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New Quantity System
The New Quantity System, or the Great British Vowel Shift, was a radical restructuring of the phonological system of the Common Brittonic language which occurred sometime after the middle of the first millennium AD, resulting in the collapse of the early Brittonic system of phonemic vowel length oppositions, which was inherited from Proto-Celtic, and its replacement by a system in which the formerly allophonic qualitative differences between long and short vowels is phonemicized, and vowel length becomes allophonic, and is determined by stress and syllable structure. Date Kenneth Jackson dates the New Quantity System to about 600 AD. Kim McCone, noting that the process took quite a long time, dates it to some point in the seventh century. Motivation Jackson points out the similarities between this system and the vowel length changes in Vulgar Latin, and describes the Brittonic New Quantity System as "the result of a re-arrangement of the syllabic division." John Morris-Jones ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phonology
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a particular language variety. At one time, the study of phonology related only to the study of the systems of phonemes in spoken languages, but may now relate to any linguistic analysis either: Sign languages have a phonological system equivalent to the system of sounds in spoken languages. The building blocks of signs are specifications for movement, location, and handshape. At first, a separate terminology was used for the study of sign phonology ('chereme' instead of 'phoneme', etc.), but the concepts are now considered to apply universally to all human languages. Terminology The word 'phonology' (as in 'phonology of English') can refer either to the field of study or to the phonological system of a given language. This is one of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fortis And Lenis
In linguistics, fortis and lenis ( and ; Latin for "strong" and "weak"), sometimes identified with tense and lax, are pronunciations of consonants with relatively greater and lesser energy, respectively. English has fortis consonants, such as the ''p'' in ''pat'', with a corresponding lenis consonant, such as the ''b'' in ''bat''. Fortis and lenis consonants may be distinguished by tenseness or other characteristics, such as voicing, aspiration, glottalization, velarization, length, and length of nearby vowels. Fortis and lenis were coined for languages where the contrast between sounds such as ''p'' and ''b'' does not involve voicing (vibration of the vocal cords). History Originally, the terms were used to refer to an impressionistic sense of strength differences, though more sophisticated instruments eventually gave the opportunity to search for the acoustic and articulatory signs. For example, tested whether articulatory strength could be detected by measuring the force ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Britain
Several species of humans have intermittently occupied Great Britain for almost a million years. The earliest evidence of human occupation around 900,000 years ago is at Happisburgh on the Norfolk coast, with stone tools and footprints probably made by '' Homo antecessor''. The oldest human fossils, around 500,000 years old, are of '' Homo heidelbergensis'' at Boxgrove in Sussex. Until this time Britain had been permanently connected to the Continent by a chalk ridge between South East England and northern France called the Weald-Artois Anticline, but during the Anglian Glaciation around 425,000 years ago a megaflood broke through the ridge, and Britain became an island when sea levels rose during the following Hoxnian interglacial. Fossils of very early Neanderthals dating to around 400,000 years ago have been found at Swanscombe in Kent, and of classic Neanderthals about 225,000 years old at Pontnewydd in Wales. Britain was unoccupied by humans between 180,000 and 60, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iron Age Britain
The British Iron Age is a conventional name used in the archaeology of Great Britain, referring to the prehistoric and protohistoric phases of the Iron Age culture of the main island and the smaller islands, typically excluding prehistoric Ireland, which had an independent Iron Age culture of its own. The parallel phase of Irish archaeology is termed the Irish Iron Age. The Iron Age is not an archaeological horizon of common artefacts but is rather a locally-diverse cultural phase. The British Iron Age followed the British Bronze Age and lasted in theory from the first significant use of iron for tools and weapons in Britain to the Romanisation of the southern half of the island. The Romanised culture is termed Roman Britain and is considered to supplant the British Iron Age. The tribes living in Britain during this time are often popularly considered to be part of a broadly-Celtic culture, but in recent years, that has been disputed. At a minimum, "Celtic" is a linguistic te ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brittonic Languages
The Brittonic languages (also Brythonic or British Celtic; cy, ieithoedd Brythonaidd/Prydeinig; kw, yethow brythonek/predennek; br, yezhoù predenek) form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family; the other is Goidelic. The name ''Brythonic'' was derived by Welsh Celticist John Rhys from the Welsh word , meaning Ancient Britons as opposed to an Anglo-Saxon or Gael. The Brittonic languages derive from the Common Brittonic language, spoken throughout Great Britain during the Iron Age and Roman period. In the 5th and 6th centuries emigrating Britons also took Brittonic speech to the continent, most significantly in Brittany and Britonia. During the next few centuries the language began to split into several dialects, eventually evolving into Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Cumbric, and probably Pictish. Welsh and Breton continue to be spoken as native languages, while a revival in Cornish has led to an increase in speakers of that language. Cumbric and Pictish are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Celtic Languages
