Studying Old Irish at Maynooth University. Principal Investigator of the ERC-funded project Chronologicon Hibernicum - A Probabilistic Chronological Framework for Dating Early Irish Language Developments and Literature' (Horizon2020 Grant Agreement no. 647351) (https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/chronhib).
Sub-Indo-European Europe. Problems, Methods, Results. Edited by Guus Kroonen, 2024
This chapter is concerned with the complex question of layers of loanwords in the attested Celtic... more This chapter is concerned with the complex question of layers of loanwords in the attested Celtic languages from unknown, prehistoric languages.
Alex Mullen and George Woudhuysen (eds.), Languages and Communities in the Late-Roman and Post-Imperial Western Provinces, 2023
The focus of this chapter is on the early literate tradition in the Irish language and how this t... more The focus of this chapter is on the early literate tradition in the Irish language and how this tradition was born in the multilingual interaction with a neighbouring written culture, namely that of Latin in the island of Britain. Since a crucial part of this interaction with Ireland happened through British intermediaries or took place in Britain, both regions of the western archipelago will be considered in this survey, though the very different historical and sociolinguistic scenarios in the two islands necessitates looking at each separately.
The Indo-European Puzzle Revisited. Integrating Archaeology, Genetics, and Linguistics. Edited by Kristian Kristiansen, Guus Kroonen and Eske Willerslev, 2023
*The publishers have requested that no version of this article (pre-print or post-print) be made ... more *The publishers have requested that no version of this article (pre-print or post-print) be made available on this platform. If you want the pre-print, please contact me by email or direct messsage.* David Stifter
The aim of this chapter is to establish the semantic field of maritime vocabulary of the Celtic languages, especially that part of the maritime vocabulary that can be reconstructed for Proto-Celtic, the common ancestor of all Celtic languages, and for the prehistoric stages of the Insular Celtic languages. The approach taken in this study is to analyse the relevant lexemes etymologically, and to assess the findings from the point of view of linguistic archaeology. Linguistic archaeology seeks to extract as much information as possible from the synchronic and diachronically reconstructable semantics and morphology of words in order to make inferences about the environment and living conditions of the language’s speakers from a prehistoric and early historic perspective. Maritime vocabulary, which is the focus of this study, includes all elements of the lexicon that refer to the topographical, biological, and economic environment of the sea and the shore, and to human interaction with them.
Open Research Europe. Linguistic Diversity collection, 2023
This study investigates systematically the emergence and establishment of geminate consonants as ... more This study investigates systematically the emergence and establishment of geminate consonants as a phonological class in the Celtic branch of Indo-European. The approach of this study is comparative historical linguistics, drawing on diachronic structuralism combined with aspects of language contact studies and functional approaches to language usage. This study traces the development of geminates from Proto-Indo-European (fourth millennium B.C.), which did not allow geminate consonants, to the Common Celtic period (first millennium B.C.), when almost every consonant could occur as a singleton or as a geminate, and on to the earliest attested stages of the Insular Celtic languages (first millennium A.D.). Although they were prominent in the phonology of Proto-and Ancient Celtic (Gaulish, Celtiberian), ultimately geminates were gotten rid of as a phonological class in the individual Insular Celtic languages. This is probably due to the fact that the contrast between lenited and unlenited sounds took on a central role in Insular Celtic phonology, making gemination a redundant category. Most instances of geminate consonants in Celtic can be explained by regular sound change operating on inherited clusters of consonants. Each sound change will be discussed in a separate section in a rough chronological order. Effectively, gemination is largely a strategy to reduce the number of allowed consonant combinations. To a limited degree, gemination also had a morphological function, especially in the formation of personal names and in the creation of adjectival neologisms. However, there is a residue of words, especially nouns, in the Insular Celtic languages that defy any attempt at etymologising. They are prime suspects of having been borrowed from prehistoric, substratal languages.
This article provides an edition and translation of a probatio pennae of four short lines length,... more This article provides an edition and translation of a probatio pennae of four short lines length, found on a slip inserted in the so-called Seifín Duanaire. This brief note is written in a deliberately obscure style. One line is written in reverse to conceal an attack at a prominent political figure, Máel Mórdha. We suggest identifications for Máel Mórdha and the scribe of the note, Fearghal Ó Gabhann, both of which have connections to the region of Bréifne, and we make proposals to the meaning of the last two lines that appear to add reflections by Fearghal about his note.
This article makes etymological proposals for five words in the Celtiberian inscription from Nova... more This article makes etymological proposals for five words in the Celtiberian inscription from Novallas (Z.02.01): the place name TERGAⱾ is connected with Western Indo-European *tr̥go-/tergeh₂- ‘market’; DOIBIM is explained as a dative dual *dou̯ibim ‘to the two’; the gerund DVNDOM ‘to give’ is tentatively analysed as *dh₃(u)-un-do-; MEDOM is compared with Old Irish med ‘measure, balance’ and Welsh medd ‘authority’; and the fragmentary DERNV[ is compared with words for ‘hand’ or ‘palm’ in other Celtic languages. It is suggested to transcribe the new sibilant sign of Celtiberian with Ȿ (Unicode 2C7E).
This article examines the existing lexicographical evidence for the rare Irish word eclas, typica... more This article examines the existing lexicographical evidence for the rare Irish word eclas, typically translated as 'stomach' or 'gizzard', and presents some hitherto unnoticed attestations of this term from a large collection of Irish medical remedies now preserved in two sixteenth-century manuscripts. The new data allow better insights into the historical phonology and morphology of OIr. eclas and its Breton cognate elas, and make it possible to set up an Indo-European etymology for it and the related word glas in Welsh and Cornish. This reconstruction *(eg̑ʰs)-gʰl̥ H-ST-o/eh₂-also has repercussions for the reconstruction of words for 'digestive organs' in other Indo-European languages. Even though eclas occurs as an equivalent for gaile 'stomach' in the context of late-medieval medical writing, it is argued that it probably originally referred to some other internal organ in the vicinity of the stomach, possibly the 'oesophagus'.
