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The article focuses on the role of Celtic languages in Romantic-period travel writing and their impact on narrative construction. Topics include the misrepresentation of travel experiences due to ignoring language differences, the evolving scholarship on Romanticism challenging traditional anglophone perspectives, and the significance of linguistic diversity in understanding Romantic-era Britain.

The so-called “Lugano alphabet” is a northern Italian script that derives from the Etruscan alphabet. It was used to write Celtic texts belonging to the Lepontic language, uncovered in the centre of the Gallia Transpadana (Lombardy in Italy and Ticino in southern Switzerland), ranging from the 6th c. to the 1st c. BC, and a later variety called Cisalpine Gaulish, again located in the Transpadana (Lombardy and Piedmont in Italy), whose earliest texts date from the 4th c. BC, and which represents a later wave of immigrants or invaders. This dialect is distinguished from the former by a few morphological traits, like the patronymic suffix -ikno vs. Lepontic -alo-. While the Lugano script is deciphered in its entirety, some pending issues remain as to the actual use of some of its letters, its evolution and possible external influence from related alphabets. This work will address the problem of the so-called “butterfly sign,” a letter transliterated as , which shows different shapes, some of them easily confusable with , and goes back to Greek san. For the “butterfly sign” a high number of synchronic values and etymological origins has been proposed. The article attempts to show that its use overlaps with that of zeta, transliterated as . Both may have had a single value, and the reflected phoneme is in both cases a voiceless affricate that goes back to Indo-European /st/, /ts/ or /ds/, to epenthesis of /t/ in a sequence *-ns#, or to affrication of /d/ in coda position. The author also evaluates the possibility that the occurrence of san and tau gallicum in some contexts, specifically in codas, is due to mere phonemic reallocation not mediated by sound change.

The linguistic study of Celtic divinities attested on Latin inscriptions has proved instrumental in disclosing a number of facts about ancient religion, the relationship with the Roman rule, and the spread of indigenous or syncretic cults. In fact, minor divinities were worshipped on a local basis only, but even under such unfavourable circumstances they managed to become partly integrated in the religious system of the Roman Empire: they acted in the sphere of the higher gods for a time before they vanished for ever, and they must have been much more common than our fragmentary sources suggest. Crucially, the study of their names also provides priceless clues about the early stages of Celtic phonology and morphology, it also helps illuminate insufficiently known aspects of the evolution of Continental and Insular Celtic and their interaction with Latin. In this work, the authors focus on several hitherto misinterpreted Celtic divine names from Britannia (MEDOCIO, ARNOMECIE, BRACIACAE, ARCIACONI, COROTIACO) and Gaul (MEDVTONI, COBRANDIAE, CENTONDI, ROQVETIO, SINQVATI) and try to test their relative importance for Indo-European language reconstruction, distant cultural relationship of ancient populations, ancient religion with special attention to the interaction of major Roman divinities with minor Celtic ones, Latin and Celtic phonetics and morphology, loan phonology and the spread and adaptation of the Latin alphabet to write texts in the indigenous Celtic languages and foreign names in Latin epigraphy.

Copyright of Language Problems & Language Planning is the property of John Benjamins Publishing Co. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

McWhorter (2002) argued that contact with Norse caused simplifications in English grammar that set English apart from other Germanic languages. This paper focuses on one of the losses McWhorter attributed to the linguistic impact of the Scandinavian invasions, External Possessors. An investigation of electronic Old and Early Middle English corpora reveals that the construction was already on the decline in the Old English period, and that Norse contact cannot explain the Early Middle English data. There is no support for the view that the loss of the construction spread from the Scandinavianized areas southwards. The facts are consistent with the view that while Celtic influence did not cause the loss of the construction in Old English, Celtic speakers shifting to English may have played a role in triggering the initial decline of the construction. Study of non-standard variants of other Germanic languages is needed to increase our understanding of the history of External Possessor constructions in those languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the etymology of the term "beagle," tracing its origins from Middle English and speculating on its possible connections to Old Norse and Celtic languages, shedding light on its evolution and usage over time. Topics include the potential Celtic influence on the name, the linguistic connections to Old Norse terms for dogs, and the cultural and economic significance of beagles in medieval English society.

The article discusses a study on the impact of foreign influences on Old English language. The Old English period is followed by Middle English, Early Modern English, and Modern English. Also mentioned are the Celtic influences on Old English, the Latin influences on Old English, and the Scandinavian influence on Old English.

