Talk:Botorrita plaque

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Lambert (2003:20) dates the discovery of Botorrita III from oct.1992, not 1979. Could there be here a confusion with a possible Botorrita II? -- Jouitteau. Lambert, P.Y 2003. La langue gauloise. ed. errance, Paris.

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I don't know about "Celtic art". It's an unadorned text document, very official, probably a contract. dab (ᛏ) 18:17, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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Has the tablet been translated? If not how do you know it's Celtic? If it has some details would be interesting. -- Mongvras

It's "Celticity" is undisputed, although, if you really press the question, dependent on very few features. A few words can be identified, and a lot of grammar (morphology), but the sense of the texts is not understood. dab (ᛏ) 08:42, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

of course, a discussion of the text should follow. I don't think I can do this anytime soon, so feel free to dig up the literature yourself, anyone :) dab (ᛏ) 08:43, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Is it p- or q-Celtic? If Q, is there any evidence of /ej/ > /e:/ and /ow/ > /o:/ (filling in the missing long vowels that were lost through merger in CC). This happened in the branch that led to Irish, so if found here it would support the idea that "insular" q-celtic was derived from "continental" q-celtic, as native Irish legend has always maintained. I.e. that the P/Q split is primary. In p-Celtic there was further merger of the remaining long vowels which set the scene for the loss of phonemic vowel length in Late(?) Brittonic. -- Mongvras

you cannot prove anything based on the p/q split. The proto-Celts lost p. This was a major gap in the phonemic system, and it was a very trivial change to shift from kw to p. Celtiberian is Q-Celtic, as is e.g. demonstrated by the -kue "and" particle. Note that even in Gaulish, remnants of q remain, as evidenced by the -c, in Lepontic I believe, i.e. "early Gaulish", for -kue. As for the monophtongisation, afaik this is considered a Gaulish innovation, but I don't know how conclusively this can be proven for Celtiberian. We pretty much have the Celtiberian corpus on this page, so you can start looking for examples :) dab (ᛏ) 07:22, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

this is the best online resource I could find. It has a short grammar, and transcriptions of almost the entire corpus. There are a few etymologies on pages 6-7. E. g. nouiza < *nowiya "new" seems to suggest that diphtongs were preserved, but I do not know if that is a good example (since y follows). There is even a translation of Botorrita III, but that is of course highly speculative. dab (ᛏ) 07:49, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

/ei/ > i, this is surmised from robiseti, ambitiseti. dab (ᛏ) 11:20, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"is there any evidence of /ej/ > /e:/"-- Eska in his dissertation claims /ej/ is preserved in this text (p.iv of intro--I'm just starting it. I'll get back when I get to the details, if I remember)Johundhar (talk) 08:17, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

On page 146 of his dis, Eska points out that *ey is preserved in neito, taunei, cotoinei, and enitosei: Towards an interpretation of the Hispano-Celtic inscription of Botorrita, Eska, Joseph F.   University of Toronto (Canada) ProQuest Dissertations Publishing,  1988. NL43452.Johundhar (talk) 16:02, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree that once IE /p/ was lost the change from /kw/ > /p/ was "an accident waiting to happen", and that in principle it could have occured several times independantly. However as far as I know (correction?) the only p-celtic we actually have is Gaulish, British, and the modern languages that derive from British, and since it is generally agreed that Gaulish and British were closely related, I would maintain that p-celtic remains a valid cladistic sub-group (although Gallobrittonic might be a better name, just in case some other unrelated p-celtic turned up elsewhere). Indeed, I'm rather surprised to find the old insular/continental classification resurrected. You might as well group English and Icelandic as Insular Germanic, after all both preserve /ð/ :-)

I think this is going off-topic. Please move this last comment to somewhere more appropriate, thanks Mongvras 12:26, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

hm, we could continue this discussion on Talk:Celtic languages. Anyway, AFAIK, Brythonic and Gaulish were formerly considered closely related, precisely on grounds of the q > p change. This is certainly not a generally accepted view today, and, afaik, Insular Celtic is the communis opinio, i.e. British is genetically closer to Irish than to Gaulish. dab (ᛏ) 13:16, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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B III 2.27 "beteriskum" sure looks like it could be related to "Botorrita"--does this connection show up in any scholarly sources people have come across? Just starting to look at this, so I'll try to dig a bit deeper. If the -um forms that come second or third in nearly every entry refer to a place, well, that's a lot of places!Johundhar (talk) 20:46, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

I found this English translation, but not from a published source. Does anyone have a line on one? ( P. Birks, A. Rodger & J. S. Richardson, JRS, 74, 1984, p. 46 ).