This article introduces Corpus PalaeoHibernicum (CorPH), a corpus currently consisting of 78 text... more This article introduces Corpus PalaeoHibernicum (CorPH), a corpus currently consisting of 78 texts in Early Irish (c. 7th-10th cent.) created by the ERC-funded Chronologicon Hibernicum (ChronHib) project by bringing together pre-existing lexical and syntactic databases and adding further crucial texts from the period. In addition to being annotated for POS, morphological and syntactic information, another layer of annotation has been developed for CorPH-'Variation Tagging', i.e. a tagset that numerically encodes synchronic language variation during the Early Irish period, thus allowing for much improved research on the chronological variation among the material. Another new pillar of studying linguistic variation is Bayesian Language Variation Analysis (BLaVA), in order to address the challenge that "not-so-big data" poses to statistical corpus methods. Instead of reflecting feature frequencies, BLaVA models language variation as probabilities of variation.
This article argues that gad, the hitherto unexplained Breton word for 'hare', is a cognate of Ol... more This article argues that gad, the hitherto unexplained Breton word for 'hare', is a cognate of Old Irish gat 'theft'. The semantic bridge between the two ostensibly distant concepts is the widespread folk belief that hares are shapeshifting witches who steal milk. In the second part, after a discussion of the historical phonology of the postulated reconstruction *gaddā-'theft', and in particular of the treatment of geminate *dd in Breton, it is tentatively suggested that the word may be a borrowing from an unknown substrate language into Insular Celtic.
A tribute to Albert Bock, co-founder of Brennos-Verein für Keltologie and Keltische Forschungen, ... more A tribute to Albert Bock, co-founder of Brennos-Verein für Keltologie and Keltische Forschungen, with a publication list.
It is argued in this article that words for ‘geese’ in the Insular Celtic languages, e.g. Old Ir... more It is argued in this article that words for ‘geese’ in the Insular Celtic languages, e.g. Old Irish géd, Welsh gŵydd ‘goose’, and Old Irish giugrann, Welsh gŵyran ‘wild goose’, etc., go back to reduplicated formations * giγδo- and *giγurano-. The structure and phonology of these words do not conform with those of words inherited from Indo-European. Instead, they may be loans from a lost prehistoric language of western Europe that has been suspected as the source of other vocabulary connected with the natural world.
This article presents two stones with short inscriptions in Early Irish that were discovered by B... more This article presents two stones with short inscriptions in Early Irish that were discovered by Brian Callaghan of the Moybologue Historical Society at Moybologue Old Graveyard and at Enniskeen Graveyard, in 2017 and 2019 respectively. Both sites are on the Cavan-Meath border and are approximately 10.5 km distant from each other.
The corpus of Cisalpine Celtic inscriptions consists of c. 430 short texts (graffiti and engravin... more The corpus of Cisalpine Celtic inscriptions consists of c. 430 short texts (graffiti and engravings) in two different Ancient Celtic languages, Lepontic and Cisalpine Gaulish. The inscriptions, which are mostly written in a variant of the North Italic script, date approximately from the 7th to the 1st centuries BC and are confined to a small area around the North Italian lakes and the Po Valley. This article presents the current knowledge about the Cisalpine Celtic corpus and indicates directions of future research.
The Ogam (Modern Irish: Ogham) script is a peculiar writing system devised to write the Primitive... more The Ogam (Modern Irish: Ogham) script is a peculiar writing system devised to write the Primitive Irish language, i.e. the precursor of Old Irish. This script which in its core consists of 20 letters that are made up of 1-5 strokes or notches along the edges of standing stones was in use mainly from the 5th to the 7th centuries, but its use never fully died out. Of the c. 400 known Ogam inscriptions, around 330 are found in Ireland, the others are found in Britain. This article describes the writing system and the rather monotonous content-namely personal names-of the Ogam texts, as well as the language as far as it is accessible through these texts.
Téamaí agus Tionscadail Taighde, eag. Eoghan Ó Raghallaigh [= Léachtaí Cholm Cille 50], 2020
An overview of the methodology of probabilistic linguistic dating developed in the Chronologicon ... more An overview of the methodology of probabilistic linguistic dating developed in the Chronologicon Hibernicum project
This paper outlines the individual histories of the attested ancient Celtic epigraphic traditions... more This paper outlines the individual histories of the attested ancient Celtic epigraphic traditions, Italo-Celtic, Celtiberian, Gaulish and Ogam-Irish. It discusses the types of literacy in each of them and presents them as examples of how and under which conditions literacy arose and grew, and finally disappeared, in non-classical languages of antiquity. Where possible, the Celtic languages are put in perspective to early Germanic, to highlight similarities and parallels between the two philological areas, but also to contrast the differences between them, and to give an account of where and when opportunities of literate interaction may have arisen between the two groups. These zones of potential interaction, as well as uncommon shapes of letters in some Celtic writing systems, are of relevance for the concluding section where observations from a Celtologist's point of view will be made that may have a bearing on the origins of Runic writing. https://benjamins.com/catalog/nowele.00037.sti
Sub-Indo-European Europe. Problems, Methods, Results. Edited by Guus Kroonen, 2024
This chapter is concerned with the complex question of layers of loanwords in the attested Celtic... more This chapter is concerned with the complex question of layers of loanwords in the attested Celtic languages from unknown, prehistoric languages.
