The Modern Gaulish Language
The revival of the Gaulish language: Galáthach hAthevíu
Appendix I: Galataca Sena
Galataca Sena is an unintentional and accidental spin-off product of the development of the modern Gaulish language. It was devised in response to calls from interested parties to write modern Gaulish texts in a way that would be intelligible to those with general background knowledge of the ancient language, but not of the modern version. Therefore, Galataca Sena was conceived as a hypothetical point somewhere between ancient Gaulish and modern Gaulish, but much closer to the former. As such, it represents a stage of the language after the erosion and collapse of the case system and after the onset of initial consonant mutations, but before the modernising sound changes. The hypothetical timeframe for Galataca Sena would be approximately the 6th - 7th century CE, a century after ancient Gaulish was last attested in writing.
It is convenient here to sketch a broad outline of the evolution of the language and to situate the various stages in it:
I. Ancient Gaulish:
1). Early ancient Gaulish: appr. 7th century BCE-2nd century BCE. Centres around the
Lepontic and Greco-Gaulish inscriptions.
2). Middle ancient Gaulish: 2nd century BCE – 2nd century CE: the age of
Vercingetorix, Ambiorix and the invasion
3). Late ancient Gaulish: 2nd century CE – 6th century CE: the language of
Chateaubleau, gradual erosion of case system and start of loss of final syllables
II. Old Gaulish:
Galataca Sena, which translates literally as “Old Gaulish”. 6th – 7th century CE. The state of the language after the loss of the case system, but before the sound changes. It is a hypothetical state, not attested, but the onset of which can be discerned in the language of Chateaubleau. The stage prior to the extinction of the language. Estimates for the language vary from the 8th century, time of the enforcement of christianity as state religion by Charlemagne and the erosion and loss of the foothold of the language among the rural population of Gaul a a result (a notion considered plausible by e.g. Mees 2010), to the 12th century. The notion that Gaulish survived in the high Alps between Helvetia and Gaul (Haute-Savoie) is supported by some, e.g. Bhrghros (2012).
III. Modern Gaulish
The revived language of the 21st century. Subject of this document.
Brief Outline of Galataca Sena
Without going into too much detail, GS is basically a preliminary version of Galáthach hAthevíu which features the same syntax, but which has retained
1) open vowel word endings which do no longer determine case
2). fully conjugated verbal paradigms
3). pre-sound change phonology
4). mutations which are only marked by an apostrophe
Verbal conjugation follows a thematic pattern, as opposed to the athematic pattern which became the default position in GhA:
to carry, present tense:
beru mi
beres ti
beret e/i/id
beremu ni
berete suis
berent sies
passive: beror
All tenses are derived exactly the same way as in GhA, but retain the present tense endings throughout:
Past Tense Future Tense
re beru mi bersiu mi
re beres ti bersies ti
re beret e/i/id bersiet e/i/id
re beremu ni bersiemu ni
re berete suis bersiete suis
re berent sies bersient sies
past participle: bertu
to be:
present: past future
emi bue mi bie mi
es ti bues ti bies ti
esi e/i/id buet e/i/id biet e/i
esemu ni buemu ni biemu ni
esete suis buete suis biete suis
esent sies buent sies bient sies
past participle: etu
And so on.
In terms of morphology, masculine words end in –o and feminine words end in –a. There are some attested as ending in –i in ancient Gaulish, these retain the –i ending. Adjectives follow the nouns and are declined for gender both with an apostrophe at the start of the word to indicate mutation which is not written, and at the word final syllable which takes –o or –a as required. All phonology is as per pre-sound change. Pural is marked as per nominative plural, but without the final –s if there was one. Verbal nouns are conceived as neuter nouns and end on –on, -ion for stems on stops.
Example text:
Galataca Sena:
Esi id uiro o ne esent doni elui lavarentiou inda Galataca inte dago, extero esemu ni en cerdion ad auuion sinde uer dago.
Galáthach hAthevíu:
Esi í gwír o né hesi doné élu en lhavar in Galáthach in dhái, éithr esi ni en gerdhi a hávó sin gwer dhái.
English:
It is true that there are not a lot of people who speak Gaulish well, but we are working to make it better.
Galataca Sena is only ever used as a companion language to GhA to provide an easily understandable bridge between the old and the new.
