--- In cybalist@..., markodegard@... wrote:
> .. No comment can be made on what language this group of current
> Welsh-speakers may have originally spoken before Celtic some several
> thousands of years ago, or what language was spoken in Britain
> before the advent of Celtic.
There is a little information about pre-Celtic languages in Britain:-
(1) A book called `Beulra' or `Glossary' written by Cormac mac
Cuilennáin (king and bishop of Cashel (capital of the kingdom of
Munster in Ireland)), who died in 908 AD (not 1908), says that an old
native language called Ivernian had recently died out. He lists 2
Ivernian words: `fern' = "anything good" and `ond' = "stone". He calls
Ivernian `the Iron-speech' "because it is dense and difficult", but
the real reason is that by his time Irish `Iwern-' = "Ivernian" and
`isern-' = "iron" had fallen together as `iarn'. He says that `clach'
[Irish for "stone"] has 3 names ... [including] `onn' from the
Iron-speech". The modern source that quoted the above guessed that the
`Iver-' < I.E. `pi-wer-' = "fat" = "fertile land", but I suspect that
that may be a coincidence with an old non-I.E. native name.
(2) In Scotland there are a few legible but incomprehensible Ogham
inscriptions that may be in Pictish.