Alex Mullen and George Woudhuysen (eds.), Languages and Communities in the Late-Roman and Post-Imperial Western Provinces, 2023
The focus of this chapter is on the early literate tradition in the Irish language and how this t... more The focus of this chapter is on the early literate tradition in the Irish language and how this tradition was born in the multilingual interaction with a neighbouring written culture, namely that of Latin in the island of Britain. Since a crucial part of this interaction with Ireland happened through British intermediaries or took place in Britain, both regions of the western archipelago will be considered in this survey, though the very different historical and sociolinguistic scenarios in the two islands necessitates looking at each separately.
The Indo-European Puzzle Revisited. Integrating Archaeology, Genetics, and Linguistics. Edited by Kristian Kristiansen, Guus Kroonen and Eske Willerslev, 2023
*The publishers have requested that no version of this article (pre-print or post-print) be made ... more *The publishers have requested that no version of this article (pre-print or post-print) be made available on this platform. If you want the pre-print, please contact me by email or direct messsage.* David Stifter
The aim of this chapter is to establish the semantic field of maritime vocabulary of the Celtic languages, especially that part of the maritime vocabulary that can be reconstructed for Proto-Celtic, the common ancestor of all Celtic languages, and for the prehistoric stages of the Insular Celtic languages. The approach taken in this study is to analyse the relevant lexemes etymologically, and to assess the findings from the point of view of linguistic archaeology. Linguistic archaeology seeks to extract as much information as possible from the synchronic and diachronically reconstructable semantics and morphology of words in order to make inferences about the environment and living conditions of the language’s speakers from a prehistoric and early historic perspective. Maritime vocabulary, which is the focus of this study, includes all elements of the lexicon that refer to the topographical, biological, and economic environment of the sea and the shore, and to human interaction with them.
Open Research Europe. Linguistic Diversity collection, 2023
This study investigates systematically the emergence and establishment of geminate consonants as ... more This study investigates systematically the emergence and establishment of geminate consonants as a phonological class in the Celtic branch of Indo-European. The approach of this study is comparative historical linguistics, drawing on diachronic structuralism combined with aspects of language contact studies and functional approaches to language usage. This study traces the development of geminates from Proto-Indo-European (fourth millennium B.C.), which did not allow geminate consonants, to the Common Celtic period (first millennium B.C.), when almost every consonant could occur as a singleton or as a geminate, and on to the earliest attested stages of the Insular Celtic languages (first millennium A.D.). Although they were prominent in the phonology of Proto-and Ancient Celtic (Gaulish, Celtiberian), ultimately geminates were gotten rid of as a phonological class in the individual Insular Celtic languages. This is probably due to the fact that the contrast between lenited and unlenited sounds took on a central role in Insular Celtic phonology, making gemination a redundant category. Most instances of geminate consonants in Celtic can be explained by regular sound change operating on inherited clusters of consonants. Each sound change will be discussed in a separate section in a rough chronological order. Effectively, gemination is largely a strategy to reduce the number of allowed consonant combinations. To a limited degree, gemination also had a morphological function, especially in the formation of personal names and in the creation of adjectival neologisms. However, there is a residue of words, especially nouns, in the Insular Celtic languages that defy any attempt at etymologising. They are prime suspects of having been borrowed from prehistoric, substratal languages.
This article provides an edition and translation of a probatio pennae of four short lines length,... more This article provides an edition and translation of a probatio pennae of four short lines length, found on a slip inserted in the so-called Seifín Duanaire. This brief note is written in a deliberately obscure style. One line is written in reverse to conceal an attack at a prominent political figure, Máel Mórdha. We suggest identifications for Máel Mórdha and the scribe of the note, Fearghal Ó Gabhann, both of which have connections to the region of Bréifne, and we make proposals to the meaning of the last two lines that appear to add reflections by Fearghal about his note.
This article makes etymological proposals for five words in the Celtiberian inscription from Nova... more This article makes etymological proposals for five words in the Celtiberian inscription from Novallas (Z.02.01): the place name TERGAⱾ is connected with Western Indo-European *tr̥go-/tergeh₂- ‘market’; DOIBIM is explained as a dative dual *dou̯ibim ‘to the two’; the gerund DVNDOM ‘to give’ is tentatively analysed as *dh₃(u)-un-do-; MEDOM is compared with Old Irish med ‘measure, balance’ and Welsh medd ‘authority’; and the fragmentary DERNV[ is compared with words for ‘hand’ or ‘palm’ in other Celtic languages. It is suggested to transcribe the new sibilant sign of Celtiberian with Ȿ (Unicode 2C7E).
This article examines the existing lexicographical evidence for the rare Irish word eclas, typica... more This article examines the existing lexicographical evidence for the rare Irish word eclas, typically translated as 'stomach' or 'gizzard', and presents some hitherto unnoticed attestations of this term from a large collection of Irish medical remedies now preserved in two sixteenth-century manuscripts. The new data allow better insights into the historical phonology and morphology of OIr. eclas and its Breton cognate elas, and make it possible to set up an Indo-European etymology for it and the related word glas in Welsh and Cornish. This reconstruction *(eg̑ʰs)-gʰl̥ H-ST-o/eh₂-also has repercussions for the reconstruction of words for 'digestive organs' in other Indo-European languages. Even though eclas occurs as an equivalent for gaile 'stomach' in the context of late-medieval medical writing, it is argued that it probably originally referred to some other internal organ in the vicinity of the stomach, possibly the 'oesophagus'.
