linguistic strata and history - some possible tracks to go on

[MOESAN]

I am not sure it deserves a thread – it' s more a personal thought :
I was somewhat confused in front of the two different phonetic evolutions of ancient initial I-Ean *W- in french (and other romance languages or dialects) :
/V/ in the most of the words but (sometimes /B/ or /[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]β[/FONT]/ in Spain, Occitania and N-Corsica dialects) and /G/ in the words of germanic origin – the same in italian, spanish and portuguese, with the difference that /G/ corresponded to /GW/ all the time in italian and /GW/ or /G/ in iberian dialects according to the quality of the following vowel -
guerre/guerra (*werra) – garde/guarda (*ward-) – Gauthier/Gualtiero (*wald-hari) -
in Spain it concerns also the /W/ inherited from arabic : oued >> guad- in names of towns or rivers : see Guadalupe, Guadalquivir (Oued-el-Kebir?) - it can concern very late castilane romance evolution as the diphtonging of ancient O- into UE in castillan (also : UA/UÖ/UO in subdialects of Leon) : in asturian we can find güeyu /'gweju/ in place of ojo /,o[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]χ[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]o/ << olyo << oklo << lat- [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ocul[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]-[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]at first sight this evolution seems based upon a common demic stratum OR linguistic stratum of occidental Europe (or both) – in brittonic celtic all the ancient initial W- was turned into GW- even before liquid sonants -[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]gwern << vern-/wern- - gwir << vir-/wir- - gwlyb/gwleb << *vlip-/wlip- << **wlik[/FONT]^{[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]w[/FONT]}[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]- gwraig/gwreg <<?°vraki-???[/FONT]


[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]But in french we have celtic words which have the modern latine evolution, as [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]verne/vergne [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif](see brittonic [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]gwern [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]) - it seems strange that a population ancestraly linked to brittonic speakers could have had the same phonetic tendancy, lost it meanwhile after latinization, and recover it after to submit the germanic loanwords to the previous treatment – I have not other gaulish words as 'ver(g)ne' beginning with a V- ; but this example plus the huge number of latine words pronounced /V/ in french and other romance language seem proving imperial latin had already adopted the /V/ for previous I-E *V (/W/) - and it seem proving that a majority of celtic (gaulish) words in french were not the remnant of an ancient 'creole' but had been loaned by low-latin and [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]passed in romance languages through the roman pronunciation and not the original one[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] – we have a word which proves some « celtic » pronounciation exists in french : [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]gaine << vagina [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]: dialectal latin having kept the old I-Ean /W/ ??? or adaptation to celtic habits in an early « creole » ??? see welsh [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]gwain : « [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]sheath » - breton [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]gouin/gouhin [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]: « vagina » [/FONT]


[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]I 'm not able to refine more my thought about the very region or ethny or origin – the regions where this phenomenon took place are place of strong tendancy to lenition, weakening of consonnants/stops between vowels and even at beginning of words following other words ended by vowels : cause of the « softening » of initial consonnants in celtic languages AND ALSO in corsican and some other romance dialects (sardinian and ?) - some linguists think romance dialects of the ancient celtic or at least celtized area presented a lot of phonetic « accidents » at beginning of words in the body of sentances (the high frequence of G- in place of original K-* in modern romance words, genuine italic ones or not, is striking but it seems not being followed by the same phenomenon for other consonnants...) - the phonetical tendancies tend to perdure sometime even after languages shifts - a lot of today spanish speaking regions pronounce now a softened /X/[/FONT] ('gh') every 'g' even before 'a' or 'o' or 'u'...

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] * : in french the evolution /k/ >> /c/ >> /[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ʃ[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]/ could have stopped the evolution but occitan too presents none or few of the this k/ to /g/ evolution so ?...but I avow here this precise matter is unsteady yet - [/FONT]


– [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]my thought was : a language where initial consonnants can be « softened » or voiced could be tempted to consider halfvowel like W or J as weakened consonnants and create a more « robust » form at absolute beginning of words or sentance : brittonic celtic here is not homogenous because it keeps J in its original prononuciation /J/, written I- or Y- ; but in most occidental romance languages (ancient celtic or ligurian or lusitanian territories) languages have had a reinforcement : W > GW and J > GJ[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]before diverse sub-evolutions occurred linked to palatisation(s) and simplification (/gj/ >> /[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ɉ[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]j/ >> italian /[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ɉ[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]/, french, catalan, portuguese /[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ʒ[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]/, occitan /[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ɉ[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]//ts/dz/ castillan /[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]χ[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]/ << /[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ʒ[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]/ - (in some subdialects of poitevin, /[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ʒ[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]/ became /h/, maybe an old link of Aquitanian lost tribes linked to (G)wasconia?)[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]concerning W and J, in standard italian the phenomenon is homogenous : V- /w/ >> GU- /gw/ + J- /j/ >> GI- /[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ɉ/ - in french, the same case : G- /g/ + J- /ʒ/ -[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]this phenomenon is not all-latin[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] : the southern dialects of italian ignored it at first : V- /w/ >> /v/, [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]even in loanwords[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif], and J stayed /j/ in the genuine local italic cognate words (not in modern enough loans from common italian) -[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]the modern celtic syntaxes show some links with 1° semitic and hamitic languages / 2° (only some remnants,) basque language (but it is debatable)[/FONT]


[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]whatever the conclusions to take upon so rough statements it is not senseless to suppose a common ethnic substratum existed in the Celtic or celtized population of far West Europe (Atlantic) – the Basques seem ignoring these evolutions (at least the strong lenition and the W>>GW phenomenon, but I need control of informed people here) – the question is not without weight because we know a part of the genetic background in Western Europe in common to South and North and the celtic traditions (copied one upon another?) spoke about 2 things : their more remote ancestors would have been Scythians (or from the lands of Scythians) and passed through Mediterranea and even North-Africa – I have no record of whom, but a roman « historian » said, speaking about the Celts having penetrated Italy, that these ones maid the claim they had two origin, one of them from West -[/FONT]


[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]at this stage it is hard to put some order among these facts – what is very possible, left aside the fact Celts could have « hired » parts of their myths to higher statuted civilisations, that they mixed the myths of 2 different origins ? (Iknow it is only a jaggering supposition)[/FONT]


[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]$: What remains of all that is the possible evidence for a continuum between some populations of Iberia to France, Britain and North Italy[/FONT]