Re: Celtic initial mutation

On May 31, 3:15 am, edie...@xxxxxxx wrote:
I am an complete amateur who has become interested in the Celtic
languages. I am fascinated by the initial consonant mutations and how
they evolved. Wikipedia waves a hand at issues. I have been googling
and none of the information I have found has been that helpful. The
books I have found are way too expensive for me. Can anyone point me
to a resource?

Haven't you got a library handy? Besides, at least for Irish, there
are several cheap introductory textbooks.

Anyway, in Irish there are two main consonant mutations, the séimhiú
or "lenition" (actually fricativization) and the urú or
"eclipsis" (basically a nasalization; it makes unvoiced stops voiced,
and voiced stops it makes nasal). According to Kim McCone, the séimhiú
is basically something that occurred due to the weakening of the
consonant between two vowels. Thus, the modern Irish "an chloch throm"
= "the heave [trom] stone [cloch]" is based on an earlier form *sindâ
klokâ trumbâ (the ^ stands here for the macron, i.e. those a's were
long). Note that even the second -k- in klokâ was lenited, because it
was between vowels.

As regards the urú, McCone says: "Ní taobh istigh en fhocal amháin a
rinneadh d,g de t,k de bharr srónaíle a bhí ar tí imeacht ach tháinig
an próiseas céanna i bhfeidhm thar an teorainn idir focail a raibh
dlúthbhaint chomhréire eatarthu faoi mar a tharla i gcás an tséimhithe
[...]. Is dá dheasca sin a tháinig an t-urú gramadúil chun cinn
[...]." ["It's not just inside the words that t and k became d and g
under the influence of a nasalization that was about to disappear. It
often worked over the border between words, the same as happened with
the lenition. Because of that, the grammatical eclipsis made
inroads."] (Page 78 in: MCCONE, Kim: An tSean-Ghaeilge agus a
Réamhstair. Pages 61-219 in: Stair na Gaeilge in ómós do Pádraig Ó
Fiannachta. In eagar ag Kim McCone, Damian McManus, Cathal Ó Háinle,
Nicholas Williams, Liam Breathnach. Roinn na Sean-Ghaeilge, Coláiste
Phádraig, Maigh Nuad 1994.)
.