Looking for good resources on Gaulish...in English

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sucaeyl
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Re: Looking for good resources on Gaulish...in English

Post by sucaeyl »

Thanks for this! It'll be an interesting read.

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Re: Looking for good resources on Gaulish...in English

Post by kuroda »

Ars Lande wrote: I wonder if anyone tried to derive a conlang from Gaulish with historical French sound changes.
Yes.

(Failed/lost interest :( )
CONLANG Code: C:S/G v1.1 !lafh+>x cN:L:S:G a+ x:0 n4d:2d !B A--- E-- L--- N0 Id/s/v/c k- ia--@:+ p+ s+@ m-- o+ P--- S++ Neo-Khitanese

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Re: Looking for good resources on Gaulish...in English

Post by marconatrix »

Afaik, apart from a few obscure hydronyms, all the recorded pre-gaelic place and personal names from Scotland look to be British in the South, and something not very different from British in the North. All those aber's and penn's and so on. Plus some hints of Brittonic influence on Scots Gaelic.

It would be fun to reinvent Pictish but it would have to be at least 80% invention, hopefully informed deductive invention. Take a look though at the attempts on the web to 'restore' 'Cumbrian' i.e. the Late Brittonic/Proto Welsh of North Britain, or perhaps you shouldn't (!) Anyway they have more to go on than with Pictish as the language lasted longer and was closely related to a well known language, Welsh.

Then there's "West-Country Brittonic" which is a sort of mash-up of Nance's Unified Cornish and Lewis' Llawlyfr Llydaweg Canol, of which the less said the better. (Why did I even mention it ... aaagh!)

Actually Dewrad (was it you?) did pretty well with his Gaulish derived modern Channel Island language, which looked quite believable to me.

--------

Someone said that Gaulish and early Irish don't look 'Celtic'. Q. How would you characterise 'Celtic'?
Personally I don't have too much of a problem with seeing Gaulish as Celtic, as I can recognise many familiar nouns and adjectives at least. The problem I have is with Celtiberian, can anyone demonstrate why this is categorised as Celtic rather than just 'unknown IE'?
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Re: Looking for good resources on Gaulish...in English

Post by WeepingElf »

marconatrix wrote:Actually Dewrad (was it you?) did pretty well with his Gaulish derived modern Channel Island language, which looked quite believable to me.
Yes, it was him.

I also have a modern Continental Celtic language project (for the League of Lost Languages), but it hasn't developed much so far. It is meant to be spoken in the Alps and doesn't have typically Insular Celtic features such as VSO word order or initial mutations. It is in part a response on Dewrad's Arvorec, which does have those features. (In my opinion, those features developed after the Celtic languages got established in the British Isles, under the influence of a pre-IE substratum.)
marconatrix wrote:Someone said that Gaulish and early Irish don't look 'Celtic'. Q. How would you characterise 'Celtic'?
This is something that some people get messed up. The Insular Celtic languages (i.e., all of those still spoken, including Breton which immigrated from Britain around 500 AD) have certain highly characteristic typological features, namely VSO word order and initial mutations. These, however, are not what defines them as "Celtic". They are Celtic because they belong to a particular branch of Indo-European, to which Gaulish and Celtiberian also belong - despite lacking those "typically Celtic" features.
marconatrix wrote:Personally I don't have too much of a problem with seeing Gaulish as Celtic, as I can recognise many familiar nouns and adjectives at least. The problem I have is with Celtiberian, can anyone demonstrate why this is categorised as Celtic rather than just 'unknown IE'?
I cannot provide you with details, but:

There are certain phonological developments that define the Celtic branch of IE, such as the loss of */p/ in most contexts, and Celtiberian has them. There are also some words and word-forms that are characteristic of Celtic, and are also found in Celtiberian.
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Re: Looking for good resources on Gaulish...in English

Post by linguoboy »

Dewrad wrote:OK. Have a go at this and get back to me with any questions. :wink:
I've got one: what's the evidence for "φ > w /[+back]_[+nasal]"? I'm trying to derive a Brythonic cognate to Irish cuan (< PC *kaφno-) and having a helluva time finding parallels. (I thought perhaps tân < *taφno-, but the consensus seems to be that it derives from *teɸnet-.)

