Phonological history of Gallo Romance

[Rounin Ryuuji]

A part of me thinks that many of the more "radical" changes affecting northern Gallo-Romance were probably in some degree areal — Northern French is closer to Scandinavia, and to what are now the Netherlands and Germany, without there being such a mass of mountains and other inhospitable terrain in-between. I imagine this is also what conditioned the shift to the fricative-r — it likely started somewhere in what's now Germany, I would guess, and spread outward from there. Old French, having some V2 syntax, probably was, at least in its "higher" registers (the ones likely to be spoken by literate people, and consequently be written down), fairly significantly influenced by a Frankish upper class. Its "lower" registers, however, may well not have been as affected by it, whence its later disappearance.

[Richard W]

For that matter, French kept a handful of words of Gaulish origin; Occitan has practically none.

How uniform is the effective substrate of Occitan, and how Celtic was it? Which part of Gaul did the three parts make up? ("Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres.")

[Ares Land]

For that matter, French kept a handful of words of Gaulish origin; Occitan has practically none.

How uniform is the effective substrate of Occitan, and how Celtic was it? Which part of Gaul did the three parts make up? ("Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres.")

The Occitan domain comprises the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis and parts of Celtica.
The key difference, though is between Narbonensis and the rest of Gaul. Narbonensis was Roman earlier, a lot more urban and more connected to the rest of the Mediterranean. The rest of Gaul, by comparison, was a rural, provincial backwater, and even more so North of the Loire.

The substrate wasn't very uniform besides. Very roughly, the cities were Latin or even Greek-speaking.

I imagine this is also what conditioned the shift to the fricative-r — it likely started somewhere in what's now Germany, I would guess, and spread outward from there.

The switch to uvular r was much later (around the 18th century.) I thought it originated in Germany too, but it turns out to be the other way around. The change started in France and diffused to Germany. (IIRC the change began in 17th century Parisian popular speech.)

[Otto Kretschmer]

Wasn't strong initial accent tha reason why Insular Celtic languaged changed much in a short time?

[Znex]

Wasn't strong initial accent tha reason why Insular Celtic languaged changed much in a short time?

For Goidelic (ie. Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx), that's certainly true. Brythonic (Welsh, Cornish, Breton) on the other hand had a strong penultimate accent.

Hence Goidelic languages have still kept some remnant of the Proto-Celtic case system for instance, but Brythonic has from its first attestations been caseless.

[hwhatting]

Hence Goidelic languages have still kept some remnant of the Proto-Celtic case system for instance, but Brythonic has from its first attestations been caseless.

"hence" implies a causality that isn't there at all.

[Znex]

Hence Goidelic languages have still kept some remnant of the Proto-Celtic case system for instance, but Brythonic has from its first attestations been caseless.

"hence" implies a causality that isn't there at all.

Celtic nominal cases all occurred as the final syllable of nouns. Penultimate stress for the Brythonic languages conditioned that the following final syllables were reduced and ultimately lost.

eg. *tegos > *téɣəh > *tɨɣ > Welsh. ty {house}
*abonā > *aβónə > *aβón > Welsh. afon {river}

[hwhatting]

Hence Goidelic languages have still kept some remnant of the Proto-Celtic case system for instance, but Brythonic has from its first attestations been caseless.

"hence" implies a causality that isn't there at all.

Celtic nominal cases all occurred as the final syllable of nouns. Penultimate stress for the Brythonic languages conditioned that the following final syllables were reduced and ultimately lost.

eg. *tegos > *téɣəh > *tɨɣ > Welsh. ty {house}
*abonā > *aβónə > *aβón > Welsh. afon {river}

I'm not denying that these developments happened, I just object against that Old Irish keeping some traces of case while Brythonic being due to the difference in stress patterns. Initial stress could also have lead to a total loss of final syllables in Old Irish, or despite the penultimate stress in Brythonic, some final vowels could have been kept. Actually, languages with penultimate stress normally keep endings better than languages with initial stress (see Romance vs. Germanic). And Celtic had two-syllable case endings like Gaulish Dative pl. -V-bo, Old Irish -(V)ib, so the loss of case must have had additional causes.