The article deals with the ancient name of the longest river solely in England, the Trent, flowing past Stoke-on-Trent and Nottingham to the North Sea. In a passage that has raised debate and led to a number of misinterpretations in literature, Tacitus recorded it as (emended) Trisantona, which has been explained from Old Irish sét ‘course’ and Welsh hynt ‘path’ as ‘trespasser, one that overflows’ (of a stream liable to flood). Trisantona or the like would be the name of other rivers, including the Tarrant in Dorset and Tarannon or Trannon in mid-Wales. Yet the interpretation ‘trespasser’ has grave phonetic and semantic defects. They are removed by a new etymology on the basis of Old Irish sét ‘treasure’ (Modern Irish seoid) and Welsh chwant ‘desire’ from hypothetical Common Celtic *suanto-. The paper provides textual, historical and linguistic arguments supporting this etymological interpretation. Trisantona or (preferably) reconstructed *Trisuantona (from *Tresuantona) would thus (instead of ‘trespasser, flooder’) mean ‘she of great desire, she who is much loved.’ The implication is that the Trent (like the English rivers Dee ‘goddess’ or Brent ‘she who is exalted’) was regarded as a Celtic female deity, a passionate and perhaps dangerous entity.

Copyright of Journal of Language Relationship is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Before the late eighth century, with a few exceptions (epigraphy, the languages of the Caucasus and the North-Western Isles), little had been written in Europe in languages other than Latin, Greek and Hebrew. The long ninth century saw this monopoly of the 'three sacred languages' shaken and challenged: several vernacular languages (Celtic, Germanic and Slavonic, but also, if to a lesser extent, Romance) appeared in writing for the first time and others developed in significant ways. This paper, introducing this special issue on Vernacular Languages in the Long Ninth Century, starts with an assessment of the linguistic situation of Europe before the changes began; it goes on with a summary of the main developments known to have taken place in the long ninth century; it then addresses their possible connections and observable entanglements and identifies the conditions that allowed the emergence and the sustained flourishing of written vernaculars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we propose a functional account of the Welsh mood system, focussing on responsives in particular. The discourse functions of responsives are interpreted through the concept of negotiation within the systemic functional linguistic framework, which offers a rich model for accounting for both initiations and responses, including possible tracking and challenging moves. By examining the interaction of mood together with specific features of Welsh, e.g. a dominant VSO clause ordering, mood particles, Subject ellipsis and a complex system of negation, we are able to show that Welsh tends to highlight interpersonal meanings in clause initial position. As the first functional description of Welsh, we also set out important directions for future research, based on the findings presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the principal Celtic languages, Irish is conspicuous for the paucity of printed production between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries. Various explanations have been advanced for this by Irish scholars and historians. Among them number suggestions that, since printing was an urban phenomenon, and since towns in Ireland were largely English-speaking, printers therefore lacked the necessary language skills. This paper evaluates such explanations through an exploration of printing in Ireland of texts in Celtic languages other than Irish. More was printed in Welsh than in Irish in Dublin in the 1740s and 1760s, while two substantial collections of poetry in Scottish Gaelic were printed in Cork and Galway around 1800. The paper concludes that Irish printers could work in different languages, and their supposed lack of linguistic skills was not therefore a major factor in preventing the production of printed Irish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the results of a research project carried out over a period of 25 years on the spoken Irish Gaelic of the Aran Islands, Co. Galway, Ireland. It combines microdialectology with sociolinguistics and investigates a wide range of phonological, grammatical, and lexical variables. In addition to revealing complex patterns of geolinguistic variation involving small local areas on the main island and on neighboring islands, it also shows the clear influence of age, gender, and individual creativity on the patterns of variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Doncaster, known to the Romans as Danum, is a town on the River Don, Yorkshire. Its British-Latin name (deriving from that of the river) has been obscure: although interpretations ‘wet’ or ‘bold’ or ‘flowing’ have been proposed from alleged parallels with the Danube, Dnieper, Don, or Rhône of the European continent, they are inconclusive, because they lack equivalents in Brittonic. A new etymology is needed. The one suggested here is ‘gift; gifted one’ or even ‘she who brings gifts’ (designating a river nymph). It is supported directly by the Welsh word dawn ‘gift’ and indirectly by the River Annan of Scotland, recorded in British-Latin as Anava, a form related to Welsh anaw ‘wealth, riches, largess, bounty, gift’ and presumably reflecting Celtic belief in the stream as a bountiful goddess. The Yorkshire Don (like the River Don of Tyneside) would thus have a name explicable in purely Celtic terms. Reference to Indo-Iranian, legitimately applied to continental rivers including the Russian Don and Dnieper, can here be dropped. Besides this, Doncaster can be proved as unrelated both to the “Cair Daun” of Historia Brittonum’s Twenty-Eight Cities of Britain (where the toponym is surely a corruption of Cair Dam or Cardiff), and to the goddess Dôn of the twelfth-century Four Branches of the Mabinogi. On the other hand, the Yorkshire Don can be shown as a namesake not only of the River Don of T neside, but of the River Doon in south-west Scotland.

