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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| That sister language will have presumably been Gaulish, and from the two bilingual inscriptions that Barry Cunliffe prints in 'The Ancient Celts' one can see they are mutually intelligible. |
'Old up. Gaulish is reckoned to be a Celtic language; as you say, not an IE let alone a Romance language.
But that's orthodox reckoning... and they can't tell the rulers from the peasants; or artificial languages from demotics.
That doesn't stop them deducing all kinds of stuff about Gaulish though, with no modern Gaulish to compare it to. Wiki says:
"The diphthongs all transformed over the course of the historical period. Ai and oi[/] collapsed into long [i]ī; eu merged with ou, both becoming long ō. Ei became long ē early on. In general, long diphthongs became short diphthongs and then collapsed into long vowels.
Other transformations include the transformation of unstressed i into e. Ln became ll, a stop + s became ss, and a nasal + velar became /ng/ + velar.
The occlusives also seem to have been both lenis, as compared to Latin which distinguished voiced occlusives with a lenis realization from voiceless occlusives with a fortis realization, hence confusions like Glanum for Clanum, vergobretos for vercobreto, Britannia for Pritannia."
Can you believe the gall(!) of it? Such precision... Such circularity.
Apparently, "the Gaulish language is known from several hundred inscriptions" -- in Latin, Etruscan and Greek alphabets -- "on stone, on ceramic vessels and other artifacts, and on coins, and occasionally on metal (lead, and on one occasion zinc)."
As if any of that is likely to be representative of a natural language... Wiki has sections on Orthography, Sound laws, Noun cases, Numerals, Word order, Subordination and Clitics... despite the fact that
"The longest known Gaulish text... is inscribed in Latin cursive script on two small sheets of lead. The content is a magical incantation, probably a curse..." -- yeah, bound to be plain speaking then -- not! -- "but the exact meaning of the text remains unclear."
You couldn't make this stuff up.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| So Julius Caesar had good reason to write to his legates in Greek so that if his letters fell into Gaulish hands they could not be read. |
Are you saying Latin can be read and can only be read by people with a Romance native language?
Surely, Caesar was counting on nothing other than their unfamiliarity with the Greek alphabet (which he may or may not have been right about). It's not like he was discovering the New World.
Speaking of which: they tell us glibly that the Conquistadors spoke to locals and picked up defectors with nary a word on how they communicated. If this can be glossed over so easily in modern of accounts of relatively modern events, what hope is there of the ancient inter-linguistic situation being understood by the Establishment?
| One gets the impression that, besides other similarities, Gaulish might be intermediate between Proto-italic and Old Irish, but... it has departed from it a vast distance. |
So what does intermediate mean? In turning to French, did Gaulish "veer back" towards the other Romance languages? Or is it more likely that Gaulish inscriptions do not represent the vernacular language of the general population (French)?
| I also see no evidence of thick and thin vowels and consonants |
They only had 17 letters to play with. Would that make it easier or harder to spot these thick and thin sounds? How does a written inscription indicate how much variation in pronunciation is up to the dialect of the reader?
| But a difficult problem comes when one looks for IE roots in Irish. |
It has been argued that the Celtic languages belong with the Semitic languages.
This is completely compatible with the THOBR view that the Celts were later arrivals on the Atlantic littoral. Forget Cunliffe's long evolution on the fringes of the continent.
| Lenition is the mutation of initial consonants before certain letters. Thus the Welsh 'pont' becomes 'bont' in 'Tal-y-bont'. |
This is just a linguistic game. 'Roof' becomes 'rooves' in the plural. 'House' and 'houses' are spelled the same but (in RP) pronounced different. 'Burned' can be spelt 'burnt'. 'The' depends on the following word. Why does a regular habit of changing spelling in (well standardised) Welsh get a special name? Japanese and Welsh both have well standardised spelling and pronunciation; and both vary pronunciation depending on adjacent sounds; but in Japanese they are rules of pronunciation and in Welsh rules of spelling. Why does the latter deserve a special name?
OK, it's the linguist's job to assign special names, but they apply to the linguistics industry more than to characteristics of languages.
