Reconstruction talk:Proto-Celtic/brigā

Brythonic

Celtic *brigā would have given Brythonic *breɣ, Welsh **bre. The Brythonic languages require a reconstruction *brīg-. Anglom (talk) 00:37, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

@Anglom: So do the Goidelic languages. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 09:17, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Geiriadur Prifysgol Cyru, Dictionaire de la Langue Gauloise, and the Wiktionary page for Old Irish bríg all agree with this, and place Welsh bri, Old Irish bríg, Italian brio, etc, under Celtic brīg- < PIE gʷreh₂- --Caoimhin (talk) 14:47, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

You can move it then. But of course the etymology has to be revised or scrapped. —CodeCat 15:34, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

I feel too much of a novice and amateur to be sure of myself, so it might be better if someone more knowledgable moved things around, if someone is willing. I am coming from a good knowledge of the modern Goidelic languages (Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Manx), some knowledge of Old Irish and Welsh, but very little knowledge of PIE or sound laws or Wiktionary conventions, although I am improving gradually. --Caoimhin (talk) 20:34, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Matasovic gives the Middle Welsh for bre, which would be consistent with *brigā. Perhaps two variants forms existed in Welsh? The Gaulish form also agrees with *brigā. The Goidelic form points to a root noun though. --Victar (talk) 16:13, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

I don’t have a copy of Matasović, but it does look to me like there are two groups of words taking very similar (perhaps even sometimes overlapping?) forms. One group including Modern Welsh bri, Old Irish bríg, Gaulish brīgo-, Proto-Celtic brīgos, Italian brio, all meaning power, strength, force, value, worth, and presumably derived from PIE root gʷreh₂-. The other group including Modern Welsh bre (and obry and fry from obsolete oblique case bry), Old Irish bri, Gaulish briga, Proto-Celtic brigā and brixs, all meaning hill (and thence fortress) and derived from PIE root bʰerǵʰ-. It seems that the second group can be further subdivided, because according to Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru (which is very reliable) and also Dictionaire de la Langue Gauloise, Old Irish bri is derived from Celtic brixs (< bʰérǵʰ-s), while the Welsh, Cornish and Breton words (and presumably Gaulish briga) are derived from Celtic brigā (presumably < bʰr̥ǵʰ-eh₂). --Caoimhin (talk) 20:34, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

The reason I got involved with this question is that I am developing an Internet resource called Bunadas, mainly as a resource for speakers and learners of the modern Celtic languages - a sort of etymological network database. This might be useful to show my current thinking which I outlined above. (In Bunadas, words can belong to clusters, you can navigate from word to word by clicking, you can go to the Wiktionary page by clicking the Wiktionary favicon, and you can look up the word in a selection of dictionaries by clicking the yellow M (Multidict) favicon. You can hover over words to see a brief meaning.)

• Proto-Celtic brīgos
• Proto-Celtic brixs
• Proto-Celtic brigā

--Caoimhin (talk) 21:11, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

• @Burgundaz, Rua, Victar, Caoimhin I've moved the "strength, importance, vigor" sorts of words to Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic/brīgos and left the "hill, fortress" words here. Caoimhin, two questions: (1) who proposed that the "importance" words are from *gʷreh₂-? (2) Have you moved the Bunadas resource somewhere else? The above links don't work anymore. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:46, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

  Can't say I'm much a fan of a velvar extension or the semantics of the etymology. --{{victar|talk}} 18:42, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

  I'm not bothered by those, I'm bothered by the i that seems to have appeared from out of nowhere. —Mahāgaja · talk 18:57, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

  I didn't even notice that. I'd say that's grounds for immediate deletion of the etymology. -- {{victar|talk}} 20:07, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

  First I want to know whose idea it was and whether they have an explanation for it. —Mahāgaja · talk 21:01, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

  @Mahāgaja
  

  (1) The idea that the ”importance” words are from *gʷreh₂-, I probably picked up from the the page for bríg, where it seems to go right back to when the page was created on 8 Jan 2010 by Embryomystic. But ultimately it seems to go right back to Pokorny’s IEW – See root 719 here: https://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/natlang/ie/pokorny.html.

