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28-635: The name of the river is of unknown origin. Nineteenth-century theories, such as a derivation from the Proto-Celtic * yt-ese 'the water', and alleged to be cognate with the River Tees in England (anciently Athesis , Teesa ), have never been accepted by Celtic onomasts and are now completely obsolete. The river source is near the Reschen Pass (1,504 metres (4,934 ft)) close to

56-471: A chain shift . The terms P-Celtic and Q-Celtic are useful for grouping Celtic languages based on the way they handle this one phoneme. But a simple division into P- / Q-Celtic may be untenable, as it does not do justice to the evidence of the ancient Continental Celtic languages . The many unusual shared innovations among the Insular Celtic languages are often also presented as evidence against

84-422: A P- vs Q-Celtic division, but they may instead reflect a common substratum influence from the pre-Celtic languages of Britain and Ireland, [1] , or simply continuing contact between the insular languages; in either case they would be irrelevant to the genetic classification of Celtic languages. Q-Celtic languages may also have /p/ in loan words, though in early borrowings from Welsh into Primitive Irish, /kʷ/

112-656: A date for Proto-Celtic as early as the 13th century BC, the time of the Canegrate culture , in northwest Italy, and the Urnfield culture in Central Europe, implying that the divergence may have already started in the Bronze Age. The phonological changes from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) to Proto-Celtic (PC) may be summarized as follows. The changes are roughly in chronological order, with changes that operate on

140-440: A reflex is the known derivative of an earlier form, which may be either attested or reconstructed. A reflex that is predictable from the reconstructed history of the language is a 'regular' reflex. Reflexes of the same source are cognates . First, languages that are thought to have arisen from a common proto-language must meet certain criteria in order to be grouped together; this is a process called subgrouping. Since this grouping

168-454: A word), it is likely that this pattern was retained from its mother language. The Most Natural Development Principle states that some alterations in languages, diachronically speaking, are more common than others. There are four key tendencies: The Majority Principle is applied in identifying the most likely pronunciation of the predicted etymon, the original word from which the cognates originated. The Most Natural Development Principle describes

196-481: Is based purely on linguistics, manuscripts and other historical documentation should be analyzed to accomplish this step. However, the assumption that the delineations of linguistics always align with those of culture and ethnicity must not be made. One of the criteria is that the grouped languages usually exemplify shared innovation. This means that the languages must show common changes made throughout history. In addition, most grouped languages have shared retention. This

224-554: Is lost in PC, apparently going through the stages * ɸ (possibly a stage *[pʰ]) and * h (perhaps seen in the name Hercynia if this is of Celtic origin) before being completely lost word-initially and between vowels. Next to consonants, PC * ɸ underwent different changes: the clusters * ɸs and * ɸt became * xs and * xt respectively already in PC. PIE * sp- became Old Irish s ( f- when lenited, exactly as for PIE * sw- ) and Brythonic f ; while Schrijver 1995 , p. 348 argues there

252-786: Is met by the Passer river from the north. The section between Merano and Bolzano is called Etschtal , meaning Adige Valley. South of Bolzano, the river is joined by the Eisack and turns south through a valley which has always been one of the major routes through the Alps, connecting the Reschen and the Brenner passes, at 1,370 metres (4,490 ft) considered the easiest of the main Alpine passes. The Chiusa di Salorno narrows at Salorno and marks

280-459: Is possible to reconstruct a Proto-Celtic word for 'iron' (traditionally reconstructed as *īsarnom ) has long been taken as an indication that the divergence into individual Celtic languages did not start until the Iron Age (8th century BC to 1st century BC); otherwise, descendant languages would have developed their own, unrelated words for their metal. However, Schumacher and Schrijver suggest

308-404: Is similar to the first criterion, but instead of changes, they are features that have stayed the same in both languages. Because linguistics, as in other scientific areas, seeks to reflect simplicity, an important principle in the linguistic reconstruction process is to generate the least possible number of phonemes that correspond to available data. This principle is again reflected when choosing

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336-440: Is the hypothetical ancestral proto-language of all known Celtic languages , and a descendant of Proto-Indo-European . It is not attested in writing but has been partly reconstructed through the comparative method . Proto-Celtic is generally thought to have been spoken between 1300 and 800 BC, after which it began to split into different languages. Proto-Celtic is often associated with the Urnfield culture and particularly with

364-411: Is the practice of establishing the features of an unattested ancestor language of one or more given languages. There are two kinds of reconstruction: Texts discussing linguistic reconstruction commonly preface reconstructed forms with an asterisk (*) to distinguish them from attested forms. An attested word from which a root in the proto-language is reconstructed is a reflex . More generally,

392-642: Is too scanty to allow a secure reconstruction of syntax , though some complete sentences are recorded in the Continental Gaulish and Celtiberian . So, the main sources for reconstruction come from Insular Celtic languages with the oldest literature found in Old Irish and Middle Welsh , dating back to authors flourishing in the 6th century AD. Proto-Celtic is usually dated to the Late Bronze Age , ca. 1200–900 BC. The fact that it

420-845: The Avisio , Noce, and Fersina rivers join. The Adige crosses Trentino and later Veneto , flowing past the town of Rovereto , the Lagarina Valley , the cities of Verona and Rovigo and the north-eastern part of the Po Plain into the Adriatic Sea . The Adige and the Po run parallel in the river delta without properly joining. The Adige is connected to Lake Garda by the Mori–Torbole tunnel , an artificial underground canal built for flood prevention. The following rivers are tributaries to

448-526: The Hallstatt culture . Celtic languages share common features with Italic languages that are not found in other branches of Indo-European, suggesting the possibility of an earlier Italo-Celtic linguistic unity. Proto-Celtic is currently being reconstructed through the comparative method by relying on later Celtic languages. Though Continental Celtic presents much substantiation for Proto-Celtic phonology , and some for its morphology , recorded material

