Re: celtic loanwords

I recommend the chapter on contacts between Germanic and Celtic in D.H. Green's _Language and History in the Early Germanic World_ (1998, Cambridge: CUP). Nearly all of the examples shown below are discussed by Green.

(1) Celt. *ri:g- 'king' --> Gmc. *ri:k-

The development of PIE *e: > *i: in this word is diagnostically Celtic. Gmc. *k suggests that the borrowing took place prior to Grimm's Law.

(2) Celt. *amb-aktos (Gallo-Lat. ambactus) 'vassal, servant' --> Gmc. *ambaxt-, *andbaxt-

(3) Celt. *leud-ja: > *loudja: (OIr. luaid) 'lead (Pb)' --> Gmc. laud-a-

If, as seems likely, the word comes from PIE *pleud- 'melt, flow', the loss of *p- can only have taken place in Celtic.

(4) Celt. *brunn- < *bHrus-n- (OIr. bruinne) 'breast' --> Gmc. *brunjo:n- 'breastplate; coat of mail, byrnie'

(5) Celt. *i:sarno- 'iron' --> Gmc. *i:sarna- (perhaps ~ *izarna- < *isárna-)

(6) Celt. *wei-ro- 'twisted' --> Gmc. *wi:ra- (OE wi:r, ON vi:r-) ~ *we:ro:- (OHG wiara) 'wire'

The alternation *wi:r- ~ *we:r- can be explained as a reflection of dialectal *ei ~ *e: in Celtic.

(7) Celt. *sekW-a:n-jo-s > *sepa:njos (hypothetical but plausible) 'follower, companion' > Gothic sipo:ni:s 'disciple'

(8) Gaulish celicnon (< PIE *kelH- 'elevate', cf. hill) 'defence tower' --> Gothic ke:likn

The last two words (7, 8) are restricted to Gothic.

Several Germanic words may be either early loans from Celtic or convergent developments in both groups, e.g. *aiþa-z 'oath' (Celt. *oito-s > OIr. óeth), *gi:sla- 'hostage', *tu:na- 'enclosure, fort' (Celt. *du:no-). *h3orbH-o- 'orphan' is pan-IE, but Germanic and Celtic show semantic convergence (> 'heir, inheritance') in its derivatives. The same is true of *prih2-o- 'dear, favourite' > 'free' (Celt. *rija-, Gmc. *frijo-), where the borrowing of forms either way is out of the question. Celt. *marko-s 'horse' is cognate to Gmc. *marxa-z (and *marx-jo:n- 'mare') but doesn't pop up anywhere else in IE. It is often speculated that this may be a technical wanderwort originating in Central Asia, since vaguely similar 'horse' terms are scattered all the way to China. I wish we could know whether it had cognates in Scythian or Thracian.

A few words were probably borrowed from Germanic into Celtic. One of them is *bro:k- 'trouser leg, (pl.) breeches', a Gmc. root noun, --> Celt. *bra:k-na:- (Gallo-Lat. bracca ~ bra:ca), perhaps before the merger of *o: and *a:.

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: guto rhys

To: cybalist-owner@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2002 9:46 AM

Subject: celtic loanwords

Piotr - thanks you very much for your comments (EXTRACT BELOW). Would you or anyone else be able to expand on the following comment. I am particularly interested in the cultural loanwords and the Germanic names with Celtic etymologies.