (also seen in Arabic), as opposed to normal Semitic -im. However, genetic studies comparing the Maltese people with the Lebanese show overwhelming similarity (the Phoenicians were from around Lebanon)

[Owen Glyndwr]

Wow, absolutely fascinating, I've always really loved languages, and their origins. This makes me really look forward to College now (I plan to minor in linguistics), but yeah, keep going!

[gamegeek2]

Thanks.

[Elmetiacos]

Hopeless Case Languages

1. Getic (Thracian, Dacian, Daco-Thracian...)
What can we get from Duridanov - http://www.kroraina.com/thrac_lang/thrac_1.html ?
We've got some words recorded in Greek or Latin, but a lot are names for plants, which obviously aren't much use. Midne means a village. There's a village called Poltymbria from which Duridanov derives *poltyn- meaning a wooden fortification. Skalme means a sword. The Thracian nobles are called the Zibythides. There's the tribal name Satrai which is possibly related to Sanskrit and Persian ksat(h)ra and means power or authority, a form of government? There's also the personal name Taruthin/Tarusinas/Tarutinos which apparently meaning "holding a spear" - pluralise that and it's a ready made unit name. But how? All the names are given Greek or Roman dress; there doesn't seem to be any grammar discernable. Thracian inscriptions are very thin on the ground indeed and there are none in Dacian. The longest is from Kjolmen, written in the Greek alphabet. It says:
ILASNLETEDNLEDNENIDAKATROSO
EBA.ROZESASNÊNETESAIGEKOA
NBLABAÊGN
To which I'm forced to say WTF?!
P.Dimitrov (http://www.nbu.bg/PUBLIC/IMAGES/File...13_01_2009.pdf) suggests NBLABÊGN is copied from a Greek formula and means "do not damage/destroy (this inscription)" ASN(E) means "whoever", -e endings are probably genitives and IGEKOA could be a perfect tense before basically giving up after getting il asn' leted n'led ne ni dakatroso Evaroze sas nê n'etesa igekoa - and you can't blame him.
Back to Duridanov, who translates the name Dentusucu/Dentusykos/Dentysykos as "daughter of the clan" which suggests that you might have a nominative ending in -u. But if that's right, why are the Greek forms masculine? Does Thracian have no grammatical gender, like Armenian?
We've only got conjectural words:
bredas - pasture
bur - man
diza - fortress
mezena - horseman
rezas - king
rumba-anga? "curved blade" > rhompaia, falx
skaplis - axe
taru - spear
taruthin - spearman

We can only guess at how plurals were formed, but if we guess at the usual Indo-European sorts of endings we'd have the following unit names, assuming -n- is somehow agentive:

mezenas - generic horsemen
taruthinai - generic spearmen
sklapenai - axemen
rumbanganai - falxmen
zibuthizas - noble cavalry
bres skalmana - shortswordsmen (I'm pushing it now...)
kikanas - skirmishers (tribal name Cicones is said to mean "the quick people")

Building-wise, with no words for temple, it might be necessary to borrow Phrygian kavar "sacred site" and iman "idol" with more made up inflections for deity names. I was quite confident about a reconstructed Getic naming language when I started writing this. Now... meh.

[Elmetiacos]

2. Lusitanian
First an apology because I don't know quite what ended up happening in EB1 with Lusitanian. It looks as if the project was abandoned before it was finished and Celtiberian names used instead.

I got a bit obsessed with this a while ago, particularly with a possible link between Lusitanian and Ligurian or Lepontic. The reason for this is the word PALA. It appears on an inscription, probably a memorial, usually classified as Lepontic. The inscription is written in an old Italic alphabet similar to Etruscan, on two staves with round heads; one reads slaniai : uerKalai : Pala and the other Tisiui : PiuoTialui : Pala. The two staves look like elongated Basque Hilarri.

We've got more writing in Lusitanian than in Dacian or Thracian, but still very little and we don't have as many place or personal names because it looks as if the Lusitanian rulers may have spoken Celtic. There are a whole three and a half Lusitanian inscriptions which are fairly easy to look up - they're even on Wikipedia. One says OILAM TREBOPALA INDO PORCOM LAEBO COMAIAM ICCONA LOIMINA OILAM USSEAM TREBARUNE INDI TAUROM IFADEM REUE which is usually translated as something like "A sheep (or ewe) for Trebopala and a pig for Laebo one of the same age for Iccona Loimina, a sheep of one year of age for Trebarune and a breeding bull for Reue." The inscription makes it hard to say Lusitanian is Celtic, because it's kept Indo-European P (porcom) which Celtic didn't (Irish orc "piglet") and the word for bull has the root tauro- instead of *tarwo- we'd expect from a Celtic language. Also there isn't a word for "and" like indi in any known Celtic language. In On The Indo-European Origin of Two Lusitanian Theonyms, Witczak thinks Trebopala is a goddess whose name means "Protectress of the Home" or "Protectress of the Tribe" and that Laebo should be *Lahebo, a dative plural of Laho, the equivalent of the Roman Lares. He also thinks (as do others) Iccona is a similar goddess to the Gaulish Epona.