[WeepingElf]

The reason why Goidelic languages still have case and the Brythonic ones not is IMHO the "broad vs. slender" thing - the palatalization of consonants by adjacent front vowels. This led to the preservation of traces of the old case endings in Goidelic even though the endings themselves are mostly lost. Brythonic did not have this innovation, so when the case endings fell of, the whole category of case was gone.

[hwhatting]

The reason why Goidelic languages still have case and the Brythonic ones not is IMHO the "broad vs. slender" thing - the palatalization of consonants by adjacent front vowels. This led to the preservation of traces of the old case endings in Goidelic even though the endings themselves are mostly lost. Brythonic did not have this innovation, so when the case endings fell of, the whole category of case was gone.

Yes, but we're talking about Old Irish vs. Old / Middle Brythonic here. Old Irish has short vowel endings where older Celtic had *-V:C# (e.g. voc. pl. -u from *-o:s) while Brythonic deleted those as well.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I imagine this is also what conditioned the shift to the fricative-r — it likely started somewhere in what's now Germany, I would guess, and spread outward from there.

The switch to uvular r was much later (around the 18th century.) I thought it originated in Germany too, but it turns out to be the other way around. The change started in France and diffused to Germany. (IIRC the change began in 17th century Parisian popular speech.)

This is very interesting.

[Travis B.]

I imagine this is also what conditioned the shift to the fricative-r — it likely started somewhere in what's now Germany, I would guess, and spread outward from there.

The switch to uvular r was much later (around the 18th century.) I thought it originated in Germany too, but it turns out to be the other way around. The change started in France and diffused to Germany. (IIRC the change began in 17th century Parisian popular speech.)

This is very interesting.

My question is how did it end up in English, right here in Wisconsin, surrounded by English-speakers with typically postalveolar /r/'s. Note that what's here isn't quite a uvular /r/ in the French or German sense, as it's pharyngealized except when following non-dental coronals and also non-syllabic, labialized initially except when syllabic, and doubly-articulated postalveolar-uvular after non-dental coronals except when syllabic.

[Talskubilos]

Catalan did not originate in Iberia. It was brought there in late 8th century by Franks who reconquered a small part of Spain from Muslims

This is more a legend than a established historical fact.

Care to provide a source for that statement?

I'd be interested to know where Otto learned that Franks spoke Catalan.

[Raholeun]

The Franks did not speak a Romance language initially, as they were a tribe form the Lower Rhine area. As far as I know, they would have spoken something akin to Old Dutch.

Where did these roaming Franks then pick up Catalan?

[hwhatting]

I assume Franks is meant here as "people from the Frankish empire", the way the term was also used in the Middle East (later referring to (Western) Europeans in General). After all, the French are etymologically "Franks".

[Ares Land]

'Franks' here refers to the Carolingian kings, who established the county of Barcelona. The word refers to their political allegiances, with no expectations as to what language they spoke. (Or what their actual ethnicity was. The first count of Barcelona was a Wisigoth from Toulouse.)

IIRC Catalan was spoken on both sides of the Pyrénées but its geographic range expanded as the county of Barcelona grew.

[Moose-tache]

I would pay real money for a podcast in which Talskubilos and Otto reconstruct Proto-World together.

[WeepingElf]

'Franks' here refers to the Carolingian kings, who established the county of Barcelona. The word refers to their political allegiances, with no expectations as to what language they spoke. (Or what their actual ethnicity was. The first count of Barcelona was a Wisigoth from Toulouse.)

IIRC Catalan was spoken on both sides of the Pyrénées but its geographic range expanded as the county of Barcelona grew.

And I doubt that such conquests had much effect on the vernacular languages.

[Talskubilos]

I would pay real money for a podcast in which Talskubilos and Otto reconstruct Proto-World together.

You're also on my ignore list.

[Ares Land]

'Franks' here refers to the Carolingian kings, who established the county of Barcelona. The word refers to their political allegiances, with no expectations as to what language they spoke. (Or what their actual ethnicity was. The first count of Barcelona was a Wisigoth from Toulouse.)

IIRC Catalan was spoken on both sides of the Pyrénées but its geographic range expanded as the county of Barcelona grew.

And I doubt that such conquests had much effect on the vernacular languages.

The Reconquista did have an effect on the vernacular: Mozarabic dialects being displaced (to say nothing of Arabic.)

That said, in the 9th century the differences in the local vernacular were probably minimum.