Re: [tied] Affects of immigrant communities in language change

Joseph wrote:

> As you are well aware,
> the Hallstatt and Latene complexes define Celt culture, thus the
> development of primitive, verb first, kw-ish, q-Celt-like

languages,

> likely dates to the MB Age Tumulus Culture.

Excuse me, but what makes you think that verb-initial position is an
archaic trait in Celtic languages? All of the evidence points to a
floating system, where the verb could take different positions in the
sentence - and it is a later development (in Insular Celtic only)
that fixed the verb first (even though remnants of the old system can
still be seen in some older Welsh and Irish poetry).

> As a recap, as the IE languages moved from east to west, overtime
> they began to diverge along a east-west axis. Thus, those on

leading

> western edge become more Celt like and those that remained in the
> east more Thracian-Balt like. That at some point the eastern

language

> group is very different from the western group, similar to what has
> been noted as the q to p shift in Celt. Then as large-scale
> migrations occur to Greece, Balkans, Italy, Scandinavia, north
> central Russia, the major European languages emerge. This

represented

> a rapid divergence of the eastern group primarily along a north-

south

> axis.

The -p- and -q- split in Celtic is quite a minor one, and does not on
its own indicate any great divergence in the Celtic dialects.

> There is one more point to be made. This is about the linguistic

seam

> between the major western and eastern language groups. The way I

see

> it is this linguistic seam would be centered on Germany and

Denmark,

> and would represent languages that were Celt-like but included
> elements also found in the eastern language group. Culturally, the
> same should be expected; a culture that was Celt-like but included
> element found in the eastern cultural sphere. This would be, what

has

> been called p-Celt.

I think that you need to present a lot more evidence of your
East/West Celtic "seam". What are the specific traits of the two
different branches?

- Chris Gwinn