Gaulish language

The Gaulish (also Gallic) language is an extinct Celtic language that was spoken by the Gauls, a people who inhabited the region known as Gaul (Cisalpine and Transalpine) from the Iron Age through the Roman period. It was historically spoken through what are now mainly France, northern Italy, Switzerland, eastern Belgium, Luxembourg and western Germany before being supplanted by Vulgar Latin and various Germanic languages from around the 4th century onwards. Gaulish is paraphyletically grouped with Celtiberian as Continental Celtic. Lepontic is considered to be either a dialect of or a language closely related to Gaulish. Galatian is the form of Gaulish spoken in in Asia Minor after 281 BC.

Gaulish is a P-Celtic language, though some inscriptions (e.g. the Coligny Calendar) potentially show Q-Celtic characteristics (however, this is a matter of debate among Celticists). Gaulish has a very close relationship to Insular Celtic (Goidelic and Brythonic), and many forms are identical in the two. Epigraphical remains have been uncovered across all of what used to be Roman Gaul, which covered modern France, as well as parts of Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and Belgium.

History

The earliest Continental Celtic inscriptions, dating to as early as the 6th century BC, are in Lepontic, found in Cisalpine Gaul and were written in a form of the Old Italic alphabet. Inscriptions in the Greek alphabet from the 3rd century BC have been found in the area near the mouths of the Rhône, while later inscriptions dating to Roman Gaul are mostly in the Latin alphabet. According to Julius Caesar, the Gauls (Galli in Latin; Caesar tells us that they called themselves Celtae in their own tongue) were one of three groups who inhabited Gaul, the other two being the Aquitani and the Belgae.

According to his treatise On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis, Saint Irenaeus of Lyon still needed to preach in Gaulish in his diocese during the last quarter of the 2nd century AD. Saint Jerome (ca. 340-425) remarks in a commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians that the Treveri spoke almost the same language as the Galatians. Gregory of Tours wrote in the 6th century that a sanctuary in the Auvergne was "called Vasso Galate in the Gallic tongue", which has been taken to mean that Gaulish was still spoken in the region in his time. However, his remark primarily refers to the linguistic origin of the place name, not necessarily to the survival of the language.

Inscriptions are often difficult to interpret and reveal only fragments of continuous language.

Today, the French language contains approximately 180 words known to be of Gaulish origin, most of which concern pastoral activity

Phonology

vowels:

*short: a, e, i, o u

*long: ā, ē, ī, (ō), ū

*diphthongs: ai, ei, oi, au, eu, ou

#[x] is an allophone of /k/ before /t/.

occlusives:

*voiceless: p, t, k

*voiced: b, d, g

resonants

*nasals: m, n

*liquids r, l

sibilant: s

affricate: t^s

semi-vowels: w, y

The diphthongs all transformed over the course of the historical period. Ai and oi collapsed into long ī; eu merged with ou, both becoming long ō. Ei became long ē early, probably prior to the attestation of Gaulish. In general, long diphthongs became short diphthongs and then collapsed into long vowels. Long vowels shortened before nasals in Auslaut.

Other transformations include the transformation of unstressed i into e. Ln became ll, a stop + s became ss, and a nasal + velar became /ng/ + velar.

The occlusives also seem to have been both lenis, unlike Latin, which distinguished voiced occlusives with a lenis realization from voiceless occlusives with a fortis realization, hence confusions like Glanum for Clanum, vergobretos for vercobreto, Britannia for Pritannia.

Orthography

, dedicated this sanctuary to Belesama"]]

The alphabet of Lugano used in Cisalpine Gaul for Lepontic: :AEIKLMNOPRSTΘUVXZ

The alphabet of Lugano does not distinguish voiced and unvoiced occlusives, i.e. P represents /b/ or /p/, T is for /d/ or /t/, K for /g/ or /k/. Z is probably for /t^s/. U /u/ and V /w/ are distinguished only in one early inscription. Θ is probably for /t/ and X for /g/ (Lejeune 1971, Solinas 1985).

