Gallaecian language

Gallaecian
Native to Iberian Peninsula
Era attested beginning of the first millennium CE
Indo-European

  • Celtic

    • (unclassified)
      • Gallaecian
Language codes
ISO 639-3 None (mis)
Glottolog None
The Nicer Clutosi stele inscription.

Northwestern Hispano-Celtic or Gallaecian is an extinct Celtic language, and was one of the Hispano-Celtic languages.[1] It was spoken at the beginning of the first millennium CE, in the northwest corner of the Iberian Peninsula that became the Roman province of Gallaecia, and is now divided between the modern regions of Galicia, western Asturias, western Castile and León and northern Portugal.[2][3][4][5]

Overview

As with the Illyrian and Ligurian languages, the surviving corpus of Gallaecian is composed of isolated words and short sentences contained in local Latin inscriptions or glossed by classical authors, together with a number of names – anthroponyms, ethnonyms, theonyms, toponyms – contained in inscriptions, or surviving as the names of places, rivers or mountains. In addition, many isolated words of Celtic origin preserved in the present-day Romance languages of north-west Spain and Portugal, are likely to have been inherited from ancient Gallaecian.[6]

Classical authors such as Pomponius Mela and Pliny the Elder wrote about the existence of Celtic[7] and non-Celtic populations in Gallaecia and Lusitania, but several modern scholars have postulated Lusitanian and Gallaecian as a single archaic Celtic language.[8] Others point to major unresolved problems for this hypothesis, such as the mutually incompatible phonetic features, most notably the proposed preservation of *p in Lusitanian and the inconsistent outcome of the vocalic liquid consonants, so addressing Lusitanian as a non-Celtic language and unrelated to Gallaecian, although cultural influences were likely.[9][10][11]

Characteristics

Some of the main characteristic of Gallaecian shared with Celtiberian and the other Celtic languages were (reconstructed forms are Proto-Celtic unless otherwise indicated):

The frequent instances of preserved PIE /p/ are assigned by some authors, namely Carlos Búa[30] and Jürgen Untermann, to a single and archaic Celtic language spoken in Gallaecia, Asturia and Lusitania, while others (Francisco Villar, Blanca María Prósper, Patrizia de Bernado Stempel, Jordán Colera) consider that they belong to a Lusitanian or Lusitanian-like dialect or group of dialects spoken in northern Iberia along with (but different from) Western Hispano-Celtic:[31]
  • in Galicia: divinity names and epithets PARALIOMEGO, PARAMAECO, POEMANAE, PROENETIAEGO, PROINETIE, PEMANEIECO, PAMUDENO, MEPLUCEECO; place names Lapatia, Paramo, Pantiñobre if from *palanti-nyo-brig-s (Búa); Galician appellative words lapa 'stone, rock' (cfr. Lat. lapis) and pala 'stone cavity', from *palla from *plh-sa (cfr. germ. fels, o.Ir. All).
  • in Asturias the ethnic name Paesici; personal names PENTIUS, PROGENEI; divinity name PECE PARAMECO; in León and Bragança place names PAEMEIOBRIGENSE, Campo Paramo, Petavonium.
  • in other northwestern areas: place names Pallantia, Pintia, Segontia Paramica; ethnic name Pelendones.

Some characteristics of this language not shared by Celtiberian:

