From: guto rhys
Message: 14503
Date: 2002-08-24
Thanks for the answer. Very interesting.
Do you happen to remember the Celtic names of the chieftains of the Cimbri? My books are in Wales while I am in Madrid, which makes it difficult for me to research properly ('Gaulish Personal Names' eg.).
Most sources with which I am familiar place the linguistic boundary between Celtic and Germanic around the present Dutch border with Germany but the situation does seem unresolved, because, as you mention, there does seem to be some evidence of Celtic spoken more to the East.
I doubt very much if 'Cimbri' is related to Cymru/Cymry (both being the same word, only quite recently spelt differently to differenciate between the country and the inhabitants). Cymry (being the more 'correct' form is the plural (<*com+brogi) while Cymro 'Welshman' is from the singular (<*com+brogos) meaning 'of the same area'. At the time of Tacitus, the word is likely to have been pronounced 'combrog-'. As I see it, one would then have to explain not only 'o>i' in the first syllable, 'o>i' in the second but also the loss of final 'g'. I admit it is very tempting to see a connection. Does 'Cimbri' have and proposed Germanic etymologies?
Very interesting about the dialects of the area. Would a Celtic substratum (itself having masculine, feminine and neuter genders) have caused the confusion you mention? I can think of a few examples in Breton where the gender of a noun has apparently changed to conform with that of French, but do other languages (French for example) follow a similar pattern caused by a linguistic substratum?
Guto