The Ossola ( Italian: [ˈɔssola] ; Ossolano : Òssola ), also Valle Ossola or Val d'Ossola ( Walser : Eschetaal ; German : Eschental ), is an area of Northwest Italy situated to the north of Lago Maggiore . It lies within the Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola . Its principal river is the Toce , and its most important town Domodossola .
68-461: There are many etymological claims as to the origins of the name Ossola , the most likely being Celtic for "high lands". The German and Walser names for the valley translate to "valley of the ash trees ". Ossola is composed of one main valley (the Ossola proper) and seven side valleys: Anzasca , Antrona , Bognanco , Divedro , Antigorio , Formazza , Isorno and Vigezzo . It is surrounded by
136-682: A "ten-night festival of ( Apollo ) Grannus ", decamnoctiacis Granni , is mentioned in a Latin inscription from Limoges . A similar formation is to be found in the Coligny calendar, in which mention is made of a trinox[...] Samoni "three-night (festival?) of (the month of) Samonios". As is to be expected, the ancient Gaulish language was more similar to Latin than modern Celtic languages are to modern Romance languages. The ordinal numerals in Latin are prīmus / prior , secundus / alter (the first form when more than two objects are counted,
204-758: A composite model, in which the Continental and Insular varieties are seen as part of a dialect continuum , with genealogical splits and areal innovations intersecting. Though Gaulish personal names written by Gauls in Greek script are attested from the region surrounding Massalia by the 3rd century BC, the first true inscriptions in Gaulish appeared in the 2nd century BC. At least 13 references to Gaulish speech and Gaulish writing can be found in Greek and Latin writers of antiquity. The word "Gaulish" ( gallicum ) as
272-473: A few weeks, German reinforcements had crushed the uprising, and the area's liberation had to wait until the final offensives of 1945. 46°17′N 8°21′E / 46.283°N 8.350°E / 46.283; 8.350 Gaulish Gaulish is an extinct Celtic language spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire . In the narrow sense, Gaulish
340-537: A genitive construction similar to construct state , prepositions with fused inflected pronouns ("conjugated prepositions" or "prepositional pronouns"), and oblique relatives with pronoun copies. Such resemblances were noted as early as 1621 with regard to Welsh and the Hebrew language . The hypothesis that the Insular Celtic languages had features from an Afro-Asiatic substratum (Iberian and Berber languages)
408-572: A group of women (often thought to be a rival group of witches), but the exact meaning of the text remains unclear. The Coligny calendar was found in 1897 in Coligny , France, with a statue identified as Mars . The calendar contains Gaulish words but Roman numerals, permitting translations such as lat evidently meaning days, and mid month. Months of 30 days were marked matus , "lucky", months of 29 days anmatus , "unlucky", based on comparison with Middle Welsh mad and anfad , but
476-569: A language term is first explicitly used in the Appendix Vergiliana in a poem referring to Gaulish letters of the alphabet. Julius Caesar says in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico of 58 BC that the Celts/Gauls and their language are separated from the neighboring Aquitani and Belgae by the rivers Garonne and Seine / Marne , respectively. Caesar relates that census accounts written in Greek script were found among
544-655: A late survival in Armorica and language contact of some form with the ascendant Breton language ; however, it has been noted that there is little uncontroversial evidence supporting a relatively late survival specifically in Brittany whereas there is uncontroversial evidence that supports the relatively late survival of Gaulish in the Swiss Alps and in regions in Central Gaul. Drawing from these data, which include
612-572: A legal or magical-religious nature, the three longest being the Larzac tablet , the Chamalières tablet and the Lezoux dish . The most famous Gaulish record is the Coligny calendar , a fragmented bronze tablet dating from the 2nd century AD and providing the names of Celtic months over a five-year span; it is a lunisolar calendar trying to synchronize the solar year and the lunar month by inserting
