Gaulish language: Encyclopedia II - Gaulish language - Grammar

Gaulish language - Grammar

There was some areal (or genetic, see Italo-Celtic) similarity to Latin grammar, and the French historian A. Lot argued that this helped the rapid adoption of Latin in Roman Gaul.

Gaulish language - Cases

Gaulish has six or seven cases (Lambert 2003 pp.51-67). In common with Latin it has nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive and dative; where Latin has an ablative, Gaulish has an instrumental and may also have a locative. There is more evidence for common cases (nominative and accusative) and for common stems (-o- and -a- stems) than there is for cases less frequently used in inscriptions, or rarer stems such as -i-, -n- and occlusive. The following table summarizes the case endings which are most securely known. A blank means that the form is unattested.

In some cases a historical evolution is known, for example the dative singular of -a- stems is -ai in the oldest inscriptions, becoming first -e and finally -i.

Gaulish language - Numerals

Ordinal numerals from the La Graufesenque graffiti

1. cintux[so (Welsh cyntaf, Old Irish cétae, Modern Irish 'céad', Breton kentañ = "first")
2. allos (Welsh ail, OIr aile (Modern Irish 'eile') = other, Breton all ="other")
3. tritios (Welsh trydydd, OIr treide (not found in Modern Irish))
4. pentuar[ios (Welsh pedwerydd, OIr cethramad (Modern Irish ceathrú)
5. pinpetos (Ml Welsh pymhet (now pumed), OIr cóiced(Modern Irish cúigiú)
6. suexos (maybe mistaken for suextos, Welsh chweched, OIr seissed (Modern Irish 'séú')
7. sextametos (Welsh seithfed, OIr sechtmad, Modern Irish 'seachtú')
8. oxtumeto[s (Welsh wythfed, OIr ochtmad, Modern Irish 'ochtú')
9. namet[os (Welsh nawfed, OIr nómad, Modern Irish 'naoú', Breton navet)
10. decametos, decometos (Welsh degfed, OIr dechmad, Modern Irish 'deichniú', Celtiberian dekametam)

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Grammar", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki