Talk:List of French words of Gaulish origin

This article was nominated for deletion on 5 April 2024. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

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doubts

What can justify the evolution *artuas > ardoise ? It does not seem to make sense. Most specialists reconstruct directly *ardesia from arduo- (*arduos), with the suffix -esia > *ard(u)-esia (cf. OI ard, W ardd, OB ard, art 'high'). Pisani, followed by P-Y Lambert, X. Delamarre reconstructs *aritisia, compare Latin paries, -etis

artuaš is only written on an early inscription in Celtic language from the Todi stele in Italy and is supposed to be the accusative for *arduans, meaning 'the top of the funeral monument'

The suffix -esia is the same as it is in *uindesia < uindo- 'white' + -esia (< *uindos (OI find, W gwyn / gwen, B gwenn 'white') > vandoise (former vendoise) 'sort of white fish' G Weißfisch

Other thing muchier is not Old French, but Old Norman, Old Picard, Old Walloon corresponding to Old French muscier, not muchier.

Cf. Late Latin *captiare > OF chasier chacier > F chasser (E chase) ≠ NP cachier > WN cachi, EN cacher, OP cachier (E catch)

Nortmannus (talk) 16:40, 27 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Who could really confirm that all these words contained in this list are really from Gaulish origin ?; alouette could have derived from the same root as the estonian (finno ugric) word lὂoke, like ardoise and the turkish arduvaz, berceau from the root that produced the hungarian word bölcso, etc. In many (if not all) examples the synonymous words are quite different in Irish gaelic and in Welsh. In other words, all the terms considered from Gaulish origin could come from non-IE as it could not be connected to any Celtic or Latin words and other IE families languages.

The continental celtic terms are probably very similar to the Latin and Italic ones. The function words are mostly more reliable to determine what is from Gaulish origin or not, see 'Discussion' in Gaulish (language); the similarities with contemporary French words are in some cases astonishing and closer to Latin or what were Italic languages. In my opinion, there is not doubt that Italic and Celtic languages (especially Continental celtic) were once in the same group that formed the Italo-celtic family languages as the Balto-slavic group and probably the Germanic languages are from the same branch.Brikane (talk) 14:19, 19 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Uh, Celtic/Gaulish derivations are historically far more plausible than Uralic or even Turkic ones, since the Romans and Gauls were not in contact with speakers of such remote languages at the time; pointing to differences between French or Gaulish and Irish or Welsh words is an alarming sign of linguistic ignorance: French, Irish and Welsh words have changed a lot in the past 2000 years. For example, alouette is one of the most frequently cited, and thus best accepted, French words on the topic of Gaulish loanwords in French.

What's more troubling to me is that derivations such as that of aller are listed here as if established fact, when the etymology of aller is an old conundrum in Romance philology. Certainly the Celtic solution is a very interesting one and I actually just learned of this proposal here, and I don't intend to dismiss or belittle it, but it is by far not the most accepted solution, for all I know, given that it was unknown to me until now, and I have seen discussions of aller, and proposed solutions, before. It should be marked as merely conjectural, one proposal among many. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:00, 25 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you. Looking into the wiktionary on some examples did not confirm it as Latin was considered the proper etymology. Therefore, I marked the article as Disputed. Let me you if you do not agree with that. Also, maybe this page should redirect to this list ? JuliusSimplus (talk) 14:50, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I do not agree with you. This list is well done and really to trust, for sure there are some points to discuss and dubious words have to be suppressed (aller for example), but globally it is OK and corresponds to the sources cited at the bottom of the page (I added a few more). On the opposite this list is clearly a bad list that mixes up toponyms (place-names) and words (only a short list). The specialists consider there are between 200 and 150 Gaulish words in French (200 if we keep some regional words, 150 if we exclude them).Nortmannus (talk) 23:06, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Another glaring mistake: Gaulish bitu (compare Old Irish bí, whence Scottish Gaelic bìth) is not related to Latin pix at all. Latin bitumen, on the other hand, is probably borrowed from Gaulish/Celtic, hence would be much more sensible to list. The Gaulish word is probably related to English cud. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:37, 14 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, this isn't a mistake, because the site is not alleging any cognate connection between bitu and Lat. pix, only that pix is the Latin word REPLACED by bitu (at least dialectally). I'm certain the rightmost column is only provided for contrast. Torvalu4 (talk) 18:34, 28 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

OR

Citatons/references required for the assertion of Finnic origins. Jschnur (talk) 04:09, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

aller

most theorize a latin origin from "ambulāre" for "aller". it should probably be included that the gaulish origin here is debated — Preceding unsigned comment added by Omoutuazn (talk • contribs) 21:48, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]