But what if pala doesn't mean "protectress"? what if it's some sort of sacred stone like in the Ligurian/Lepontic inscriptions? Katia Maia-Bessa suggested this in her paper Syncrétisme Religieux dans la Lusitanie Romaine (I'm afraid it's in French) but without actually citing Ligurian or Lepontic. It got me thinking about a link and the possibility that both languages are "Old European" - Indo-European languages which in the early Iron Age got replaced by Celtic.

Apart from the inscriptions the other source for Lusitanian is dedications to local deities from the Roman period and usually in Latin. Unfortunately none of them say "pala" anywhere. However, Ligurian was said to have been much more widely spoken before the Etruscans, Gauls and Romans moved in, and sometimes a sign of a place having once been Ligurian is said to be a name ending with -sc-. There are only two -sc- names in Roman Iberia; Metallum Vipascense and Magasca and they're both in Lusitanian territory. This is getting a long post and I should start talking about what use it could be in EB2...

[Elmetiacos]

For deities, we've got Iccona as a possible horse goddess and following Witczak the Laho as a local spirit and Reue as the Lusitanian Zeus, then there's the two most popular dedications to the god Endovellicus (94 dedications) and the goddess Bandua (28), plus two probable war gods (possibly Celtic introductions) Coronos and Netonos. Can we get anything useful from the other inscriptions?

We might glean some Lusitanian grammar: o-stem accusatives seem to end in -om: taurom, porcom, angom. doenti probably means "they gave" (Witczak says not, but IMHO he's just tying himself in knots trying to say all I-E initial Ds become Rs - no problem if only Dy- becomes R) so you've got 3rd person plural -nt- as you'd expect (not that EB needs to conjugate verbs... even I'm not mad enough to try and do a Lusitanian voicemod) a-stem datives seem to end in -a (Iccona, Trebopala) and if Witczak's correct, dative plurals in -ebo and i-stem accusatives in -e. On the Arroyo de la Luz stone, carlae may be a locative "at Carla". But that's not much good - we need nominatives, genitives and plurals for a naming language. On Lamas de Moledo, doenti is followed by veaminicori which is a good candidate for a plural - if -cori is a cognate with Celtic *korio or just a borrowing it should be an o-stem noun. We've also got those -oi endings in caelobricoi, reaicoi petranoi... are those genitive plurals? In the Latin dedications there are lots of -aico and -aeco names Bandi Oilienaico - Bandua of the Sheep?

It might be possible to attempt more translations... As a piece of baseless speculation, Lamas de Moledo's REAICOI PETRANOI could contain a pre-Basque loan *lercoin and PIE *pet- to mean "of the cranes with spread wings" while ANGOM is probably a lamb. In Arroyo de la Luz I & II the inscription says: AMBATVS SCRIPSI CARLAE PRAISOM SECIAS ERBA MVITIE AS ARIMO PRAESONDO SINGEIETO INI AVA INDI VEA VN INDI VEDAGA ROM TEVCAECOM INDI NVRIM INDI VDEVEC RVRSENCO AMPILVA INDI LOEMINA INDI ENV PETANIM INDI ARIMOM SINTAMOM INDI TEVCOM SINTAMO. The first two words are Latin. The rest has the usual -OM endings, presumably accusatives. PRAISOM and PRAESONDO might be from PIE kwreiH- and be to do with buying and selling, but that spoils Iccona being Epona because it means labialisation of kw (a feature of Ligurian). SECIAS might derive from PIE segh- or seHg- so it might mean "fixed", "held" or "sought out". ARIMO suggests "highest". If SINGEIETO is related to Celtic Singidunon it might be something to do with falcons, so the next part INI AVA might mean "one bird", but this is guesswork and it doesn't provide anything much useful for EB2 except a possibility of a unit name - Arimi for elite cavalry. Maybe. But Arimo could just as easily refer to a deity. So there aren't really any useful words to be got apart from a possible Celtic loan net- for "warrior" that could form a basis for unit names, and a name for an infantry barracks Trebo Netenaicoi. If only the Lusitanians had sacrificed some horses, things would be that much easier...

a Lusitanian o-stem declension:
sing. / plu.
N Tauro Tauri
V *Taure *Tauroe
A Taurom *Tauro
G *Tauri Tauroi
D Tauro Taurebo
L *Tauroe *Tauroi

[Elmetiacos]

It might be possible to attempt more translations... As a piece of baseless speculation, Lamas de Moledo's REAICOI PETRANOI could contain a pre-Basque loan *lercoin and PIE *pet- to mean "of the cranes with spread wings" while ANGOM is probably a lamb.