     Let those of the senate of Contrebia who shall be present at the time be the judges. If it appears, with regard to the land which the Salluienses purchased from the Sosinestani for the purpose of making a canal or channelling water, which matter is the subject of the action, that the Sosinestani were within their rights in selling to the Salluienses against the wishes of the Allavonenses ; then, if it so appears, let those judges adjudge that the Sosinestani were within their rights in selling to the Salluienses that land which is the subject of this action ; if it does not so appear, let them adjudge that they were not within their rights in selling.
     Let those same persons who are written above be the judges. On the assumption that they were the Sosinestan civitas, then, in the place where the Salluienses most recently and officially put in stakes, which matter is the subject of this action, if it would be permissible for the Salluienses within their rights to make a canal through the public land of the Sosinestani within those stakes ; or if it would be permissible for the Salluienses within their rights to make a canal through the private land of the Sosinestani in the place where it would be proper for a canal to be made so long as the Salluienses paid the money which is the value which would have been placed on the land where the canal might be brought ; then, if it so appears, let those judges adjudge that it is permissible for the Salluienses within their rights to make the canal ; if it does not so appear, let them adjudge that it is not permissible for them to do so within their rights.
     If they should adjudge that it is permissible for the Salluienses to make the canal, then, on the arbitration of five men, whom a magistrate (or perhaps the magistracy) of Contrebia shall have assigned from his (or their) senate, let the Salluienses pay money from public funds for the private land where the canal shall be brought. C. Valerius C. f. Flaccus, imperator, conferred the right of judgment.
     They pronounced the opinion : ‘ Whereas the right of judgment is ours, in the matter which is the subject of this action we give judgment in favour of the Salluienses. ’ When this adjudication was made, these were the magistrates of Contrebia : Lubbus of the Urdini, son of Letondo, praetor ; Lesso of the Sirisi, son of Lubbus, magistrate ; Babbus of the Bolgondisi, son of Ablo, magistrate ; Segilus of the Anni, son of Lubbus, magistrate ; . . . , of the . . . ulovi, son of Ux . . us, magistrate ; Ablo of the Tindili, son of Lubbus, magistrate. . . . assius, son of Eihar, the Salluiensian, presented the case for the Salluienses. Turibas, son of Teitabas, the Allavonensian, presented the case for the Allavonenses. Transacted at Contrebia Balaisca, on the Ides of May, L. Cornelius and Cn. Octavius being the consuls. https://droitromain.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/Anglica/Contrebiensis_Richardson.htmJohundhar (talk) 21:27, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

D'oh--found the published source. Hope it isn't too long for copyright. If not, can someone who knows the language well enough (like me ;) just translate it?Johundhar (talk) 22:58, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

D'oh, again. I guess it was too long after all. Here's my attempt at a summary:

Based on Richardson (1983).

The present members of the Contrebian senate are to judge whether the Sosilestani have the right to sell their land to the Salluenses who plan to build a canal on it, against the wishes of the neighboring Allavonenses.

Specifically, the appointed judges are to determine whether by Sosilestani's own laws it is permissible for them to sell land for building a canal through private land already staked out by the Salluenses if the latter pay for it appropriately.

If they judge in favor of the sale, then the Contrebian magistracy will pick five men to arbitrate the sale, and Roman commander C. V. Flaccus will support the judgment.

