Scottish Gaelic and Berber???

[alice]

I was given a book called The Faded Map: Lost Kingdoms of Scotland for Christmas, which while interesting is not especially strong on linguistics. It not unreasonably characterises Q-Celtic as "Atlantic Celtic" as opposed to "Continental Celtic", but on page 47 makes the curious claim that thanks to language mixing due to trade from the Mediterranean "Scottish Gaelic shares seventeen fundamental structural characteristics with the Berber languages of the Sahel". What are these seventeen characteristics? Has anyone heard anything like this before? I'm aware that there are theories of non-IE substrates in Celtic, but this sounds dubious at best.

[WeepingElf]

This sounds like a variation of the popular "Semitic substratum in Insular Celtic" hogwash - and while I don't have it at hand now, I remember that the list of "Semitic" features in Insular Celtic claimed by those scholars contained exactly 17 items. Most of them have since been falsified, and the remaining ones revealed to be typological correlates of VSO word order, found in places as obviously former Semitic-speaking as Mesoamerica or the Philippines.

[Linguoboy]

Yeah, this is just Vennemann's Atlantic languages hypothesis recycled.

Speaking of Goidelic language nonsense, some dipshit in Iceland has tried to claim a far greater degree of Celtic influence on the Icelandic language than the data support: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... ays-author. (Apparently he's been peddling this pet theory for years but it's just recently gained attention in the English-language press.) I've seen excerpts from his list of proposed borrowings and so amateurish anyone here could debunk it with a couple of online dictionaries.

[Raphael]

To be honest, I'm a bit surprised that alice is so "mild" towards that idea. "[D]ubious at best"? Knowing you, alice, I would have thought that when confronted with something like that, you'd use at least somewhat stronger language.

[Travis B.]

To be honest, I'm a bit surprised that alice is so "mild" towards that idea. "[D]ubious at best"? Knowing you, alice, I would have thought that when confronted with something like that, you'd use at least somewhat stronger language.

I must say that this is worth at least quite a few millinylands, to say the very least.

[WeepingElf]

The Semitic substratum hypothesis was not Vennemann's invention, even though he has recently been its main champion. The idea dates back to late-19th-century scholars such as John Morris-Jones, in a time when language typology was in its infancy and European linguists knew close to nothing about any languages other than Indo-European, Uralic, Semitic and a few others such as Chinese, making the VSO word order in Semitic and Insular Celtic a seemingly outstanding common trait.

[WeepingElf]

This substratum theory was discussed on the CONLANG list many years ago. Here is the list of 17 features allegedly common to Afroasiatic and Insular Celtic; here is the discussion - the bottom line is that all these features are either common enough to mean nothing, typological correlates of each other, or not really present in both groups. In other words, it is nonsense.

[alice]

This substratum theory was discussed on the CONLANG list many years ago. Here is the list of 17 features allegedly common to Afroasiatic and Insular Celtic; here is the discussion - the bottom line is that all these features are either common enough to mean nothing, typological correlates of each other, or not really present in both groups. In other words, it is nonsense.

Vielen dank!!!

To be honest, I'm a bit surprised that alice is so "mild" towards that idea. "[D]ubious at best"? Knowing you, alice, I would have thought that when confronted with something like that, you'd use at least somewhat stronger language.

Sorry if I disappointed you, but I'll very probably have to use a lot of strong language in various other (chiefly political) non-ZBB directions in the near future, and I have to watch my mental state.

I must say that this is worth at least quite a few millinylands, to say the very least.

Millinylands? I did notice "Vasconic" in the first page the Elf linked to.
Oh, I see. Perhaps this list of 17 things could be usefully recycled as a calibration scale, or something?

[bradrn]

This substratum theory was discussed on the CONLANG list many years ago. Here is the list of 17 features allegedly common to Afroasiatic and Insular Celtic; here is the discussion - the bottom line is that all these features are either common enough to mean nothing, typological correlates of each other, or not really present in both groups. In other words, it is nonsense.

Interestingly, I’ve been looking into Chadic recently, and can recognise quite a few of these features from there. In fact I also fell into the trap of thinking some of them were unusual, and were trying to find some more details especially on these:

5) Special form of the verb peculiar to relative clauses.
7) Infixing/suffixing alternation: Object marker is infixed to the verb if there is a preverb, suffixed otherwise.
9) Nonconcord of verb with full-NP subject: verb can fail to agree with the subject, depending on word order.
15) Nonfinite forms usable instead of finite main-clause verb

Does anyone know of some references I can look at? (In Chadic, (7) and (9) are clear innovations from Proto–Chadic, while (15) is a retention; see Williams (1989) for many interesting historical details.)