476-937: The Adige River (from source to mouth): The Adige is a home to the marble trout ( Salmo marmoratus ), but at far lower populations than in the past. Fish stocking is one of the most significant causes of the sharp reduction in the original (indigenous) fish population of this subspecies. It will spawn with and interbreed with brown trout , which are regularly stocked in the river and its tributaries. Proto-Celtic Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European Proto-Celtic , or Common Celtic ,

504-672: The borders with Austria and Switzerland above the Inn Valley. It flows through the artificial alpine Lake Reschen . The lake is known for the church tower that marks the site of the former village of Alt Graun ("Old Graun"); it was evacuated and flooded in 1953 after the dam was finished. Near Glurns , the Rom River joins from the Swiss Val Müstair . The Adige runs eastward through the Vinschgau to Merano , where it

532-432: The following evidence: Proto-Indo-European (PIE) voiced aspirate stops * bʰ , * dʰ , * gʰ/ǵʰ , merge with * b , * d , * g/ǵ in PC. The voiced aspirate labiovelar * gʷʰ did not merge with * gʷ , though: plain * gʷ became PC * b , while aspirated * gʷʰ became * gʷ . Thus, PIE * gʷen- 'woman' became Old Irish and Old Welsh ben , but PIE * gʷʰn̥- 'to kill, wound' became Old Irish gonaid and Welsh gwanu . PIE * p

560-598: The genitive singular does not match Proto-Indo-European's -osyo , which would have yielded -osjo . As in the masculine paradigm, the genitive singular does not match Proto-Indo-European's -osyo , which would have yielded -osjo . E.g. * ɸlāmā 'hand' (feminine) ( Old Irish lám ; Welsh llaw , Cornish leuv , Old Breton lom ) E.g. * sūlis 'sight, view, eye' (feminine) ( Brittonic sulis ~ Old Irish súil ) E.g. * mori 'body of water, sea' (neuter) ( Gaulish Mori - ~ Old Irish muir ~ Welsh môr ) Linguistic reconstruction Linguistic reconstruction

588-667: The outcome of earlier ones appearing later in the list. These changes are shared by several other Indo-European branches. The following sound changes are shared with the Italic languages in particular, and are cited in support of the Italo-Celtic hypothesis. One change shows non-exact parallels in Italic: vocalization of syllabic resonants next to laryngeals depending on the environment. Similar developments appear in Italic, but for

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616-872: The parent language. Proto-Celtic is believed to have had nouns in three genders , three numbers and five to eight cases. The genders were masculine, feminine and neuter; the numbers were singular, plural and dual. The number of cases is a subject of contention: while Old Irish may have only five, the evidence from Continental Celtic is considered rather unambiguous despite appeals to archaic retentions or morphological leveling . These cases were nominative , vocative , accusative , dative , genitive , ablative , locative and instrumental . Nouns fall into nine or so declensions, depending on stem. There are * o -stems, * ā -stems, * i -stems, * u -stems, dental stems, velar stems, nasal stems, * r -stems and * s -stems. However, Celtiberian shows -o- stem genitives ending in -o rather than -ī : aualo "[son] of Avalos". Also note that

644-683: The same exception occurred again in the High German consonant shift .) In Gaulish and the Brittonic languages , the Proto-Indo-European * kʷ phoneme becomes a new * p sound. Thus, Gaulish petuar[ios] , Welsh pedwar "four", but Old Irish cethair and Latin quattuor . Insofar as this new /p/ fills the gap in the phoneme inventory which was left by the disappearance of the equivalent stop in PIE, we may think of this as

672-501: The sound quality of phonemes, as the one which results in the fewest changes (with respect to the data) is preferred. Comparative Reconstruction makes use of two rather general principles: The Majority Principle and the Most Natural Development Principle. The Majority Principle is the observation that if a cognate set displays a certain pattern (such as a repeating letter in specific positions within

700-509: The southernmost part of the predominantly German-speaking province of South Tyrol. The Adige was mentioned in the " Lied der Deutschen " of 1841 as the southern border of the German language area . As of 2011 62% of Salorno speaks Italian and 37% speaks German. In 1922 Germany adopted the song as its national anthem, although by that time Italy had taken control of all of the Adige. Near Trento ,

728-586: The syllabic nasals *m̩, *n̩, the result is Proto-Italic *əm, *ən (> Latin em ~ im , en ~ in ). The following consonants have been reconstructed for Proto-Celtic (PC): Eska has recently proposed that PC stops allophonically manifest similarly to those in English . Voiceless stop phonemes /t k/ were aspirated word-initially except when preceded by /s/, hence aspirate allophones [tʰ kʰ]. And unaspirated voiced stops /b d ɡ/ were devoiced to [p t k] word-initially. This allophony may be reconstructed to PC from

756-466: Was an intermediate stage * sɸ- (in which * ɸ remained an independent phoneme until after Proto-Insular Celtic had diverged into Goidelic and Brythonic), McCone 1996 , pp. 44–45 finds it more economical to believe that * sp- remained unchanged in PC, that is, the change * p to * ɸ did not happen when * s preceded. (Similarly, Grimm's law did not apply to * p, t, k after * s in Germanic , and

784-631: Was used by sound substitution due to a lack of a /p/ phoneme at the time: Gaelic póg "kiss" was a later borrowing (from the second word of the Latin phrase osculum pacis "kiss of peace") at a stage where p was borrowed directly as p , without substituting c . The PC vowel system is highly comparable to that reconstructed for PIE by Antoine Meillet . The following monophthongs are reconstructed: The following diphthongs have also been reconstructed: The morphological (structure) of nouns and adjectives demonstrates no arresting alterations from

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