Italo-Celtic

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Italo-Celtic
(proposed)
Linguistic classification Indo-European
  • Italo-Celtic
Proto-languageProto-Italo-Celtic
Subdivisions
Language codes
Glottolog None

In historical linguistics, Italo-Celtic is a hypothetical grouping of the Italic and Celtic branches of the Indo-European language family on the basis of features shared by these two branches and no others. There is controversy about the causes of these similarities. They are usually considered to be innovations, likely to have developed after the breakup of the Proto-Indo-European language. It is also possible that some of these are not innovations, but shared conservative features, i.e. original Indo-European language features which have disappeared in all other language groups. What is commonly accepted is that the shared features may usefully be thought of as Italo-Celtic forms, as they are certainly shared by the two families and are almost certainly not coincidental. The archaeological horizon with which a hypothetical Italo-Celtic language family is often associated, before the split between Italic and Celtic languages, is that of the Bell Beaker culture. [5]

Contents

Interpretations

The traditional interpretation of the data is that both sub-groups of the Indo-European language family are generally more closely related to each other than to the other Indo-European languages. That could imply that they are descended from a common ancestor, Proto-Italo-Celtic, which can be partly reconstructed by the comparative method. Scholars who believe that Proto-Italo-Celtic was an identifiable historical language estimate that it was spoken in the 3rd or 2nd millennium BCE somewhere in South-Central Europe.

That hypothesis fell out of favour after it was re-examined by Calvert Watkins in 1966. [6] Nevertheless, some scholars, such as Frederik Kortlandt, continued to be interested in the theory. [7] In 2002 a paper by Ringe, Warnow and Taylor, employing computational methods as a supplement to the traditional linguistic subgrouping methodology, argued in favour of an Italo-Celtic subgroup, [8] and in 2007, Kortlandt attempted a reconstruction of a Proto-Italo-Celtic. [9]

Emphatic support for an Italo-Celtic clade came from Celtologist Peter Schrijver in 1991. [10] More recently, Schrijver (2016) has argued that Celtic arose in the Italian Peninsula as the first branch of Italo-Celtic to split off, with areal affinities to Venetic and Sabellian, and identified Proto-Celtic archaeologically with the Canegrate culture of the Late Bronze Age of Italy (c. 1300–1100 BC). [11]

The most common alternative interpretation is that the proximity of Proto-Celtic and Proto-Italic over a long period could have encouraged the parallel development of what were already quite separate languages, as areal features within a Sprachbund. As Watkins (1966) puts it, "the community of -ī in Italic and Celtic is attributable to early contact, rather than to an original unity". The assumed period of language contact could then be later and perhaps continue well into the first millennium BC.

However, if some of the forms are archaic elements of Proto-Indo-European that were lost in other branches, neither model of post-PIE relationship must be postulated. Italic and especially Celtic also share several distinctive features with the Hittite language (an Anatolian language) and the Tocharian languages, [12] and those features are certainly archaisms.

Forms

The principal Italo-Celtic forms are:

A number of other similarities continue to be pointed out and debated. [14]

The r-passive (mediopassive voice) was initially thought to be an innovation restricted to Italo-Celtic until it was found to be a retained archaism shared with Hittite, Tocharian, and possibly the Phrygian language.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Italic languages</span> Branch of the Indo-European language family

The Italic languages form a branch of the Indo-European language family, whose earliest known members were spoken on the Italian Peninsula in the first millennium BC. The most important of the ancient Italic languages was Latin, the official language of ancient Rome, which conquered the other Italic peoples before the common era. The other Italic languages became extinct in the first centuries AD as their speakers were assimilated into the Roman Empire and shifted to some form of Latin. Between the third and eighth centuries AD, Vulgar Latin diversified into the Romance languages, which are the only Italic languages natively spoken today, while Literary Latin also survived.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indo-European languages</span> Language family native to Eurasia

The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family—English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, and Spanish—have expanded through colonialism in the modern period and are now spoken across several continents. The Indo-European family is divided into several branches or sub-families, of which there are eight groups with languages still alive today: Albanian, Armenian, Balto-Slavic, Celtic, Germanic, Hellenic, Indo-Iranian, and Italic; another nine subdivisions are now extinct.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tocharian languages</span> Extinct Indo-European languages in Asia

The Tocharianlanguages, also known as the Arśi-Kuči, Agnean-Kuchean or Kuchean-Agnean languages, are an extinct branch of the Indo-European language family spoken by inhabitants of the Tarim Basin, the Tocharians. The languages are known from manuscripts dating from the 5th to the 8th century AD, which were found in oasis cities on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin and the Lop Desert. The discovery of these languages in the early 20th century contradicted the formerly prevalent idea of an east–west division of the Indo-European language family as centum and satem languages, and prompted reinvigorated study of the Indo-European family. Scholars studying these manuscripts in the early 20th century identified their authors with the Tokharoi, a name used in ancient sources for people of Bactria (Tokharistan). Although this identification is now believed to be mistaken, "Tocharian" remains the usual term for these languages.

