Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, is the reconstructed ancestral proto-language of all known Celtic languages, and a descendant of Proto-Indo-European. It is not attested in writing but has been partly reconstructed through the comparative method. Proto-Celtic is generally thought to have been spoken between 1300 and 800 BC, after which it began to split into different languages. Proto-Celtic is often associated with the Urnfield culture and particularly with the Hallstatt culture. Celtic languages share common features with Italic languages that are not found in other branches of Indo-European, suggesting the possibility of an earlier Italo-Celtic linguistic unity.
Proto-Celtic is currently being reconstructed through the comparative method by relying on later Celtic languages. Though Continental Celtic presents much substantiation for Proto-Celtic phonology, and some for its morphology, recorded material is too scanty to allow a secure reconstruction of syntax, though some complete sentences are recorded in the Continental Gaulish and Celtiberian. So, the main sources for reconstruction come from Insular Celtic languages with the oldest literature found in Old IrishCeltic literature at britannica.com, accessed 7 February 2018 and Middle Welsh, dating back to authors flourishing in the 6th century AD.
Dating Proto-Celtic is usually dated to the Late Bronze Age, ca. 1200–900 BC.Koch, John T. (2020). Celto-Germanic Later Prehistory and Post-Proto-Indo-European vocabulary in the North and West , pp. 45–48. The fact that it is possible to reconstruct a Proto-Celtic word for 'iron' (traditionally reconstructed as ) has long been taken as an indication that the divergence into individual Celtic languages did not start until the Iron Age (8th century BC to 1st century BC); otherwise, descendant languages might have developed their own, unrelated words for the metal. However, Schumacher and Schrijver suggest a date for Proto-Celtic as early as the 13th century BC, the time of the Canegrate culture, in northwest Italy, and the Urnfield culture in Central Europe, implying that the divergence may have already started in the Bronze Age.
Sound changes from Proto-Indo-European The phonological changes from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) to Proto-Celtic (PC) may be summarized as follows. The changes are roughly in chronological order, with changes that operate on the outcome of earlier ones appearing later in the list.
Late PIE These changes are shared by several other Indo-European branches. *e is colored by an adjacent laryngeal consonant: eh₂, h₂e > ah₂, h₂a eh₃, h₃e > oh₃, h₃o Palatovelars merge into the plain velars: ḱ > k ǵ > g ǵʰ > gʰ Epenthetic *a is inserted after a syllabic sonorant if a laryngeal and another sonorant follow (R̥HR > RaHR) Laryngeals are lost: before a following vowel (HV > V) following a vowel in syllables before the accent (VHC´ > VC´) following a vowel before a consonant, or word finally, resulting in compensatory lengthening, thus (VHC > V̄C, VH# > V̄#) between plosives in non-initial syllables (CHC > CC) Two adjacent dentals become two adjacent sibilants (TT > TsT > ss)
Italo-Celtic The following sound changes are shared with the Italic languages in particular, and are cited in support of the Italo-Celtic hypothesis. Dybo's rule: long close vowels are shortened (or a laryngeal is lost) before resonant + stressed vowel. Note that something like Dybo's rule seems to have also operated in Germanic (Old English wer < *wiHró-).Matasovic, R. (2009) Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic. Brill. p.7 īR´ / ? *iHR´ > iR´ ūR´ / ? *uHR´ > uR´ Possibly, post-consonantal laryngeals are lost when before pre-tonic close vowels: CHiC´ > CiC´ CHuC´ > CuC´ Development of initial stress, following the previous two changes. But note that