Talk:Continental Celtic languages

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[edit] Two different languages... at least!!

These Celtiberian articles are actually full of confusion about the Celtic languages that once were spoken by old Pre-Roman Hispanic people. Celtiberian language is actually a group of related dialects mainly spoken in central Spain and upper Ebro's valley. Hispano-Celtic or Iberian-Proto-Celtic is another group of extinct Celtic languages spoken all along the Iberian Atlantic shores by Lusitanian, Germanian and Artabric tribes. They must not be merged one group with another.

[edit] Gaulish

Interesting. From what I've read, Gaulish (at least some dialects) was pretty close to insular Brythonic languages, and is often classified among Brythonic Celtic languages... and since I live in France, I assume that the more up to date research on Gaulish would come from here. Of course, I might be out of date. So, what's up, and where's this classification from?

Some people group Brythonic and Gaulish together on the basis of the fact that both have the sound change k^w > p. However, that's pretty much all they have in common, and it's a common enough sound change (especially in phonemic inventories previously lacking p, such as the Proto-Celtic one) that it's easy to believe both groups underwent the change separately. The commonalities between Brythonic and Goidelic are much more wide-ranging and are not the sort of thing that is likely to have developed independently twice, making the Insular Celtic hypothesis far more likely than the Gallo-Brythonic hypothesis. User:Angr 14:29, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

And we know that Gaulish did not share these commonalities, and that they must have arisen after Celts moved to the islands, but before the Brythons and Goidels became distinct? Does anybody know reliable, easily accessed materials on the subject? this article lacks in sources, and honestly, I find that theory strange enough that I'd like to check for myself how whoever formulated it came to such conclusions, and whether it is generally accepted as being right, or if it's just a speculative theory among others. --Svartalf 21:40, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll see if I can dig up some sources over the weekend, but briefly, yes, we know that Gaulish did not share these commonalities. Of course we can't know for sure if the "Goidelo-Brythonic" commonalities arose after Celts arrived on the islands or if there was already a "Proto-Goidelo-Brythonic" being spoken on the mainland, but because we only know Goidelic and Brythonic languages from the islands (Breton being a much later return to the continent rather than a group that never left it), it's most convenient to refer to "Proto-Insular Celtic". User:Angr 07:22, 28 July 2006 (UTC)