The Eastern Greek alphabet used in southern Gallia Transalpina: :αβγδεζηθικλμνξοπρστυχω

χ is used for [x], 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). All Greek letters were used except phi and psi.

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

G and K are sometimes used interchangeably (especially after R). Ð/ð, ds and s may represent /t^s/. X, x is for [x] or /ks/. Q is only used rarely (e.g. Sequanni, Equos) and may represent an archaism (a retained *k^w) or, as in Latin, an alternate spelling of -cu- (for original /kuu/, /kou/, or /kom-u/). Ð and ð are used here to represent the letter tau gallicum (the Gaulish dental affricate), which has not yet been added to Unicode. In contrast to the glyph for Ð, the central bar extends right across the glyph and also does not protrude outside it.

Sound laws

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 Gaulish word for "son" was mapos, contrasting with Primitive Irish *maqqos (attested in the genitive, maqqi), which became mac (genitive mic) in modern Irish. In modern Welsh the word map (mab) (or its contracted form ap(ab)) is found in surnames. Similarly one Gaulish word for "horse" was epos (in Southern Gaulish [Q-Celtic] eqos) while Old Irish has ech, Modern Gaelic (Irish and Scottish) each, Manx egh; all derived from Indo-European *eḱu̯os.

Voiced labiovelar g^w became w, e. g. g^wediūmi > uediiumi "I pray" (cf. Irish guidhim, Welsh gweddi "to pray").

PIE t^st became /t^s/, spelled ð, e.g. *nedz-tamo > neððamon (cf. Irish nesamh "nearest", Welsh nesaf "next").

PIE eu became ou, and later ō, e.g. *teutā > touta > tōta "tribe" (cf. Irish tuath, Welsh tud "people").

Additionally, intervocalic /st/ became the affricate [ts] (alveolar stop + voiceless alveolar stop) and intervocalic /sr/ became [ðr] and /str/ became [þr]. Finally, when a labial or velar stop came before either a /t/ or /s/ the two sounds merged into the fricative [x].

Morphology

There was some areal (or genetic, see Italo-Celtic) similarity to Latin grammar, and the French historian A. Lot argued that this helped the rapid adoption of vulgar Latin in Roman Gaul.

Noun cases

Gaulish had six or seven cases. As in Latin, Gaulish had nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, and dative cases; however, where Latin had an ablative, Gaulish had an instrumental and may also have had a locative case. Greater epigraphical evidence attests common cases (nominative and accusative) and common stems (-o- and -a- stems) than for cases less frequently used in inscriptions, or rarer -i-, -n- and -r- stems. The following table summarizes the best attested case endings. A blank means that the form is unattested.

In some cases a historical evolution is attested, for example the dative singular of a-stems is -āi in the oldest inscriptions, becoming first *-ăi and finally -ī (as in Irish a-stem nouns with attenuated (slender)consonants: nom. lámh "hand, arm" (cf. Gaul. lāmā) and dat. láimh (< *lāmi; cf. Gaul. lāmāi > *lāmăi > lāmī). Further, the plural instrumental had begun to encroach on the dative plural (dative atrebo and matrebo vs. instrumental gobedbi and suiorebe), and in the modern Insular languages the instrumental form is known to have fully replaced the dative.

For o-stems, Gaulish also innovated the pronominal ending for the nominative plural -oi and genitive singular -ī in place of expected -ōs and -os still present in Celtiberian (-oś, -o). In a-stems, inherited genitive singular -as is attested but was subsequently replaced by -ias as in Insular Celtic. The expected genitive plural -a-om appears innovated as -anom (vs. Celtiberian -aum).

Verbs

Verbs show a number of innovations as well. The Indo-European s-aorist has evolved into the Gaulish t-preterit which was formed by merging an old 3rd personal singular imperfect ending -t- to a 3rd personal singular perfect ending -u or -e and subsequent affixation to all forms of the t-preterit tense. Similarly, the s-preterit is formed from the extension of -ss (originally from the 3rd person singular) and the affixation of -it to the 3rd person singular (to distinguish it as such). Third personal plurals are also marked by the addition of -s in the preterit system.