this seems to have been an areal feature, shared, for example with the Indo-European Germanic languages and the non-Indo-European Etruscan language.Salmon, Joseph (1992) Accentual Change and Language Contact Stanford UP Possibly, vocalization of laryngeals to *ī between a *CR cluster and consonantal *j (CRHjV > CRījV) Syllabic laryngeals become *a (CHC > CaC) Syllabic resonants before a voiced unaspirated stop become *Ra (R̩D > RaD) *m is assimilated or lost before a glide: mj > nj mw > w *p assimilates to *kʷ when another *kʷ follows later in the word (p...kʷ > kʷ...kʷ). But Matasovic points out that: A) this change may have occurred late in Celtic; B) it seems not to have operated on some words in Irish; and C) a similar assimilation (though in reverse) also occurred in Germanic.Matasovic, R. (2009) Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic. Brill. pp.11–12
One change shows non-exact parallels in Italic: vocalization of syllabic resonants next to laryngeals depending on the environment. Similar developments appear in Italic, but for the syllabic nasals *m̩, *n̩, the result is Proto-Italic *əm, *ən (> Latin em ~ im, en ~ in). Word-initially, HR̩C > aRC Before voiceless stops, CR̩HT > CRaT CR̩HV > CaRHV CR̩HC > CRāC
Early PC Sequences of velar and *w merge into the labiovelars (it is uncertain if this preceded or followed the next change; that is, whether gw > b or gw > gʷ, but Schumacher 2004 argues on p. 372 that this change came first; moreover, it is also found in Proto-Italic, and thus arguably belongs to the previous section): kw > kʷ gw > gʷ gʰw > gʷʰ *gʷ merges into *b. Aspirated stops lose their aspiration and merge with the voiced stops (except that this counterfeeds the previous change, so *gʷʰ > *gʷ doesn't result in a merger; that is, the change *gʷʰ > *gʷ must crucially happen after the sound change gʷ > b has been completed):Cólera, Carlos Jordán (2007) "Celtiberian," e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies: Vol. 6, Article 17. p.759. Available at: https://dc.uwm.edu/ekeltoi/vol6/iss1/17 accessed June 21, 2023 bʰ > b dʰ > d gʰ > g gʷʰ > gʷ *e before a resonant and *a (but not *ā) becomes *a as well (eRa > aRa): *ǵʰelH-ro > *gelaro > *galaro / *gérH-no > *gerano > *garano (Joseph's rule). Epenthetic *i is inserted after syllabic liquids when followed by a plosive: l̩T > liT r̩T > riT Epenthetic *a is inserted before the remaining syllabic resonants: m̩ > am n̩ > an l̩ > al r̩ > ar All remaining nonsyllabic laryngeals are lost. ē > ī ō > ū in final syllables Long vowels are shortened before a syllable-final resonant (V:RC > VRC); this also shortens long diphthongs. (Osthoff's law)
Late PC Plosives become *x before a different plosive or *s (C₁C₂ > xC₂, Cs > xs) p > b before liquids (pL > bL) p > w before nasals (pN > wN) p > ɸ (except possibly after *s) ō > ā ey > ē (but not in Celtiberian or Lepontic) ew > ow uwa > owa
Examples
PIEPCExamplePIEProto-CelticOld IrishWelsh father cf. home (< *ɸatrijo-) three singhundred four apple see eye sight to gluejaw (he) sticks fastmouth adherejaw womanO.W. carry (he) carries Welsh 'to restore' < , < obsolete < M.W. < (with taken from the verbal noun < ). to restoreto take suck they suck takesickness (he) takessickness holdgrief kill, wound (he) wounds, slays stab old mother cf. aunt nephew lick (he) licks king (gen. ) young rulership country
