Re: Ligurian Barga and */p/ (was: Ligurian)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Bhrihskwobhloukstroy <bhrihstlobhrouzghdhroy@...> wrote:

>
> 2012/5/18, dgkilday57 <dgkilday57@...>:
> >
> > DGK:
> > This is where distribution begins to matter. If Barg-place-names are not
> > commonly found throughout the whole Pan-Celtic realm,
>
> Bhrihskwobhloukstroy:
> I think that nevertheles a certain amount of traces can be found in
> Transalpine Gaul: Barges (ca. 775 Bargas, Côte-d'Or; 1234 Barias,
> Haute-Loire; Haute-Saône), La Barge, Les Barges (Central and Western
> France), Barjouville (1203 Barjovilla, Eure-et-Loir), Barjon (1169
> Barjum, Côte-d'Or), Barjac (Ariège), where Bargius is by no way a
> prototypical nomen. They are usually analyzed as occurrences of
> Gaulish *barga > Western French barge 'meule de foin', but especially
> when they are mountain or rock names (Les Barges d'Olonne,
> Sable-d'Olonne, Vendéee; Le Bargy, SW of Cluses, Haute-Savoye) a
> derivative of 'mountain' can be more appropriate, just like in
> properly Ligurian area Mont des Barges (NW of Rabou, Hautes-Alpes),
> Mont de la Barjaude (E/NE of Vérignon, Var)
>
> > DGK:
> > but a cluster includes
> > Greater Liguria (with the Serchio and Lima valleys, where Pieri extracted
> > *barga), then it would appear (under your Pan-Celtic model) that those
> > ultra-conservative Porcoberan Celts, who were so good at holding their /p/,
> > were also very good at using *Barg- as opposed to mainstream Celts.
>
> Bhrihskwobhloukstroy:
> Wait a minute. The only instance of Barg- in reasonable proximity
> to Porcobera Valley is Bargagli (Genoa), in the valley of Bisagno
> River, a place whose inhabitants are by the way most hated by the
> Polceverines or inhabitants of Polcévera < *Purcifera = Porcobera
> Valley.

Sorry to hear that. The world already has enough hate.

> Between Bargagli and Barga there are Borzone (< Brezono) and
> Borzonasca (Genoa) < *brig- and Lavagna (Genoa), town and river, <
> *lawo-(p)ania: 'water moor';
> in Cuneo Province there are both Barge in the highest Po Valley and
> Briaglia < *Brigalia nearer to Liguria, in Tanaro Valley;
> in Brescia (< Brixia < *brig-) Province there's Barghe;
> Bargano (Villanova del Sillaro, Lodi) lies between Milano <
> Mediolanum < *Medhyo-plHnom and Cremona < *Kremo-ponah2;

I presume you have the same analysis of Derto:na? Otherwise, if the /o:/ did not arise that way, it provides another isogloss between Ligurian and Gaulish.

> in the Var Departement we have both Bregançon (Bormes[!], arrond.
> Toulon-sur-Mer, canton Collobrières) and Bargème (814 Bergemulu,
> 1026-1064 Bargema; traditionally liked to Berigiema of the Sententia
> Minuciorum!), Bargemon;
> Briançon is both Ligurian (Basses-Alpes, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence;
> Briançonnet Alpes-Maritimes) and Gaulish (Dordogne, Charente-Maritime,
> Indre-et-Loire, Maine-et-Loire, Oise).
> I think this suffices to show that *barg- and *brig- coincide in
> their distribution and that there's no special correlation between
> *barg- and retention of */p/

Certainly there is no simple correlation, but the fact that *barg- increases in frequency toward the East of Gaul, and again toward the South into the historically Ligurian area, is suggestive.

> > DGK: In
> > fact, all your model does is project the base of Celticity downward, so that
> > /p/-retaining Ligurians are renamed as ultra-conservative /p/-retaining
> > Porcoberan Celts. Now, what scholarly purpose can that serve? "I hereby
> > plant this flag and claim this land for /p/-retaining Celts!"
>
> Bhrihskwobhloukstroy:
>
> I insist for the fourth time that it's just a matter of
> terminology, as very aptly pointed out by Yourself. I wish I had never
> used the term 'Celts' in this case. Let's please call them
> 'Conservative Late Indo-Europeans'; what's crucial is whether they
> exhibit any non-Celtic innovation or not. If they don't, we can call
> them 'Ultra-Conservatives' or just how You like; if they do, they earn
> a denomination that can clearly distinguish them from the Celts.
> Another (the other) crucial point is whether all Ancient Ligurians
> retained PIE */p/.
> Since we agree that 1) all Ligurian innovations but */gwh/ > /b/ and
> */-rT-/ > /-arT-/ are shared with Celtic (and with other IE classes as
> well, but never more or even just as systematically as with Celtic)
> and 2) /-arT-/ can be explained as outcome of a lengthened grade, we
> are left with */gwh/ > /b/.