Gallaecian appears to be a Q-Celtic language, as evidenced by the following occurrences in local inscriptions: ARQVI, ARCVIVS, ARQVIENOBO, ARQVIENI[S], ARQVIVS, all probably from IE Paleo-Hispanic *arkʷios 'archer, bowman', retaining proto-Celtic *kʷ.[63] It is also noteworthy the ethnonyms Equaesi ( < PIE *ek̂wos 'horse'), a people from southern Gallaecia,[64] and the Querquerni ( < *perkʷ- 'oak'). Nevertheless, some old toponyms and ethnonyms, and some modern toponyms, have been interpreted as showing kw / kʷ > p: Pantiñobre (Arzúa, composite of *kʷantin-yo- '(of the) valley' and *brix-s 'hill(fort)') and Pezobre (Santiso, from *kweityo-bris),[65] ethnonym COPORI "the Bakers" from *pokwero- 'to cook',[66] old place names Pintia, in Galicia and among the Vaccei, from PIE *penkwtó- > Celtic *kwenχto- 'fifth'.[53][67]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "In the northwest of the Iberian Peninula, and more specifically between the west and north Atlantic coasts and an imaginary line running north-south and linking Oviedo and Merida, there is a corpus of Latin inscriptions with particular characteristics of its own. This corpus contains some linguistic features that are clearly Celtic and others that in our opinion are not Celtic. The former we shall group, for the moment, under the label northwestern Hispano-Celtic. The latter are the same features found in well-documented contemporary inscriptions in the region occupied by the Lusitanians, and therefore belonging to the variety known as LUSITANIAN, or more broadly as GALLO-LUSITANIAN. As we have already said, we do not consider this variety to belong to the Celtic language family." Jordán Colera 2007: p.750
  2. ↑ Prósper, Blanca María (2002). Lenguas y religiones prerromanas del occidente de la península ibérica. Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca. pp. 422–427. ISBN 84-7800-818-7.
  3. ↑ Prósper, B.M. (2005). Estudios sobre la fonética y la morfología de la lengua celtibérica in Vascos, celtas e indoeuropeos. Genes y lenguas (coauthored with Villar, Francisco). Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, pp. 333-350. ISBN 84-7800-530-7.
  4. ↑ Jordán Colera 2007:p.750
  5. ↑ Koch, John T. (2006). Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 481.
  6. ↑ Galician words such as crica ('vulva, ribbon'), from proto-Celtic *kīkwā ('furrow'), laxe ('stone slab') from proto-Celtic *φlagēnā ('broad spearhead'), leira ('patch, field') from proto-Celtic *φlāryo- ('floor'), and alboio ('shed, pen') from proto-Celtic *φare-bowyo- ('around-cows').
  7. ↑ Among them the Praestamarci, Supertamarci, Nerii, Artabri, and in general all people living by the seashore except for the Grovi of southern Galicia and northern Portugal: 'Totam Celtici colunt, sed a Durio ad flexum Grovi, fluuntque per eos Avo, Celadus, Nebis, Minius et cui oblivionis cognomen est Limia. Flexus ipse Lambriacam urbem amplexus recipit fluvios Laeron et Ullam. Partem quae prominet Praesamarchi habitant, perque eos Tamaris et Sars flumina non longe orta decurrunt, Tamaris secundum Ebora portum, Sars iuxta turrem Augusti titulo memorabilem. Cetera super Tamarici Nerique incolunt in eo tractu ultimi. Hactenus enim ad occidentem versa litora pertinent. Deinde ad septentriones toto latere terra convertitur a Celtico promunturio ad Pyrenaeum usque. Perpetua eius ora, nisi ubi modici recessus ac parva promunturia sunt, ad Cantabros paene recta est. In ea primum Artabri sunt etiamnum Celticae gentis, deinde Astyres.', Pomponius Mela, Chorographia, III.7-9.