Ladies don't sweat, they glow... Some animals have pups, others cubs... Just word games.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| in 500 BC the Vikings were making boats to the same design they made later |
Glad to hear it. Sounds like Caesar contracted them to build his invasion fleet. (Them or the Anglo-Saxons: not sure how to tell 'em apart.)
Any sign of their ships around their brochs in the Shetlands?
| The Solutreans are noted among archaeologists for their cleverness so it is not surprising they are the ancestors of the peoples of the British Isles, including Ireland, and of the Atlantic Facade generally. |
I'm all for the Solutreans going to America, but this 'Atlantic facade' stuff needs some careful handling and there are two populations in the British Isles...
| Like later Vikings some of the sailors married the local girls so their descendants spoke Mediterranean languages |
You make it sound simple.
| Phoenician, a Semitic language, and Greek, an IE language. |
It has been argued that Greek is closely related to Hebrew and Phoenician.
| It also explains the lack of Phoenician settlements north of Cadiz (Gadir). From there on they were Viking or Irish or whatever. |
But 'Phoenician' was already there in the Med for the sea-farers to become? How does the influx of dominant "Atlanteans" explain the dominance of Phoenicians?
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| 'Old up. Gaulish is reckoned to be a Celtic language; as you say, not an IE let alone a Romance language. |
I find the term 'Celtic' useless. As the Danes believe their language, which is clearly Norse, to be 'Celtic', to use it also for Gaulish, Breton, Cornish, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh and Manx is totally confusing. The word Celtic should be dropped. It has no scientific meaning, only a customary one (or ones) which is invalid. (Caesar says the people who called themselves 'Celti' lived in the Aveyron, so, on Mick's principles, spoke Old Occitan.)
If one Googles 'Gaulish' one will find a complete dictionary of all the known Gaulish words. As they have been collected over a wide area they reflect an unknown number of dialects. There are only 162 words and 36 have cognates in Old Irish, and 47 with Latin. Others have cognates with Greek, German and Spanish (beer was cervesia). The author of the list sees 72 Indo-European cognates.
I am happy to agree with the Irish and Welsh scholars that 'lenition' is something different from mutations such as 'roof' and 'rooves', as lenition is determined by certain letters, not merely ease of pronunciation.
We need a new word to embrace the languages hitherto referred to as 'insular Celtic', as there were never any Celts in Britain, (unless you redefine Celts as people of R1b haplogroup). As the Romans called the inhabitants of the islands 'Prettani', 'prettanic' would be the obvious choice, but unfortunately the word is close to 'Britannic' and the Irish would go berserk. (Did I hear someone say, 'Let them'.)
When the ice formed there would have been a retreat of the peoples of Europe to the two Ice Age refuges from several areas, bringing a variety of languages. In the Pyrenean Refuge one can guess that Basque, Sami and Italic existed, perhaps each with differing ways of life. The Sami-speakers were doubtless doing what they do now, living off reindeer. As the ice retreated the Sami followed the reindeer. There is considerable DNA mutation among the Sami, showing they are an ancient group. Why the Basque and Italic languages are so widely different we shall never know. But their speakers share a common male ancestor.
Those areas with minerals had a technical advantage. Spanish archaeology has only recently reached a decent standard and Spanish researchers are now tending to dismiss the notion that bronze technology was an introduction from the east, not a local invention. Research seems to show bronze technology spreading from two originating centres, Spain and Turkey, both possessors of the necessary minerals. The big mineralisations of Western Europe are on the Atlantic Facade. North Wales, Cheshire, Cornwall, Southern Ireland, a hundred mile swathe down the west coasts of Spain and Portugal, swinging east into the valley of the Guadalquivir.
Metal working probably dates from about 3500 BC in Spain. The earliest copper mine in Ireland is at Ross Island and was first worked in 2400 BC. Great Orme's oldest date so far is 1860 BC, but the earliest workings have been destroyed. Parys Mountain is 1760 BC, but could be older. (The Amesbury Archer (2000 BC) was buried with two copper knives, one from Spain and one from France. Isotopic analysis shows that he came from a cold country, assumed to be Switzerland, but why not the Pyrenees? In which case he brought the knives with him.)
