The Continental Celtic Dialect Continuum

While it appears clear that the Hispano-Celtic linguistic complex was the first departure from the (proto-)Celtic speech continuum, there is not much consensus about the topology of the remainder of the Continental Celtic languages. Various configurations of ‘Lepontic’, ‘Cisalpine Gaulish’, ‘Cisalpine Celtic’, ‘Transalpine Celtic’, etc. have been proposed. It has also been proposed that convergence has played a substantial role in the formation of the Celtic languages. This chapter proposes, instead, that linguistic features such as the loss of proto-IE */p/ and the raising of proto-IE */oː/ > /uː/ in final syllables arose only after the proto-Celtic period had concluded, with some subsequent innovations spreading throughout the post-proto-Celtic speech continuum and some ceasing to propagate before doing so, leading to dialect areas within the speech continuum.