Re: Celtic & Italic: Romance?

> > What can we say about Celtic and Italic languages: could they

form a

> > special group?
>
> It was once thought so, but not any longer - there is too much

evidence

> against it. They were, however, in close contact, so they share

some

> features.

There are still some notable modern Celtic scholars that argue for an
Italo-Celtic language family - if I am not mistaken, Joseph Eska is
one such scholar.

> >Do Romance languages (Portuguese, Spanish, French,
> > Italian...) become from the "union" of Celtic languages and the
> > popular Latin laguage?
>
> No. There may be some influence from Celtic speakers in French, in
> particular, but the degree of it is still disputed, and at the

most, it is

> minimal. The Romance languages are pure derivatives from late

spoken Latin,

> showing different degrees of contact with an innovating centre

(presumably

> Italy).

In French, the influence is mostly seen in the form of a number of
inherited Gaulish vocabulary words (according to different sources,
anywhere from a few hundred to a thousand, I believe). There also
might be some other types of Gaulish influence on French - for
instance, French aveugle "blind" (from Latin ab-oculus) is sometimes
seen as a calque on Gaulish ex-ops.

- Chris Gwinn