Daniel Josef Gashler and Professor Walter Whipple, Germanic and Slavic Languages
The Celts and Slavs were widespread and important cultural phenomena in Iron-Age Europe. Their influence is still felt in contemporary Europe and the Americas. Many states and peoples speak modern languages derived from proto-Celtic and proto-Slavonic. The purpose of my research is to show that these ancient cultures were once in contact on the Balkan Peninsula. The ultimate goal is to discover the time period, duration, and social nature of this contact through examining linguistic evidence of contact present in modern South Slavic (those Slavic languages spoken on the Balkan Peninsula) and Celtic languages.
An assumption of historical linguistics is that all languages change and that language change is a systematic process. Through an understanding of the processes of language change, it is possible to reconstruct proto-languages from which modern languages are derived. It is also possible to find which words in a target language were borrowed from a particular source language. Word borrowing occurs when people speaking different languages come into contact. The degree and nature of the borrowing varies with the nature of the contact.
In the case of the Celts and South Slavs, there are two type of contact which probably occurred: mutual trade and political domination of the Celts over the South Slavs. In the case of trade it is assumed that words dealing with exchangeable commodities would be equally borrowed between languages. In the case of Celtic political control over the Slavs it is assumed that the overwhelming majority of words would be borrowed by the Slavs from the Celts, with very little word borrowing going the other way.
Modern Celtic and South Slavic languages are over 2000 years removed from the time period when the Celts and Slavs were likely in contact. Any words which appear to have been borrowed between Celts and Slavs present in modern languages, are probably but a skeleton of the former borrowed lexicon. Written documents and inscriptions in proto-Slavonic and proto- Celtic are so scarce that the modern languages are practically the only linguistic data-set we have for examining this ancient contact.
Celtic and Slavic languages (along with most of the languages of Europe and many of the languages in Asia) represent language families that ultimately derive from the Indo-European language. Many words shared by Celtic and Slavic languages are of common Indo-European origin and are shared by many other language families as well. These words would not represent borrowings from the Iron-Age period, but simply a common heritage of Celtic, Slavic, and other languages. Therefore, only words that are exclusively found in Celtic and Slavic languages will be considered significant evidence.
The first step I have taken is to examine the most complete dictionaries available of the modern and recently extinct Celtic languages, namely Irish, Scotch Gaelic, Cornish, Manx, Welsh, and Breton. My examination of these dictionaries involves first learning the basic grammar of each respective language, including all inflectional and derivational affixes, pronunciation, and some basic vocabulary. I then became familiar with the available literature on Slavic and Celtic sound shifts as well as general sound shift trends with all languages. Bearing all of this information in mind I will examine the entire contents of all the Celtic languages looking for those words that appear similar to the modern South Slavic languages, namely Slovene, Serbo-Croatian, and Macedonian-Bulgarian.
This task has been completed with Welsh and Scotch-Gaelic. 178 words in Welsh and 134 words in Scotch-Gaelic were found to be present in modern South Slavic languages. These words were determined to be borrowings based on recognizable sound shifts and lack of parallels in other European languages with Indo-European roots. I will not discount parallels with Western and Eastern Slavic languages.
It will be important for chronological reasons to obtain data from all six Celtic languages. The Celtic languages are divided into two families: Goidellic (Irish, Manx, and Scotch Gaelic) and Brythonic (Cornish, Welsh, and Breton). The Goidellic-speaking Celts split from the Brythonic Celts between 1000 and 600 BC, isolating themselves on the British Isles. This split caused the two language groups to evolve in different directions. If a major distinction in the quantity of words from Goidellic and Brythonic languages present in the South Slavic languages is evident, it may be possible to date the linguistic influence of the South Slavs and Celts on each other between 1000 BC and 50 AD. 50 AD represents a general date for when the Celts ceased to inhabit the Danube region.
When all of the words have been compiled they will be sorted according to words dealing with politics, ideology, and subsistence. The archaeological record shows the Celts to have been a more advanced Chieftain society which often dominated those it came in contact with. On the other hand, the early Slavs were less organized band societies who were often dominated by more organized cultures. The borrowed words between Celtic and South Slavic languages will be useful in determining the validity of either of these archaeologically-based assumptions.
In compiling this data it will also be necessary to find a way to explain the contact between Celts and Slavs. The main problem is that the Celts left the Balkan area, and almost all of continental Europe before 50 AD while the Slavs did not arrive on the Balkan peninsula until 500 AD at the earliest. Alternative theories such as a Slavic genesis within the Balkan area will be examined in order to explain the overwhelming amount of linguistic evidence linking South Slavic languages with Scotch-Gaelic and Welsh, and likely the other Celtic languages as well. The linguistic evidence shows contact between peoples who were separated by almost 500 years according to conventional histories. The linguistic data needs an explanation.
My goal is to complete the analyses of the remaining four Celtic languages and statistical analyses of all Celtic and South Slavic common words by June of 2004. I will report on the results and obtain scholarly reviews of this work in order to fulfill the honor’s thesis requirement. ORCA funds have been extremely helpful in obtaining materials and correspondences necessary for the completion of this project. Thank you.