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Schrijver, Peter, “Celtic influence on Old English: phonological and phonetic evidence”, English Language and Linguistics 13:2 (2009): 193–211.

  • journal article
Citation details
Contributors
Article
“Celtic influence on Old English: phonological and phonetic evidence”
Periodical
English Language and Linguistics 13:2 (2009)
English Language and Linguistics 13:2 — Re-evaluating the Celtic hypothesis (2009).
Volume
13
Pages
193–211
BibTeX
Description
Abstract (cited)
It has generally been assumed that Celtic linguistic influence on Old English is limited to a few marginal loanwords. If a language shift had taken place from Celtic to Old English, however, one would expect to find traces of that in Old English phonology and (morpho)syntax. In this article I argue that (1) the way in which the West Germanic sound system was reshaped in Old English strongly suggests the operation of a hitherto unrecognized substratum; (2) that phonetic substratum is strongly reminiscent of Irish rather than British Celtic; (3) the Old Irish phonetic−phonological system provides a more plausible model for reconstructing the phonetics of pre-Roman Celtic in Britain than the British Celtic system. The conclusion is that there is phonetic continuity between pre-Roman British Celtic and Old English, which suggests the presence of a pre-Anglo-Saxon population shifting to Old English.
Subjects and topics
Headings
Irish language Old Irish Old English Brittonic languages multilingualism and language contact
web page identifiers
Contributors
C. A., Dennis Groenewegen
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June 2011, last updated: July 2020
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