hewitt-hamito-semitic substratum in insular celtic

8/21/2019 Hewitt-Hamito-Semitic Substratum in Insular Celtic

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The Question of a Hamito-Semitic Substratum in Insular Celtic

Steve Hewitt

UNESCO

bstractThe hypothesis of a Hamito-Semitic (or Afro-Asiatic) substratum in the Insular Celticlanguages elaborated successively by Morris ones! "o#orny and $agner to e%plain stri#ingstructural resemblances bet&een Insular Celtic and Hamito-Semitic is en'oying a revivalinguists have generally assumed that the parallels bet&een Insular Celtic and Hamito-Semitic are to be e%plained in terms of *reenbergian typology (all languages of the +S,type) Ho&ever! recent &or# by *ensler! and also ongeling and +ennemann! compels us torevisit the substratum hypothesis This article presents the main contributions on theuestion! provides a table sho&ing the principal points of similarity by author andlanguage! briefly comments on each of these points! and! regretting the reluctance ofsubstratalists to consider typological e%planations! sounds a note of caution against &hat

might be termed .substratum fren/y0

!-

1. Introd uctionStri#ing structural resemblances have long been noted bet&een the Insular Celtic languages(divided into *oedelic 1 Irish *aelic! Scottish *aelic! Man%2 and 3rythonic 1 $elsh! 3reton!

Cornish) and various Hamito-Semitic (more broadly! Afro-Asiatic) languages 4e& of these traitsappear to have been note&orthy of the no& e%tinct Continental Celtic languages (*aulish!Celtiberic! epontic! *alatian)! and they are not generally found in other Indo-5uropeanlanguages This fact has led some to raise the possibility of a Hamito-Semitic substratum in the3ritish Isles to e%plain their origin Among the most prominent shared features are6 +S, order2singular (apersonal) verb-mar#ing &ith plural post-verbal le%ical sub'ects2 the Semiticists7.construct state0 1 a 8H5A98the-95"5:95:T;; genitive construction2 .con'ugated0 prepostions2 andobliue relatives &ith pronoun copies! each illustrated belo& in 3reton and Arabic

Breton Arabic

VSO ordere skrivas Yann ul lizher AFF wrote.PRET John a letter

kataba Yay rislawrote.PRET.M John letter

.ohn &rote a letter0

Sinular !a"ersonal# verb$%arkin &ith "lural "ost$verbal le'ical sub(ectse skrivas ar %erc)hed

AFF wrote.PRET the girls

katabat al$bant

wrote.PRET.F the-girls.The girls &rote0


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The Question of a Hamito-Semitic Substratum in Insular Celtic 2

*+onstruct state, - /0 the-020303455 enitive constructionti ar rouehouse the king

bait al$%alikhouse the-king

.The house of the #ing! the #ing7s house0

*+on(uated "re"ositions,ant6anin6 anit6anta76 anti6aneo%"6 aneoc)h6 ante

%a86%a9:6 %a9ak6 %a9ik6%a9uh6 %a9h%a9n6 %a9ku%6 %a9hu%

.&ith!&ith me! &ith youS*!&ith him! &ith her

&ith us! &ith you"! &ith them0

.&ith!&ith me! &ith youS*M! &ith youS*4!&ith him! &ith her

&ith us! &ith you"! &ith them0

Obli;ue relatives &ith "ronoun co"iesar &ele a %eus kousked enna7the bed.M AFF I.have slept.PP in.it.M

as$sar:r al$ladh: ni%t ain authors3oth *ensler! in his thesis (6?@-


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3 Steve Hewitt

simultaneous development on the same analytic lines of 4rench! Spanish! and Italian in their use ofinfi%ed and postfi%ed pronounsL

"o#orny7s %anu% o"uson the sub'ect (D-) "o#orny7s discursive te%t is often impressionistic! &ithnumerous e%amples (never glossed! at best paraphrased) from Hamito-Semitic languages! as &ell

as Cushitic! 3antu (including unseemly references (


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The Question of a Hamito-Semitic Substratum in Insular Celtic

,n the basis of the sample used in this study! nothing remotely close to the full-blo&n CelticEHamito-Semitic 8CHS; linguistic type recurs any&here else in the &orld The relatively fe& languages &hich areJbest matches7 1 actually rather poor matches 1 are scattered all over the globe! from the $est Coast of:orth America to the Caucasus and :e& *uinea Ho&ever! the continental average score for Africa ishigher than for any other continent! and drops only slightly &hen the CHS languages 5gyptian and3erber are omitted2 $est Africa scores especially &ell! and appears especially hospitable to several of the

CHS features (adpositional periphrastic! &ord-initial change! #in terms! inter alia) Conversely! 5uropehas one of the lo&est average scores! and &hen $elsh and Irish are e%cluded its score drops far belo&that of any other continent Celtic is thus radically out of place in a 5uropean landscape! &hereas theHamito-Semitic languages simply intensify a structural trend seen over much of Africa A &ea# form ofthe CHS type! then! &ould appear to have a natural home in Africa! in particular :orth&est Africa$ithin Afroasiatic! the highest-scoring languages are on the Mediterranean2 scores fall a&ay in everydirection! but the Chadic language Hausa (in $est Africa) scores much higher than Cushitic Afar (in 5astAfrica) The diachronic evidence! too! argues that the (&ea#) CHS type is something uite old in Africa6the African and Arabian case studies all sho& stronger CHS-ness further bac# in time All this! incon'unction &ith the blood-type agreement bet&een the 3ritish Isles and :orth&est Africa! argues forsome sort of prehistoric scenario specifically lin#ing these t&o regions

$hile *ensler does not claim to have proved the Hamito-Semitic substratum hypothesis forInsular Celtic! he does appear to be saying6 .in the face of such statistical results! &hat else can itbeL0 He ta#es great care &ith the &eighting (B! PQ! P


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! Steve Hewitt+ennemannsees a Hamito-Semitic substratum as having influenced Insular Celtic! andthrough Celtic! 5nglish In (BB?6=@=)6 .3y analy/ing


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The Question of a Hamito-Semitic Substratum in Insular Celtic "Si%ilar


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# Steve Hewitt

> Initial focus clefts ()

>> esEno responsives &ith au%iliaryEverbEentire clause ()

>D "repositional relative6 fronting of bare preposition the bed in Islept

()

>? nmar#ed collective! derived singulative> +irtual complement clause vso2 factual complement clausesvoOvso>@ Construct state bahuvrhi ad'ectives (Ar .improper anne%ation0)> Topic sub'ect (.double sub'ect0 sentences)>= esEno dummy sentential pronoun6 I don7t #no& and he theycame


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The Question of a Hamito-Semitic Substratum in Insular Celtic $Si%ilar

Ogennum

agreem

D?

O sydd!sy

O so (/o)

,I O O O O

@

,I O O trad 3

=

O vs! sv aff vso O vso

hewitt-hamito-semitic substratum in insular celtic

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