Re: Lat. gladius and Sorothaptic

I've been examining in detail what I told you Coromines had to say about gladius, and I now see I was completely misled. When he says the word may come directly from a Sorothaptic *klauiios he's not speaking of Celtic kladios (> Lat. gladius > Cat. gladi) but of a postulated origin *glavius for French glaive. This is after he notes that in Catalan there's gladi/glasi and also glavi, and in Occitan there are both glazi and glavi, but that in French there is only glaive. He assumes the first is the Gallicism gladius (from Celtic kladios, he says) while the second is --plausibly-- the (independent) Sorothaptic word that he relates to the Baltic names for the sword he mentions. He sees, or seeks, no other point in common for the two words. That leaves out the question you're interested in: when does exactly the k- in Celtic kladios becomes the g- in the Latin Celticism gladius. Coromines doesn't comment about that, but then it is also clear that another k > g shift demands explanation: the one in Sorothaptic *klauiios to the Latin *glavius.

One riddle wrapped in another, as Churchill would say. Regards from Barcelona.

Ton