This article introduces Corpus PalaeoHibernicum (CorPH), a corpus currently consisting of 78 text... more This article introduces Corpus PalaeoHibernicum (CorPH), a corpus currently consisting of 78 texts in Early Irish (c. 7th-10th cent.) created by the ERC-funded Chronologicon Hibernicum (ChronHib) project by bringing together pre-existing lexical and syntactic databases and adding further crucial texts from the period. In addition to being annotated for POS, morphological and syntactic information, another layer of annotation has been developed for CorPH-'Variation Tagging', i.e. a tagset that numerically encodes synchronic language variation during the Early Irish period, thus allowing for much improved research on the chronological variation among the material. Another new pillar of studying linguistic variation is Bayesian Language Variation Analysis (BLaVA), in order to address the challenge that "not-so-big data" poses to statistical corpus methods. Instead of reflecting feature frequencies, BLaVA models language variation as probabilities of variation.
This article argues that gad, the hitherto unexplained Breton word for 'hare', is a cognate of Ol... more This article argues that gad, the hitherto unexplained Breton word for 'hare', is a cognate of Old Irish gat 'theft'. The semantic bridge between the two ostensibly distant concepts is the widespread folk belief that hares are shapeshifting witches who steal milk. In the second part, after a discussion of the historical phonology of the postulated reconstruction *gaddā-'theft', and in particular of the treatment of geminate *dd in Breton, it is tentatively suggested that the word may be a borrowing from an unknown substrate language into Insular Celtic.
A tribute to Albert Bock, co-founder of Brennos-Verein für Keltologie and Keltische Forschungen, ... more A tribute to Albert Bock, co-founder of Brennos-Verein für Keltologie and Keltische Forschungen, with a publication list.
It is argued in this article that words for ‘geese’ in the Insular Celtic languages, e.g. Old Ir... more It is argued in this article that words for ‘geese’ in the Insular Celtic languages, e.g. Old Irish géd, Welsh gŵydd ‘goose’, and Old Irish giugrann, Welsh gŵyran ‘wild goose’, etc., go back to reduplicated formations * giγδo- and *giγurano-. The structure and phonology of these words do not conform with those of words inherited from Indo-European. Instead, they may be loans from a lost prehistoric language of western Europe that has been suspected as the source of other vocabulary connected with the natural world.
This article presents two stones with short inscriptions in Early Irish that were discovered by B... more This article presents two stones with short inscriptions in Early Irish that were discovered by Brian Callaghan of the Moybologue Historical Society at Moybologue Old Graveyard and at Enniskeen Graveyard, in 2017 and 2019 respectively. Both sites are on the Cavan-Meath border and are approximately 10.5 km distant from each other.
The corpus of Cisalpine Celtic inscriptions consists of c. 430 short texts (graffiti and engravin... more The corpus of Cisalpine Celtic inscriptions consists of c. 430 short texts (graffiti and engravings) in two different Ancient Celtic languages, Lepontic and Cisalpine Gaulish. The inscriptions, which are mostly written in a variant of the North Italic script, date approximately from the 7th to the 1st centuries BC and are confined to a small area around the North Italian lakes and the Po Valley. This article presents the current knowledge about the Cisalpine Celtic corpus and indicates directions of future research.
The Ogam (Modern Irish: Ogham) script is a peculiar writing system devised to write the Primitive... more The Ogam (Modern Irish: Ogham) script is a peculiar writing system devised to write the Primitive Irish language, i.e. the precursor of Old Irish. This script which in its core consists of 20 letters that are made up of 1-5 strokes or notches along the edges of standing stones was in use mainly from the 5th to the 7th centuries, but its use never fully died out. Of the c. 400 known Ogam inscriptions, around 330 are found in Ireland, the others are found in Britain. This article describes the writing system and the rather monotonous content-namely personal names-of the Ogam texts, as well as the language as far as it is accessible through these texts.
Téamaí agus Tionscadail Taighde, eag. Eoghan Ó Raghallaigh [= Léachtaí Cholm Cille 50], 2020
An overview of the methodology of probabilistic linguistic dating developed in the Chronologicon ... more An overview of the methodology of probabilistic linguistic dating developed in the Chronologicon Hibernicum project
This paper outlines the individual histories of the attested ancient Celtic epigraphic traditions... more This paper outlines the individual histories of the attested ancient Celtic epigraphic traditions, Italo-Celtic, Celtiberian, Gaulish and Ogam-Irish. It discusses the types of literacy in each of them and presents them as examples of how and under which conditions literacy arose and grew, and finally disappeared, in non-classical languages of antiquity. Where possible, the Celtic languages are put in perspective to early Germanic, to highlight similarities and parallels between the two philological areas, but also to contrast the differences between them, and to give an account of where and when opportunities of literate interaction may have arisen between the two groups. These zones of potential interaction, as well as uncommon shapes of letters in some Celtic writing systems, are of relevance for the concluding section where observations from a Celtologist's point of view will be made that may have a bearing on the origins of Runic writing. https://benjamins.com/catalog/nowele.00037.sti
This is a foreword to Francesco Felici's Old Irish translation of Harriette Taylor Treadwell’s an... more This is a foreword to Francesco Felici's Old Irish translation of Harriette Taylor Treadwell’s and Margaret Free’s ‘First Reader’ (1910), to be published by Evertype
Ogam is an ingenious writing system, consisting only of strokes and notches arranged along a stem... more Ogam is an ingenious writing system, consisting only of strokes and notches arranged along a stem-line. As a graphic system, it is among the most abstract and non-iconic writing systems ever devised for human communication. The letters consist of bundles of one to five identical straight parallel strokes, arranged in four classes or groups. Ogam is most commonly found on the arrises of objects, typically on standing stones. Slightly under 500 ogam stones are extant today, chiefly in Ireland, but also in Wales, Scotland, England and the Isle of Man. To this can be added around two dozen portable objects. Originally invented perhaps in the 4 th century to write the Primitive Irish language, the 5 th-7 th centuries are considered to be the classical period of Ogam writing. However, the knowledge of Ogam was never lost and the tradition of its use continues until the modern day. In the high middle ages, it was even occasionally adopted into manuscript writing. This volume of the AELAW series offers an introduction to what is known about this writing system and how to interpret inscriptions in Ogam. A census of the inscrip¬tions known today and a concise bibliography round off the volume. The book contains 2 maps, 8 tables and 29 figures.