  (2) My Bunadas resource is now at https://www3.smo.uhi.ac.uk/teanga/bunadas/ – Sorry the redirection from the old address had got lost, but I have now restored it. Caoimhin (talk) 14:34, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

  OK, thanks. Embryomystic certainly got it from Macbain's Etymological Dictionary of Scottish Gaelic, where he compares brìgh to "Gr. βρῖ = βριαρός, strong, mighty, βρίμη (ι long), strength, anger; Skr. jri, overpower, jrayas, extent; an I. E. ꬶri‑, ꬶrī‑, ꬶrei‑. Bezzenberger suggests Ger. krieg, war, striving: *ꬶreigh?". I see nothing wrong with having a -y- extension to *gʷreh₂-, giving **gʷreh₂-y-, which I guess could be metathesized in the zero grade to *gʷrih₂-, but in order to get the Germanic and Celtic words it would have to be doubly extended, first with -y- and then again with -gʰ- (and to get the Greek it would have to be doubly extended with other consonants). The individual steps don't seem implausible, but when they add up, it starts to look like hand-waving. But I'm equally unconvinced by the *bʰreǵʰ- etymology. —Mahāgaja · talk 15:54, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

  MacBain is obviously took it from Pokorny, see sources on Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic/brīgos. @Mahagaja, you never replied here. --{{victar|talk}} 19:29, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

  MacBain's dictionary was published 46 years before Pokorny's, and 16 years before Walde–Pokorny, so if anything P. got it from M. I didn't reply at Reconstruction talk:Proto-Celtic/brīgos because I didn't have much more to say. Just like the derivation from *gʷreh₂-y-/*gʷrih₂-, with the derivation from *bʰrḗǵʰ-o-s < *bʰrḗǵʰ-s ~ *bʰréǵʰ-s < *bʰerǵʰ-, the individual steps don't seem implausible, but when they add up, it starts to look like hand-waving. But of course I don't have a better suggestion either. —Mahāgaja · talk 20:00, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

  @Mahagaja: Noted on MacBain (not a source I commonly use)! When it comes to PIE, obviously, the less steps, the better the etymology. The options are: 1) a rebuilt root from an unattested ye-present or i-stem (*gʷreh₂-y- ~ *gʷr̥h₂y-) + schabablaut (*gʷrih₂-) + rare velar extension (*gʷrih₂-G-), or 2) a liquid metathesis (*bʰerǵʰ-). Even ignoring the semantics, the choice seems obvious to the point that I think the former should be completely rejected, without any mention.🤷 --{{victar|talk}} 21:50, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

  I definitely don't recommend using MacBain. A lot of his etymologies were outdated or fringey even at the time he wrote them, and are all the more so now. I usually trust him only for cognates within Celtic, not outside it. The derivation from *bʰerǵʰ- requires more than just metathesis, it also requires formation of an athematic noun with a lengthened grade (in spite of the existence of *bʰérǵʰ-s ~ *bʰr̥ǵʰ-és without lengthened grade and with a totally different meaning), then thematicization of the form with lengthened grade. Of course nothing about it is impossible, but to me overall it feels only marginally more plausible than the "heavy" hypothesis. —Mahāgaja · talk 22:13, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

  @Mahagaja: Lengthened e-grades and o-grades are abundantly common in PIE, see *dyḗws, *h₃rḗǵs, *bʰṓr, etc. ad nauseam. And for the semantics, see cognates Latin fortis (“strong, powerful”), Sanskrit बृहत् (bṛhat, “mighty, strong”), which are harder to deny than support. We could be dealing with the merger of two roots, *bʰerǵʰ- (“to rise up; to be elevated”) and *bʰreǵʰ- (“to be fortified, strong”), but scholars don't seem to be bothered by “to be elevated, up high” > “to be fortified, strong”. -- {{victar|talk}} 00:02, 22 June 2023 (UTC)