This work deals with the proper names attested in the lead tags of Siscia in Pannonia, the territory which, in the author’s view, reveals an intersection of at least four different branches of Indo-European: Latin, Venetic, Celtic, and Illyrian, and thus holds clues to multiple linguistic discoveries. Documents from Siscia contain names of different filiations. While most names are unmistakably Roman, and others are Greek and even Semitic, they also feature some Celtic instances, occasionally never attested before. The author has selected a number of proper names that can be labeled as Italic or, probably unduly, as Venetic, and that have been paid no attention thus far. The linguistic evidence, however limited, shows that these names may tie up well with an Italic series of names and adjectives whose ultimate morphological origins are sometimes disputed. An in-depth analysis of the etymology of these proprial forms that draws a wide range of Indo-European and other related data presents a most convincing testimony of the degree to which the ancient Pannonia was a linguistic patchwork resulting from language contacts between Celtic and Italic peoples with Illyrians. Such an analysis, although far from being exhaustive as to the areal distribution and linguistic attribution of the onomastic data, however, enables the author not only to suggest plausible interpretations for the names under study but also to clarify some specific problems of Indo-European morphology and morphophonemics, as well as to trace some unmanifested ties both within and beyond the Italic language family.

Ancient inscriptions containing divine names and religious terms are of the utmost importance for the appreciation of Celtic religion in its various forms. These sources have never been systematically documented and analysed, which constitutes the goal of the F.E.R.C.AN. project launched in 1998 by the Austrian Academy of Sciences. For the time being, a number of publications have been produced on the outcome of the F.E.R.C.AN. workshops, in which new findings and etymologies, terminological problems, several questions concerning the sociology of religion, and methodological issues are discussed. In a nutshell, some preliminary results of the F.E.R.C.AN. project are: a more nuanced view of all the elements contained in the votive formulae; the distinction between theonyms and epithets; the identification of several layers of theonyms; and the detection of theonymical synonyms (the so-called interpretatio Romana). This review deals with most of the questions addressed by the participants of the Trier workshop in 2015, highlighting a number of specific etymological and methodological issues.

The inscriptional remains of Gaulish preserve syntactic behaviours that are not expected from the perspective of the diachronic schemes usually posited for the development of early Insular Celtic syntax from Proto-Indo-European. Widespread evidence is attested, particularly for the behaviour of clitics, that does not seem reconcilable with many of the assumptions made in previous studies regarding the nature of the syntax of Proto-Celtic. Gaulish also evidently features scrambling-type phenomena such as left branch extraction that are not usually thought to appear in other Celtic languages. An analysis which begins with an assessment of these features leads to a more empirically predicated and consistent understanding of the early development of Celtic word order than has been proffered previously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work aims to clarify a number of issues concerning the etymology of personal names attested in Latin epigraphy in the Alpine region, especially in Gallia Transpadana, Venetia et Histria, Pannonia, and Noricum. The author selected a number of comparative and superlative proprial forms which may be classified as Celtic or Italic and attempted to establish their language attribution based on the analysis of their etymology, geographic distribution and the sound changes that they presumably underwent. The author also offers an explanation of the different and apparently contradictory types of vowel syncope characteristic of the Gaulish superlative forms, which is based on a hypothesis about the successive accent shifts, before and after the split-up of the Celtic language family. Additionally, this analysis has some bearing on the interpretation of several South-Picene inscriptions, namely that from Penna Sant’Andrea. The paper also seeks to make a methodological point by exhibiting how much the evidence of proper names with clearly discernable patterns may contribute to the understanding of particular issues related to the phonology and morphology of the whole group of languages. Such information may lead, in its turn, to new etymologies, and therefore to better understanding of some particular features of the Celtic languages in their early period.