680-506: A list of changes which affected both branches of Insular Celtic but for which there is no evidence that they should be dated to a putative Proto-Insular Celtic period. These are: The Insular Celtic verb shows a peculiar feature unknown in any other attested Indo-European language : verbs have different conjugational forms depending on whether they appear in absolute initial position in the sentence (Insular Celtic having verb–subject–object or VSO word order) or whether they are preceded by
748-509: A now lost substrate. This was suggested by Jongeling (2000). Ranko Matasović (2012) likewise argued that the "Insular Celtic languages were subject to strong influences from an unknown, presumably non-Indo-European substratum" and found the syntactic parallelisms between Insular Celtic and Afro-Asiatic languages to be "probably not accidental". He argued that their similarities arose from "a large linguistic macro-area, encompassing parts of NW Africa, as well as large parts of Western Europe, before
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#1732772180439816-672: A particle -d (from an older * -t ). Continental Celtic languages cannot be shown to have any absolute/conjunct distinction. However, they seem to show only SVO and SOV word orders, as in other Indo-European languages. The absolute/conjunct distinction may thus be an artifact of the VSO word order that arose in Insular Celtic. Insular Celtic, unlike Continental Celtic , shares some structural characteristics with various Afro-Asiatic languages which are rare in other Indo-European languages. These similarities include verb–subject–object word order , singular verbs with plural post-verbal subjects,
884-616: A preverbal particle . The situation is most robustly attested in Old Irish , but it has remained to some extent in Scottish Gaelic and traces of it are present in Middle Welsh as well. Forms that appear in sentence-initial position are called absolute , those that appear after a particle are called conjunct (see Dependent and independent verb forms for details). The paradigm of the present active indicative of
952-409: A semantically degraded form of * esti "is", while Schrijver (1994) has argued it is derived from the particle * eti "and then", which is attested in Gaulish. Schrijver's argument is supported and expanded by Schumacher (2004), who points towards further evidence, viz., typological parallels in non-Celtic languages, and especially a large number of verb forms in all Brythonic languages that contain
1020-431: A special purpose, such as an imperative, emphasis, contrast, and so on. Also, the verb may contain or be next to an enclitic pronoun or with "and", "but", etc. According to J. F. Eska, Gaulish was certainly not a verb-second language, as the following shows: Whenever there is a pronoun object element, it is next to the verb, as per Vendryes' Restriction . The general Celtic grammar shows Wackernagel's rule , so putting
1088-621: A stop + s became ss , and a nasal + velar became ŋ + velar. The lenis plosives seem to have been voiceless, unlike in Latin, which distinguished lenis occlusives with a voiced realization from fortis occlusives with a voiceless realization, which caused confusions like Glanum for Clanum , vergobretos for vercobreto , Britannia for Pritannia . The alphabet of Lugano used in Cisalpine Gaul for Lepontic: The alphabet of Lugano does not distinguish voicing in stops: P represents /b/ or /p/ , T
1156-545: A strong partition between the Brittonic languages with Gaulish ( P-Celtic ) on one side and the Goidelic languages with Celtiberian (Q-Celtic) on the other, may be superficial, owing to a language contact phenomenon. They add the identical sound shift ( /kʷ/ to /p/ ) could have occurred independently in the predecessors of Gaulish and Brittonic, or have spread through language contact between those two groups. Further,
1224-676: A thirteenth month every two and a half years. There is also a longish (11 lines) inscribed tile from Châteaubleau that has been interpreted as a curse or alternatively as a sort of wedding proposal. Many inscriptions are only a few words (often names) in rote phrases, and many are fragmentary. It is clear from the subject matter of the records that the language was in use at all levels of society. Other sources contribute to knowledge of Gaulish: Greek and Latin authors mention Gaulish words, personal and tribal names, and toponyms . A short Gaulish-Latin vocabulary (about 20 entries headed De nominib[us] Gallicis ) called " Endlicher's Glossary "
1292-404: A variety of non-past times, and context indicates the time. The sense can be completely tenseless, for example when asserting that something is always true or always happens. This verb form has erroneously been termed 'future' in many pedagogical grammars. A correct, neutral term 'INDEF1' has been used in linguistics texts. In Middle Welsh, the distinction is seen most clearly in proverbs following