Uh, no, _I_ did not agree that there were only two isoglosses. Those two are simply the most obvious. Another, noted by Petracco Sicardi in "Top. prerom. e rom. della Liguria" (pp. 9-82 of "Top. stor. della Liguria", Genova 1981), is */-dt-/ > /-st-/, occurring in Blustiemelum and Clastidium. P.S. (p. 39) derives Lig. *blusto- from *bHlud-to-, from the extended root *bHleu-d- 'to swell, well up, overflow' vel sim. She takes *-iema as a collective or abstract, so Blustiemelum might be understood as 'place of frequent flooding, place of abundant landslips' vel sim. For Clastidium, rather than *kl.d-to- from the root *keld- which she suggests (pp. 45-6), which would yield Lig. *kalsto-, I believe we need *kl.h1d-to-, Lig. *kla:sto-, from *kelh1-d- 'to strike hard, strike down' vel sim., the zero-grade providing also the base of Latin <cla:de:s>.

Another isogloss is */-onC-/ < */-n.C-/ in Blondelia, from *bHln.dHo- 'reddish, ruddy', Gmc. *blunda-, Skt. bradhna- (P.S. p. 39).

P.S. also sees earlier */e:/ becoming a long open front vowel (in contrast to Gaul. /i:/), like Class. Grk. eta, transcribed as <ae> (cf. scaena, scaeptrum). She derives (saltus) Craedelius from *kre:dH- as found in Lat. <cre:ber>, which can describe a dense forest, crebra silva. Surely you are familiar with this book. I suspect that more isoglosses will turn up with further study.

> Since we agree that every instance of */p/-drop can be interpreted as
> a Celtic intrusion into formerly Ligurian territory, we can't solve
> the second crucial point.

On another matter, however, since Celtic and Italic share the assimilation *p...kW... > *kW...kW..., reflexes of the tree-name *perkWu-, *pr.kWeh2- with */p/-drop must have been borrowed rather than inherited by Celtic. This applies to Hercy:nia, Orku:nia, Arku:nia, and Piemontese <olca>. Trentine <porca> is presumably "Rhaetic" (in Hubschmied's sense), "Illyrian" (in Krahe's sense); we might compromise on "Rhaeto-Illyrian", a Q-Illyrian language spoken in Rhaetia.

> In sum, we have together come to this provisional conclusion:
> Ancient Ligurian exhibited an albeit limited number of phonological
> innovations from PIE;
> */gwh/ > /b/ could be non-Celtic, but it's disputed;
> */-rT-/ > /-arT-/ could be non-Celtic as well, but we agree that it
> could also alternatively represent a characteristic Celtic treatment
> of lengthened grades;
> */p/-drop is disputed and even when it could be evident it may
> reflect Celtic infiltrations (this should in any case suggest to avoid
> a too systematic use of 'Ligurian' as a unitary linguistic label for
> all Ancient Liguria);
> all remaining innovations are shared by Ligurian and Celtic and there
> isn't such a concordance with any other IE linguistic class;
> ergo, Ancient Ligurian is the IE linguistic class most similar to
> Celtic: if */gwh/ > /b/ is true, Ligurian and Celtic are two
> distinguished classes; if it isn't, Ligurian is distinguished from
> Celtic only by a privative opposition (lack - maybe only in restricted
> areas - of certain innovations).

In my view, we do not yet have the totality of phonetic isoglosses between Ligurian and Gaulish (the ONLY securely Celtic language spoken in the area in pre-Roman times), we have only begun to discuss lexical isoglosses (*dHeigW- in Lig. but not Celt., and if I am right about interpreting Lepontic <teu>, *dHeh1- in Lig. but not Celt.) and morphological isoglosses (-asc- in Lig., -isc- in Celt.). Therefore, it would be foolish to regard Ligurian as "almost Celtic" or "para-Celtic" or whatever you are driving at.

DGK