The Celts and the Slavs: On K. H. Schmidt's Hypothesis on the Eastern Origin of the Celts

Abstract

The current paper is an homage to the works of K. H. Schmidt; it explores a number of linguistic links between Celtic and Slavic branches of Indo-European. Special attention is devoted to the relative chronology of possible contacts of Celtic and Slavic tribes, and an attempt to fit those into the general European picture is made. First, the author points out to the existence of *-sie-/-sio- future forms in Continental Celtic, which stand as good evidence for contacts of at least some Celtic tribes with Eastern Europeans. Alongside with this go such parallels as the relative pronoun *ios and reduplicated desiderative (preserved in Old Irish as future). Second, there are number of Celto-Slavic isoglosses; these sometimes show identical, sometimes different grades of ablaut, as well as variations in suffixation. Here the author analyses a handful of popular etymological suggestions and finds a few of them unsatisfactory. Finally, the author mentions such long-distanced parallels between Celtic and Slavic, as the development of the system of aspect, on the one hand, and palatalisation, on the other.