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From: aawest@CritPath.Org (Anthony West)
Subject: Re: Italo-Celtic
Message-ID: <DnD6Fr.6p0@CritPath.Org>
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 1996 03:45:27 GMT
References: <360660231wnr@kindness.demon.co.uk>
Organization: Critical Path Project
Lines: 22

In article <360660231wnr@kindness.demon.co.uk> colin@kindness.demon.co.uk writes:
>Is anyone up with the current status of 'Italo-Celtic'?
>
>It used to be reckoned that Italic and Celtic were closely related 
>branches if I-E, but I recall that Lockwood in "A Panorama of I-E 
>Languages" claimed that the hypothesis was outdated.
>
>As I recalls one of the major reasons for positing Italo-Celtic was the 
>passive -r ending, but Tocharian drove a coach and horses through that 
>one. 
>
A recent attempt to relate the I-E languages by multivariate
computer branching produced a "simplest explanation" model that
showed Italic, Celtic and Tocharic as branching off from the main
stem after Anatolian, but before the rest of the family. According
to this model, there is then a closeness between Italic and
Celtic, but it should not be conceived or diagrammed as your
classic "two-brothers" subgroup.

-Tony West
aawest@critpath.org

