A note on the etymology and lexicology relating to traditional European pulses in the Celtic languages
Abstract
The Celts are commonly regarded as one of the Indo-European ethnolinguistic groups, speaking Celtic languages derived from Proto-Celtic. Numerous archaeobotanical, palaeogenetic and historical linguistic analyses demonstrate that the most ancient European pulse crops, such as chickpea (Cicer arietinum), grass pea (Lathyrus sativus), lentil (Lens culinaris), lupins (Lupinus spp.), pea (Pisum sativum), vetches (Vicia spp.) and faba bean (Vicia faba), were widely used in everyday life as early as sixth millennium BC. The Latin word denoting ‘pea’, pisum, was borrowed by both Brythonic and Goidelic languages, spoken during the first centuries AD in Britain and Ireland, and produced the words denoting ‘pea’ in their modern members. The ultimate origin of the words denoting ‘faba bean’ in all living and attested Celtic languages is the Proto-Indo-European root *bhabh-, denoting the same crop, literally meaning something swollen and imported from both the Latin faba and the Old Norse baun. The majority of the words denoting ‘grain’ in the Celtic languages are descendants of the Proto-Celtic root *grāno, denoting ‘grain’ and originating from the Proto-Indo-European *g'er[a]n-, *grān-, denoting ‘grain’ and ‘corn’.
© 2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Articles / Articles / Aufsätze
- Flektierte Familiennamen im Luxemburgischen
- The degree of union resulting from reaction points expressed in a diatopic table. An application to a Catalan verb morphology database
- A note on the words in the Baltic languages for some of the most ancient European grain legume crops
- Variation in the realization of /εi/ by Dutch youngsters: from local urban dialects to emerging ethnolects?
- The Romanian linguistic cartography in the digitizing era: the electronic atlases
- On phonological variations in Kafrelsheikh Egyptian Arabic
- A note on the etymology and lexicology relating to traditional European pulses in the Celtic languages
- Reviews / Comptes rendus / Besprechungen
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Articles / Articles / Aufsätze
- Flektierte Familiennamen im Luxemburgischen
- The degree of union resulting from reaction points expressed in a diatopic table. An application to a Catalan verb morphology database
- A note on the words in the Baltic languages for some of the most ancient European grain legume crops
- Variation in the realization of /εi/ by Dutch youngsters: from local urban dialects to emerging ethnolects?
- The Romanian linguistic cartography in the digitizing era: the electronic atlases
- On phonological variations in Kafrelsheikh Egyptian Arabic
- A note on the etymology and lexicology relating to traditional European pulses in the Celtic languages
- Reviews / Comptes rendus / Besprechungen