The article reviews Scott Lloyd’s survey of Arthurian place names in Wales, and the background to this material in the literature and scholarship of the modern and medieval periods. The reviewer presents an overview of Lloyd’s scope and methodology, situating it within the context of current trends in the wider field of Celtic studies. Lloyd’s survey shows that Arthurian toponymics is a modern as much as a medieval problem. The mutual influence between the map-makers on one hand, and the scholars and story-tellers on the other, is best regarded as a dynamic work-in-progress, rather than a passive snapshot of timeless folk tradition. Lloyd’s most significant discovery is the relative fluidity of Arthurian toponymics, with many of the place names in question first appearing on the cartographic or literary record no earlier than the 19th century. The case of the common Welsh place name Arthur’s Quoits or Coetan Arthur is considered, and Lloyd’s implication of a 17th century origin for this form is critically discussed. Attention is drawn to the alternating currents of scepticism and reconstructionism that have defined Arthurian scholarship and literature from the Tudor period onwards. The author then offers some concluding thoughts on Arthur’s “ontological ambiguity,” and the powerful stimulus this seems to have exerted on topographical and historiographical speculation, both modern and medieval.

The etymological study of Early Irish began in the Old Irish period (c. 700‒900 a.d.), under the influence of Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae, and, because of its flexible hermeneutic potential, it enjoyed great popularity in the middle and early modern periods. It is only with the rise of modern comparative linguistics, especially of Indo-European linguistics in the second half of the 19th century, that the art of Irish etymology attained scholarly rigour. Over the past 150 years, paradigm shifts in Indo-European studies (laryngeal theory, accent/ablaut classes of inflection, derivational morphology) and the development of modern technology (digitisation of texts, e.g. eDIL, ISOS) have repeatedly chang-ed the methods and the course of Irish etymological studies. The impact of some of these external factors will be illustrated with examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I examine the evidence brought forward by Katherine Forsyth in support of the hypothesis that the 'Pictish' ogham inscriptions of Scotland are linguistically Celtic. Having examined the five most promising inscriptions minutely, I conclude that they are in fact not Celtic, and that 'Celtic-looking' sequences in them are due to coincidence. Thus, the language of this corpus of inscriptions remains unknown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After providing an analysis of Celtic phonology as per the approach to phonology known as Laryngeal Realism, this paper addresses the differing realizations of the two mutations common to Goidelic and Brittonic, the first lenition and nasalization. It is proposed that differences in interarticulatory timing between consecutive segments led to the attested differing realizations of these mutations. Some attention is also paid to the differing realizations of nasalization between Irish and Scottish Gaelic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to look at the changes currently taking place in regards to the Basic Colour Term buí in Irish. Irish, a Celtic language, is, along with English, one of the official languages of Ireland although it is very much a minority one, with an overwhelming number of L2 speakers of varying linguistic ability. As a result of this, and the fact that the language itself is surrounded by a sea of English, English syntax and vocabulary--and its way of perceiving the world--is constantly being brought to bear on the language, and L1 speakers are continually being exposed to this and coming under its influence. One illustration of this is the Basic Colour Term buí. Traditionally, this term had its focus on 'yellow' but also covered 'orange' through light brown or 'tan'. However, it is nowadays most frequently understood by L2 speakers as a one-to-one equivalent for the English term 'yellow', with oráiste 'orange' and donn 'brown' being used, as in English, to cover those other shades that would traditionally be part of buí. To this end, I present results from field-work carried out amongst L1 native speakers of Irish to see how far this change has taken place in their own understanding of the language and how much the traditional Irish colour system is yielding to that of English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on the problem of identification of Caer Urfe, one of the Twenty-Eight Cities of Britain listed by John Leland (d. 1552) from Henry of Huntingdon (d. 1155) after the ninth-century Historia Brittonum. Many of the twenty-eight have defied identification; but Leland’s proposal of Tynemouth for Caer Urfe is now maintained by archaeologists on Tyneside, in the north of England. The author argues that Caer Urfe is to be associated with St Cynfarch, near Chepstow, in south-east Wales. It is one of ten Welsh religious communities named in the catalogue together with cathedral cities and ancient British hillforts, none of them on Tyneside. The paper also examines the case of Arbeia, recorded by Notitia Dignitatum as the name of the Roman fort at South Shields, Tyneside. The author shows that Arbeia has no link with Caer Urfe, nor does it mean ‘Arabs,’ supposedly relating to the garrisoning there after 300 CE of troops from Iraq. Many Roman forts in Britain were called after streams close to them; Arbeia is hence best understood on the basis of Welsh erfin ‘turnips,’ also the name of a stream near Aberystwyth, as ‘ stream noted for wild turnips’. The article is supplemented with an appendix containing a list of the twenty-eight cities from Leland’s catalogue, with toponyms rectified after the twelfth-century Book of Llandaff and other Welsh documents.