The Anatolian languages are an extinct branch of Indo-European languages that were spoken in Anatolia. The best known Anatolian language is Hittite, which is considered the earliest-attested Indo-European language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laryngeal theory</span> Hypothesis that Proto-Indo-European had phonemes beyond those reconstructed through comparison

The laryngeal theory is a theory in historical linguistics positing that the Proto-Indo-European language included a number of laryngeal consonants that are not reconstructable by direct application of the comparative method to the Indo-European family. The "missing" sounds remain consonants of an indeterminate place of articulation towards the back of the mouth, though further information is difficult to derive. Proponents aim to use the theory to:

Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venetic language</span> Extinct Indo-European language of northeast Italy

Venetic is an extinct Indo-European language, most commonly classified into the Italic subgroup, that was spoken by the Veneti people in ancient times in northeast Italy and part of modern Slovenia, between the Po Delta and the southern fringe of the Alps, associated with the Este culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Balto-Slavic languages</span> Branch of the Indo-European language family

The Balto-Slavic languages form a branch of the Indo-European family of languages, traditionally comprising the Baltic and Slavic languages. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European branch, which points to a period of common development and origin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Celtiberian language</span> Extinct Celtic language of Iberia

Celtiberian or Northeastern Hispano-Celtic is an extinct Indo-European language of the Celtic branch spoken by the Celtiberians in an area of the Iberian Peninsula between the headwaters of the Douro, Tagus, Júcar and Turia rivers and the Ebro river. This language is directly attested in nearly 200 inscriptions dated from the 2nd century BC to the 1st century AD, mainly in Celtiberian script, a direct adaptation of the northeastern Iberian script, but also in the Latin alphabet. The longest extant Celtiberian inscriptions are those on three Botorrita plaques, bronze plaques from Botorrita near Zaragoza, dating to the early 1st century BC, labeled Botorrita I, III and IV. Shorter and more fragmentary is the Novallas bronze tablet.

The glottalic theory is that Proto-Indo-European had ejective or otherwise non-pulmonic stops, *pʼ *tʼ *kʼ, instead of the plain voiced ones, *b *d *ɡ as hypothesized by the usual Proto-Indo-European phonological reconstructions.

In Indo-European linguistics, the term Indo-Hittite is Edgar Howard Sturtevant's 1926 hypothesis that the Anatolian languages split off a Pre-Proto-Indo-European language considerably earlier than the separation of the remaining Indo-European languages. The prefix Indo- does not refer to the Indo-Aryan branch in particular, but stands for Indo-European, and the -Hittite part refers to the Anatolian language family as a whole.

Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, is the hypothetical ancestral proto-language of all known Celtic languages, and a descendant of Proto-Indo-European. It is not attested in writing but has been partly reconstructed through the comparative method. Proto-Celtic is generally thought to have been spoken between 1300 and 800 BC, after which it began to split into different languages. Proto-Celtic is often associated with the Urnfield culture and particularly with the Hallstatt culture. Celtic languages share common features with Italic languages that are not found in other branches of Indo-European, suggesting the possibility of an earlier Italo-Celtic linguistic unity.

As the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) broke up, its sound system diverged as well, as evidenced in various sound laws associated with the daughter Indo-European languages. Especially notable is the palatalization that produced the satem languages, along with the associated ruki sound law. Other notable changes include:

The phonology of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) has been reconstructed by linguists, based on the similarities and differences among current and extinct Indo-European languages. Because PIE was not written, linguists must rely on the evidence of its earliest attested descendants, such as Hittite, Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, and Latin, to reconstruct its phonology.

The particles of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) have been reconstructed by modern linguists based on similarities found across all Indo-European languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Centum and satem languages</span> Indo-European linguistic classification

Languages of the Indo-European family are classified as either centum languages or satem languages according to how the dorsal consonants of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) developed. An example of the different developments is provided by the words for "hundred" found in the early attested Indo-European languages. In centum languages, they typically began with a sound, but in satem languages, they often began with.

