From: Dr. Antonio Sciarretta
Message: 11049
Date: 2001-11-06
a) Is there any possibility to trace a isogloss between p-Celtic, p-Italic
and Aeolic Greek ? Is this could be a trait of a extinct people? We can
include Romanian in this group (qu>p). An expanding wave spreading from
central Europe?
I've read that most of scholars think of these as independent developments. However, there is the fact that p-Celtic is more "central" (in terms of geo-linguistics) than q-Celtic (Celtiberian, Gaelic, Lepontic), and that Osco-Umbrian is thought to have spread in Italy later than Latin(oid)
b) Italo-Celtic had the typical trait p-kW>kW-kW (cf. quercus, quinque,
coquo), but perhaps this trait is present in Korkyra island (Korkyra/Kerkyra
< *kWerkWu- <*perkWu "island of oaks"?). Is this a trace of an Italo-Celtic
people in Western Balkans?
An etymology for Corcyra ins. has been given by V. Georgiev as < (proto-)Gk. kroke. But it does not sound very attractive, since there is a Corcyrus mons also in Creta.
c) What's the meaning of suffix -tania in Aquitania, Lusitania, Mauretania,
Tingitania?
Can they reflect ethnics in -anus/-i, from toponyms in -ita/-eta (like Edeta:Edetani just in Tarraconensis) ?
Such suffixes are found both in IE place-names and in some that recall an iberic(-basque) stratum in the Iberian peninsula, with correspondences just in Aquitania and northern Africa