The paper focuses on the British family name Broderick that for many years was believed, but never adequately explained, to derive from the British personal name Rhydderch. However, in the recently published Oxford Dictionary of Family Surnames in Britain and Ireland (Oxford University Press, 2016) the editors have changed tack and suggested that the name may in fact be a nickname derived from Middle English meaning ‘broad-backed, broad shouldered’, found also in English place-names in the north of England to mean ‘broad ridge’, etc. The editors supply ample examples of both the family name and the place-name in all its spellings. Whilst the forms may be suitable in place-names the given forms in the context of the family name Broderick seem to be late, as the name itself looks to be of much earlier provenance. In looking at the name the author argues that the family name Broderick in fact derives from the British personal name Rhydderch and seeks to explain the relevant phonological developments.

The paper addresses the etymology of the toponym Brăíla, the name of a Lower Danube town in Romania. The author provides historical and geographic data showing the antiquity of the toponym and, at the same time, its exceptional rarity resulting from its embeddedness into a complex ethno-linguistic area. The latter largely explains the difficulty of its etymological interpretation. Theoretically, it may be derived from Celtic, Turkic, Slavic, or Romanian sources. The author also shows that besides evident isoglosses the collected onomastic material may display isophones, i.e. occasional phonetic coincidences. Based on typological data, the author considers existing hypotheses related to the etymology of Brăíla. The analysis provides evidence that leads to refute any suggestion of its Celtic, Turkic, or Romanian origin and indicates the word *Brail(-o/-a), most likely a Southern Slavic personal name or nickname, as the most probable etymon for the toponym in question. It seems to derive from the common Slavic verb *bьrlati/*bьrl’ati with a broad semantic scope that includes meanings like ‘tinker,’ ‘mess,’ etc.

This paper deals with the long-debated question of the origins of tree names and the methodological problems related to PIE etymologies. It aims at putting forward some basic principles of etymology, and at applying these principles to the analysis of twelve tree names. It also seeks to demonstrate the relevance of substratic pre-IE languages' influence on the lexicon, and at isolating geographic areas corresponding to pre-Indo- European lexical stocks lying behind modern Celtic languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have long assumed that the modern popularity of the Celts stems from an eighteenth-century 'Celtic Revival' linked to the poems of Ossian and associated with the first stirrings of the Romantic movement. This article challenges this explanation by considering the study of linguistic texts and ideas of the ancient Celtic language in the broad field of antiquarianism from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. Instead, a new narrative arc for the Celts is proposed: rather than experiencing a revival in the eighteenth century, ideas about the Celts were actually in a long-term pattern of decline relative to their earlier pan-European popularity. Historicising early-modern ideas of the ancient Celtic language and its modern derivatives also helps to illustrate that the study of languages was primarily a tool for historical investigation into the origins of Europe and its different nations: antiquarianism was philological as much as it was archaeological. As such, 'linguistic antiquarianism' was the key driver of research into the ancient Celts and was the base on top of which eighteenth-century literary interest in the Celts developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the proto‐Celtic plosive system through the lens of Laryngeal Realism. Drawing upon phonetic data from contemporary Celtic languages and philological data from medieval Insular Celtic and ancient Continental Celtic languages, it concludes that the active Laryngeal feature in these languages is not [voice], but [spread glottis], and that this feature should be projected back to proto‐Celtic. Such an analysis allows for a much more straightforward analysis of the evolution of the early Celtic plosive system, and, in particular, allows for a non‐stipulative analysis of perhaps the best known of Celtic sound changes, the loss of proto‐IE */p/, in simple aerodynamic terms. It is demonstrated, furthermore, that the loss of proto‐IE */p/ cannot be explained by contact with pre‐Basque or Iberian, but, instead, was, in all likelihood, a natural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reviews the new book by D. N. Parsons focusing on Welsh place names containing merthyr, a loan from Latin martyrium which, however, has a debatable meaning in toponymy. The study is based on the analysis of all known attestations of relevant place names and their geographical distribution. The author also pays particular attention to place names with the element merthyr replaced by semantically close words llan or eglwys ‘church’ and extends his analysis outside Wales, considering similar place names from other areas. The reviewer discusses the methodological features of the book which can be interesting not only for specialists in toponymy, but also for celtologists and historians of European Christianity.