The following is a table of many of the most fundamental Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) words and roots, with their cognates in all of the major families of descendants.

Proto-Tocharian, also spelled Proto-Tokharian, is the reconstructed proto-language of the extinct Tocharian branch of the Indo-European languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Proto-Italic language</span> Ancestor of Latin and other Italic languages

The Proto-Italic language is the ancestor of the Italic languages, most notably Latin and its descendants, the Romance languages. It is not directly attested in writing, but has been reconstructed to some degree through the comparative method. Proto-Italic descended from the earlier Proto-Indo-European language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indo-European migrations</span> Migrations out of the Proto-Indo-European homeland

The Indo-European migrations are hypothesized migrations of peoples who spoke Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and the derived Indo-European languages, which took place from around 4000 to 1000 BCE, potentially explaining how these related languages came to be spoken across a large area of Eurasia spanning from the Indian subcontinent and Iranian plateau to Atlantic Europe, in a process of cultural diffusion.

References

  1. ↑ Kruta 1991, pp. 54–55.
  2. ↑ Tamburelli, Marco; Brasca, Lissander (2018-06-01). "Revisiting the classification of Gallo-Italic: a dialectometric approach". Digital Scholarship in the Humanities. 33 (2): 442–455. doi:10.1093/llc/fqx041. ISSN   2055-7671.
  3. ↑ Prósper, Blanca Maria; Villar, Francisco (2009). "NUEVA INSCRIPCIÓN LUSITANA PROCEDENTE DE PORTALEGRE". EMERITA, Revista de Lingüística y Filología Clásica (EM). LXXVII (1): 1–32. Retrieved 11 June 2012.
  4. ↑ Villar, Francisco (2000). Indoeuropeos y no indoeuropeos en la Hispania Prerromana [Indo-Europeans and non-Indo-Europeans in Pre-Roman Hispania] (in Spanish) (1st ed.). Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca. ISBN   84-7800-968-X . Retrieved 22 September 2014– via Google Books.
  5. ↑ Mallory, James Patrick (2023). "From the steppe to Ireland: the impact of aDNA research". In Kristiansen, Kristian; Kroonen, Guus; Willerslev, Eske (eds.). The Indo-European puzzle revisited integrating archaeology, genetics, and linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 140–141.
  6. ↑ Watkins, Calvert, "Italo-Celtic Revisited". In: Birnbaum, Henrik; Puhvel, Jaan, eds. (1966). Ancient Indo-European dialects. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 29–50. OCLC   716409.
  7. ↑ Kortlandt, Frederik H.H., "More Evidence for Italo-Celtic", in Ériu 32 (1981): 1-22.
  8. ↑ Ringe, Don; Warnow, Tandy; Taylor, Ann (March 2002). "Indo-European and Computational Cladistics" (PDF). Transactions of the Philological Society. 100 (1): 59–129. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.139.6014 . doi:10.1111/1467-968X.00091 . Retrieved May 12, 2019.
  9. ↑ Kortlandt, Frederik H.H., Italo-Celtic Origins and Prehistoric Development of the Irish Language , Leiden Studies in Indo-European Vol. 14, Rodopi 2007, ISBN   978-90-420-2177-8.
  10. ↑ Schrijver, Peter (1991). "V.E Italo-Celtic, The Development of the Laryngeals and Notes on Relative Chronology". The Reflexes of the Proto-Indo-European Laryngeals in Latin. Amsterdam: Rodopi. pp. 415ff. ISBN   90-5183-308-3.
  11. ↑ Schrijver, Peter (2016). "17. Ancillary study: Sound Change, the Italo-Celtic Linguistic Unity, and the Italian Homeland of Celtic". In Koch, John T.; Cunliffe, Barry (eds.). Celtic from the West 3: Atlantic Europe in the Metal Ages – Questions of Shared Language. Oxford, UK: Oxbow Books. pp. 489–502. ISBN   978-1-78570-227-3 . Retrieved May 12, 2019.
  12. ↑ Nils M. Holmer, "A Celtic-Hittite Correspondence", in Ériu 21 (1969): 23–24.
  13. ↑ Andrew L. Sihler, New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, OUP 1995, p.145, §141.
  14. ↑ Michael Weiss, Italo-Celtica: Linguistic and Cultural Points of Contact between Italic and Celtic in Proceedings of the 23rd Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference, Hempen Verlag 2012

Bibliography

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