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From: jmm@miro.Berkeley.EDU (James Moore)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,soc.culture.celtic
Subject: Re: Celtic Languages
Message-ID: <16289@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Fri, 31-Oct-86 15:55:55 EST
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Posted: Fri Oct 31 15:55:55 1986
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In article <165@cartanBerkeley.EDU> rathmann@brahms.berkeley.EDU (Really Michael Ellis) writes:
>     As far as I can tell, Welsh, like most provincial languages, has
>     been extremely conservative; grammatical irregularities seem to

Umm...  Not really.  We're reading a fifteenth-century manuscript of the 
Pursuit of Diarmad and Grainne right now, and there are quite a few differences
between that and modern Irish.  Mostly there are strange verb forms, 
in particular dependent forms of ta' and things like do-bherim rather than
beirim.  Some older forms of prepositions are also there, such as os (used
outside of os cionn), and "nuair" is still "an uair" (or even an OI form such
as an tan).  My skill in Irish is still rather limited, but the "feel" of 
Diarmad and Grainne is very different from something such as "Peig", which
was written in 1939.  
	As far as I know, Welsh is much the same.  I was told by a native speaker
that going to Wales today and trying to use the language of the Mabinogi is
not going to work.  Something like the equivilent of read the Canterbury Tales
in the original -- it can be done from only a knowledge of history and modern
English, but you're going to miss a lot of vocabulary and meanings will have
changed.

	Slan libh,

		James Moore