Evaluating Similarities between Celtic and Slavic
Jadranka Gvozdanović
Heidelberg University
Abstract
At past Celto-Slavica conferences, cultural and linguistic parallels between Celtic and Slavic were identified, discussed and questioned critically. It is time now to ask how these parallels arose. This paper will attempt an evaluation and a historical explanation of a number of linguistic parallels.
Out of this complex picture, the present paper addresses the typological properties of Celtic which are relatively rare within Indo-European and traditionally assumed to originate from an Afro-Asiatic or Atlantic substrate, in spite of the fact that archaeological evidence is too problematic to support this hypothesis. Instead of relying on the contact hypothesis, I shall examine the structural properties of these phenomena in a synchronic and diachronic Indo-European perspective, pointing especially to Slavic parallels to the Celtic phenomena discussed. The general conclusion is that the origin of these properties is firmly rooted within Indo-European and, moreover, connected with aspect phenomena.