Numerals

Ordinal numerals from the La Graufesenque graffiti #cintus, cintuxos (Welsh cynt "before", cyntaf "first", Breton kent "in front", Old Irish céta, Irish céad "first") #allos (W ail, Br eil, OIr aile "other", Ir eile) #tritios (W trydydd, Br trede, OIr treide, Ir treas) #petuarios (W pedwerydd, Br pevare, OIr cethramad) #pinpetos (W pumed, Br pempet, OIr cóiced) #suexos (maybe mistaken for suextos; W chweched, Br c'hwec'hved, OIr seissed) #sextametos (W saithfed, Br seizhved, OIr sechtmad) #oxtumetos (W wythfed, Br eizhved, OIr ochtmad) #nametos (W nawfed, Br naved, OIr nómad) #decametos, decometos (W degfed, Br degvet, OIr dechmad, Celtiberian dekametam)

Other Gaulish numerals attested in Latin inscriptions include *petrudecametos "fourteenth" (rendered as petrudecameto, with Latinized dative-ablative singular ending) and *triconts "thirty" (rendered as tricontis, with a Latinized ablative plural ending; compare Old Irish tricha). A Latinized phrase for a "ten-night festival of (Apollo) Grannus", decamnoctiacis Granni, is mentioned in a Latin inscription from Limoges. A similar formation is to be found in the Gaulish-language Calendar of Coligny, where mention is made of a trinox[...] Samoni "three-night (festival?) of (the month of) Samonios".

As is to be expected, the ancient Gaulish language was more similar to Latin than modern Celtic languages are to modern Romance languages. The ordinal numerals in Latin are prīmus / prior, secundus / alter(the first form when more than two objects are counted, the second form only when two, note also that alius, like alter means "the other", the former used when more than two and the latter when only two), tertius, quārtus, quīntus, sextus, septimus, octāvus, nōnus, and decimus.

Syntax

Word order

The majority of Gaulish sentences seem to consist of subject, then verb, then object, as in:

martialis dannotali | ieuru | ucuete | sosin celicnon

Subject | Verb | Indirect Object | Direct Object

*"Martialis, son of Dannotalos, dedicated this edifice to Ucuetis"

Some, however, have patterns such as the verb first, then subject, then object (as in the normal Welsh sentence), with the verb between subject and object (or object and subject), or with the verb last. The latter can be seen as a survival from an earlier stage in the language, very much like the more archaic Celtiberian language. Sentences with the verb first can be interpreted, however, as indicating a special purpose, such as an imperative, emphasis, contrast, and so on: or the verb may contain or be next to an enclitic pronoun or with "and" or "but", etc. According to J. F. Eska, Gaulish was certainly not a verb-second language, as the following shows:

ratin briuatiom | frontu tarbetisonios | ie(i)uru

NP.Acc.Sg. | NP.Nom.Sg. | V.3rd Sg.

*"Frontus Tarbetisonios dedicated the board of the bridge."

Whenever there is a pronoun object element, it has to stand next to the verb, as per Vendryes' Restriction. The general Celtic grammar shows Wackernagel's Rule, so putting the verb at the beginning of the clause or sentence. As in Old Irish and traditional literary Welsh, the verb can be preceded by a particle which has no real meaning by itself, but which originally was used to make the utterance easier.

sioxt-i | albanos | panna(s) | extra tuð(on) | CCC

V-Pro.Neut. | NP.Nom.Sg. | NP.Fem.Acc.Pl. | PP | Num.

*"Albanos added them, vessels beyond the allotment (in the amount of) 300."

to-me-declai obalda natina

Conn.-Pro.1st.Sg.Acc.-V.3rd.Sg. | NP.Nom.Sg. | Appositive

*Obalda, (their) dear daughter, set me up."

According to Eska's model, Vendryes' Restriction is believed to have played a large rôle in the development of Insular Celtic verb-subject-object word order. Other authorities such as John T. Koch, dispute this interpretation.

