Re: [tied] Re: Celtic and pre-Celtic in Britannia

> > 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.

Thanks for the discussion.
I was speaking about the roots that have been reconstructed with an
e-grade, an o-grade and a zero-grade Ablaut.
With /o/ language I meant simply a language that has an /o/ in its vocalic
system, as a descendant of the reconstructed *o (like Celtic, Italic,
Greek), while an /a/ language has /a/ (like Baltic, Germanic, Thracian etc.)
Is there something wrong in this definition ?
I read various works of F. Villar (one is Indoeuropeos y no indoeuropeos en
la Hispania Prerromana, Salamanca, 2000) that used this same criterion to
distinguish
Celtiberian toponyms (/o/ language, 0 < *p), from "Lusitanian" toponyms
(/o/ language, p < *p), from "Alteuropaeisch" toponyms (/a/ language, p <
*p) in ancient (southern) Hispania. Like some other criteria based on
purely phonetic features (cfr. the V. Georgiev "invention" of Pelasgian,
already discussed in this list), it has something speculative and
simplistic, but can be rather effective (of course if well applied, and I
don't want to say I'm applying it well).
Also J. Udolph (Die Stellung der Gewässernamen Polens innerhalb der
alteuropäischen Hydronymie, Heidelberg, 1990) did the same to explain some
hydronyms of Poland.
This criterion could be used also in other domains, as the Celtic, or
Italic ones are. The basic idea is that before the Celtic expansion in the
continent and on the islands, there was already an IE stratum (who knows,
maybe the one later called Pictish in the British islands) with a
long-range influence and a shared basic vocabulary to form especially
hydronyms (probably, no "towns" at their times). Later, at least Celtic and
Italic superimposed, with their specific vocabulary for toponyms (dunum,
briga, durum etc., resp. teria) and their specific phonetic features (0 <
*p, resp. /f/) and of course their /o/ instead of previous /a/ (cfr.
Ambrones vs. Ombrici/Umbri)

> > 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-].

> > 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.

So, basically your opinion is that all the /a/ we find in the Celtic domain
derive from a native /a/ < *a, or from sonants.
No possibility to stay for the reconstructed *o in *e/*o/*0 Ablaut.
Am I correct ?
Do you (or does someone) find other evidence for a non-Celtic (or
pre-Celtic) stratum in Gallo-Brittonic toponymy?
I am interested in similar discussions also for other domains.

Antonio Sciarretta