I know this has been mentioned before, but the connection between Arabic and Celtic has been made previously, and I would love to know of sources that specifically discuss this topic, if any.
New to the study of IE and PIE with a specific interest in Celtic and Germanic. Every little bit helps.
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Octavia Alexander wrote: Matasovic
reconstructs PCeltic *bando-, because of Brythonic forms with /a/. But this
can't a PIE word, so *bend- is actually a pseudo-PIE root..This looks like a
substrate loanword, probably Vasco-Caucasian (Celtic has quite a bunch of them).
.....there's plenty of substrate toponymy items *pant-/*pand-/*pent-/*penn-
which point to a non-IE source. The original meaning could have been 'rock,
crag' (e.g. Spanish peña < *penna) and also 'ravine' (e.g. South Italian
pentuma), then 'mountain'.
This looks like a substrate loanword,
probably Vasco-Caucasian (Celtic has quite a bunch of them). <snort>
'Vasco-Caucasian' isn't even one of the more plausible macro-families. IMHO both
Basque and Celtic would derive from a common source.
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Ishinan: Actually, there is a definite
validation to your consideration of *bend being a substrate
loanword. To be precise, I strongly suggest that you consider the Arabic
'fnd' (great mountain) as the most likely source rather than others.
FND (1) فند
Following are some of the definitions
from Arabic sources; mainly Lisan al-`Arab and Qamuws al-Muhiyt:
A great mountain, a mountain apart from
others, a portion of a mountain, or a great portion thereof, having tallness or
length, some suggest slenderness at the top (pointed), or a head, slender
head (point) or a peak, or a great peak or head of a mountain, a side or
outward part (slope, Fr. pente).
Al-Findu is also the name of a well
known mountain situated between Mecca and Medina in Arabia.
The various usage of these terms dates
from the Classical Arabic i.e. before the 7th c. It should be pointed
out that Arabs did not set foot in Spain until 711 CE when they crossed the
straight of Gibraltar.