Words from Gaulish
5 words in Curio passed through Gaulish on their way into English.
About Gaulish
Continental Celtic language, grouped with Lepontic, Galatian, Celtiberian and possibly Gallaecian · no native speakers today
Where
Gaul (modern France and neighboring areas roughly to the Rhine); in a wider sense, parts of central and southeastern Europe and Anatolia
When
Dates unknown
Speakers
No reliable count
No census of its speakers exists.
Family path
- Proto-Indo-European
- Proto-Celtic
- Gaulish
- Late LatinOld FrenchVulgar LatinFrench
- English
Dashed: reconstructed, never written down
Where it came from
Gaulish belongs to the Continental Celtic languages, with Lepontic, Galatian, Celtiberian and possibly Gallaecian. How these languages relate to one another, and to the modern Insular Celtic languages, is uncertain because so little of them survives. It was first written in Greek script in southern France and in an Old Italic script in northern Italy, and in Latin script after the Roman conquest of Gaul.
Source: Wikipedia
Family
Gaulish grew out of Proto-Celtic.
The words, A to Z
- drab
A word for dullness that started life woven into cloth.
- garter
A word for a leg-band that once simply meant the leg itself.
- javelin
This throwing spear's name traces back to a word for a simple forked branch.
- limousine
This sleek word for a long, chauffeured car actually started out naming a rustic region of France.
- mutton
The meat on your plate once had to leap a chain of languages before it got there.