Dating of Changes in Germanic and Insular Celtic

[Dennis King]

JoatSimeon at aol.com:

> The earliest Insular Celtic recorded (Ogham inscriptions, etc.)
> is a perfectly standard early, inflected IE language -- not much
> different from Gaulish or Lepontic and structurally similar to Latin,
> Lithuanian or Sanskrit.

This may or may not be true, but I don't think the "Ogham inscriptions,
etc." are going to prove it.

The Ogam corpus consists almost entirely of nouns, mostly personal
names, virtually always in the genitive.  The early inscriptions all
conform to a number of simple formulas such as MAQI CAIRATINI AVI
INEQAGLAS = [lia] Maic Ca/erthainn Ui/ Enechglais = [the stone] of
son of Caerthann of descent of Enechglas.  A lot of them are shorter.

Not one of them contains verbs, adjectives, or prepositions, nor
any more than the one syntactical pattern.

The amount that the inscriptions fail to disclose about structure of
Primitive Irish is simply enormous.  They can neither confirm nor
disprove its resemblance to garden variety IE (Latin, etc.).  The
little syntax and grammar that they do reveal happens to be the sort
that hasn't changed significantly from IE down to present day Irish.

Dennis King