Order: https://puz.unizar.es/2703-ogam-languaje-writing-epigraphy.html
Ancient European Languages and Writings (AELAW) series no. 8, 2020
The book is available at https://puz.unizar.es/2369-cisalpine-celtic-languge-writing-epigraphy.ht... more The book is available at https://puz.unizar.es/2369-cisalpine-celtic-languge-writing-epigraphy.html </br> In the first millennium B.C., two Ancient Celtic languages were spoken in what is today northern Italy and southern Switzerland, along the northern part of the river Po, and in the valleys around the big lakes on the southern slopes of the Alps. These languages, Lepontic and Gaulish, are grouped together as Cisalpine Celtic, i.e. ‘Celtic on this side of the Alps’, viewed from the perspective of the ancient Romans, in contrast to the Transalpine Gaulish language on the far side of the Alps in modern France. Known from over 400 inscriptions that span around 600 years, the two languages share the same writing system, borrowed from the Etruscans to the south. This volume of the AELAW series offers an introduction to what is known about the grammar and the lexicon of these languages, how to read the script and how to interpret the the various types of inscriptions (graffiti on pottery, tombstones, dedicatory formulae). This is accompanied by over forty new images and drawings of the inscribed objects. A census of the inscriptions known today and a concise bibliography round off the volume. The book contains 2 maps, 2 tables and 28 figures.
Lexicon Leponticum (LexLep, https://www.univie.ac.at/lexlep) is an online edition of the Cisalpin... more Lexicon Leponticum (LexLep, https://www.univie.ac.at/lexlep) is an online edition of the Cisalpine Celtic (Lepontic and Cisalpine Gaulish) inscriptions in the form of an interactive online platform of the MediaWiki type. It was created during an FWF-funded research project (no. P 21706) conducted at the Department for Linguistics of the University of Vienna under the direction of David Stifter.
This review includes a new old etymology of the Old Irish word "ogam", and general observations r... more This review includes a new old etymology of the Old Irish word "ogam", and general observations regarding the rich charming tradition of medieval and modern Ireland. Since Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies is a journal that is entirely privately run by Prof Patrick Sims-Williams, I do not provide the file here but recommend to support Prof Sims-Williams' work by buying the journal for a small price at http://cmcspublications.com/.
Practicalities We resume our meetings after a week's break. Last proceedings David has now had th... more Practicalities We resume our meetings after a week's break. Last proceedings David has now had the opportunity to go through Elliott's extensive remarks on proceedings 37, mentioned last week, and we now go through them. On the vocalism of the copula, Aaron Griffith has published an article in Ériu which explores the issue (he proposes that an unstressed vowel may be raised before a palatal-s). On cetu· and ceta·, Aaron Griffith again has spoken at the 2016 ChronHib Workshop. Aaron has since submitted his paper for publication in the proceedings of said workshop. Also, ocu· should be included in this discussion. As to the loss of interior vowels in extended pretonic sequences other than due to the effects of syncope, Elliott has referred to this as 'pretonic squishing'. He argues that one should not call it syncope, because it affects a different position in the word and he believes it to be a much later (late 8 th or early 9 th century) phenomenon, which occurs in Milan, but apparently not in Würzburg. David wonders whether one could entertain the possibility that syncope might also have operated in pretonic syllables by counting backwards from the stressed syllable; i.e. in a sequence of four pretonic syllables before the stress, the third would then be liable to syncope, given that it would be the second syllable from the stress? The term 'retrograde syncope' is coined. The question is raised whether 'pretonic squishing' should be considered a sound-change, like syncope, or a morphological change on the basis of analogy with other forms within the paradigms involved. Elliott rightly points out that David has himself proposed a kind of allegro elision in the sequence etir na, where one does not find **etir inna. If one considers this underlying four-syllable sequence to have
Apologies: Elliott Lash Practicalities David has had only very little time to prepare for this se... more Apologies: Elliott Lash Practicalities David has had only very little time to prepare for this session of the fanclub. Last proceedings Elliott sent us a rather long reply to last week's proceedings, which David needs to read more thoroughly before commenting upon it. Chantal Kobel sent David some comments, which he has adopted. Lenition (§118) The title of this chapter seems fine. The reference to Pedersen is probably unnecessary at this stage; moreover, most people will probably not be able to read the Danish easily. "Lenition (formerly called aspiration) is the term used to describe a mutation of consonants which normally originated in a reduction of the energy employed in their articulation." We can drop the fact that it was once called 'aspiration', given that that term has gone out of use entirely. 'Lenition' is now the fully accepted term, except amongst speakers of Modern Irish, who call it séimhiú, which we avoid. Otherwise this first sentence is essentially correct, but decidedly imprecise. It is also unclear what 'normally' means in this context. David would rather say that for lenition 'the occlusion typical of a consonant is reduced and there is no full closure, but rather some air flowing' when the consonant is pronounced. This description works well for stops, but does not cover s > h, nor the lenition of l, r and n. We should therefore allow for various groups of lenition, namely that of stops, liquids and s respectively. We must distinguish two different meanings of 'lenition': 1) the diachronic, prehistorical sound-change and 2) the synchronic, morpho-syntactic grammatical feature of the attested language. Essentially , David's proposed definition works best to describe 1) the sound-change, whereas other features were incorporated into 2) the morpho-syntactic, mutational feature of the language.