1360-419: Is evidently an account or a calculation and contains quite different ordinals: Other Gaulish numerals attested in Latin inscriptions include * petrudecametos "fourteenth" (rendered as petrudecameto , with Latinized dative-ablative singular ending) and * triconts "thirty" (rendered as tricontis , with a Latinized ablative plural ending; compare Irish tríocha ). A Latinized phrase for
1428-565: Is for /d/ or /t/ , K for /g/ or /k/ . Z is probably for /t / . U /u/ and V /w/ are distinguished in only one early inscription. Θ is probably for /t/ and X for /g/ (Lejeune 1971, Solinas 1985). The Eastern Greek alphabet used in southern Gallia Narbonensis . Latin alphabet (monumental and cursive) in use in Roman Gaul : G and K are sometimes used interchangeably (especially after R). Ꟈ / ꟈ , ds and s may represent /ts/ and/or /dz/ . X, x
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#17327721804391496-412: Is for [x] or /ks/ . Q is only used rarely ( Sequanni, Equos ) and may represent an archaism (a retained *k ), borrowings from Latin, or, as in Latin, an alternate spelling of -cu- (for original /kuu/ , /kou/ , or /kom-u/ ). Ꟈ is the letter tau gallicum , the Gaulish affricate. The letter ꟉꟉ / ꟊꟊ occurs in some inscriptions. Gaulish had some areal (and genetic, see Indo-European and
1564-868: Is not a verb-final language, it is not surprising to find other "head-initial" features: Insular Celtic languages Insular Celtic languages are the group of Celtic languages spoken in Brittany , Great Britain , Ireland , and the Isle of Man . All surviving Celtic languages are in the Insular group, including Breton, which is spoken on continental Europe in Brittany, France . The Continental Celtic languages , although once widely spoken in mainland Europe and in Anatolia , are extinct. Six Insular Celtic languages are extant (in all cases written and spoken) in two distinct groups: The Insular Celtic hypothesis
1632-572: Is preserved in a 9th-century manuscript (Öst. Nationalbibliothek, MS 89 fol. 189v). French now has about 150 to 180 known words of Gaulish origin , most of which concern pastoral or daily activity. If dialectal and derived words are included, the total is about 400 words. This is the highest number among the Romance languages . Gaulish inscriptions are edited in the Recueil des inscriptions gauloises (RIG), in four volumes, comprising text (in
1700-693: Is the theory that these languages evolved together in those places, having a later common ancestor than any of the Continental Celtic languages such as Celtiberian , Gaulish , Galatian , and Lepontic , among others, all of which are long extinct. This linguistic division of Celtic languages into Insular and Continental contrasts with the P/Q Celtic hypothesis . The proponents of the Insular hypothesis (such as Cowgill 1975; McCone 1991, 1992; and Schrijver 1995) point to shared innovations among these – chiefly: The proponents assert that
1768-647: Is the transformation of * an , * am to a denasalised vowel with lengthening, é , before an originally voiceless stop or fricative, cf. Old Irish éc "death", écath "fish hook", dét "tooth", cét "hundred" vs. Welsh angau , angad , dant , and cant . Otherwise: In order to show that shared innovations are from a common descent it is necessary that they do not arise because of language contact after initial separation. A language area can result from widespread bilingualism , perhaps because of exogamy , and absence of sharp sociolinguistic division. Ranko Matasović has provided
1836-603: The Balkans and Anatolia . Their precise linguistic relationships are uncertain due to fragmentary evidence. The Gaulish varieties of central and eastern Europe and of Anatolia (called Noric and Galatian , respectively) are barely attested, but from what little is known of them it appears that they were quite similar to those of Gaul and can be considered dialects of a single language. Among those regions where substantial inscriptional evidence exists, three varieties are usually distinguished. The relationship between Gaulish and
1904-701: The Celtiberian spoken in the Iberian Peninsula , Gaulish is a member of the geographic group of Continental Celtic languages . The precise linguistic relationships among them, as well as between them and the modern Insular Celtic languages , are uncertain and a matter of ongoing debate because of their sparse attestation . Gaulish is found in some 800 (often fragmentary) inscriptions including calendars, pottery accounts, funeral monuments, short dedications to gods, coin inscriptions, statements of ownership, and other texts, possibly curse tablets . Gaulish
