English and Celtic in Contact

This book provides the first comprehensive account of the history and extent of Celtic influences in English. Drawing on both original research and existing work, it covers both the earliest medieval contacts and their linguistic effects and the reflexes of later, early modern and modern contacts, especially various regional varieties of English.

Markku Filppula is Professor of English at the University of Joensuu and Docent in English Philology at the University of Helsinki.

Juhani Klemola is Professor of English at the University of Tampere and co-editor of Speech Past and Present: Studies in English Dialectology in Memory of Ossi Ihalainen (1996) and of The Celtic Roots of English (2002).

Heli Paulasto (former Pitkänen) is a Joensuu-based dialectologist and is co-editor of The Celtic Roots of English (2002).

"Filppula, Juhani Klemola, and Heli Paulasto argue that Irish, Welsh, Manx, and Cornish has had more influence on English than mainstream scholarship has recognized. They look at evidence of grammar, phonology, and lexis from both the earliest contacts and from the present within the context of political and social contact. A final section reviews the received and dissenting views, puts forth their own view, then reassesses the evidence in light of it. The study emerged from a research program at the Academy of Finland." -- Book News Inc., August 2008

"This book is a good introduction to the state of research on linguistic contacts
between English and its Celtic neighbor languages."

-- Linguist List, June 2009