Re: Celtic and pre-Celtic in Britannia

> Is there anybody interested in considering the existence of an IE,
> non-Celtic stratum in ancient Britannia?

Sure.

> Starting from the fact that Celtic was a /o/ language, a simple

criterion

> to separate Celtic and non-Celtic toponyms could be looking for

ones that

> have an /a/ where /o/ would be expected from Ablaut of a PIE root.

What evidence is there that Celtic was an "/o/" dialect? can you give
some examples? If I am not mistaken, Celtic certainly has native
examples of a-grade forms of PIE roots.

> I found:
> 1) Aballava (Rav.), if this comes from *abel- 'apple'.

We should note here that -aua may actually be a Manuscript corruption
of -ana. Actually, the various sources for Brittonic onomastic
material are quite corrupt, so we should be careful with
which "correct" form we use.

> while 2) Alauna, Alaunus fl. (many, Ptol., Rav., Ant.) can be
> interpreted as well as 'streaming water', from the root *el-/ol-
>(in an /a/ language > *al-) and the *aw- coming from the previous
> one, in an /a/, thus non-Celtic language.

Alauna comes ultimately from an earlier *Alamna, where the root *al-
(suffixed form *al-o-) is "nourish/to grow", thus *Alamna
is "Nourisher/Provider" (related to Latin alumnus, but with an active
meaning in Celtic, from PIE *al-o-mn). Common Celtic -mn- is often
reduced to -un- in Late Gaulish and Brittonic.

> The same *al- is found in
> 3) Alobergium (Rav.). Here, -bergium can be related to *bherg^h-,
> but since Celtic has already briga 'hill' coming from this root, it
> has to be the briga-equivalent in another language different from
> Celtic.

Celtic briga "hill" is the zero-grade form of *bhergh- "high" - a
Celtic *berg- can simply represent the full e-grade form of *bhergh-
"high" or even *bhergh- "protect". I will have to check X.
Delamarre's DLG to see what he has to say on Celtic berg-. Once
again, Alo- may be from *al- "nourish/rear".

> 4) Ardaunium (Rav.). Again, a second component *aw-, with a first
> component that resembles Skr. ardati 'to flow', Lith. place-name
> Ardija, but tells nothing about /a/ or /o/ feature, because of Gk.
> ardo 'to bedew'

I will need to check on this one. I do not believe that we have an
alleged *aw- in this name. Ard- may be from Celtic *ardu- "high", or
we may even have a *ar[e]-daun- [damn-].

> 5) Brunavis (Rav.). Here, the same *aw- as a second component,
> while the first, if it can be related to *bhru:- 'bridge', cannot
> be Celtic that already has briva. Otherwise, if it is from a root
> (Pokorny) *bhreu-(n-) 'spring', cfr. germ. Brunnen, it tells us
> nothing about /a/ or /o/ feature.

I think this might be a corrupt form.

> 6) Aesica (Rav.). As many other toponyms in ancient Europe, here
> the root should be *eis- and Ablaut-variants, 'rapid' (often said
> of water). The version with /a/ couldn't therefore belong to an /o/
> language. Apparently related to the Ablaut-variant *is- are Isca(s)
> fl. (Ptol., Rav.) and Isurium (Ptol., Ant., Rav.)

It could also come from an original *ai-s- or *ais-, but an a-grade
of eis- "passion" seems possible. It could be related to Gaulish
theonym Aesus.

> 7) Sabrina fl. (Ptol.), Sarna (Rav.). Here I see a descendant (in
> an /a/ language) of *seu-/sou-/su- 'a juice' > *saw- > *saw-rn-a >
> Sàbrina, Sarna > Severn. Compare Savo fl. (Ita), Sava/Saus fl.
>(Pan), Savia (Tar), Ohg. sou 'juice', Skr. sava 'id.' But probably
> on this rather large river a lot of material has been already
> written. Somebody can help me here ?

I will have to check on this, but offhand I think that Sabrina might
come from *sam-r- (perhaps related to Gaulish samaro-, which we have
already discussed), because m+r can give Gallo-Brittonic -br-.

> 8) Tamarus fl. (Ptol., Rav.) If from *tem- 'to cut', it should be
> the /o/ Ablaut-variant in an /a/ language. But again we have here
> also Tamesa fl. (the Thames) and probably something more authored
> has been said on it. Who helps me ?

I am fairly certain that a Celtic etymology has been proposed for the
Tam- names. Once again, I would recommend Xavier Delamarre's
Dictionnair de la langue gauloise, as well as Kenneth Jackson's
Language and History in Early Britain.

- Chris Gwinn