Apologies: Daniel Watson Practicalities We congratulate David on winning the award for being the ... more Apologies: Daniel Watson Practicalities We congratulate David on winning the award for being the researcher of the year in the Faculty of Arts, Celtic Studies and Philosophy here in Maynooth. We also congratulate Deborah for winning the award for the best early-career researcher in the same category (which means that the department of Early Irish Studies made a clean sweep of the awards this year!). 1 Given that Elliott is in attendance, it is no great surprise that he "throws in a remark". Last week we discussed the impossibility of the sequence-lnd-in Old Irish, but Elliott raises the possibility that it could exist in **calndae, the gen. sg. of caland 'calends'. The word caland (is it actually attested written out like this? eDIL does not quote a relevant example) is a nom. sg. ā-stem noun which derives from the Latin plural noun kalendae. However, it is usually found written by means of an abbreviation (<kƚ>). Given that it is a singular in Old Irish, this implies a Vulgar Latin preform *kalenda, or probably actually *kalanda (cf. tauerna > tauarna). In the gen. sg. this would be *kalendae > *kalandae. Through syncope, this yields *kalnde, but David believes that the n is then immediately deleted, yielding caldae. Later on, through assimilation within the Old Irish period, this becomes callae. This latter gen. sg. form then influences the nom. sg., resulting in a new nom. sg. callann, which in turn gives rise to a new gen. sg. calnae. This word actually nicely illustrates the impossibility of the sequence-lnd-and its possibly resolutions. [The Laon Cassiodore-glosses (early 9 th century according to Bronner) actually have gen. cailne, which speaks for an immediate preform *kalenda without vowel assimilation.] 1 It is noted that Deborah is once again congratulated in absentia.
Nicole Volmering (rest of semester) Practicalities Having survived a snowfall worthy of being inc... more Nicole Volmering (rest of semester) Practicalities Having survived a snowfall worthy of being incorporated into the Annals, we turn to Old Irish grammar once again. Unstressed vowels in hiatus (§105) "The quality of unstressed vowels after other vowels is often determined entirely by the consonants closing the syllable." Well, we would (although we shall feel less certain about this before too long) rather say that the vowel becomes schwa in hiatus. This helps to explain why we observe the same thing happening in words like aue, where there is no final consonant. "Thus they become a before neutral consonants; e.g. lïacc, gen. sg. of lie 'stone'; deac(c) in numeral adjs. '-teen' (§391), but déec still Wb. 15 b 1; arch. oëc 'young' ZCP. XI. 93 §22, óac Sg. 38 a 7, etc.; suad 'of a wise man' (su-wid-). Cp. the declension of bïad 'food', gen. biid biith, dat. biud." The form liäcc supports our notion of the loss of inherited vowel-quality in hiatus position and the reduction to schwa; the form derives from *liwank > *liwaenk > *liwɛ̄ gg > *liēg. One wonders whether the fact that we find e.g. suad, but never **sued (relative to deacc next to déec) is merely a matter of chance. If we had early attestations of suad, it might well be found written **sued as well. We reckon that-in general-when we find <e> in this position, it is archaic and retains the original quality of the vowel. "Unstressed a between i and a palatal consonant is narrowed only to e; e.g. bieid, also written bied, 'he will be' from *bïath i (conj. ·bïa), 3 pl. bieit biet; con·dïeig 'demands' from dí-ṡaig (beside con·daig with the vocalism of the simplex); ïern Thes. I. 2, 15, gen. sg. of ïarn 'iron'. Cp. also dat. sg. lïeic 'stone' §321." This is interesting. It seems that the vowel is not fully reduced to schwa in this position, given that one would then have expected <i> to be written, ahead of a palatal consonant. It should, however, be noted that these spellings with e are far from universal. Taking a closer look at the attested forms of the gen. sg. of iärn, we find not only iërn, but also iäirn (LL 4984), híairn Thes.
Practicalities We begin by discussing the new template David has made for the proceedings, which ... more Practicalities We begin by discussing the new template David has made for the proceedings, which includes (as may be seen above) all the proper logos and the ERC grant reference of the ChronHib project, of which these meetings are a part. Romanas asks whether we should change the name from 'Fanclub' to 'Reading group' or some such if it is to be a more formal part of the project. However, the others are in favour of retaining the fanclub, saying that we are a "very serious fanclub". It is also noted that in the draft template, David opened the meeting with the note that "Elliott throws in a remark" (which was actually derived from a real issue of the proceedings); Elliott appreciates this and we all agree that it is indeed something which happens often enough. The template is accepted and the proceedings for the last two weeks will now shortly be sent on to David, presumably along with today's proceedings, so that they may be processed and published. We also note that we have a new member, the exchange student from Oslo: Bjørn. We welcome him and briefly explain our practices. 1 We have managed to read 63 pages in a year and a half, although we actually skipped some parts. As such, we do not have a hope of reaching the end of the grammar by the end of the project (in 2020), but we are making progress all the same. Unstressed vowels in closed syllables (§102) As mentioned at the end of last week's meeting, Thurneysen is very detailed in his description of the unstressed vowels (in post-tonic syllables), which in part derives from the fact that he operates with three consonant qualities. His separate treatment of unstressed non-final closed vs. open syllables is a subtle distinction which we do not generally make, but which may be useful. We shall see. "An unstressed short vowel, whatever its origin, which stands between two consonants belonging to the same syllable is written as follows…" This is essentially the correct approach when it comes to the 1 David: "Our proceedings are very simple, I read the Gospel [= Thurneysen's GOI]… and then we tear it to pieces."