The decision falls in favor of the Salluenses. (There follows a list of the names of the Contrebian magistrates in power at the time.) Johundhar (talk) 06:34, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

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Shouldn't the title be Botorrita Plaques in the plural? I don't know how to change that. Does anyone?Johundhar (talk) 02:13, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

References

Partial translations

I'm thinking of adding a section with various attempts at translation of the first three lines or so, kind of like they have for the beginning paragraph of the Tain. I'll put them here first, as I also work to translate those not already in English. Please review them for any errors, and comment if you think this inappropriate for whatever reason. I'll start with Wolfgang Meid (German) (Die Erste Botorrita-Inschrift: Interpretation eines keltiberischenSprachdenkmals. Innsbruck: Inst, für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck. 1993. 132 S., 8 Abb., 8°. ISBN 3-85124-639-X (Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissen-schaft, 76)) (as reviewed by Karl Horst Schmidt in 1998, Indogermanische Forschungen, 103, pp. 281 ff.) Villar (Spanish) and Adrados (Latin!):

1) tiricantam percunetacam tocoitoscue sarniciocue sua compalces nelitom "Betreffend das 'bergige' Gebiet des Togoit- und des Sarnicios wurde folgendes verfügt als nicht erlaub"

"Concerning the hilly region of Togoit and of the Sanricii, the following has been decreed as not allowed"

2. necue to uertaunei litom necue taünei litom necue masnai tisaunei litom, sos aucu arestalo tamai "Weder ist es erlaubt, dort (?) (etwas) daraufzutun, noch ist es erlaubt,(Arbeiten) zu verrichten, noch ist es erlaubt, durch ,Bruch' Schaden zu verüben" [außer mit Erlaubnis des Vorstehers]

"it is not allowed to do (anything), neither is it allowed to perform/carry out [works], nor is it allowed to perpetrate breakage/harm" [except by permission of the directors].

3. uta oscues stena uersoniti, silapur sleitom conscilitom capiseti, cantom sancilistara otanaum tocoitei eni. "Wer immer aber diese (Verbote) übertritt" bzw. „wer immeraber derartige Tätigkeiten durchführen möchte, soll ... Silber nehmen, (und zwar)hundert sancilistara (Werteinheiten), um es im (Tempel des) Togoit- zu deponieren"

"But whoever violates these (prohibitions)...must take silver, (specifically) 100 sancilistar (units of value), to deposit at the (temple of) Togoit."

4. iom asecati ampitincounei, stena es uertai entara tiris matus tinpitus; netto tirncantameni oisatus "Wenn er (Erde) aussticht zum Zwecke des Bauens, dann soll er diese (Materialien) innerhalb von 3 Tagen (?) aus der Umhegung herausschaffen; in das Gebietdes Neitos soll er (sie) hineinbringen"

Villar, F. ("La linea inicial del bronce de Botorrita" in Studia indogermanica et palaeohispanica in honorem A. Tovar et L. Michelena. Salamanca, 1990, pp. 375-392, as found in Adrados, 1995):

1. "en relación con el trescantos (llamado) Bertunetaca de Tokoit y Sarnicia así (es) el acuerdo"

In relations to the trescantos (named) Bertuneteca of Tokoit and Sarnicia, this is the settlement/accord:"

Rodríguez Adrados (Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco. "Propuestas para la interpretación de Botorrita I". In: Emerita: Revista de lingüística y filología clásica. Vol. 63. Nº 1. 1995. pp. 1-16):

1. "Tricanta (=Trivium vel Trifinium) lucum Togoitisque Sarniciique. Ita senatus. Nefas:"

"With regard to the place Tricanta (the meeting of three roads or of three boundaries) of Togotus and of Sarnicius, the council (has determined) thus--[it is] forbidden:

2. ...sos aucu arestalo tamai "Hoc (ist) autem decretum populo"

Eska (Eska, Joseph F. (1988) Towards an interpretation of the Hispano-Celtic inscription of BotorritaUniversity of Toronto (Canada) ProQuest Dissertations Publishing NL43452):

1. "Regarding a well-wrought boundary structure, the senators of Tocoitom and of Sarnicios [have agreed/decided that] [it is] not permitted"

2. "that it be demolished or destroyed or broken apart by violence." (from sos to tamai remains untranslated, probably a tag on the preceding prohibition)

3. "and whoever carries out these things, he should give cut (pieces) of silver (namely) 100 sanclistera of otanas at Tocoitom."

More to come, including Eska and ideally some more recent attempts. Johundhar (talk) 19:11, 20 March 2023 (UTC)