Pshaw! I didn't look up enough Indo-European. Following Witczak, REAICOI is another of those collective genitive -aicoi plurals formed from *diewo- with the shift from d > r; PET- could well come from PIE *peit- so it probably means "of the gods of plenty". The whole inscription I'd read as something like:
"The Veaminicori give a shorn upland lamb on the great mound of all the gods of plenty (and) a pig to Jupiter Caelobrigae."
or:
"The Veaminicori give a shorn lamb from the pens to the great vessel of all the gods of plenty (and) a pig to Jupiter Caelobrigae."
I'll explain why if anyone actually cares

Here's something more useful; sound changes between proto-Indo-European and Lusitanian collected from various authors (these) or evident from the corpus of inscriptions [these], which will make it easier to make new words for things with "reasonable" accuracy:
PIE > Lusitanian
p > p [porcom]
b > b [Laebo]
bh > f (Gorrochategui)
t > t [taurom]
d > d [doenti]
dh > θ? (García Alonso)
k' > c [porcom]
g' > g by analogy; L. is centum
g'h > hj? (García Alonso)
k > c [-aicoi]
g > g/c [Attaegina/Attaecina?]
gh > h/χ? (García Alonso)
kw > p [praesondo] labialisation
gw > b as above
k'w > cc [Iccona]
g'w > g? ng?
gwh > w?v? [vea(un)/veaminicori?] <gwhedh- = keep*
s > s [praisom, secias]
w- > b- (García Alonso)

dy > r (Witczak) (he actually thinks all Ds become Rs, I think not)
CrC > CurC (Prósper)
VrV > VhV [La(h)ebo] (Witczak)
e- > i- [Iccona, ifadem]

*which makes VEA-MIN- (<*veath-min-) equivalent to Celtiberian kombalkez, usually translated as "decreed". VEAMINICORI is possibly "the host of the proclamations", some sort of decision making assembly.

[Ibrahim]

interesting work-I hope some EB member will take a look.

[Elmetiacos]

A new piece of writing in Lusitanian was discovered at Ribeira da Venda in 2008 and a paper on it (only in Portuguese, alas) has been published on it:http://ifc.dpz.es/recursos/publicaci...rneiroetal.pdf.
The inscription reads:
[- - - - - - - -] XX • OILAM • ERBAM
HARASE • OILA • X • BROENEIAE • H
OILA • X • REVE AHARACVI • T • AV [...]
IFATE(or IEATE) • X • BANDI HARACVI AV [....]
MVNITIE CARIA(or CARLA) CANTIBIDONE •
APINVS • VENDICVS • ERIACAINV[S]
OVOVIANI [?]
ICCINVI • PANDITI • ATTEDIA • M • TR
PVMPI • CANTI • AILATIO

It's being discussed on the Continental Celtic list. I've also been told by someone who knows a lot more than me that Iccona probably isn't Epona, and that k'w becoming cc and not p is unlikely. Also, this new inscription has harase and (a)haracui, so -r- between vowels (above) can only become -h- before E.

[cmacq]

and that k'w becoming cc and not p is unlikely.

Well then...

there goes my surname.


CmacQ

[Elmetiacos]

Well then...

there goes my surname.

CmacQ

It's only Lusitanian problem and I doubt your surname is Lustanian. The problem for this language is that we've got plenty to suggest labialised velars becoming labials (kw > p and gw > b, in other words) as they did in Greek and 'P-Celtic' Gaulish, but didn't in Latin, 'Q-Celtic' Irish or Celtiberian, such as PRAESONDO and PVMPI. A goddess called Iccona who's the same as the Gaulish Epona appears to go against this, with the only explanation being that Lusitanian changed kw into p but not k'w (an palatalised labialised velar... did I just say that?) However... apparently that is unlikely because most centum Indo-European languages merged the k'w and kw sounds a long time before the kw > p shift (which took place quite late - 1st half of the 1st millennium BC) so Lusitanian would have to have been weird and either kept the sounds separate or undergone the shift very early.