Practicalities We did not get too much done last week, but hope to speed up a bit today (relative... more Practicalities We did not get too much done last week, but hope to speed up a bit today (relatively speaking). Last week's proceedings have been written up by the scribe, but have not been sent on to David yet, whilst the latter works on a new template for these proceedings, which will include a reference to ChronHib's ERC grant number. The Milan poems Over the weekend Anders Ahlqvist sent David a draft of an article he is writing on the two very faint, hard to read poems on the very first folium of the manuscript of the Milan glosses. These poems were not treated by Aaron Griffith in his database of the glosses and earlier editions have large lacunae and do not make much sense of the text. Ahlqvist has managed to massively improve the readings and looks set to present a solid, philological edition of the poems. Each of the two poems consists of seven or eight stanza's (rhyming quatrains). Ahlqvist believes the two to form part of a larger poem. The poems are written in a script that differs somewhat from that of the glosses and it has been claimed on this basis that they are slightly younger; however, it also seems possible to us that the differences reflect a difference in care and available space relative to the glosses, rather than a change of hand. Ahlqvist believes that we are dealing with two riddle poems. The first is about Christ, who is not mentioned by name. Rather, the poem alludes to all kinds of aspects of his person. The second poem is about a magical house, which is a metaphor for the Church. Some of the sentiments and concepts expressed in these poems remind David of Blathmac and we may well look at them in the seminar after we have finished reading Blathmac sometime next year. Glides before unstressed, final vowels: ai, ae (§98) "In the earliest sources final e and i after neutral consonants are normally written without an intermediate vowel. On the other hand-ai and-ae are found occasionally in Wb. and more consistently in the later Glosses."
Practicalities We have to add the project logo and the reference to the ERC-grant in our proceedi... more Practicalities We have to add the project logo and the reference to the ERC-grant in our proceedings from now on; especially when they are published officially on the project website, etc. David will produce such a template for future use; and we will then have to 'update' all previous proceedings to that format. Joe Eska left a very interesting comment on academia.edu, which supports our thoughts on the vowel-colouring potential of velars for phonetic reasons. He also made note of an ogam-inscription, the name GOSSUCTTIAS (MacAlister 190). This name occurs in two other inscriptions, in both cases spelled GOSSOCT-… but with different endings. This is in fact the Old Irish word gúasacht 'danger, threat', an abstract noun derived from gúas 'danger, trap' + the suffix-acht < *-āktā. The fact that the first ā of this suffix is spelled consistently with u/o appears to be strong evidence for the rounding effect a velar might have, even on a long vowel. That is occurs in ogam may be regarded as further evidence that this is really a matter of vowel quality, rather than a graphic representation of consonant quality, as ogam is well-known for absolutely ignoring that most salient of consonant-qualities-palatalisation-in its spelling system. It is objected that this might also reflect a forward-rounding effect of the stressed vowel (ō) in this particular instance. However, forward-rounding is rather rare in Irish. That this rounding is not reflected in Old Irish-acht is not necessarily problematic. The change would have been subphonemic (it's one of those proposed rounded schwa's) and might therefore well not have been represented (or underrepresented) in the orthography. It is asked whether ucht 'bosom, lap' also reflects this. The etymology of this word is controversial. David prefers deriving it from pectus > *φeχtu-, although the cluster-χt-should prevent u-infection. This might then also feature a rounding/velarizing effect of the velar. However, the labializing *p might also play into it. Or perhaps it never was a full-grade /e/ in the first place? At any rate, the development cannot be fully regularly, we have ech 'horse' and not **uch after all. Unless, of course, we are in fact dealing with the effects of dialect…
Practicalities The session opens with a relatively long discursion on the preterites of beirid, S... more Practicalities The session opens with a relatively long discursion on the preterites of beirid, S1-verbs and, to some extent, strong verbs in general after Dorus raised a question concerning the lowering of 3sg. ·bert. David apologizes for not having finished and sent out last week's proceedings just yet. Lars adds that this can hardly be considered to be David's fault, as Lars only sent the minutes over late last night. 1
Apologies: Theodorus Fransen, Nicole Volmering Practicalities We have only a very limited supply ... more Apologies: Theodorus Fransen, Nicole Volmering Practicalities We have only a very limited supply of cookies. Angry shouts of 'blame the suppliers!' resound. This was clearly effective, as David promptly bought an ample supply of new cookies afterwards. As to the meetings starting next week, they will probably take place on Tuesdays so that it will not clash with matters at TCD, although the time has yet to be settled. We bid Elliott welcome upon his return and congratulate him once more upon his wedding. He confirms that he definitely attended his own wedding and that it was enjoyable. We were messing with him last week. 1 We also welcome Siobhán, who has joined us again for the first time in a while. David had not noticed Cormac Anderson's comments on academia.edu ahead of the meeting. We will discuss them next week, after having had the opportunity to study them more closely. a-glides (§87) "Before neutral consonants no glide is indicated in O.Ir. (for the development é > ía, see § 53)." We would now say non-palatal consonants. The development é > ía reflects a specific breaking of that vowel into a diphthong, rather than the insertion of a glide vowel-this might be stated more clearly. Otherwise, Thurneysen is correct: there are almost no examples of non-palatal glides being written during the Old Irish period. 1 Shortly hereafter, Elliott was chatting with Bernhard whilst David was speaking, prompting the latter to exclaim: "Simply because you're married doesn't mean you can chat!" Upon which Elliott replied: "We were just trying to solve things. We were discussing secret things."