1972-614: The English language , through the influence of Old French . It is estimated that during the Bronze Age , Proto-Celtic started splitting into distinct languages, including Celtiberian and Gaulish. Due to the expansion of Celtic tribes in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, closely related forms of Celtic came to be spoken in a vast arc extending from Britain and France through the Alpine region and Pannonia in central Europe, and into parts of
2040-641: The Helvetii . He also notes that as of 53 BC the Gaulish druids used the Greek alphabet for private and public transactions, with the important exception of druidic doctrines, which could only be memorised and were not allowed to be written down. According to the Recueil des inscriptions gauloises nearly three quarters of Gaulish inscriptions (disregarding coins) are in the Greek alphabet. Later inscriptions dating to Roman Gaul are mostly in Latin alphabet and have been found principally in central France. Latin
2108-638: The Italian partisans staged an uprising behind German lines, led by the Committee of National Liberation of Upper Italy . This rebellion led to the establishment of a number of provisional partisan governments throughout Northern Italy, of which the Free Republic of Ossola was the most prominent. It received official recognition from Switzerland and from Allied consulates in Switzerland. Within
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2176-682: The Italic languages had a similar divergence between Latino-Faliscan , which kept /kʷ/ , and Osco-Umbrian , which changed it to /p/ . Some historians, such as George Buchanan in the 16th century, had suggested the Brythonic or P-Celtic language was a descendant of the Picts' language. Indeed, the tribe of the Pritani has Qritani (and, orthographically orthodox in modern form but counterintuitively written Cruthin) (Q-Celtic) cognate forms. Under
2244-625: The La Tène period, was found in Port , near Biel/Bienne , with its blade inscribed with ΚΟΡΙϹΙΟϹ ( Korisios ), probably the name of the smith. The diphthongs all transformed over the historical period. Ai and oi changed into long ī and eu merged with ou , both becoming long ō . Ei became long ē . In general, long diphthongs became short diphthongs and then long vowels. Long vowels shortened before nasals in coda . Other transformations include unstressed i became e , ln became ll ,
2312-651: The Latin , Greek , and Etruscan alphabets ) written on public monuments, private instrumentum , two calendars, and coins. The longest known Gaulish text is the Larzac tablet , found in 1983 in l'Hospitalet-du-Larzac , France. It is inscribed in Roman cursive on both sides of two small sheets of lead. Probably a curse tablet ( defixio ), it clearly mentions relationships between female names, for example aia duxtir adiegias [...] adiega matir aiias (Aia, daughter of Adiega... Adiega, mother of Aia) and seems to contain incantations regarding one Severa Tertionicna and
2380-968: The Monte Leone , the Corno Cieco and, in the lower part of the valley, the Monte Capezzone and the Monte Massone . It is home to the Alpe Veglia and Alpe Devero Natural Park , Alta Valle Antrona Natural Park and also includes parts of the Val Grande National Park , Italy’s largest wilderness area. In 1944, with the Allies of World War II still stuck south of the Apennines and Benito Mussolini 's Italian Social Republic controlling all of Northern Italy ,
2448-768: The Pennine Alps on the western side and by the Lepontine Alps on the northern and eastern sides. The main towns are Domodossola , Villadossola , Crevoladossola , Ornavasso and Mergozzo . Ossola’s highest elevation is the Nordend , a peak of the Monte Rosa Massif , which is also the highest peak of Piedmont . Excluding the Monte Rosa's peaks, other important mountains are the Pizzo d'Andolla ,
2516-515: The Celtic god of metalwork . Furthermore, there is a statue of a seated goddess with a bear , Artio , found in Muri bei Bern , with a Latin inscription DEAE ARTIONI LIVINIA SABILLINA , suggesting a Gaulish Artiū "Bear (goddess)". Some coins with Gaulish inscriptions in the Greek alphabet have also been found in Switzerland, e.g. RIG IV Nos. 92 ( Lingones ) and 267 ( Leuci ). A sword, dating to
