Historical Grammar of the Celtic Languages

FaculteitFaculty of Humanities

NiveauBachelor

Studiejaar2026-2027

Beschrijving

Course goals

The successful participant will have:

1) elementary knowledge of the historical grammar of Middle Welsh and Old Irish, especially of the prehistoric stages between 700 BC and 700 (Irish) and 1100 AD (Welsh);

2) detailed knowledge of and ability to apply sound laws;

3) knowledge of the principles and practice of etymological research;

4) capability to understand secondary literature;

5) experience writing a research plan (onderzoeksopzet) and a research paper.
6) experience using electronic Celtic corpora to carry out research.

Content

Middle Welsh and Old Irish are the result of a long process of language change which differentiated them from their closest cognates (Breton and Cornish, and at a somewhat greater remove, the Continental Celtic languages of Antiquity). In order to understand the position of Welsh and Irish within the Celtic language family, knowledge of this process of change is essential. The main focus will be on sound change, but the fields of historical morphology and syntax will be treated as well. Apart from purely linguistic issues, we will also address the possible relationship between language change and social, political and economic developments, especially those that spanned the period of Roman rule over Britain, its collapse and the ensuing Anglo-Saxon conquest.

The mid-term exam will contain open questions on historical grammar. The paper at the end of the course will deal with putting acquired knowledge into practice by writing a short research paper. There will be an oral presentation at which students present their research plan. The course will also train the students to make use of online electronic Old Irish and Middle Welsh corpora in order to carry out linguistic research.

Additional information

This course is part of the specialisation Language Contact and Language Change in Celtic.

LAS and TCS students who follow this course as part of the core curriculum of their major, need to complete a compulsory preparation course/assignment. See for more information: https://tcs.sites.uu.nl/.

This course is only offered in EVEN years.

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