The Department of Classics at Trinity College Dublin is pleased to announce the international con... more The Department of Classics at Trinity College Dublin is pleased to announce the international conference ‘From invisible to visible: new data and methods for the archaeology of infant and child burials in pre-Roman Italy’ to be held at Trinity College Dublin on 24-25 April 2017, with the support of the Trinity Long Room Hub, the School of Histories and Humanities, the Italian Cultural Institute in Dublin and Fàilte Ireland, and in collaboration with the Centre for Gender and Women's Studies and the Trinity Research in Childhood Centre. This conference is part of the research project “Childhood and the Deathly Hallows: Investigating Infant and Child Burials in Pre-Roman Italy (c. 1000-500BC)”, funded by the Irish Research Council and carried out by Dr. Jacopo Tabolli. On the basis that an infant and child tomb is itself an archaeological entity, whose analysis cuts across disciplines - mainly archaeology, bio-archaeology and anthropology, but also philology, ancient literature, gender studies, pedagogy, medical humanities and digital humanities - and in order to promote an interdisciplinary approach, the conference at Trinity College Dublin involves scholars from international institutions, experienced in interdisciplinary methods, in order to create a network specifically focused on the analysis of childhood in ancient societies. The role of this network is to function as an interdisciplinary incubator, offering a platform for dialogue between disciplines around infant and child burials. We have invited scholars working on the archaeology of Italy from the Early Iron Age through the Archaic Period (c. 1000–500 BC) to present the results of their recent researches on the topic of infant and child burials. We envision that this platform can be a model for other archaeological studies in the future as well as ideal for developing a new methodological approach to the excavation of infant and child tombs, following best practices in archaeology.
Publication plan The prestigious series of Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology (SIMA) has already agreed to publish the proceedings of the conference.
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Papers by David Stifter
The aim of this chapter is to establish the semantic field of maritime vocabulary of the Celtic languages, especially that part of the maritime vocabulary that can be reconstructed for Proto-Celtic, the common ancestor of all Celtic languages, and for the prehistoric stages of the Insular Celtic languages. The approach taken in this study is to analyse the relevant lexemes etymologically, and to assess the findings from the point of view of linguistic archaeology. Linguistic archaeology seeks to extract as much information as possible from the synchronic and diachronically reconstructable semantics and morphology of words in order to make inferences about the environment and living conditions of the language’s speakers from a prehistoric and early historic perspective. Maritime vocabulary, which is the focus of this study, includes all elements of the lexicon that refer to the topographical, biological, and economic environment of the sea and the shore, and to human interaction with them.
https://benjamins.com/catalog/nowele.00037.sti
The aim of this chapter is to establish the semantic field of maritime vocabulary of the Celtic languages, especially that part of the maritime vocabulary that can be reconstructed for Proto-Celtic, the common ancestor of all Celtic languages, and for the prehistoric stages of the Insular Celtic languages. The approach taken in this study is to analyse the relevant lexemes etymologically, and to assess the findings from the point of view of linguistic archaeology. Linguistic archaeology seeks to extract as much information as possible from the synchronic and diachronically reconstructable semantics and morphology of words in order to make inferences about the environment and living conditions of the language’s speakers from a prehistoric and early historic perspective. Maritime vocabulary, which is the focus of this study, includes all elements of the lexicon that refer to the topographical, biological, and economic environment of the sea and the shore, and to human interaction with them.
https://benjamins.com/catalog/nowele.00037.sti
Order: https://puz.unizar.es/2703-ogam-languaje-writing-epigraphy.html
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In the first millennium B.C., two Ancient Celtic languages were spoken in what is today northern Italy and southern Switzerland, along the northern part of the river Po, and in the valleys around the big lakes on the southern slopes of the Alps. These languages, Lepontic and Gaulish, are grouped together as Cisalpine Celtic, i.e. ‘Celtic on this side of the Alps’, viewed from the perspective of the ancient Romans, in contrast to the Transalpine Gaulish language on the far side of the Alps in modern France. Known from over 400 inscriptions that span around 600 years, the two languages share the same writing system, borrowed from the Etruscans to the south. This volume of the AELAW series offers an introduction to what is known about the grammar and the lexicon of these languages, how to read the script and how to interpret the the various types of inscriptions (graffiti on pottery, tombstones, dedicatory formulae). This is accompanied by over forty new images and drawings of the inscribed objects. A census of the inscriptions known today and a concise bibliography round off the volume. The book contains 2 maps, 2 tables and 28 figures.
Since Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies is a journal that is entirely privately run by Prof Patrick Sims-Williams, I do not provide the file here but recommend to support Prof Sims-Williams' work by buying the journal for a small price at http://cmcspublications.com/.
On the basis that an infant and child tomb is itself an archaeological entity, whose analysis cuts across disciplines - mainly archaeology, bio-archaeology and anthropology, but also philology, ancient literature, gender studies, pedagogy, medical humanities and digital humanities - and in order to promote an interdisciplinary approach, the conference at Trinity College Dublin involves scholars from international institutions, experienced in interdisciplinary methods, in order to create a network specifically focused on the analysis of childhood in ancient societies. The role of this network is to function as an interdisciplinary incubator, offering a platform for dialogue between disciplines around infant and child burials.
We have invited scholars working on the archaeology of Italy from the Early Iron Age through the Archaic Period (c. 1000–500 BC) to present the results of their recent researches on the topic of infant and child burials.
We envision that this platform can be a model for other archaeological studies in the future as well as ideal for developing a new methodological approach to the excavation of infant and child tombs, following best practices in archaeology.
Publication plan
The prestigious series of Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology (SIMA) has already agreed to publish the proceedings of the conference.
For further information please email Jacopo Tabolli (tabollij@tcd.ie) or Hazel Dodge (hdodge@tcd.ie).
URL: https://spw.uni-goettingen.de/projects/aig/lng-sga.html