Celtic Wal/ Gal

[Boreades]

[TisILeclerc]

[hvered]

The DNA groupings seem to be growing apace, when unforeseen or inconvenient data show up they add a new group as per the Periodic Table (q.v.).

Two fish spears do not a culture make.

[Boreades]

[TisILeclerc]

[Mick Harper]

It is not much, i.e. never, discussed when exactly the basic paradigm of the origin of British languages took its modern form. I still don't know for instance -- does anyone else? It is clear from this that it was already full-formed in Johnson's time. In other words at a time when nobody knew the first thing about palaeo-linguistics. Yes, that's right, it's yet another example of the pioneers getting it right first time out of the blocks by lucky accident. Or another example of how a paradigm, once formed, can never be got rid of.

If you really want to get to sleep of a winter's night you could try La Vrai Langue Celtique by Henri Boudet, which barks up the same tree but is probably even more barking.

[TisILeclerc]

[Mick Harper]

Well, Tissie, I hate to discourage the last man standing in this currently moribund discussion area -- and like the AEL it always seems to me the higher the standard of offerings the fewer people seem to hang around -- but Hattie and I have come to the conclusion that no Classical written source is genuine. None. Tacitus, like Agricola, are products of the Renaissance. We still have the Roman Empire and we know roughly where it went, because of the coins and the archaeology and a few genuine inscriptions, but there's no 'history'.

So, for example, Julius Caesar probably went to Gaul but he probably didn't go to Britain. If there's some British artefacts attesting to Agricola, he was here. Otherwise not. The reason why Roman history is so colourful is more to do with the demands of the book-buying public than Romans having torrid serial affairs with Egyptian queens, giving their horses senatorial rank, executing Christians in more and more extraordinary fashions and so forth. As the old AE saying goes, the truth is always boring.

[Mick Harper]

This is a test. We've been having some problems in the technical sphere so can anyone who is continuing to experience them let me know either by posting them up or at mickxharper@aol.com

[Boreades]