English and Celtic in Contact

Description

This book provides the first comprehensive account of the history and extent of Celtic influences in English. Drawing on both original research and existing work, it covers both the earliest medieval contacts and their linguistic effects and the reflexes of later, early modern and modern contacts, especially various regional varieties of English.

Reviews

"Filppula, Juhani Klemola, and Heli Paulasto argue that Irish, Welsh, Manx, and Cornish has had more influence on English than mainstream scholarship has recognized. They look at evidence of grammar, phonology, and lexis from both the earliest contacts and from the present within the context of political and social contact. A final section reviews the received and dissenting views, puts forth their own view, then reassesses the evidence in light of it. The study emerged from a research program at the Academy of Finland." -- Book News Inc., August 2008

"This book is a good introduction to the state of research on linguistic contacts

between English and its Celtic neighbor languages."

-- Linguist List, June 2009

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

List of Maps

List of Abbreviations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I: Early Celtic Influences in English

Chapter 1: The Historical Background to the Early Contacts

Chapter 2: The Linguistic Outcomes of the Early Contacts

Part II: Celtic influences in the modern age

Chapter 3: The Historical Background to the Modern Contacts and to Language Shift in Celtic-speaking Areas

Chapter 4: The Linguistic Outcomes of the Modern Contacts

Part III: The Extent of Celtic Influences in English

Chapter 5: The Debates on the Extent of Celtic Influences in English

Chapter 6: A Reassessment of the Evidence for Celtic Influences

Chapter 7: Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Author Bio

Markku Filppula is Professor of English at the University of Joensuu and Docent in English Philology at the University of Helsinki.

Juhani Klemola is Professor of English at the University of Tampere and co-editor of Speech Past and Present: Studies in English Dialectology in Memory of Ossi Ihalainen (1996) and of The Celtic Roots of English (2002).

Heli Paulasto (former Pitkänen) is a Joensuu-based dialectologist and is co-editor of The Celtic Roots of English (2002).

Related Subjects

1. Language & Linguistics
2. English Language
3. Historical & Comparative Linguistics