Re: [tied] Re: root *pVs- for cat

He's referring to Scots Gaelic pronunciation of <b> as
/p/. Once you weed out thes false positives, then
you'll have the real NWB words. I don't think anyone
is doubting you.
I've read that Scots Gaelic and Icelandic are the only
languages in Northern or Western Europe to devoice
voiced stops and aspirate unvoiced stops. Is this
true? It is documented that many of first Icelandic
settlers arrived from the Hebrides or N Scotland and
that many of the Scottish clans were founded by
Vikings --including Clan Alasdair, which like a dozen
or so others, goes back to SomarliDi, a name later
corrupted to Somharle, etc. and then to Sorley in
English.
If the existence of this phenomenon is not mere
coincidence, then it must go back to c. 800 CE/AD. Did
such a trair ever exist in varieties of Old Norse? Did
it possibly exist in Pictish or Cumbrian (N. Briton)?


--- tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
> > > If you want to ignore the NWBlock 'issue' (other
> people
> > > call it a language), that is the way to go.
> >
> > The issue in question was whether some such
> language had
> > anything to do with this <p> ~ <b> alternation.
>
> If 'some such language' means NWBlock the answer is
> yes, NWBlock words
> do have p/b alternation, as mentioned by Kuhn:
>

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/49284

>
>
> > In the case
> > of the borrowings it obviously doesn't. Of the
> words that I
> > mentioned, at most two are relevant, and quite
> possibly only
> > one; observing that this is the case does not
> require
> > ignoring anything.
>
> And here 'some such language' can't mean NWBlock,
> since you are
> considering only the examples from Celtic, you
> supplied yourself, not
> those supplied by Kuhn.
>
> What did you mean?
>
>
> > Note also that if in fact it really is primarily a
> ScGael
> > phenomenon, then the odds are very much against
> its having
> > anything to do with NWB influence except in some
> tiny
> > fraction of cases: not only should it appear
> already in EIr,
>
> Why?
>
>
> > but s what appears to be a better explanation is
> available.
>
> Of course it is better after you excluded NWBlock,
> without giving a
> reason for that.
>
>
> Torsten
>
>
>
>

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