----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2000 11:27
AM
Subject: [cybalist] Cumbrian sheep counting
numerals
Dear Hakan,
The similarity between teddera
and Greek tessares is coincidental and misleading. 'Three' and
'four' (teddera, meddera) seem to me to
be deformed Celtic numerals (most likely feminine, the critters in
question being ewes) with a little phonological levelling between them and
p- > m- (Cumbrian Celtic was a variety of
Brythonic and a close relative of Welsh, so *kW >
*p in '4'). Cf. the following:
3: Welsh tair, Gaulish
tidres, Old Irish teoir < PIE
*ti-s(o)r-es
4: Welsh pedair, Old English
cetheoir < PIE *kWete-s(o)r-es
These numerals are fascinating in themselves. They
have exact counterparts in Sanskrit (tisras,
catasras) and are a kind of living fossil -- a survival
from the times when there was no feminine/masculine gender contrast and a
numeral referring to females was DERIVED by adding a special word-forming
suffix, rather than receiving a feminine INFLECTION. In other words, the
contrast was lexical, not grammatical. The feminine suffix
*-sor survives also in the word for 'sister'
(*swe-sor-); it was also very common in Hittite (as
-sar-as) and Luwian (-sr-), e.g. Hittite
suppi- 'pure, clean' gives
suppi-sar-as
'virgin'.
Gigot presumably goes back to
something like *gWigont, or whatever the Cumbrian reflex of
*wik@... may have been. There are some Celtic specialists on
Cybalist; maybe they can help.
This sheep-counting numeral set is, if I'm not
mistaken, longer than the complete list of otherwise attested Cumbrian words.
Three precious items are quoted in an eleventh-century manuscript (Leges inter
Brettos and Scottos) and I'm not sure if ANY other such material exists (of
course Cumbrian toponyms show Celtic elements, but such evidence is
indirect).
Piotr
> To David James -
> Your message about
the Cumbrian sheep counting
> numerals is one of the most interesting
messages I've
> seen on CyBaLiSt so far. The fact that a separate,
>
archaic-looking set of numerals has survived into our
> time is
fascinating to me - I haven't heard about
> anything like this before. You
pointed out that the
> words for "five" and "ten" have a Celtic origin
and
> asked if the others were just "fanciful inventions". I
> don't
think so - these words look very ancient to me
> (even though it is also
obvious that they have been
> made to ryme with each other). Compare
"tethera" /
> "teddera" (four) with Greek "tessares" or "gigot"
>
(twenty) with Latin "viginti". A professional linguist
> would no doubt
find more and deeper historical
> connections than I am able to do. Let us
know if you
> learn more about this!
>
Hakan