Considering that Gaulish is not a verb-final language, it is not surprising to find other "head-initial" features.

Genitives follow their head nouns

*atom deuogdonion

**"The border of gods and men."

The unmarked position for adjectives is after their head nouns

*toutious namausatis

**"citizen of Nîmes"

Prepositional phrases have the preposition, naturally, first

*in alixie

**"in Alesia"

Passive clauses

*uatiounui so nemetos commu escengilu

**"To Vatiounos this shrine (was dedicated) by Commos Escengilos

Subordination

Subordinate clauses follow the main clause and have an uninflected element (jo) to show the subordinate clause. This is attached to the first verb of the subordinate clause.

gobedbi | dugijonti-jo | ucuetin | in alisija

NP.Dat/Inst.Pl. | V.3rd.Pl.- Pcl. | NP.Acc.Sg. | PP

*"to the smiths who serve Ucuetis in Alisia"

Jo is also used in relative clauses and to construct the equivalent of THAT-clauses

scrisu-mi-jo | uelor

V.1st.Sg.-Pro.1st Sg.-Pcl. | V.1st Sg.

*"I wish that I spit"

This element is found residually in the Insular Languages and appears as an independent inflected relative pronoun in Celtiberian, thus:

Welsh

*Middle Welsh yssyd, modern sydd "which is" from *esti-jo

*vs. Welsh ys "is" from *esti

Irish

*Old Irish 3rd plural relative cartae "loves" from *caront-jo

Celtiberian

*masc. nom. sing. ioś, masc. dat. sing. iomui, fem. acc. pl. iaś

Word Fragments ("Clitics")

Gaulish has a number of pronouns reduced to a word fragment, such as the object pronouns set inside a longer word:

to-so-ko-te

Conn. - Pro.3rd Sg.Acc - PerfVZ - V.3rd Sg

*"he gave it"

These also occur as subject pronoun word fragments: mi, tu, id. These act like the emphasizing particles known as notae augentes in the Insular Celtic languages.

dessu-mii-iis

V.1st.Sg. | Emph.-Pcl.1st Sg.Nom. | Pro.3rd Pl.Acc.

*"I prepare them"

buet-id

V.3rd Sg.Pres.Subjunc.-Emph.Pcl.3rd Sg.Nom.Neut.

*"it should be"

The phenomenon known as "clitic doubling" is also found: the noun is an animate in terms of grammar, but neuter in its nature, so a neuter pronoun word fragment is added to it. This causes "left dislocation". (There is a similar construction in Old Irish.)

Corpus

s from L'Hospitalet-du-Larzac, Musée de Millau. The inscription on the left hand tablet starts: In-sinde se—: bnanom bricto n,—eainom anuana sanander na:—brictom uidlaias uidli[..] tigontias so. Herein: a magical incantation of women, their special magical infernal names, the magical incantation of a seeress who fashions this prophecy. ]] The Gaulish corpus is edited in the Recueil des Inscriptions Gauloises (R.I.G.), in four volumes:

Vol. 1: Inscriptions in the Greek alphabet, edited by Michel Lejeune (items G-1 –G-281)

Vol. 2.1: Inscriptions in the Etruscan alphabet (Lepontic, items E-1 – E-6), and inscriptions in the Latin alphabet in stone (items l. 1 – l. 16), edited by Michel Lejeune

Vol. 2.2: inscriptions in the Latin alphabet on instruments (ceramic, lead, glass etc.), edited by Pierre-Yves Lambert (items l. 18 – l. 139)

Vol. 3: The calendars of Coligny (73 fragments) and Villards d'Heria (8 fragments), edited by Paul-Marie Duval and Georges Pinault

Vol. 4: inscriptions on coins, edited by Jean-Baptiste Colbert de Beaulieu and Brigitte Fischer (338 items)

The longest known Gaulish text was found in 1983 in L'Hospitalet-du-Larzac () in Aveyron. It is inscribed in Latin cursive script on both sides of two small sheets of lead. Probably curse tablets (defixio), they contain magical incantations regarding one Severa Tertionicna and a group of women (often thought to be a rival group of witches), but the exact meaning of the text remains unclear.