[Kuchigakatai]

Looking at Sally Caves' list as quoted by Jörg Rhiemeier, does anyone know what Semitic languages #5, #7, #11, #12, #13, #16 can be found in? I don't recognize them from what I know of Classical Arabic and what little I know of Akkadian, Ge'ez or Biblical Hebrew. I wonder if Sally Caves was more familiar with Celtic languages than Semitic languages, and included these elements after misinterpreting or misremembering some things... For reference these are:

5) Special form of the verb peculiar to relative clauses.
7) Infixing/suffixing alternation: Object marker is infixed to
the verb if there is a preverb, suffixed otherwise.
11) Predicative particle: in copular or nominal sentences,
the predicate is marked with a particle homophonous
to a "local" preposition: "He (is) in a farmer"="he is a farmer."
12) Prepositional periphrastic: BE + Prep + VN, e.g.,
"He is at singing" [TEONAHT'S "she is with singing"]
13) DO periphrastic: DO + VN, e.g. "He does singing."
16) Word-initial change, expressing a variety of syntactic
functions

I mean, #16 seems to refer to initial mutation. What Semitic language has anything like that? As far as I know, word-initial lenition in Middle Aramaic is mostly just allophonic, although it wouldn't shock me to hear Neo-Aramaic has Celtic-style initial mutation sensitive to syntax. At any rate, it's not a common feature of Semitic languages, as claimed.

I'm surprised to hear that #7 exists at all in Celtic too (note I hardly know anything about Celtic), or is this using some peculiar definition of infixation?

Interestingly, I’ve been looking into Chadic recently, and can recognise quite a few of these features from there. In fact I also fell into the trap of thinking some of them were unusual, and were trying to find some more details especially on these:

5) Special form of the verb peculiar to relative clauses.
7) Infixing/suffixing alternation: Object marker is infixed to the verb if there is a preverb, suffixed otherwise.
9) Nonconcord of verb with full-NP subject: verb can fail to agree with the subject, depending on word order.
15) Nonfinite forms usable instead of finite main-clause verb

Does anyone know of some references I can look at? (In Chadic, (7) and (9) are clear innovations from Proto–Chadic, while (15) is a retention; see Williams (1989) for many interesting historical details.)

As mentioned above, I don't think #5 or #7 are common features of Semitic languages, but any reference grammar of Standard Arabic will let you know about #9 (e.g. Ryding 2005:65-66), and this is also found in Ge'ez (Tropper 2021:§ 6.2.2) and poetic Biblical Hebrew (Jouon and Muraoka 1991:554-556 = § 150.j, 150.p-q).

In essence, a verb agrees with an implicit subject in gender and number (e.g. in VO, V + adverbial sentences), and same goes if the subject precedes the verb (SV order). But if a verb is followed by a noun phrase as its subject (VS order), then the verb is occasionally (Biblical Hebrew), often (Ge'ez) or generally (Std. Arabic) in the (3rd-person) singular. Biblical Hebrew and Ge'ez (but not Std. Arabic) can even ignore gender agreement too, putting the verb in the masculine.

#15 basically involves using a participle, active or passive (not a verbal noun) as the main verb. The active participle is able to take direct objects and adverbials just like finite verbs. Doesn't happen in Standard Arabic much, but it is characteristic of modern (spoken) Arabic (Brustad 2000:225-229 provides various examples). It is also found in Biblical Hebrew (Gesenius and Kautzsch 1909:§ 116).

- Brustad, Kristen. 2000. The Syntax of Spoken Arabic.
- Gesenius, Wilhelm; Kautzsch, Emil. 1909. Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar. Translated by Cowley, Arthur Ernest.
- Jouon, Paul; Muraoka, Tamitsu. 1991 (1996 2nd reprint). A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew.
- Ryding, Karin. 2005. A Reference Grammar of Modern Standard Arabic.
- Tropper, Josef. 2021. Classical Ethiopic: A Grammar of Gǝˁǝz. Translated by Hasselbach-Andee, Rebecca.

[bradrn]

I'm surprised to hear that #7 exists at all in Celtic too (note I don't know anything about Celtic), or is this using some peculiar definition of infixation?

Old Irish had infixed object pronouns; see e.g. https://web.archive.org/web/20181025190 ... nding.html for some details. (Don’t have many more academic sources on Old Irish, sorry.)