2584-632: The Gaulish language. Spindle whorls were apparently given to girls by their suitors and bear such inscriptions as: A gold ring found in Thiaucourt seems to express the wearers undying loyalty to her lover: Inscriptions found in Switzerland are rare. The most notable inscription found in Helvetic parts is the Bern zinc tablet , inscribed ΔΟΒΝΟΡΗΔΟ ΓΟΒΑΝΟ ΒΡΕΝΟΔΩΡ ΝΑΝΤΑΡΩΡ ( Dobnorēdo gobano brenodōr nantarōr ) and apparently dedicated to Gobannus ,
2652-484: The Gaulish t-preterit, formed by merging an old third-person singular imperfect ending -t - to a third-person singular perfect ending -u or -e and subsequent affixation to all forms of the t-preterit tense. Similarly, the s-preterit is formed from the extension of -ss (originally from the third person singular) and the affixation of -it to the third-person singular (to distinguish it as such). Third-person plurals are also marked by addition of -s in
2720-429: The Insular hypothesis, the family tree of the insular Celtic languages is thus as follows: Irish Scottish Gaelic Manx † Pictish † Cumbric Welsh Breton Cornish This table lists cognates showing the development of Proto-Celtic */kʷ/ to /p/ in Gaulish and the Brittonic languages but to /k/ in the Goidelic languages. A significant difference between Goidelic and Brittonic languages
2788-494: The Old Irish verb beirid "carry" is as follows; the conjunct forms are illustrated with the particle ní "not". In Scottish Gaelic this distinction is still found in certain verb-forms across almost all verbs (except for a very few). This is a VSO language. The example given in the first column below is the independent or absolute form, which must be used when the verb is in clause-initial position (or preceded in
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2856-415: The arrival of the speakers of Indo-European, including Celtic". The Afro-Asiatic substrate theory, according to Raymond Hickey , "has never found much favour with scholars of the Celtic languages". The theory was criticised by Kim McCone in 2006, Graham Isaac in 2007, and Steve Hewitt in 2009. Isaac argues that the 20 points identified by Gensler are trivial, dependencies, or vacuous. Thus, he considers
2924-401: The authors meant by those terms), though at first these only concerned the upper classes. For Galatia (Anatolia), there is no source explicitly indicating a 5th-century language replacement: Despite considerable Romanization of the local material culture, the Gaulish language is held to have survived and coexisted with spoken Latin during the centuries of Roman rule of Gaul. The exact time of
2992-402: The clause by certain preverbal particles). Then following it is the dependent or conjunct form which is required when the verb is preceded in the clause by certain other preverbal particles, in particular interrogative or negative preverbal particles. In these examples, in the first column we have a verb in clause-initial position. In the second column a negative particle immediately precedes
3060-668: The controversial Italo-Celtic hypothesis) similarity to Latin grammar, and the French historian Ferdinand Lot argued that this helped the rapid adoption of Vulgar Latin in Roman Gaul. Gaulish had seven cases : the nominative , vocative , accusative , genitive , dative , instrumental and the locative case . Greater epigraphical evidence attests common cases (nominative and accusative) and common stems (-o- and -a- stems) than for cases less frequently used in inscriptions or rarer -i-, -n- and -r- stems. The following table summarises
3128-450: The difference between -n and -m relies on the length of the preceding vowel, with longer vowels taking -m over -n (in the case of -anom this is a result of its innovation from -a-om ). Gaulish verbs have present, future, perfect, and imperfect tenses; indicative, subjunctive, optative and imperative moods; and active and passive voices. Verbs show a number of innovations as well. The Indo-European s-aorist became
3196-411: The final language death of Gaulish is unknown, but it is estimated to have been about the sixth century AD. The language shift was uneven in its progress and shaped by sociological factors. Although there was a presence of retired veterans in colonies, these did not significantly alter the linguistic composition of Gaul's population, of which 90% was autochthonous; instead, the key Latinizing class
3264-401: The formula "X happens, Y does not happen" (Evans 1964: 119): The older analysis of the distinction, as reported by Thurneysen (1946, 360 ff.), held that the absolute endings derive from Proto-Indo-European "primary endings" (used in present and future tenses) while the conjunct endings derive from the "secondary endings" (used in past tenses). Thus Old Irish absolute beirid "s/he carries"
