Abstract
The aim of this paper is to trace the linguistic development of two terms deriving from IE *nem- in Breton: neñv ‘heavens’ and nemet ‘sacred’. This development, attested from the Old Breton into the modern language, seems, in these two instances, to present a particular example of the Christian influence on the vocabulary of spoken and written Breton. While neñv was integrated in the vocabulary of the priests and was employed to mark the opposition between the heavens and the sky (ModB oabl), nemet disappeared from the language and the notion of ‘holy’, ‘sacred’ was explained by a Latin term sacrum > ModB sakr. The evidence of the two derivates from the stem *nem- can illustrate the influence of the extralinguistic factors on the evolution of the lexemes. The better understanding of the causes of such influence can be a step towards our better understanding of the origin and the function of Latin loanwords in Breton.
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