The Coligny calendar was found in Coligny near Lyon, France with a statue identified as Apollo. The Coligny Calendar is a lunisolar calendar that divides the year into two parts with the months underneath. SAMON "summer" and GIAMON "winter". The date of SAMON- xvii is identified as TRINVX[tion] SAMO[nii] SINDIV.

Another major text is the lead tablet of Chamalières (l. 100), written on lead in Latin cursive script, in twelve lines, apparently a curse or incantation addressed to the god Maponos. It was deposited in a spring, much like defixiones often are.

The graffito of La Graufesenque, Millau, inscribed in Latin cursive on a ceramic plate, is our most important source for Gaulish numerals. It was probably written in a ceramic factory, referring to furnaces numbered 1 to 10.

A number of short inscriptions are found on spindle whorls and are among the most recent finds in the Gaulish language. Spindle whorls were apparently given to young girls by their suitors and bear such inscriptions as:

moni gnatha gabi / buððutton imon (l. 119) "my girl, take my kiss"

geneta imi / daga uimpi (l. 120) '"I am a young girl, good (and) pretty".

Inscriptions found in Switzerland are rare, but many modern Swiss placenames are derived from Gaulish names as they are in the rest of Gaul. There is a statue of a seated goddess with a bear, Artio, found in Muri near Bern, with a Latin inscription DEAE ARTIONI LIVINIA SABILLINA, suggesting a Gaulish Artiū "Bear (goddess)". A number of coins with Gaulish inscriptions in the Greek alphabet have been found in Switzerland, e.g. RIG IV Nrs. 92 (Lingones) and 267 (Leuci). A sword dating to the La Tène period was found in Port near Bienne, its blade inscribed with KORICIOC (Korisos), probably the name of the smith. The most notable inscription found in Helvetic parts is the Berne Zinc tablet, inscribed ΔΟΒΝΟΡΗΔΟ ΓΟΒΑΝΟ ΒΡΕΝΟΔΩΡ ΝΑΝΤΑΡΩΡ, and apparently dedicated to Gobannus, the Celtic god of smithcraft. Caesar relates that census accounts written in the Greek alphabet were found among the Helvetii.

Notes

See also

Languages of France

List of English words of Gaulish origin

List of French words of Gaulish origin

References

Delamarre, Xavier. Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise, 2nd ed. Paris: Editions Errance, 2003.

Eska, Joseph F. and D. Ellis Evans. "Continental Celtic", The Celtic Languages, ed. Martin J. Ball. London: Routledge, 1993.

. Also available as an e-book, ISBN 1-85109-445-8.

Lambert, Pierre-Yves. La langue gauloise, 2nd ed. Paris: Editions Errance, 2003.

Lejeune, Michel. Lepontica (Monographies linguistiques, 1). Paris: Société d’edition "les Belles Lettres", 1971.

Recueil des inscriptions gauloises (XLVe supplément à «GALLIA»). ed. Paul-Marie Duval et al. 4 vols. Paris: CNRS, 1985-2002. ISBN 2-271-05844-9

Russell, Paul. An Introduction to the Celtic Languages. London: Longman, 1995.

Savignac, Jean-Paul. Dictionnaire français-gaulois. Paris: Éditions de la Différence, 2004.

Savignac, Jean-Paul. Les Gaulois, leurs écrits retrouvés : « Merde à César ». Paris: Éditions de la Différence, 1994.

Solinas, Patrizia (1995). ‘Il celtico in Italia’. Studi Etruschi 60:311-408

Woodward, Roger G, ed. "Celtic Languages". Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

External links

L.A. Curchin, "Gaulish language"

Gaulish language on TIED

The Coligny Calendar

All Saints Day: Coligny Calendar

two sample inscriptions on TITUS

Langues et écriture en Gaule Romaine by Hélène Chew of the Musée des Antiquités Nationales

Category:Continental Celtic languages Category:Languages of France Category:Ancient Gaul Category:Ancient languages Category:Extinct Celtic languages