3332-447: The inherited genitive singular -as is attested but was subsequently replaced by -ias as in Insular Celtic. The expected genitive plural -a-om appears innovated as -anom (vs. Celtiberian -aum ). There also appears to be a dialectal equivalence between -n and -m endings in accusative singular endings particularly, with Transalpine Gaulish favouring -n , and Cisalpine favouring -m . In genitive plurals
3400-725: The mapping of substrate vocabulary as evidence, Kerkhof argues that we may "tentatively" posit a survival of Gaulish speaking communities "at least into the sixth century" in pockets of mountainous regions of the Central Massif , the Jura , and the Swiss Alps . According to Recueil des inscriptions gauloises more than 760 Gaulish inscriptions have been found throughout France, with the notable exception of Aquitaine , and in northern Italy. Inscriptions include short dedications, funerary monuments, proprietary statements, and expressions of human sentiments, but also some longer documents of
3468-499: The meaning could here also be merely descriptive, "complete" and "incomplete". The pottery at La Graufesenque is the most important source for Gaulish numerals. Potters shared furnaces and kept tallies inscribed in Latin cursive on ceramic plates, referring to kiln loads numbered 1 to 10: The lead inscription from Rezé (dated to the 2nd century, at the mouth of the Loire , 450 kilometres (280 mi) northwest of La Graufesenque )
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#17327721804393536-497: The other Celtic languages is also debated. Most scholars today agree that Celtiberian was the first to branch off from other Celtic. Gaulish, situated in the centre of the Celtic language area, shares with the neighboring Brittonic languages of Britain, as well as the neighboring Italic Osco-Umbrian languages , the change of the Indo-European labialized voiceless velar stop /kʷ/ > /p/ , while both Celtiberian in
3604-549: The plural instrumental had begun to encroach on the dative plural (dative atrebo and matrebo vs. instrumental gobedbi and suiorebe ), and in the modern Insular Languages , the instrumental form is known to have completely replaced the dative. For o-stems, Gaulish also innovated the pronominal ending for the nominative plural -oi and genitive singular -ī in place of expected -ōs and -os still present in Celtiberian ( -oś, -o ). In a-stems,
3672-654: The prestige language of their urban literate elite. Bonnaud maintains that Latinization occurred earlier in Provence and in major urban centers, while Gaulish persisted longest, possibly as late as the tenth century with evidence for continued use according to Bonnaud continuing into the ninth century, in Langres and the surrounding regions, the regions between Clermont , Argenton and Bordeaux , and in Armorica . Fleuriot, Falc'hun, and Gvozdanovic likewise maintained
3740-424: The preterit. Most Gaulish sentences seem to consist of a subject–verb–object word order: Some, however, have patterns such as verb–subject–object (as in living Insular Celtic languages) or with the verb last. The latter can be seen as a survival from an earlier stage in the language, very much like the more archaic Celtiberian language . Sentences with the verb first can be interpreted, however, as indicating
3808-650: The reconstructed endings for the words * toṷtā "tribe, people", * mapos "boy, son", * ṷātis "seer", * gutus "voice", and * brātīr "brother". In some cases, a historical evolution is attested; for example, the dative singular of a-stems is -āi in the oldest inscriptions, becoming first * -ăi and finally -ī as in Irish a -stem nouns with attenuated ( slender ) consonants: nom. lámh "hand, arm" (cf. Gaul. lāmā ) and dat. láimh (< * lāmi ; cf. Gaul. lāmāi > * lāmăi > lāmī ). Further,
3876-406: The second form only when two, alius , like alter means "the other", the former used when more than two and the latter when only two), tertius, quārtus, quīntus, sextus, septimus, octāvus, nōnus , and decimus . An inscription in stone from Alise-Sainte-Reine (first century AD) reads: A number of short inscriptions are found on spindle whorls and are among the most recent finds in
3944-451: The sentence. If the first word in the sentence was another particle, * (e)s came after that and thus before the verb, but if the verb was the first word in the sentence, * (e)s was cliticized to it. Under this theory, then, Old Irish absolute beirid comes from Proto-Celtic * bereti-s , while conjunct ní beir comes from * nī-s bereti . The identity of the * (e)s particle remains uncertain. Cowgill suggests it might be
