User talk:Victar/Template:User cel-pro

@CodeCat, Angr, Anglom, Leasnam, JohnC5, can we create a badge for Proto-Celtic? I have limited knowledge in PCelt syntax, but I have no problem making up words. =) --Victar (talk) 10:18, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

So does everyone; very few Continental inscriptions have verbs. It does seem to have been an SOV language. See {{User sga-1}} for vocabulary guidance. "User" is a very modern concept, so I used "writer" or "scribe" instead, and I dispensed with "contribute" altogether, simply saying "This writer has basic/medium/advanced knowledge of Old Irish." After all, it's not as if we're actually contributing *in* the language. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:34, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, I used {{User sga-1}} and {{User cy-1}} as a guide for the vocabulary, and {{User la-1}} verbatim for the syntax. *shrug* It's a start. Hah, well, somehow I felt *ɸareberetos (“someone who uses”) is better than *skrībbetos (“someone who scratches”). --Victar (talk) 10:55, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Suggested revision

Based on the knowledge we have of Gaulish and Insular Celtic (primarily Old Irish) languages, I have some suggestions for the syntax/grammar of this template's message. (There is a vast array of additional possibilities if we tinker with the vocabulary. But in order to focus solely on the grammatical aspect and keep this post from growing too long, I have chosen to remain with the word choices already provided.) Here are a couple candidates I came up with:

• ɸareberetos ki galneti komɸratom rekū bunatī kentukeltīkās.

• ɸareberetos ki galneti komɸratom kentukeltīkī bunorekālī.

Without going into too much detail, I'm assuming an SVO word order based on the Gaulish evidence. I think Insular VSO does not contradict this. Perhaps Proto-Celtic had freer word order than its daughter languages, and Celtiberian suggests that SOV might have been used. But due to the difficulty of composing in Proto-Celtic and the scant evidence available on this topic, I think SVO is the simplest, best-attested, and thus most conservative choice. Mirroring the freer word order of Latin syntax, while still within the realm of possibility, would depart dramatically from the evidence most attested in Celtic daughter languages.

1. Old Irish cé behaves like an ordinary adjective, following the noun it modifies (Matasović seems to imply that the PIE parent word was even inflected like an adjective would be). We can see that sin, another Old Irish demonstrative, behaves similarly. So I would suggest postpositioning *ki.
2. "Can contribute" would consist of the 3rd pers. act. pres. of 'able to' followed by the verbal noun of 'contribute'. Since the verbal noun of Old Irish ernaid is rath, the verbal noun of our derivative (*komfarnāti, 'contribute') would be *komɸratom.
3. *Rekos should be rendered as instrumental, since this is the manner in which the contribution is made.
4. When OIr. bunad serves the role of meaning "original, fundamental, basic", it does so in the form of genitive singular.
5. *Kentukeltīkā must be rendered in the genitive as well in this context.

Based on the above, the first sentence should translate as "this user is able to contribute with a basic level of Proto-Celtic".

The second sentence uses *kentukeltīkā in the instrumental, modified by the hypothetical compound adjective *bunorekālos. However, essentially the same meaning could be achieved by dispensing with *rekos altogether and replacing this compound adjective with the genitive of *bunatos (*kentukeltīkī *bunatī). The translation is something like "This user can contribute in basic-level Proto-Celtic".

Hopefully this has been useful and I look forward to hearing your thoughts should you have any.

— Uiscefada (talk) 05:10, 15 July 2019 (UTC)