stic of the
living languages did not arise until after the Romans had left Britain.
The Celtic languages betray a surprising affinity with the Italic
dialects. Indeed, these two groups seem to stand in a much closer
relationship to one another than any other pair. As features common to
both Celtic and Italic we may mention: (i) the gen. sing, ending -i of
masc. and neut. stems in o; (2) verbal nouns in _-tion_; (3) the b-
future; (4) the passive formation in -r.

The various Celtic dialects may be divided as follows:--(1) Gaulish; (2)
Goidelic, including Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx; (3) Brythonic,
including Welsh, Breton and Cornish. Gaulish and Brythonic, like Oscan
and Umbrian among the Italic dialects, change the I. E. labialized velar
guttural qv to p, whilst the Goidelic dialects retain the qv which later
gives up the labial element and becomes k, e.g. Gaulish _petor-_,
"four," Ir. _cethir_, Welsh _petguar_, Breton _pevar_, Lat. _quattuor_;
Ir. _cia_, "who," Welsh _pwy_, Lat. _quis_; Gaulish _epo-_, "horse,"
Welsh _eb-ol_, Breton _eb-eul_, Ir. _ech_, Lat. _equus_. Several
attempts have been made to prove the existence of Celtic dialects with
qv on the continent. Forms containing p occur in the Coligny calendar,
discovered in 1897, by the side of others with qv, a state of affairs
not yet satisfactorily accounted for. The Rom tablets, discovered in
1898, have not been interpreted as yet, but p forms are found on them
exclusively. In an excursus we shall deal with the language of the
Picts.

No comprehensive handbook of the Celtic languages on the lines of
Grober's _Grundriss der romanischen Philologie_ or Paul's _Grundriss
der germanischen Philologie_ was available in 1909. The reader may
refer to Windisch's article "Keltische Sprachen" in Ersch und Gruber's
_Allgemeine Encyklopadie der Wissenschaften und Kunste_, and V.
Tourneur, _Esquisse d'une histoire des etudes celtiques_ (Liege, 1905;
vol. ii. with full bibliography). Also H. Zimmer, "Die kelt.
Litteraturen" in _Die Kultur d. Gegenwart_, T. i. Abh. xi. I, Berlin
and Leipzig, 1909. The materials for the study of the older forms of
the languages are to be found in Zeuss's _Grammatica Celtica_ as
revised by Ebel. A comparative grammar of the Celtic dialects has been
prepared by H. Pedersen (Gottingen, 1908). See also Whitley Stokes and
A. Bezzenberger, _Wortschatz der keltischen Spracheinheit_ (Gottingen,
1894).

I. GAULISH.--