Early Celtic/Sanscrit Mutual Comprehensibility

[David L. White]

> my Irish teacher (who had his Ph.D. in
> Linguistics) told me that "at one time" Old Irish and Sanscrit were
> similar enough that a speaker of one would have been able, with
> effort, to understand a speaker of the other. He also said that this
> was probably due to the "fossilization at the extremes" principle.

        Your teacher's statement is itself an example of extremes, unless
"at one time" is meant to refer to something close to the time of PIE.  The
similarities between Celtic and Indic are more cultural than linguistic.

                                                        Dr. David L. White