Demat deoc’h !
Je voudrais savoir quels livres vous conseilleriez sur le sujet de la linguistique, de l’évolution et de l’histoire des langues celtiques (principalement de la branche brittonique) ?
Levrioù Henriette Walter da skouer (yezhioù indoeuropean)
Plijus da lenn ‘gav din!
Les ouvrages d’Henriette Walter (langues indo-européennes).
Ce n’est que maintenant que je vois ce message. Voici une petite liste (désolé bc sont en anglais, et je sais que ce n’est pas ton fort..)
WB Lockwood : indo european philology
WB Lockwood : a panorama of indo-european languages
DB Gregor : celtic, a comparative study
Yann Brekilien : le breton langue celtique (on le trouve sur Amazon)
S. Pleinier : la langue bretonne des origines à nos jours
Chans vat dit
Salud!
My interest in theCeltic language language led me to some wild assumption: Could it be that some Celtic words are still prevailing worldwide?
Apart from the fact, that all current living mankind in every corner of this beautiful planet is still carrying the mitochondrial DNA(genes) of one single African woman which scientists nowadays call „Eva“ and who might be the so-called „mother of us all“, we share bits of a common language without us noticing it. This would not only make us brothers and sisters in kin but also in speech. This „Eva“, who lived approximately 200.000 years back in time (confirmed theory by Cann 1987, see Wikipedia), obviously gave birth to a child or children, who moved away from Africa to the East and North. Their steadily growing population split into tribes which presumably migrated and spread throughout the world and also came to Europe (via Arabia and Asia).
Todays language in Europe and elsewhere in part shows some astonishing similarities. My guess is that these words were brought to us by Celtic tribes moving from the East of Europe towards the western shores and islands after the „Out-of-Africa“ phase around 60.000 years ago. Therefore it is likely that the old Celtic language is still very influential in our daily lives without us noticing it in particular. This is a good example:
Breton = yaouank
German/Austrian/Swiss =jung
English = young
Francais = jeune
Italian = giovane
Espanol = joven
Portugues = jovem
Russian = ю́ный (iunhi)
Chinese: 小 ( xiǎo)
These translations i.m.h.o. show that the word must have a common root which might as well be Celtic. This may apply to many other words which I haven’t researched since I am no linguist. But this may also be the reason why so many people like the Breton/Gaelic/Welsh/Irish songs of Alan Stivell – with his words and music he reminds something in our subconscious mind that we are all one people even though we may be members of different tribes, living in Europe or in another part of the world. What do you think?
Pardon mon Français n’est pas assez bon pour ecrire ce text en Français.
Kenavo
Manuela Graniglia
Of course, there are similarities in languages, but philology explains all that : all the words you quote above meaning « young », apart from the chinese are all descending from indo-european. Most european languages have their origin in that old language, so no wonder there are many similarities among them. Celtic is a branch of Indo-european, so is latin, germanic, slavonic etc. So the common root is not celtic, I’m sorry to say.
Salud Stéphane!
You are probably right. Probablement vous avez raison.
I wish I could go back in time to the very beginning of mankind and find out what really happened along the way. Imagine how thrilling it would be to meet our common ancestors, or Brian Boru, or Broceliande and all the rest! And if I could take along my ability to read and write I would put down a proper documentation of the human history. I am just curious why many of those traditional folk songs deal with death, war and other mishaps. Why do some of those songs sound so sad? This is a phenomenon that does not only concern the Celtic tunes but all the old songs sung and played around the world. Anyway, thanks for your information. Merci pour votre explication.
Kenavo.
« stéphan lemoigne »« stéphan lemoigne »
Of course, there are similarities in languages, but philology explains all that : all the words you quote above meaning « young », apart from the chinese are all descending from indo-european. Most european languages have their origin in that old language, so no wonder there are many similarities among them. Celtic is a branch of Indo-european, so is latin, germanic, slavonic etc. So the common root is not celtic, I’m sorry to say.
And some people argue that both branches (italic and celtic) were a common single branch which later split and evolved in the two language families that we actually know, in fact, some extinc italic languages (lusitanian language too) show amazing ties with the continental celtic languages. Who knows, maybe that was the reason (the common ties that allow a quickly assimilation) why no celtic language survived along the romanised territories .In the early middle ages, just the insular brythonic languages were spoken outside Britannia, in Brittany and Galicia, and just one is still alive.