[cmacq]

However... apparently that is unlikely because most centum Indo-European languages merged the k'w and kw sounds a long time before the kw > p shift (which took place quite late - 1st half of the 1st millennium BC)

In the initial stage wouldn't the p shift have to had occurred a bit before that???


CmacQ

[Elmetiacos]

Linear B Greek has the Kw sound intact, in Ancient Greek it's become P. The timeline for Celtic is roughly the same, because it had not occured before the language was established in the Iberian Penninsula and Ireland, putting it in the Hallstatt era. PIE had broken up by ~2000BC at the very latest (and most think at least 1000 years earlier) so we'd be looking (in the absence of evidence from Linear B or Hittite) at the loss of a separate k'w in the early 2nd millennium BC. Therefore, Lusitanian would have to cling on to the separate sounds and/or undergo full labialisation 500-1000 years out of sync with its neighbours.

Also for the Epona-ists, there's the problem of Loiminna. If this is an epithet of Iccona, how can it occur on its own in Arroyo de la Luz? Normally double theonyms only appear when a Roman deity is equated with a native one (e.g. Minerva Sulis) but Iccona isn't a Roman import. I'm beginning to think Iccona isn't a goddess at all.

[cmacq]

before the kw > p shift (which took place quite late - 1st half of the 1st millennium BC)

Precision
Now we’re talking my language. Two small problems here. First, although it represents a form of Greek used in Greece during the Near Eastern Late Bronze Age, Linear B (the writing system) when out of use as the Mycenaean world fell apart. Second, as Mycenaean Greek was primarily restricted to the Greek cul-de-sac, this language could not have represented the mainstream of where Centrum Indo-European was developing. And we all know where that was, right? Well, we all know it wasn't in Greece.

Insertion of Dorian Greeks together with their fellow travelers bears this point quite well. Rather, this alone indicates that the P-shift was occurring during the last two centuries (possibly a bit earlier) of the 2nd millennium BC, otherwise neither the Dorians nor the Latins would have landed were they did, when they did, with their Ps firmly in hand. The important thing is that the worlds of the west and near east completely changed in these few centuries. Its like standing on one side of the grand canyon and seeing the rim of the other side.





CmacQ

[Elmetiacos]

Okay, you may be able to close the gap a bit for the Greeks, but it doesn't affect the early-mid 1st millennium BC date for the Celtic sound shift and since you're saying Greek is away from the mainstream, the Celtic date should be more relevant to the rest (Ligurian, Osco-Umbrian and presumably Lusitanian) Also, remember that prior to 2000BC for the break-up of PIE is the most extreme late date possible with the late dates for Kültepe Hittite and Armenian urheimat theory and all of that. Take any other theory, or even earlier dates for Hittite, and Lusitanian has to stay weird for another 500-4000 years (leaving aside raving bonkers Palaeolithic Continuity theory)

Latin doesn't have labialisation: ΄ιππος = equus.

[cmacq]

Okay, you may be able to close the gap a bit for the Greeks, but it doesn't affect the early-mid 1st millennium BC date for the Celtic sound shift and since you're saying Greek is away from the mainstream, the Celtic date should be more relevant to the rest (Ligurian, Osco-Umbrian and presumably Lusitanian) Also, remember that prior to 2000BC for the break-up of PIE is the most extreme late date possible with the late dates for Kültepe Hittite and Armenian urheimat theory and all of that. Take any other theory, or even earlier dates for Hittite, and Lusitanian has to stay weird for another 500-4000 years (leaving aside raving bonkers Palaeolithic Continuity theory)

Latin doesn't have labialisation: ΄ιππος = equus.

Actually I had Greece not Greek, as there were many forms of the latter and but one of the former. As for Celt in the linguistic sense, I suppose that all depends on which form is being addressed. For example on Goidelic, which is indeed a form of Celt, what date would one impose for a P-shift?





CmacQ

[Elmetiacos]

Actually I had Greece not Greek, as there were many forms of the latter and but one of the former. As for Celt in the linguistic sense, I suppose that all depends on which form is being addressed. For example on Goidelic, which is indeed a form of Celt, what date would one impose for a P-shift?
CmacQ

Goidellic? Never, obviously. The kw > p shift in Gaulish is hard to tie down exactly, but must have occurred some time between the break up of proto-Celtic in the Hallstatt era and the appearance of inscriptions such as the "Latumaros" Vase (c.200BC?) which definitely show the process complete. Goidellic kept the sound long intact (so the Ogams have MAQ, modern Irish & Scots Gaelic mac) while Celtiberian simplified it to a k.