Keltisch-Germaans taalcontact in de voorgeschiedenis

Abstract

Uniquely shared words between Celtic and Germanic languages may serve to indicate prehistoric language contact. This article deals with a number of these words and identifies several semantic spheres of lexical exchange, such as kingship, farming, warfare, and metallurgy. Moreover, this article showcases the methodology used to identify the relative order in which words were exchanged in prehistory, and subsequently identifies multiple stages of contact between Celtic and Germanic speakers. The various semantic spheres can be related to corresponding archaeological phenomena: e.g. the exchange of haymaking vocabulary can be related to changes in the archaeobotanical record in the Iron Age, kingship vocabulary may be related to the advent of opulent graves in Central Europe during the Late Bronze Age, and metallurgical vocabulary may be related to the dawn of the Iron Age in North-Central Europe. Moreover, such references to the archaeological record allow us to assign rough absolute dates to some of the key sound changes leading up to Proto-Celtic and Proto-Germanic.