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Bibliography

Matasović, Ranko, “The substratum in Insular Celtic”, Journal of Language Relationship 8 (2012): 153–159, 165–168 (response to Tatyana Mikhailova).

Citation details
Contributors
Article
“The substratum in Insular Celtic”
Volume
8
Pages
153–159, 165–168 (response to Tatyana Mikhailova)
Description
Abstract (cited)
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.
Related publications
General
Mikhailova, Tatyana, “Once again on the pre-Celtic substratum in the British Islands [Response to Ranko Matasović]”, Journal of Language Relationship 8 (2012): 160–164. URL: <http://www.jolr.ru/article.php?id=101>.
Subjects and topics
Headings
Goidelic languages Brittonic languages
Approaches
historical and comparative linguistics
Contributors
Dennis Groenewegen
Page created
November 2014, last updated: October 2020