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Re: Looking for good resources on Gaulish...in English

Post by Dewrad »

linguoboy wrote:
Dewrad wrote:OK. Have a go at this and get back to me with any questions. :wink:
I've got one: what's the evidence for "φ > w /[+back]_[+nasal]"?
Matasović cites *sowno- "sleep" from PIE *supno- as evidence.
Some useful Dravian links: Grammar - Lexicon - Ask a Dravian
Salmoneus wrote:(NB Dewrad is behaving like an adult - a petty, sarcastic and uncharitable adult, admittedly, but none the less note the infinitely higher quality of flame)

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Re: Looking for good resources on Gaulish...in English

Post by Zaarin »

WeepingElf wrote:There are certain phonological developments that define the Celtic branch of IE, such as the loss of */p/ in most contexts, and Celtiberian has them. There are also some words and word-forms that are characteristic of Celtic, and are also found in Celtiberian.
Indeed, isn't this why Lusitanian is generally not classified as Celtic--because in some instances it has a <p> (assuming <p> does in fact equal /p/) where it ought not have a /p/ if it were Celtic?
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Re: Looking for good resources on Gaulish...in English

Post by WeepingElf »

Zaarin wrote:
WeepingElf wrote:There are certain phonological developments that define the Celtic branch of IE, such as the loss of */p/ in most contexts, and Celtiberian has them. There are also some words and word-forms that are characteristic of Celtic, and are also found in Celtiberian.
Indeed, isn't this why Lusitanian is generally not classified as Celtic--because in some instances it has a <p> (assuming <p> does in fact equal /p/) where it ought not have a /p/ if it were Celtic?
AFAIK, yes.
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Re: Looking for good resources on Gaulish...in English

Post by James0289 »

I thought I would bump this back up again -- it looks interesting. I've usually got an idea for a Celtic conlang buzzing around in my head, with only limited success in getting it crystallised in a semi-coherent manner.

In fact, not just Gaulish, but any references to materials about Celtic diachronics would be interesting -- sound changes from Proto-Celtic, grammatical developments, that sort of thing.

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Re: Looking for good resources on Gaulish...in English

Post by hwhatting »

I don't remember if Language in Pictland has already been linked to on the ZBB, but it doesn't do any harm. Relevant to the discussion.

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Re: Looking for good resources on Gaulish...in English

Post by Nortaneous »

WeepingElf wrote:There are certain phonological developments that define the Celtic branch of IE, such as the loss of */p/ in most contexts, and Celtiberian has them.
What are the other phonological developments? (I ask because Proto-Basque has some Celtic-like features: no /p/, fortis-lenis contrast in /n l r/ like Old Irish...)
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Re: Looking for good resources on Gaulish...in English

Post by James0289 »

Nortaneous wrote:What are the other phonological developments?
According to the entry for Proto-Celtic in John Koch's "Celtic Culture: a Historical Encyclopedia", at least the following:

Consonants:
PIE palato-velar ḱ, ǵ and velar k, g :> Proto-Celtic velar k, g
PIE gw :> PC b
PIE's voiced aspirated plosives :> de-aspirated to b, d, g
PIE's p :> deleted in most environments. Word medially before a consonant, it became /X/. Some instances of (P)IE /p/ merged with /kw/ (presumably affected by later changes, such as the one which has been termed the P/Q split), as in *penkwe-to "fifth" > Old Irish cóiced (but Gaulish pinpetos)
IE /s/ + /nasal/ :> geminated nasal; e.g. *es-mi "I am" > Gaulish imi, OIr. am
IE's double dental consonants :> the so-called "tau gallicum", i.e. /ts/ or /st/, exact phonemic value unclear
PIE's laryngeals merged and were mostly lost. Around resonants, the associated vowel tended to become /a/.
PIE syllabic /m n/ :> am, an
PIE syllabic /l r/ :> /ri li/ before (P)IE's kw, t, k, ḱ, gw, g, ǵ, b and the aspirated plosives

Vowels:
IE ē :> ī
IE ō (also ōH, where H is a laryngeal) :> ū word finally, ā non-finally
Last edited by James0289 on Sun Jan 11, 2015 6:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Looking for good resources on Gaulish...in English

Post by James0289 »

Here's a little list of what I've found about Gaulish so far.