Spanish is the closest language, in my opinion, to Latin. The Romans believed they were invaders but chose, following the custom of the time, to claim Troy as their origin. On the genetic evidence and the linguistic my preferred origin for them is Spain. I believe there is an R1b hotspot around Rome. Perhaps I should add that currently my preferred location for Troy, is not the Troad but Hatusa, the Hittite capital, as it fits Homer's description better and was destroyed very near the traditional dates for the destruction of Troy. (1180 BC for Hatusa, 1183 BC and 1330 BC for Troy.) It was nowhere near the coast but is does not have to be.
An earlier query on this thread was why place names in the Scottish Highlands are Norse around the Coast but Gaelic inland. A little thought suggests an explanation. The servants of the Ordnance Survey no doubt wandered around the glens with Gaelic speakers, who gave them names in Gaelic, probably inventing them on the spot. This was an easy task as Aonach Eagach may sound posh to an English speaker, but all it means is 'jagged ridge'. The other names are descriptions too. Ben Nevis is red so the Gaels called a peak overlooking Glen Nevis Carn Dearg, 'Red Mountain'. Around the other side they called the most westerly peak, 'Carn Dearg Beag', 'Little Red Mountain'. The one the other end of the ridge became 'Big Red Mountain', and the one in the middle became 'The Intermediate Red Mountain'. This inspired and sophisticated system of naming was repeated over the whole of the Highlands. Whereas in most places the place names reflect the oldest language spoken in the region, in the Highlands they reflect a more recent one. New Gaelic names are being invented, and even Skye (Norse for 'The Cloudy One') is to be renamed.
Nevis itself could not be renamed, as it was well-known, so a desperate search has been conducted for a Gaelic explanation, and the spelling has been changed to Nibhais. In Norse the name means 'birch crown', reflecting perhaps the way the trees branches almost meet across the river Nevis which gave its name to the glen and the mountain.
Now that we have good evidence the Picts spoke Norse/English, we can see that the Norse names predate the Gaelic invasion, and are not the result of the Viking incursions. If the latter were the origin we would expect to see Norse place names in all those places in the Med which the Vikings ruled. Are there any?
Although there may be a sharp language division in the British Isles, it does not reflect a sharp ethnic division among the native population. For example, some female clan distribution percentages are almost the same for East Anglia as for North Wales. Katrine 7.6 and 6.3, Ulrike 5.5 and 5.2, Ursula 10.7 and 10.4. The commonest clan is Helena, with 43.0 for East Anglia and 52.1 for North Wales, but Helena is the ancestress of most Europeans.
Judging by the reaction I fear my first message has not yet been fully studied, and some of the remarks reflect old assumptions which applied epistemology does not favour.
I am hoping that my strenuous efforts to kick the 'Diffusion Theory' out of the window, and to establish the true contribution of the R1b peoples of the Atlantic Facade to human progress will be heartily welcomed. Hail the Megalithic Culture and its brilliant descendants.
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Komorikid
In: Gold Coast, Australia
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Dan wrote:
| But 'Phoenician' was already there in the Med for the sea-farers to become? How does the influx of dominant "Atlanteans" explain the dominance of Phoenicians?[ |
This is one of the greatest fallacies of history.
The correct assumption is that the 'Mariners' were always there.
What they spoke was the local lingo where they established their trading ports. There was a dominance of Mariners who spoke a Semitic language in the Med at one point in history; the one that virtually all historians focus on.
Elites from outside the area Don't Force Complete Change on the Demotic Language; I thought we cleared that one up with THOBR. English inherited Roman, Anglo Saxon, Norse and Norman words into their vocabulary but the locals kept on speaking English and the Elites eventually did the same; So too with the Franks, Visigoths and Ostrogoths.
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Komorikid
In: Gold Coast, Australia
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One of the other anachronisms is to accept the classic transliterations at face value. These were all transcribed by scholars with a Greco-Roman leaning.
