Hallo!

On Sun, 27 Jun 2010 18:18:17 +0100, R A Brown wrote:

> Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
>  > Hallo!
>  >
>  > On Sun, 27 Jun 2010 07:41:39 +0100, R A Brown wrote:
> [snip]
>  >> Yep - tho several interesting similarities with the
>  >> Italic branch have led some to posit an earlier
>  >> 'Italo-Celtic' subdivision.
>  >
>  > Yes.  While some of these similarities are probably
>  > archaisms, others appear to be genuine shared
>  > innovations, but they are not many, and the whole matter
>  > very controversial.
> 
> Yes, it  is. but IMO one cannot dismiss the possibilty.

Indeed.  It is seriously discussed by specialists (for instance,
the late, lamented Warren Cowgill was pro Italo-Celtic) and
certainly not crackpot faire.

>  > [Pidgin Punic hypothesis]
>  > I have heard of that, yes, but in my opinion it is utter
>  > tosh. Apart from noting that such a trade jargon would
>  > not be likely to replace the native languages of the
>  > entire British Isles,
> 
> Well, English has come close to doing that.  But even by the 
> 7th cent, much of Brittonic speaking Britain had given way 
> either to Gaelic or to various Norse and Saxon dialects. The 
> Britons held on only in the western part.

But English was not a trade jargon spoken in a few ports along
the southern coast.  It was the language of a massive wave of
conquerors who came to stay, and brought in their families.

>  > one can definitely say that the
>  > Insular Celtic languages with their complex grammars
>  > (especially Old Irish; the younger Goidelic languages as
>  > well as the British ones have simplified a bit, but still
>  > have a more complex morphosyntax than to expect from a
>  > creole) do not look at all like creoles of any sort!
> 
> I agree with you over Irish.  Old Irish has a very complex 
> morphology and doesn't give the appearance, as far as I 
> know, of any creolization.

Right.

> But from what I understand the 'Celtic' languages of Britain 
> & Gaul had morphologies more similar to what we find in 
> Latin. The "weirdness" of Welsh, Cornish and Breton develops 
> together with a reduction in morphology, especially with 
> nouns, and also there's a growing tendency, which continues 
> to the present day, to use analytical verb forms rather than 
> synthetic ones; one could believe some degree of 
> creolization took place.

The Brythonic languages have lost their case system, yes, and
have no absolute/conjunct distinction in their verbal inflections,
though there are traces of the latter in Old Welsh.  The tendency
towards analytical verb forms is a fairly recent one, and cannot
be blamed on a Pre-Celtic substratum.  Also, I wouldn't consider
the simplification of the PIE verb system one can see in Latin
and other western European IE languages a case of "creolization",
though perhaps a substratum played a role.

> But the development of the "weird features" of Insular 
> Celtic is puzzling and there is no evidence anything similar 
> happening in related continental languages.

Indeed not.

> [...]
> 
>  > Pictish is still a mystery.  Some people consider it 
>  > non-Indo-European;
>  > others say it was just an aberrant British Celtic 
>  > language, perhaps one
>  > with many loanwords from a non-IE substratum.
> 
> All true, indeed. Furthermore, it is not certain that when 
> the ancients referred to 'Picti' they always meant the same 
> people. The world merely means "painted people"! Some 
> scholars hold that those anciently called 'Picti' were both 
> a pre-IE people and one (or more) later Brittonic people(s).

Sure.  And we know how little the Romans cared about ethnic and
linguistic affinities between "barbarian" tribes.  *Anybody*
living north of Hadrian's Wall, wearing face paint and resisting
the Roman attempts at dominating northern Britain was a "Pict"
to them, no matter what kind of language he spoke.  Hence, it
doesn't really make sense to speak of a "Pictish language".
There perhaps were several - some Celtic, some not.

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