#15 basically involves using a participle, active or passive (not a verbal noun) as the main verb. The active participle is able to take direct objects and adverbials just like finite verbs. Doesn't happen in Standard Arabic much, but it is characteristic of modern (spoken) Arabic (Brustad 2000:225-229 provides various examples). It is also found in Biblical Hebrew (Gesenius and Kautzsch 1909:§ 116).

Now this is really interesting, and precisely the sort of thing I was looking for! Chadic uses the verbal noun, but I was wondering whether other deverbal forms were attested too.

[zompist]

Looking at Sally Caves' list as quoted by Jörg Rhiemeier, does anyone know what Semitic languages #5, #7, #11, #12, #13, #16 can be found in? I don't recognize them from what I know of Classical Arabic and what little I know of Akkadian, Ge'ez or Biblical Hebrew.

Quick and by no means authoritative comparison of her list to Akkadian:

> 1) Conjugated prepositions (prep. + pronominal object in a single word.

yes

> 2) Word order: VSO, N-Modifier, Prepositions

SOV

> 3) Relative clause linker: invariant particle, not relative pronoun

Equivocal! Old Akkadian ša was conjugated, later it was not.
.
> 4) Relative clause technique (oblique): copying, not gapping,
> i.e., "the bed, I slept in it," meaning "the bed that I slept in."

You can alternatively form a relative clause with the construct form, but this is more like saying "the bed of (I slept)"; plus the subordinate phrase is marked with the -u suffix.

> 5) Special form of the verb peculiar to relative clauses.

True, if that means the suffixed -u.

> 6) Polypersonal verb (subject and object both marked).

Yes, though this is pretty common worldwide, no?

> 7) Infixing/suffixing alternation: Object marker is infixed to
> the verb if there is a preverb, suffixed otherwise.

No.

> 8) Definite article in genitive embeddings may occur
> only on on the embedded noun: "house the-man" ="the man's
> house."

No definite article.

> 9) Nonconcord of verb with full-NP subject: verb can fail
> to agree with the subject, depending on word order.

Dunno, but I never heard of this.

> 10) Verbal Noun (Vn: object in genitive), not Infinitive
> (object in same case as with finite verb).

No, infinitive takes accusative. (I don't get the parenthetical, which seems contradictory.)

> 11) Predicative particle: in copular or nominal sentences,
> the predicate is marked with a particle homophonous
> to a "local" preposition: "He (is) in a farmer"="he is a farmer."

There is a predicative, but it's not linked to a locative.

> 12) Prepositional periphrastic: BE + Prep + VN, e.g.,
> "He is at singing" [TEONAHT'S "she is with singing"]

There is no copula.

> 13) DO periphrastic: DO + VN, e.g. "He does singing."

Dunno, don't think so.

> 14) Notional adverbial clause expressed as "and" + finite
> clause

Dunno.

> 15) Nonfinite forms usable instead of finite main-clause verb

I don't think so.

> 16) Word-initial change, expressing a variety of syntactic
> functions

No.

> 17) Idiomatic use of kin terms in genitive constructions, e.g.
> "son of sending" = messenger; "son of land" = "wolf"

Akkadian has a construct state, but I don't know that there's any special use of kinship terms.

[WeepingElf]

Yes, we can consider the case closed. The main reason why I brought up the discussion on CONLANG back then was that I considered making the language of my "Dwarves" (descendants of the people of Neolithic Britain & Ireland) an Afroasiatic one, but after that discussion, I dropped that idea (as well as the name "Pictic" - the Picts apparently spoke a Brythonic language). Now the language of the "Dwarves" is called "Razaric", and I fancy it to be a distant cousin of Basque.

[Kuchigakatai]

> 5) Special form of the verb peculiar to relative clauses.

True, if that means the suffixed -u.

Ah, interesting. Well, at least #5 is found in Akkadian...

[WeepingElf]

I wonder about a connection between the Semitic substratum theory and British Israelism, though Wikipedia does not mention such a connection.

[MacAnDàil]

I wonder about a connection between the Semitic substratum theory and British Israelism, though Wikipedia does not mention such a connection.

In any case, long before Britism Israelites, there was already Goídel Glas, legendary ancestor of the Gaels, descendant of Scyths. And his mother, Scota, a pharaoh's daughter.

[WeepingElf]

So Goidelic is a conlang

[Travis B.]

So Goidelic is a conlang

At least it wasn't created by Basque monks!

[alice]

So Goidelic is a conlang

At least it wasn't created by Basque monks!

That's a mistake a lot of people make.