In another thread (Hill Forts) I mentioned that Burg/Borough which is assumed to be Anglo Saxon/Germanic is actually Ancient Greek -- Purgos.
It is famously used in the Homer's Iliad as Pergamos, the highest place in Ilium/Troy over looking the battle/flood plain. Contrary to what is interpreted by scholars, Ilium was not a city of stone it was a palisaded Hill Fort. It was transcribed as a stone city because classically schooled scholars have always placed it in a GREEK context.
When Odysseus and his crew left the 'Mediterranean' island of Circe they feasted on wine and sweat meats before setting sail.
The Ancient Greek word used in the Homeric tale is Methu which has been transcribed as WINE. This is not the Ancient Greek word for wine (oinos).
Methu is the root word of Metheglin and Medu which is MEAD a fermented beverage made of honey and spices that comes from Norse Europe. Mead was unheard of in the Med before the Vikings travelled to the Black Sea.
How could Odysseus be drinking mead at a time when it was unknown in the Mediterranean until the Middle Ages?
The principal river or the Troad was the Skamandros which appears to have no explainable origin. That is unless you combine the Ancient Greek
Skamma = that which has been dug, trench, pit.
And
Andros = man, of man
Skamma-Andros -- Skamandros = a river/canal dug by men, a manmade river.
Now where in the world would you find a massive palisaded Hill Fort overlooking a floodplain crossed by manmade canals/rivers?
Perhaps the Romans not only built new roads over older ones they also built new canals over existing ones.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I haven't been able to read your posts, Geoff, they're much too long but a coupla points need to be made. First off, after much soul-searching we have pretty much agreed to use the word Celtic as a description of Welsh, Irish, Breton, Cornish etc. It's just too ingrained not to. If the word is used in any other sense (eg the Classical sense) then you have to signal clearly.
As to the status of Gaulish, there is one overwhelming fact: the vast linguistic distance between the Celtic languages and the Romance languages. The chances that an intermediate language (which by the way can only be the ancestral form of both branches!) actually existed so late as to be written down is just non-existent. Where are all the dozens of necessary linking-languages betwixt Gaulish and French, between Gaulish and Welsh?
| There are only 162 words and 36 have cognates in Old Irish, and 47 with Latin. Others have cognates with Greek, German and Spanish (beer was cervesia). The author of the list sees 72 Indo-European cognates. |
Since this is the evidence, the whole evidence and nothing but the evidence for Gaulish we ought to pick the bones out of it. The important bit is the bit not mentioned (careful ignoral): there are fifty-four words that have no cognate in any other language. Now, in my opinion, and knowing how anxious linguists are to see links where none exist, coming across a language which has one-third of its words non-cognate with any other language, is pretty good evidence that it is not related to any other language.
But the real giveaway is the phrase "the author of the list sees 72 Indo-European cognates". Well now, since this means that these seventy-two words had no cognate in three different branches of the Indo-European family that he's already mentioned (Greek, Romance and Celtic) we can assume he's just making this bit up. (They mostly do, you know.)
But actually reading it again, it isn't at all clear whether he is double-counting or not. After all there are IE claims for 36 plus 47 plus "others" plus 72. That accounts for them all!
Dan's point that "inscriptions" are the worst kind of evidence when it comes to judging languages is a sound one.
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Following linguistic practice of the Grimm ilk, shouldn't someone have presented a "law" of language change between Anglo-Saxon and "Middle" English. I mean, once you've stripped away all the French, Latin, Greek and Danish loanwords from "Middle English" you're left with a Germanic core. Has anyone compared this core to A-S to produce rules for the change? I mean if they can prove that Latin FAGUS leads to "book" and "haya" (in Spanish) by consistent change, A-S to "Middle" English should be a sinch, right?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Well, Nick, just ask yourself what would be the fate of some bright spark who discovered that mathematically Anglo-Saxon into English appears to make no sense?
