Callaecian language

Callaecian
Native toIberian Peninsula
EthnicityCallaeci
EraAttested beginning of the first millennium CE
Indo-European
Language codes
ISO 639-3None (mis)
GlottologNone
Iberia in 300 BC. Callaecia is shown as a mixture of Celtic and pre-Celtic Indo-European influences.

Callaecian is the pre-Roman language, or languages, spoken by the ancient Callaeci in northwestern Iberia. The region became the Roman province of Callaecia, which is now divided between the Spanish regions of Galicia, the western parts of Asturias, León and Zamora, and the Norte Region of Portugal. The linguistic situation of pre-Roman Callaecia is complex, as it combines linguistic materials that resemble Celtic features and others that do not, probably related to Lusitanian.

Overview

Classical authors Pomponius Mela, Pliny the Elder, and Strabo wrote about the existence of Celtic and non-Celtic populations in Callaecia. Most linguists consider Callaecia to be part of a common dialect continuum with Lusitania. There is controversy over the classification of the Lusitanian language. Although most scholars regard it as a non-Celtic Indo-European language, some argue that it is a Celtic language with archaic features. Apart from the Lusitanian-like elements, Celtic linguistic records abound in Callaecia as they do in Lusitania.

Possible Celtic elements in Callaecia

Below are listed some hypothetical Celtic etymologies for various linguistic records from ancient Callaecia.

Features shared with Celtiberian and the other Celtic languages

Examples
  • place names C(ASTELLO) OLCA from *φolkā- 'Overturned', C(ASTELLO) ERITAECO from *φerito- 'surrounded, enclosed'
  • personal name ARCELTIUS, from *φari-kelt-y-os
  • place name C(ASTELLO) ERCORIOBRI, from *φeri-kor-y-o-brig-s 'Overshooting hillfort'
  • place name C(ASTELLO) LETIOBRI, from *φle-tyo-brig-s 'wide hillfort', or *φlei-to-brig-s 'grey hillfort';
  • place name Iria Flavia, from *φīweryā- (nominative *φīwerī) 'fertile' (feminine form, cf. Sanskrit feminine pīvari- "fat");
  • place name ONTONIA, from *φont-on- 'path';
  • personal name LATRONIUS, to *φlā-tro- 'place; trousers'
  • personal name ROTAMUS, to *φro-tamo- 'foremost';
  • modern place names Bama (Touro, Vama 912) to *uφamā- 'the lowest one, the bottom' (feminine form), Iñobre (Rianxo) to *φenyo-brix-s 'Hill (fort) by the water', Bendrade (Oza dos Ríos) to *Vindo-φrātem 'White fortress', and Baiordo (Coristanco) to *Bagyo-φritu-, where the second element is proto-Celtic for 'ford'. Galician-Portuguese appellative words leira 'flat patch of land' from *φlāryā, lavego 'plough' from *φlāw-aiko-, laxe/lage 'flagstone', from medieval lagena, from *φlagĭnā, rega and rego 'furrow' from *φrikā.
The frequent instances of preserved PIE /p/ are assigned by some authors, namely Carlos Búa and Jürgen Untermann, to a single and archaic Celtic language spoken in Callaecia, Asturia and Lusitania, while others (Francisco Villar, Blanca María Prósper, Patrizia de Bernado Stempel, Jordán Colera) consider that they belong to a Lusitanian or Lusitanian-like dialect or group of dialects spoken in northern Iberia along with (but different from) Western Hispano-Celtic:
  • in Galicia: divinity names and epithets PARALIOMEGO, PARAMAECO, POEMANAE, PROENETIAEGO, PROINETIE, PEMANEIECO, PAMUDENO; place names Lapatia, Paramo, Pantiñobre if from *palanti-nyo-brig-s (Búa); Galician-Portuguese appellative words lapa 'stone, rock' (cfr. Lat. lapis) and pala 'stone cavity', from *palla from *plh-sa (cfr. Germ. fels, O.Ir. All).
  • in Asturias the ethnic name Paesici; personal names PENTIUS, PROGENEI; divinity name PECE PARAMECO; in León and Bragança place names PAEMEIOBRIGENSE, Campo Paramo, Petavonium.
  • in other northwestern areas: place names Pallantia, Pintia, Segontia Paramica; ethnic name Pelendones.