4012-526: The south and Goidelic in Ireland retain /kʷ/ . Taking this as the primary genealogical isogloss , some scholars divide the Celtic languages into a " q-Celtic " group and a " p-Celtic " group, in which the p-Celtic languages Gaulish and Brittonic form a common "Gallo-Brittonic" branch. Other scholars place more emphasis on shared innovations between Brittonic and Goidelic and group these together as an Insular Celtic branch. Sims-Williams (2007) discusses
4080-481: The verb at the beginning of the clause or sentence. As in Old Irish and traditional literary Welsh, the verb can be preceded by a particle with no real meaning by itself but originally used to make the utterance easier. According to Eska's model, Vendryes' Restriction is believed to have played a large role in the development of Insular Celtic verb-subject-object word order. Other authorities such as John T. Koch , dispute that interpretation. Considering that Gaulish
4148-418: The verb, which makes the verb use the verb form or verb forms of the dependent conjugation. The verb forms in the above examples happen to be the same with any subject personal pronouns, not just with the particular persons chosen in the example. Also, the combination of tense–aspect–mood properties inherent in these verb forms is non-past but otherwise indefinite with respect to time, being compatible with
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#17327721804394216-522: Was first proposed by John Morris-Jones in 1899. The theory has been supported by several linguists since: Henry Jenner (1904); Julius Pokorny (1927); Heinrich Wagner (1959); Orin Gensler (1993); Theo Vennemann (1995); and Ariel Shisha-Halevy (2003). Others have suggested that rather than the Afro-Asiatic influencing Insular Celtic directly, both groups of languages were influenced by
4284-518: Was first written in Greek script in southern France and in a variety of Old Italic script in northern Italy. After the Roman conquest of those regions, writing shifted to Latin script . During his conquest of Gaul, Caesar reported that the Helvetii were in possession of documents in the Greek script, and all Gaulish coins used the Greek script until about 50 BC. Gaulish in Western Europe
4352-506: Was quickly adopted by the Gaulish aristocracy after Roman conquest to maintain their elite power and influence, trilingualism in southern Gaul being noted as early as the 1st century BC. Early references to Gaulish in Gaul tend to be made in the context of problems with Greek or Latin fluency until around AD 400, whereas after c. 450 , Gaulish begins to be mentioned in contexts where Latin has replaced "Gaulish" or "Celtic" (whatever
4420-499: Was supplanted by Vulgar Latin . It is thought to have been a living language well into the 6th century. The legacy of Gaulish may be observed in the modern French language and the Gallo-Romance languages , in which 150–400 words , mainly referring to pastoral and daily activities, are known to be derived from the extinct Continental Celtic language. Following the 1066 Norman Conquest , some of these words have also entered
4488-516: Was the coopted local elite, who sent their children to Roman schools and administered lands for Rome. In the fifth century, at the time of the Western Roman collapse, the vast majority (non-elite and predominantly rural) of the population remained Gaulish speakers, and acquired Latin as their native speech only after the demise of the Empire, as both they and the new Frankish ruling elite adopted
4556-708: Was the language of the Celts of Gaul (now France, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Switzerland, Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the Rhine ). In a wider sense, it also comprises varieties of Celtic that were spoken across much of central Europe (" Noric "), parts of the Balkans , and Anatolia (" Galatian "), which are thought to have been closely related. The more divergent Lepontic of Northern Italy has also sometimes been subsumed under Gaulish. Together with Lepontic and
4624-580: Was thought to be from * bʰereti (compare Sanskrit bharati "s/he carries"), while conjunct beir was thought to be from * bʰeret (compare Sanskrit a-bharat "s/he was carrying"). Today, however, most Celticists agree that Cowgill (1975), following an idea present already in Pedersen (1913, 340 ff.), found the correct solution to the origin of the absolute/conjunct distinction: an enclitic particle, reconstructed as * es after consonants and * s after vowels, came in second position in
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