PS Oh yes, and don't forget that the Jerries are barking up quite the wrong tree too with their Old High German shit. And the linguistics industry is pretty much an Anglo-German carve-up. So let's not wait for sense to break out there then.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| Following linguistic practice of the Grimm ilk, shouldn't someone have presented a "law" of language change between Anglo-Saxon and "Middle" English. |
I think the special pleading goes like this: ordinarily, even linguists work on the assumption that language changes slowly, but the turmoil of Middle English proves that the rules can be broken sometimes. It all happens too fast for progressive laws to operate, so we get a plethora of 'little laws' -- this can happen, that can happen, see for yourself -- which is why Middle English gets its own name in the first place. If we see the same principle in practice more than once, it proves we identified the right law; other laws happen not to have operated again.
| I mean, once you've stripped away all the French, Latin, Greek and Danish loanwords from "Middle English" you're left with a Germanic core. |
That may be so, but how do we know who loaned what to whom?
| I mean if they can prove that Latin FAGUS leads to "book" and "haya" (in Spanish) by consistent change, A-S to "Middle" English should be a sinch, right? |
Aye, there's the rub. It's their job to match up beginning, end and transition-from-beginning-to-end, so they will certainly come up with a consistent picture. Trouble is, if you question the beginning and the end, they point to the consistency of their picture as proof that they were right; and you are not simply wrong, but somewhere between retarded and evil.
---
I can see fagus = book, by the F = P = B and G = K rules, but fagus = page looks a more immediate equation. Book is reckoned as Germanic, related to beech and buck. Page is reckoned as Romance, pagene/pagina from pangere to fasten together. That seems a bit of a stretch, but pack does mean things bundled together, too.
Out of this little lot, which one certainly came first? And what's consistent about diverging in all directions? Blowed if I know.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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Nick, do you know of a good online resource on the Great Vowel Shift? I've only seen paltry ones.
Do you know what the industry accepts as the definitive account of it? (I might as well tear up the best one.)
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| ordinarily, even linguists work on the assumption that language changes slowly |
I'm not sure this is correct. Of course the evidence that they do change slowly is everywhere since every recorded written language has remained (essentially) unchanged for the entirety of its existence. There are no exceptions to this rule (except of course Lakotan!).
However, linguists are overwhelmingly English-, German- and Romance-speakers and they all believe, as a fact, that Latin changed into French, Anglo-Saxon into English and Old German into High German (or whatever...I've never gone into it) in a few centuries.
Now it is impossible for the human mind to hold these two directly conflicting views of language change velocity so I think, and this is confirmed by lots of exchanges with linguists, that they believe all languages change rapidly. And then apply various forms of careful ignoral to avoid the overwhelmingly opposite evidence.
This is not the same as special pleading Latin, Anglo-Saxon et al.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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Well, yes and no. {You knew I was going to say that.}
We say Chaucer is plain English; they say "chattin' bare breeze for time" counts as language change. It's the problem of scale, but even so, they recognise Middle English as fast and they're still at a loss to explain the Great Vowel Shift. Latin-into-Romance does pass with hardly a mention, but they seem to regard the Romans as a self-evidently sufficient cause of the scale and the pace of the changes. Nick Higham, frinstance, dismisses any incredulity about the Anglo-Saxons with a nod toward the Romans. The Dark Ages are a special time for linguistics.
They can marshal evidence for either fast or slow rates of change as the case demands. We at least stick with one.
Wikipedia is pretty noncommittal but does say both "all languages are continually changing" and "languages change gradually".
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Sorry, I don't know a good online resource on the Great Vowel Shift. I don't know a good resource of the GVS, either, and I wrote an article about the bloody thing some time back. It's hellishly difficult to pin down over time and you get the impression in the end that they are doctoring evidence to make it fit the theory. Anyway, if you're chasing it get ready to feel like a grail knight after the Blatant Beast! (if you ever do find it, it won't smell very nice).
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Nick, if you had been an Applied Epistemologist when you were researching this GVS article, you would have immediately recognised the signs. Paradigm fracture! Paradigm fracture!
PS Actually it's a smell. Can be the merest iffy zephyr but it's unmistakeable.
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