Well then, let me elaborate. The fact that I'm no linguist doesn't diminish the authority of my arguments as long as they are valid (I consulted a linguist, remember?). However, I admit that I genuinely need to further elaborate things, and I need to provide you with some background here. The hypothesis of the Neogrammarians states that sound changes are
regular, systemic, and purely phonetically conditioned (there are correlaries to address the effects of things like analogy). Already in 1880, the Neogrammarian linguist Hermann Paul stated on the issue:
approximate translation (please excuse that it's somewhat awkward translated :innocent: ):
So, this essentially means that Koch is apparently operating at a pre-1880 stage of linguistics. To give some examples, first Tartessian
Teeaiona equals a reconstructed Celtic name
*Deiwonā but later
Teasiioonii corresponds to
Tascouanos. Well, which one is it? Initial T = D or Initial T = T? What about the vowels? Does #Ce (initial Consonant + the vowel e) = #Ce or does #Ce = #Ca?
Likewise, Tartessian
leoine corresponds to a reconstructed Celtic name
*Līwonāi. Then, all of a sudden,
meleśae corresponds to Gaulish
Meliđđus. Well, which is it? #Ce = #Cī or does #Ce = #Ce? What about #Ci = #Cī? Sure, why not? Tartessian
-ris = Celtic
-rīχs but then on the same page Tartessian
-riś suddenly equals the same thing. Well, which is it? They're written with different characters, presumably they represent different sounds. Does Tartessian
s or
ś correspond to Celtic
s, or does it perhaps correspond to
đđ as in
Meliđđus?
Later, Tartessian
niiraboo is equivalent to Welsh
ner, so I guess we can add #Cii = #Ce to the confusion. There is absolutely no effort made to address these correspondences systematically and explain how the differences are conditioned. He just takes a bunch of Tartessian words of unknown meaning, compares them to vaguely similar words cherry-picked from a dozen different Celtic languages spanning thousands of years (Celtiberian, Gaulish, Old Irish, Welsh, etc.), and hopes nobody will notice. The only guiding principle seems to be superficial similarities.
I hope that clarifies it.