Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic/kentulongos

This Proto-Celtic entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

From *kentus (“first”) +‎ *longos (*-os verbal noun to *longīti (“to eat, consume”)).

*kentulongos m

1. early meal

• There is some uncertainty to the reconstruction of this word, due to the divergent suffixation between Welsh and Irish.
  • Ward presumes a neuter *-om for Welsh cythlwng (but does not acknowledge its Irish relatives);^[1]
  • Koch^[2] and Lucht^[3] do not specify an original stem class;
  • Jørgensen believes the Irish formation *kentu-long-e-tus is primary, claiming the Welsh form is "an example of shortening of verbal nouns in compounds";^[4]
  • However, given how there does exist a group of nouns noticed by Gordon (2012) to have o-grade *-os formations in Welsh but secondarily reformed *-etus in Irish,^[5] and that *longīti (“to eat, have a meal”) seems to be an o-grade *-ī- verb, that the Welsh -lwng (< *longos) may be the primary formation and the Irish forms secondarily reformed.
• This word semantically shifted from "early meal" to "fasting" in attested Celtic; it may have been through an intermediate meaning "thing done before eating early meals", given how in medieval Celtic this word is found exclusively after reflexes of *ɸare (“in front of”).

• Proto-Brythonic:
  • Middle Welsh: cythlwng (“fasting, hunger”)
    • Welsh: cythlwng
• Middle Irish: *cétlongad
  • Irish: céadlongadh, céalacan (“morning fast”)