Gaulish language: Encyclopedia II - Gaulish language - Phonology

Gaulish language - Phonology

• vowels:
  • short: a, e, i, o u
  • long ā, ē, ī, (ō), ū
• semivowels: w, y
• occlusives:
  • voiceless: p, t, k
  • voiced: b, d, g
• resonants
  • nasals: m, n
  • liquids r, l
• sibilant: s
• affricate: t^s

[χ] is an allophone of /k/ before /t/.

Gaulish language - Orthography

The alphabet of Lugano used in Gallia Cisalpina for Lepontic:

The alphabet of Lugano does not distinguish voiced and unvoiced occlusives, i.e. P represents /b/ or /p/, T is for /t/ or /d/, K for /g/ or /k/. Z is probably for /t^s/. U /u/ and V /w/ are distinguished. Θ is probably for /t/ and X for /g/.

The Eastern Greek alphabet used in southern Gallia Transalpina:

χ is used for [χ], θ for /t^s/, ου for /u/, /ū/, /w/, η and ω for both long and short /e/, /ē/ and /o/, /ō/, while ι is for short /i/ and ει for /ī/. Note that the Sigma in the Eastern Greek alphabet looks like a C (lunate sigma).

Latin alphabet (monumental and cursive) in use in Roman Gaul:

G and K are sometimes used interchangeably. Ð/ð, ds and s may represent /t^s/. X, x is for [χ] or /ks/. EV can be used interchangeably with OV (e.g. L-3, L-12). Q is only used rarely (e.g. Sequanni, Equos) and may be an archaism. Ð and ð are used here to represent the letter Tau Gallicum (Eska 1998), which has not yet been added to Unicode. In contrast to Ð the central bar extends right across the glyph.

Gaulish language - Sound laws

• NOrthern/Eastern Gaulish changed PIE voiceless labiovelars k^w to p (hence P-Celtic), a development also observed in Brythonic (as well as Greek and some Italic languages), while the other Celtic, 'Q-Celtic', retained the labiovelar. Thus the Northern/Eastern Gaulish word for "son" was mapos (Delmarre 2003 pp. 216-217), contrasting with Primitive Irish maqi (Sims-Williams 2003 pp.430-431). Similarly one NOrthern/Eastern Gaulish word for "horse" was epos while Old Irish has ech; Southern/Western Gaulish had eqos, all derived from Indo-European *ekuos (Delmarre 2003 pp.163-164)

• Voiced labiovelar g^w became w, e. g. uediiumi < g^wediūmi "I pray".

• PIE t^st became /t^s/, spelled ð, e.g. neððamon from *nedz-tamo (Old Irish nesa 'nearer/nearest').

• PIE ew became ow, and later ō, e.g. *teutā > touta, tota (tribe, tribal land, Old Irish tuath).

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