Features not shared with Celtiberian

Q-Celtic

Under the P/Q Celtic hypothesis, Callaecian appears to be a Q-Celtic language, as evidenced by the following occurrences in local inscriptions: ARQVI, ARCVIVS, ARQVIENOBO, ARQVIENI[S], ARQVIVS, all probably from IE Paleo-Hispanic *arkʷios 'archer, bowman', retaining proto-Celtic *kʷ. It is also noteworthy the ethnonyms Equaesi ( < PIE *ek̂wos 'horse'), a people from southern Callaecia, and the Querquerni ( < *perkʷ- 'oak'). Nevertheless, some old toponyms and ethnonyms, and some modern toponyms, have been interpreted as showing kw / kʷ > p: Pantiñobre (Arzúa, composite of *kʷantin-yo- '(of the) valley' and *brix-s 'hill(fort)') and Pezobre (Santiso, from *kweityo-bris), ethnonym COPORI "the Bakers" from *pokwero- 'to cook', old place names Pintia, in Galicia and among the Vaccei, from PIE *penkwtó- > Celtic *kwenχto- 'fifth'.

Roman inscriptions

See also

References

  1. ↑ Prósper, Blanca María (2002). Lenguas y religiones prerromanas del occidente de la península ibérica. Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca. pp. 422–427. ISBN 84-7800-818-7.
  2. ↑ Prósper, B.M. (2005). Estudios sobre la fonética y la morfología de la lengua celtibérica in Vascos, celtas e indoeuropeos. Genes y lenguas (coauthored with Villar, Francisco). Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, pp. 333–350. ISBN 84-7800-530-7.
  3. ↑ Cólera, Carlos Jordán (2007-03-16). "Celtiberian (Page_750)". E-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies. 6 (1): 750. ISSN 1540-4889.
  4. ↑ Cólera, Carlos Jordán (2007-03-16). "Celtiberian". E-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies. 6 (1): 750. ISSN 1540-4889. In the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, and more specifically between the west and north Atlantic coasts and an imaginary line running north-south and linking Oviedo and Merida, there is a corpus of Latin inscriptions with particular characteristics of its own. This corpus contains some linguistic features that are clearly Celtic and others that in our opinion are not Celtic. The former we shall group, for the moment, under the label northwestern Hispano-Celtic. The latter are the same features found in well-documented contemporary inscriptions in the region occupied by the Lusitanians, and therefore belonging to the variety known as LUSITANIAN, or more broadly as GALLO-LUSITANIAN. As we have already said, we do not consider this variety to belong to the Celtic language family.
  5. ↑ Prósper, Blanca María (2002). Lenguas y religiones prerromanas del occidente de la península ibérica. Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca. pp. 422–427. ISBN 84-7800-818-7.
  6. ↑ Curchin 2008: 117
  7. ↑ Prósper 2002: 357–358
  8. ↑ Prósper 2005: 282
  9. 1 2 Prósper 2005: 336
  10. ↑ Prósper 2002: 422
  11. ↑ Curchin 2008: 123
  12. ↑ Prósper 2005: 269
  13. ↑ Delamarre 2012: 165
  14. ↑ Delamarre 2012: 2011
  15. ↑ Vallejo 2005: 326
  16. ↑ Koch 2011:34
  17. ↑ Cf. Koch 2011: 76
  18. ↑ Prósper 2002: 377
  19. ↑ Búa 2007: 38–39
  20. ↑ cf. DCECH s.v. lera
