Re: Odp: Lepontic

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 116
Date: 1999-10-27

 
----- Original Message -----
From: gwydionash@...
To: cybalist@eGroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 1999 9:51 PM
Subject: [cybalist] Re: Lepontic

So, could we be looking at a Celtic language that broke off early
enough from the rest of the Celtic dialects in order to appear
para-Celtic by the time the first inscriptions appear, the differences
possibly being the results of outside influences upon the language,
whether from an IE language or a non-IE language?  Or could we be
looking at a non-Celtic language, but IE nevertheless, that was in
close contact with Proto-Celtic before splitting off, thus explaining
the Celtic innovations that are present within it as well as the
differences?  Also, are the differences, such as case endings related
to any other branch of IE, or do they appear non-IE?  

Chad Brown
IE? - Yes, certainly; morphological features connect it with Celtic and/or Italic.
Celtic? - Hard to tell; a language from which only a few more-or-less formulaic sentences have survived is difficult to class with any precision. One could say, cautiously, that it fits in the Italo-Veneto-Celtic cluster, being probably closer to Celtic than to its other members.
 
Piotr