Once again on the pre-Celtic substratum in the British Islands

Tatyana Mikhailova (Lomonosov Moscow State University, tamih.msu@mail.ru)

Journal of Language Relationship, № 8, 2012 - p.160-164

Abstract: The discussion focuses on the problem of pre-Celtic substratum languages in the British Islands. The article by R. Matasović begins by dealing with the syntactic features of Insular Celtic languages (Brittonic and Goidelic): the author analyses numerous innovations in Insular Celtic and finds certain parallels in languages of the Afro-Asiatic macrofamily. The second part of his paper contains the analysis of that particular part of the Celtic lexicon which cannot be attributed to the PIE layer. A number of words for which only a substratum origin can be assumed is attested only in Brittonic and Goidelic. The author proposes to reconstruct Proto-Insular Celtic forms for this section of the vocabulary. This idea encounters objections from T. Mikhailova, who prefers to qualify common non-Celtic lexicon of Goidelic and Brittonic as parallel loanwords from the same substratum language. The genetic value of this language, however, remains enigmatic for both authors.

Keywords: Pre-Celtic substratum, Goidelic, Brittonic, Insular Celtic, classification of Celtic languages, etymology, reconstruction, loanwords, wandering words

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