PIEPCExamplePIEPCOld IrishWelsh acc. river brother old betweenconsonantsHowever, according to Hackstein (2002) *CH.CC > Ø in unstressed medial syllables. Thus, H can disappear in weak cases while being retained in strong cases, e.g. IE nom.sg. vs. gen.sg. 'daughter' > early PC . This then led to a paradigmatic split, resulting in Celtiberian gen.sg. tuateros, nom.pl. tuateres vs. Gaulish duxtir (< ). (Zair 2012: 161, 163). father cf. home true wheel in final syllable nephew elsewhere gift world number blindage — one-eyed— empty, one-eyedage god one before > young elsewhere stream mystery silent silence(); peoplecowM.W. before stops wide before otherconsonants rooster(Ogham gen. ) before stops act of bearing; mind before otherconsonants dead subdue M.Ir. he ties,fastens,binds— tooth before obstruents lordship country before sonorants hand before obstruents betrayal before sonorants grain (presumably withsame distributionas above) to tame - endure, suffer ? known customary
Phonological reconstruction
Consonants The following consonants have been reconstructed for Proto-Celtic (PC): {| class="wikitable" |- ! rowspan="2" |Manner ! rowspan="2" |Voicing ! rowspan="2" | Bilabial ! rowspan="2" | Alveolar ! rowspan="2" | Palatal ! colspan="2" | Velar |- ! |plain ! |labialized |- style="text-align:center;" ! rowspan="2" | Plosive !voiceless
|- style="text-align:center;" !voiced
|- style="text-align:center;" ! colspan="2" | Fricative
|- style="text-align:center;" ! colspan="2" | Nasal
|- style="text-align:center;" ! colspan="2" | Approximant
|- style="text-align:center;" ! colspan="2" | Trill
Allophones of plosives Eska has recently proposed that PC stops allophonically manifest similarly to those in English. Voiceless stop phonemes were aspirated word-initially except when preceded by , hence aspirate allophones ; unaspirated voiced stops were devoiced to word-initially.
This allophony may be reconstructed to PC from the following evidence: Modern Celtic languages like Welsh, Breton, and all modern Goidelic languages have such plosive aspiration and voice allophony already attested. (But there is no trace of this in Gaulish.) Several old Celtic languages (such as Old Irish, Old Welsh, and Lepontic) used letters for voiceless stop phonemes to write both voiceless stop phonemes and their voiced counterparts, especially non-word-initially. (But in the case of Lepontic, this is because the alphabet was derived from Etruscan, which has no voice contrasts in plosives.) The Celtiberian Luzaga's Bronze has the curious spelling of an accusative determiner sdam, where the d is clearly meant to spell . This implies that Celtiberian had a voiceless allophone .
Evolution of plosives Proto-Indo-European (PIE) voiced aspirate stops *bʰ, *dʰ, *gʰ/ǵʰ, merge with *b, *d, *g/ǵ in PC. The voiced aspirate labiovelar *gʷʰ did not merge with *gʷ, though: plain *gʷ became PC *b, while aspirated *gʷʰ became *gʷ. Thus, PIE 'woman' became Old Irish and Old Welsh , but PIE 'to kill, wound' became Old Irish and Welsh .
PIE *p is lost in PC, apparently going through the stages *ɸ (possibly a stage *[pʰ]) and *h (perhaps seen in the name Hercynia if this is of Celtic origin) before being completely lost word-initially and between vowels. Next to consonants, PC *ɸ underwent different changes: the clusters *ɸs and *ɸt became *xs and *xt respectively already in PC. PIE *sp- became Old Irish s (f- when lenited, exactly as for PIE *sw-) and Brythonic f; while argues there was an intermediate stage *sɸ- (in which *ɸ remained an independent phoneme until after Proto-Insular Celtic had diverged into Goidelic and Brythonic), finds it more economical to believe that *sp- remained unchanged in PC, that is, the change *p to *ɸ did not happen when *s preceded. (Similarly, Grimm's law did not apply to *p, t, k after *s in Germanic, and the same exception occurred again in the High German consonant shift.)
{|class="wikitable" ! Proto-Celtic ! Old Irish ! Welsh |- | > 'shine'
| > 'seven'
| or 'heel'
In Gaulish and the Brittonic languages, the Proto-Indo-European phoneme becomes a new p sound. Thus, Gaulish petuar[ios], Welsh "four", but Old Irish and Latin . Insofar as this new fills the gap in the phoneme inventory which was left by the disappearance of the equivalent stop in PIE, we may think of this as a chain shift.