  8. ↑ cf. Wodtko 2010: 355-362
  9. ↑ Prósper 2002: 422 and 430
  10. ↑ Prósper 2005: 336-338
  11. ↑ Prósper 2012: 53-55
  12. ↑ Curchin 2008: 117
  13. ↑ Prósper 2002: 357-358
  14. ↑ Prósper 2005: 282
  15. 1 2 Prósper 2005: 336
  16. ↑ Prósper 2002: 422
  17. ↑ Curchin 2008: 123
  18. ↑ Prósper 2005: 269
  19. ↑ Delamarre 2012: 165
  20. ↑ Delamarre 2012: 2011
  21. ↑ Vallejo 2005: 326
  22. ↑ Koch 2011:34
  23. ↑ Cf. Koch 2011: 76
  24. ↑ Prósper 2002: 377
  25. ↑ Búa 2007: 38-39
  26. ↑ cf. DCECH s.v. lera
  27. ↑ cf. DCECH s.v. llaviegu
  28. ↑ cf. DCECH s.v. laja
  29. ↑ cf. DCECH s.v. regar
  30. ↑ Búa 2007
  31. ↑ Prósper, Blanca M. "Shifting the evidence: new interpretation of Celtic and non-Celtic personal names of Western Hispania": 1. Retrieved 13 March 2014.
  32. ↑ Prósper 2005: 342.
  33. ↑ Moralejo 2010: 105
  34. ↑ Luján 2006: 727-729
  35. ↑ Prósper 2002: 357-382
  36. ↑ Prósper 2005: 338; Jordán Cólera 2007: 754.
  37. ↑ Prósper 2002: 425-426.
  38. ↑ Prósper 2005: 336.
  39. ↑ Prósper 2002: 205-215.
  40. ↑ Luján 2006: 724
  41. ↑ Prósper 2002: 397
  42. ↑ Prósper, B. M.; Francisco Villar (2009). "NUEVA INSCRIPCIÓN LUSITANA PROCEDENTE DE PORTALEGRE". EMERITA, Revista de Lingüística y Filología Clásica (EM). LXXVII (1): 1–32. Retrieved 11 June 2012.
  43. 1 2 Prósper 2002: 423.
  44. ↑ Prósper 2002: 211
  45. ↑ González García, Francisco Javier (2007). Los pueblos de la Galicia céltica. Madrid: Ediciones AKAL. p. 409. ISBN 9788446036210.
  46. ↑ Jordán Cólera 2007: 755
  47. 1 2 Wodtko 2010: 356
  48. ↑ Prósper 2005: 266, 278
  49. ↑ Prósper 2002: 423
  50. ↑ Prósper 2005: 282.
  51. ↑ Moralejo 2010: 107
  52. ↑ Prósper, Blanca M. "Shifting the evidence: new interpretation of Celtic and non-Celtic personal names of Western Hispania": 6–8. Retrieved 13 March 2014.
  53. 1 2 John T., Koch (2015). "Some Palaeohispanic Implications of the Gaulish Inscription of Rezé (Ratiatum)". Mélanges en l’honneur de Pierre-Yves Lambert: 333–46. Retrieved 16 July 2015.
  54. ↑ Prósper 2005: 266
  55. ↑ Jordán Cólera 2007: 763-764.
  56. ↑ Prósper 2002: 422, 427
  57. 1 2 Prósper 2005: 345
  58. ↑ Sometimes it has been read ELANIOBRENSI
  59. ↑ Luján 2006: 727
  60. ↑ Jordán Cólera 2007: 757.
  61. ↑ Prósper 2002: 426
  62. ↑ Prósper 2005: 346
  63. ↑ Koch, John T (2011). Tartessian 2: The Inscription of Mesas do Castelinho ro and the Verbal Complex. Preliminaries to Historical Phonology. Oxbow Books, Oxford, UK. pp. 53–54,144–145. ISBN 978-1-907029-07-3.
  64. ↑ Cf. Vallejo 2005: 321, who wrongly assign them to the Astures.
  65. ↑ Prósper 2002: 422, 378-379
  66. ↑ Prósper, Blanca M. "Shifting the evidence: new interpretation of Celtic and non-Celtic personal names of Western Hispania": 10. Retrieved 13 March 2014.
  67. ↑ de Bernardo Stempel, Patrizia (2009). "El nombre -¿céltico?- de la "Pintia vaccea"" (PDF). BSAA Arqueología: Boletín del Seminario de Estudios de Arqueología (75). Retrieved 14 March 2014.

Bibliography

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