The river Avon.

hullaballoo wrote: »

Having thought about this a bit more (and I apologise for not replying sooner), I can see where ezra_pound is coming from.

There are similarities across most western European languages with regard to numbers. That is beyond doubt. However, ezra's point is that the numbers evolved at some point in pre-Roman European languages as a common denominator. So, using my above post, the proto-Indo-European languages had developed a linguistic system for counting.

That system evolved divergently across races, while the numbers were changed to fit with other linguistic characteristics of whatever language was being spoken. So, although the numbers share a common root, it is not necessarily by virtue of the Roman conquests.

I think that's ezra's point, I hope I'm getting that right.

He also says that Latin undoubtedly impacted on other European languages, but not in relation to numbers. That's a valid point too: the impact of invaders on native language is universal and Irish is a very good example of this. The Vikings gave the Irish language the words for ship (long/lang[scip]), boat (bád/båd), button (cnaipe/knāp), shoe (bróg/brók) and a lot of other trade- and seafaring words.

On the other hand, the impact of Latin in Ireland is generally related to ecclesiastics because Ireland had little exposure to Latin from Roman invasion, whereas when we were being converted to Christianity, Latin was introduced more emphatically. You can also see the impact of other languages on Irish, where words are introduced/borrowed because Irish did not have a pre-existing equivalent.

I suppose it is unlikely that Gaels were unable to count before the Romans taught us the numbers!

It's an open question in my mind, though. It is possible that the Latin system was preferred and adopted before morphing into aon, dó, trí. My view is that the similarities are too close to Latin and not close enough to PIE numbering for ezra's theory to be correct.

Anyway, there's some more rambling. Soz.

tac foley wrote: »

So the 'apparent' similarity of the numbers is a complete coincidence - is that what you are claiming? Given that Welsh has a great number of words derived from Latin still in common use.

Of course, it wasn't actually CALLED Welsh until long after the Romans had gone back home. It was the Brythonic language spoken, in one form or another, by ALL the inhabitants of the island of Britannia, except perhaps the far-northerners [called Picts by the Romans] so the premise that the national language had been influenced by four hundred years of occupancy should not be dismissed so out of hand by you as 'rubbish'.

That is hardly an intellectual response.

Notwithstanding your use of a not totally trustworthy knowledge base, I'm going to call up a few other Welsh speakers - two of whom teach it - and ask for their words on the subject.

Noswaith da.

tac