The Celtic languages ( usually , but sometimes ) are a group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch of the Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward Lhuyd in 1707, following Paul-Yves Pezron, who made the explicit link between the Celts described by classical writers and the Welsh and Breton languages. During the 1st millennium BC, Celtic languages were spoken across much of Europe and central Anatolia. Today, they are restricted to the northwestern fringe of Europe and a few diaspora communities. There are six living languages: the four continuously living languages Breton, Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh, and the two revived languages Cornish and Manx. All are minority languages in their respective countries, though there are continuing efforts at revitalisation. Welsh is an official language in Wales and Irish is an official language of Ireland and of the European Union. Welsh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Breton Language
Breton (, ; or in Morbihan) is a Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family spoken in Brittany, part of modern-day France. It is the only Celtic language still widely in use on the European mainland, albeit as a member of the insular branch instead of the continental grouping. Breton was brought from Great Britain to Armorica (the ancient name for the coastal region that includes the Brittany peninsula) by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages, making it an Insular Celtic language. Breton is most closely related to Cornish, another Southwestern Brittonic language. Welsh and the extinct Cumbric, both Western Brittonic languages, are more distantly related. Having declined from more than one million speakers around 1950 to about 200,000 in the first decade of the 21st century, Breton is classified as "severely endangered" by the UNESCO '' Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger''. However, the number of children attending bilingual classes rose 33 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cornish Language
Cornish (Standard Written Form: or ) , is a Southwestern Brittonic language, Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family. It is a List of revived languages, revived language, having become Extinct language, extinct as a living community language in Cornwall at the Last speaker of the Cornish language, end of the 18th century. However, knowledge of Cornish, including speaking ability to a certain extent, continued to be passed on within families and by individuals, and Cornish language revival, a revival began in the early 20th century. The language has a growing number of second language speakers, and a very small number of families now raise children to speak revived Cornish as a first language. Cornish is currently recognised under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, and the language is often described as an important part of Cornish identity, culture and heritage. Along with Welsh language, Welsh and Breton language, Breton, Cornish is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old Welsh
Old Welsh ( cy, Hen Gymraeg) is the stage of the Welsh language from about 800 AD until the early 12th century when it developed into Middle Welsh.Koch, p. 1757. The preceding period, from the time Welsh became distinct from Common Brittonic around 550, has been called "Primitive"Koch, p. 1757. or "Archaic Welsh". Texts The oldest surviving text entirely in Old Welsh is understood to be that on a gravestone now in Tywyn – the Cadfan Stone – thought to date from the 7th century, although more recent scholarship dates it in the 9th century. A key body of Old Welsh text also survives in glosses and marginalia from around 900 in the Juvencus Manuscript and in . Some examples of medieval Welsh poems and prose additionally originate from this period, but are found in later manuscripts; ''Y Gododdin,'' for example, is preserved in Middle Welsh. A text in Latin and Old Welsh in the ''Lichfield Gospels'' called the "Surrexit Memorandum" is thought to have been written in the early ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Schrijver
Peter Schrijver (; born 1963) is a Dutch linguist. He is a professor of Celtic languages at Utrecht University and a researcher of ancient Indo-European linguistics. He worked previously at Leiden University and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. He has published four books and a large number of articles on the history and the linguistics of Indo-European languages, particularly the description, reconstruction and syntax of the Celtic languages, and has lately been researching language change and language contact in ancient Europe.''Curriculum Vitae'' in ''Keltisch en de buren: 9000 jaar taalcontact'', ("Celtic and their Neighbours: 9000 years of language contact") University of Utrecht, March 2007, p. 29 (in Dutch). Biography Born in |
Geminate
In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from stress. Gemination is represented in many writing systems by a doubled letter and is often perceived as a doubling of the consonant.William Ham, ''Phonetic and Phonological Aspects of Geminate Timing'', p. 1-18 Some phonological theories use "doubling" as a synonym for gemination, others describe two distinct phenomena. Consonant length is a distinctive feature in certain languages, such as Arabic, Berber, Danish, Estonian, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Punjabi, Polish and Turkish. Other languages, such as English, do not have word-internal phonemic consonant geminates. Consonant gemination and vowel length are independent in languages like Arabic, Japanese, Finnish and Estonian; however, in languages like Italian, No ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Morris-Jones
Sir John Morris-Jones (17 October 1864 – 16 April 1929) was a Welsh grammarian, academic and Welsh-language poet. Morris-Jones was born John Jones, at Trefor in the parish of Llandrygarn, Anglesey the son of Morris Jones first a schoolmaster, then a shopkeeper and his wife Elizabeth. He had a younger brother William Jones. In 1868 the family moved to Llanfairpwllgwyngyll where he received elementary education. In 1876 he entered Friars School, Bangor. In 1879 the headmaster of Friars School, Daniel Lewis Lloyd, was appointed to Christ College, Brecon, and John Jones accompanied him there. In 1883 he attended Jesus College, Oxford, where he graduated with honours in mathematics in 1887. While at Oxford, Morris-Jones studied Welsh books and manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, and attended lectures by Sir John Rhys (1840–1915), the professor of Celtic. Morris-Jones and Rhys prepared an edition of ''The Elucidarium and other tracts in Welsh from Llyvyr agkyr Llandewivrevi A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
