OFF: English (was Mountain Grill)

[Carl Edlund Anderson]

On 28-Feb-2005 19:38, Doug Pearson wrote:
 > Carl Edlund Anderson <cea at CARLAZ.COM> wrote:
 >>Still, as languages go, English has been extremely flexible in
 >>absorbingvocabulary from just about anything it can find :)
 >
 > With the most recent large-scale absorbtion probably being from Hindu
 > during the 18th/19th-century occupation of India (thug, pundit, etc.)?

Yeah, probably.  American English also borrowed a certain amount from
Native American languages and various immigrant languages during that
period, some of which has slipped up into global English in the last
century.  There's also a high incidence of Spanish borrowings in
American English, and though a lot of that may be recent, American
English has been in contact with Spanish pretty much since the
beginning, so it's hard to say there, really ....


On 28-Feb-2005 21:40, Jill Strobridge wrote:
> Seems to have come full circle then!     Since I understand that
> Sanskrit is the closest there is to a root language for all the
> Indo-European languages including Celtic.    Celtic of course
> evolving into two families British/Welsh/Breton(& Cornish? - can't
> remember offhand)  and Irish/Scottish gaelic.

Yup, Cornish is P-Celtic -- "southwestern Brittonic", even, being closer
to Breton in many respects than it is to Welsh.  (Breton is technically
an off-shoot of Brittonic, having been introduced to the continent by
Brittonic speaking emmigrants skipping out in front of the
Germanic-speaking immigrants (if you see what I mean).

There's some evidence for the P-Celtic and Q-Celtic distinction on the
continental as well (though Continental Celtic has no living
descendants):  I think Gaulish is understood to have been essentially
P-Celtic, and very similar to Brittonic, while the dialects of Iberia
show some Q-Celtic affinities.  Though perhaps there's really not enough
evidence to speak with much confidence on these things ....

> Admittedly very
> little (if any) British/Welsh gaelic has survived into spoken
> English but I think that British 'P' Celtic/Gaelic associations can
> still be found in place and landscape names - though mostly in the
> West.   To be honest I need a placename directory or something to
> be able to give convincing examples but I'd suggest Penrith is one.

The number of Celtic place-names in England generally increases as one
moves away from the south-east, but there are many rivers and streams in
all parts of England with Celtic (or perhaps in some cases pre-Celtic)
names.  Hydronyms seem to resist change more than settlement names.

Cheers,
Carl

--
Carl Edlund Anderson
http://www.carlaz.com/