Available on the interwebz: Available in print books:
  • Chapters 1-3 of The Celtic Languages, second edition (eds. Martin J. Ball & Nicole Müller), Routledge. (Namely, 1. Typological aspects of the Celtic languages, 2. The emergence of the Celtic languages, 3. Continental Celtic -- general overviews of Gaulish, its attestations and its placement within Celtic.)
  • Joseph Eska (2008) Chapter 8, "Continental Celtic" (in The Ancient Languages of Europe, ed. Roger D. Woodard; Cambridge) -- includes descriptions of Gaulish, Hispano-Celtic (= Celtiberian) and Lepontic
  • John Koch's (2006) Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia, vols 1-3, ABC-CLIO

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Re: Looking for good resources on Gaulish...in English

Post by Zaarin »

Thanks for the additional resources, James and hwhatting. :)
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Re: Looking for good resources on Gaulish...in English

Post by Bristel »

Oh nice. This thread might further develop into a good resource thread on Celtic in general.

My conlang Ercunic is Celtic (set in the Hercynian Forest and other parts of Germania), and it frequently reminds me of Irish more than Gaulish, but there are some reflexes that look Gaulish as well.
[bɹ̠ˤʷɪs.təɫ]
Nōn quālibet inīquā cupiditāte illectus hoc agō
Yo te pongo en tu lugar...
Taisc mach Daró

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Re: Looking for good resources on Gaulish...in English

Post by Bristel »

Dewrad wrote:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

Pāpos donyos est gnātos riyos etic samalos canti balcoteron etic iānoterā.

Pèif deugne est né ri e sémaux chent bélquière e jéntère.

Tous les êtres humains naissent libres et égaux en dignité et en droits.
Ercunic:
Cách doin est ñath rí onct saval caint balcáché onct *rechtáché.
[kaːx donʲ est ɲaθ rʲiː onkt saval kantʲ balkaːxeː onkt rextaːxeː]

(*although I'm not sure what root "rights" comes from in your example, *yāno-?)
[bɹ̠ˤʷɪs.təɫ]
Nōn quālibet inīquā cupiditāte illectus hoc agō
Yo te pongo en tu lugar...
Taisc mach Daró

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Re: Looking for good resources on Gaulish...in English

Post by James0289 »

Bristel wrote:Ercunic:
Cách doin est ñath rí onct saval caint balcáché onct *rechtáché.
[kaːx donʲ est ɲaθ rʲiː onkt saval kantʲ balkaːxeː onkt rextaːxeː]

(*although I'm not sure what root "rights" comes from in your example, *yāno-?)
Sweet. ^_^

I think he has it coming from yāno- "true, just, correct" + -ter, a nominalising suffix from Welsh (John Morris Jones has it as a 'comparative suffix', peculiarly).

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Re: Looking for good resources on Gaulish...in English

Post by mèþru »

Has anyone made a Gaulish altlang with Old Frankish as an influence? (With little to no Latin).
ìtsanso, God In The Mountain, may our names inspire the deepest feelings of fear in urkos and all his ilk, for we have saved another man from his lies! I welcome back to the feast hall kal, who will never gamble again! May the eleven gods bless him!
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Re: Looking for good resources on Gaulish...in English

Post by mèþru »

Where can I find a good lexicon for Gaulish? I googled and got several results that looked very different from each other, and none of them had enough words for an altlang.
ìtsanso, God In The Mountain, may our names inspire the deepest feelings of fear in urkos and all his ilk, for we have saved another man from his lies! I welcome back to the feast hall kal, who will never gamble again! May the eleven gods bless him!
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Re: Looking for good resources on Gaulish...in English

Post by Matrix »

Well, there's La Langue Gauloise by Georges Dottin, 1920. But it's in French, so if you don't know that, you'll have a bit of trouble using it.
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Adúljôžal ônal kol ví éža únah kex yaxlr gmlĥ hôga jô ônal kru ansu frú.
Ansu frú ônal savel zaš gmlĥ a vek Adúljôžal vé jaga čaþ kex.
Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh. Ônal zeh.

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Re: Looking for good resources on Gaulish...in English

Post by hwhatting »

Matrix wrote:Well, there's La Langue Gauloise by Georges Dottin, 1920. But it's in French, so if you don't know that, you'll have a bit of trouble using it.
If being in French is not a problem, there's the more up-to-date dictionary of Xavier Delamarre (from 2003).

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