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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.

Venetic and its variants in prehistoric and early historic Europe are still enigmatic to historical linguists. Traditionally, it is assumed that Venetic of Armorica was probably Celtic, but Venetic of the Northern Adriatic, for which we have written evidence, is assumed to have constituted a separate branch of Indo-European. The least evidence is known for East European Venetic. This paper discusses the available evidence, particularly on Venetic of the Northern Adriatic, in the light of linguistic data on other branches of Indo-European, such as Celtic and Slavic. Special attention is paid to the relations between Venetic and Continental Celtic, revealing some new aspects.

The most obvious phonological distinction between the two main branches of Celtic languages (Goidelic and Brittonic) involves the outcome of the unvoiced labiovelar */kw/. In Goidelic it was delabialized in most environments and merged with /k/, but in Brittonic it became fully labialized and yielded /p/. This basic difference, proposed by John Rhys in 1882, has given rise to the unfortunate terms “P-Celtic” (Welsh, Cumbric, Cornish and Breton) and “Q-Celtic” (Irish, Scottish and Manx). The Continental Celtic languages (Gaulish, Lepontic and Celtiberian) show some fluctuations in regard to this sound, and it is highly probable that they represented allophonic variants of Proto-Celtic *qw for a very long time (in spite of the depth of divergence of Proto-Celtic — appr. 1200 BC according to glottochronological calculations). Toponymic and ethnonymic data of later periods (400 BC — 400 AD) demonstrate that the variants of this sound were acoustically similar to the speakers, especially within the zone of their prominent contacts — West of Scotland and North-East of Ireland. We therefore presume that this most important element of Celtic historical phonology cannot serve as a distinctive principle in the construction of the tree diagram of Celtic languages and only makes more obscure the scheme of their development.