-Briga Toponyms in the Iberian Peninsula

Juan Luis García Alonso, University of Salamanca

Abstract

The existence in Hispania of a very large number of place-names with the -briga ending has been used for several decades in reconstructing the languages spoken in pre-Roman times in the Iberian Peninsula. The phonetics of -briga strongly suggest that this place-name element was created by Celtic speakers. I offer a theoretical classification of these place-names considering at least four different types according to their internal structure. Several examples from Hispania are presented and classified in one of the four categories, followed by general comments on the implications of the distribution of the -briga place-names.

Keywords

Celtic languages, ancient Hispania, place-names, Indo-European linguistics