  21. ↑ cf. DCECH s.v. llaviegu
  22. ↑ cf. DCECH s.v. laja
  23. ↑ cf. DCECH s.v. regar
  24. ↑ Búa 2007
  25. ↑ Prósper, Blanca M. "Shifting the evidence: new interpretation of Celtic and non-Celtic personal names of Western Hispania": 1. Retrieved 13 March 2014. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  26. ↑ Prósper 2005: 342.
  27. ↑ Moralejo 2010: 105
  28. ↑ Luján 2006: 727–729
  29. ↑ Prósper 2002: 357–382
  30. ↑ Prósper 2005: 338; Jordán Cólera 2007: 754.
  31. ↑ Prósper 2002: 425–426.
  32. ↑ Prósper 2005: 336.
  33. ↑ Prósper 2002: 205–215.
  34. ↑ Luján 2006: 724
  35. ↑ Prósper 2002: 397
  36. ↑ Prósper, B. M.; Francisco Villar (2009). "NUEVA INSCRIPCIÓN LUSITANA PROCEDENTE DE PORTALEGRE". EMERITA, Revista de Lingüística y Filología Clásica (EM). LXXVII (1): 1–32. Retrieved 11 June 2012.
  37. 1 2 Prósper 2002: 423.
  38. ↑ Prósper 2002: 211
  39. ↑ González García, Francisco Javier (2007). Los pueblos de la Galicia céltica. Madrid: Ediciones Akal. p. 409. ISBN 9788446036210.
  40. ↑ Jordán Cólera 2007: 755
  41. 1 2 Wodtko 2010: 356
  42. ↑ Prósper 2005: 266, 278
  43. ↑ Prósper 2002: 423
  44. ↑ Prósper 2005: 282.
  45. ↑ Moralejo 2010: 107
  46. ↑ Prósper, Blanca M. "Shifting the evidence: new interpretation of Celtic and non-Celtic personal names of Western Hispania": 6–8. Retrieved 13 March 2014. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  47. 1 2 John T., Koch (2015). "Some Palaeohispanic Implications of the Gaulish Inscription of Rezé (Ratiatum)". Mélanges en l'honneur de Pierre-Yves Lambert: 333–46. Retrieved 16 July 2015.
  48. ↑ Prósper 2005: 266
  49. ↑ Jordán Cólera 2007: 763–764.
  50. ↑ Prósper 2002: 422, 427
  51. 1 2 Prósper 2005: 345
  52. ↑ Prósper, Blanca María. "El topónimo hispano–celta Bletisama: Una aproximación desde la lingüística". In: I. Sastre y F. J. Sánchez Palencia (eds.). El bronce de Pino del Oro Valladolid. 2010. pp. 217–23.
  53. ↑ Sometimes it has been read ELANIOBRENSI
  54. ↑ Luján 2006: 727
  55. ↑ Jordán Cólera 2007: 757.
  56. ↑ Prósper 2002: 426
  57. ↑ Prósper 2005: 346
  58. ↑ Koch, John T (2011). Tartessian 2: The Inscription of Mesas do Castelinho ro and the Verbal Complex. Preliminaries to Historical Phonology. Oxbow Books, Oxford, UK. pp. 53–54, 144–145. ISBN 978-1-907029-07-3. Archived from the original on 2011-07-23.
  59. ↑ Abad, Rubén Abad. (2008). "La divinidad celeste/solar en el panteón céltico peninsular". In: Espacio, Tiempo y Forma. Serie II, Historia Antigua, 21: 101.
  60. ↑ Cf. Vallejo 2005: 321, who wrongly assign them to the Astures.
  61. ↑ Prósper 2002: 422, 378–379
  62. ↑ Prósper, Blanca M. "Shifting the evidence: new interpretation of Celtic and non-Celtic personal names of Western Hispania": 10. Retrieved 13 March 2014. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  63. ↑ de Bernardo Stempel, Patrizia (2009). "El nombre -¿céltico?- de la "Pintia vaccea"" (PDF). BSAA Arqueología: Boletín del Seminario de Estudios de Arqueología (75). Retrieved 14 March 2014.

Bibliography

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