"Celt" Conjecture

[Rumo]

Fruit PIE or meat PIE? :roll: :wink: :lol:

Celtic pie, of course :lol:

My last section from my reply to Chris is about inscriptions.

As I pointed above but it was ignored, Celtiberian script is often enough hard to read because of its inherent ambiguities. Even when the signs get properly identified (sometimes may be a problem), the text still gives no secure reading by itself, especially on shorter inscriptions. Moreover, Celtiberian language(s) is not entirely understood and many texts have tentative interpretations (different scholars may propose differ translations for the same text).

Since 'Celtic studies' came up, I will support my earlier objection with a bibliographic reference. One of the nice recent overviews on this language and script can be found in Celtic Languages (M. J. Ball and Nicole Müller eds.), chapter "Continental Celtic" authored by J. F. Eska and D. E. Evans:

• The Celtic adaptation of the Iberian script denotes non-sibilant obstruents with moraic characters, i.e., each character contains an inherent vocalism; thus, there are five characters to denote, for example, /t/ plus each of the five vowels, respectively. Resonants, i.e., the vowels, nasals, liquids and glides, and the sibilant(s), are denoted by segmental characters. Such a system, of course, creates problems for the writing of groups of non-sibilant obstruents plus liquid, which are common in the Celtic languages; thus Ti?i? (MLH K.1.1 A6), which represents accusative /tri/ ‘three’, must make use of a ‘dead’ vowel which anticipates the quality of the following organic vowel. The occlusive characters, moreover, are not distinguished for voicing; thus, for example, the same character may represent /t/ or /d/, and hence is transcribed by neutral <T>.

This paragraph has some interesting endnotes, two are worthy of mention:

• Indeed, it appears that the occlusive characters could also represent fricatives: thus <P> could represent not only /p/ and /b/, but on the basis of the Celticizied name PalaCo? < Lat. Flaccus, a labial fricative, as well.

and the other endnote points to few inscriptions (see Carlos Jordán Cólera' article, start on page 1013) apparently displaying some subtle but constant graphic differences between the signs for voiced and voiceless sounds.

As such, if on a Celtiberian inscription one finds CelTi, that theoretically can be read as kelti, gelti, keldi, geldi, maybe considering aspirates and fricatives also khelti, helti, heldi, helthi, etc. Only external evidence can help to reduce the number of possibilites, but nevertheless in many cases will still be a hypothetical reading (see the Flaccus example above).

Peñalba de Villastar. See: Luciano Perez Vilatela, "Inscripciones celtibericas ineditas de Penalba", in "La Hispania prerromana", Universidad de Salamanca, 1996, pp. 256-257.

To me this entire article (p. 247-77) is a questionable piece of scholarship. Considering the script on these inscriptions "una adaptación epicórica" (which is true), the author interprets the signs to his own liking, but to me the identifications occasionally seem arbitrary. Once the signs are read, the text continues with linguistic speculations sometimes bordering on ridicule ( especially for shortest inscriptions like I.8 ka.? or I.10 m.o or I.15 ba.n. For example, when reading I.10 the author assures his readers that "toponomásticos celtas en Mo- son muy abundantes" and "también hay un sufijo -mo- en galo" ... what a Celtic mojo! Just imagine a fragment of a Latin inscription, having only two letters, MA or GA or SE or whatever two, being interpreted in a similar way!)

The inscription mentioned by Chris is I.13 (p. 255-7), read ke.l.ti.be (it reads amazing, doesn't it?). Even if we ignore the problem of reading "epichoric adaptations", why some stops are read voiceless (like in this case) but in other cases voiced (e.g. I.11 a.gi.l) is beyond my understanding, as there're no such arguments in the text.
As if it wouldn't be enough, the author attempts to divide the text of this inscription in two words, arguing from the existence of a Celt- root, with copious references to CIL and Roman sources. From the point of view of our controversy, however, this is a circular argument, as this inscription allegedly proves the existence of indigenous Celt- words in pre-Roman Spain. One lucky candidate is the southern city of Celti (Peñaflor) from Roman Baetica (why the name of such a southern location would show up in Teruel is also unexplained).

I have a picture of the inscription right here in my hands - it certainly looks like CELTICA to me. The people in this region were still speaking Gaulish at this time, by the way.

I quoted from your own reference and now you claim you know better than them.
To be sure, the RIG editors suggest two alternative readings, are they wrong?

I guess one can post a drawing here and prove a reading correct and the RIG editors wrong.