Celtic Wal/ Gal

[Boreades]

The Ethnonym section of the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bashkirs
has a variety of weird and wonderful explanations for their name. Like "wolf" and "beekeepers".

The one explanation that might have traction from a TME point of view is

The historian and archaeologist Mikhail Artamonov has identified the Scythian tribe Bušxk' (or Bwsxk) with the ethnonym of modern Bashkirs.

That's because there's a connection between the Scythians and the Galatians. If true, the Scythians are French Celts that migrated first to Galatia, and then a bit further to Scythia. That would make the Bashkirs "third-generation" French Celts.

[TisILeclerc]

We are still being told, despite genetic evidence to the contrary, that the English invaded Britain, slaughtered the natives and took the country over for themselves.

An American called Brad Larkin looks as though he will be upsetting the apple cart as he researches Irish dna and tries to match the various groups up to the various people who entered Ireland in the past and according to the Irish Annals.

Unlike Haplogroups G and I, Haplogroup R went on a much longer journey and got to Europe and Ireland much later in time.
• R-L21 arrival in Ireland estimated as 2,000 bc based on R1b SNP variations across geographies.

Taken from DNA vs the Irish Annals, Brad Larkin . Here's the youtube version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvYagRMu7b0

The point he is making is that the 'Celtic' dna so called Rb or L21 only came to Europe and Ireland a couple of thousand years BC.

Could Tuatha Dé Danann be early Haplogroup I-M223 hunter-gatherers?
•
Could Fir Bolg be neolithic farmers with G2a Y-DNA?
•
Does Milesean invasion correspond with late arriving, metal-working, warrior culture of Celts with R-L21 Y-DNA?
•
Nothing conclusive, but a case can be made that modern DNA has some consistency with Irish origin stories such as the Lebor Gabála Érenn.

There were two main groups in Ireland thousands of years before that. Group G and Group 'I'. Group 'G' is only about two percent and 'I' about twelve percent.

Ignoring group 'G' which he thinks came in with the farmers it is worthwhile pointing out that group 'I' is recognised as the only European dna. It arose in Europe at some point after the ice age and is concentrated in the Germanic areas. Mainly Norway and north Germany. It spreads out from this area and gets smaller as it spreads.

If this dna group is connected with Germanic languages and culture this means that there were Germanic speakers in Ireland before the 'Celts' arrived. The same goes for the rest of Britain. In fact now we know the extent of Doggerland it makes sense to picture a common culture spreading from what is now Europe across to Britain and Ireland.

The Time Team video of Doggerland even shows two examples of fish spears which are identical. One found off the coast of Denmark the other off the coast of England leading Tony Robinson to exclaim that there must have been a common culture.

Indeed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P9wQj6qX2I

And somebody has conveniently put a video on youtube to show the extent of the 'I' groups since the ice age. Before and after. Complete with annoying music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97AjbjCF_C4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UQKL9j0GcQ

[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]

A year ago:

Ginger alert!

In previous posts, I was wondering why there are anomalous hotspots of Haplogroup R1b in Russia and Central Africa



I've just found that the Russian hotspot is one group of people, the Bashkirs, and they speak their own language.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bashkirs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bashkir_language

The Central African hotspot remains unclear, but it seems to correlate with the Kanem–Bornu Empire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanem%E2% ... rnu_Empire

A year later (some news travels slowly) , The Scotsman newspaper has wondered the same thing. The Upper Volga, especially around Perm, is the new hotspot.

Dodds found that, along with Scotland, Russia was another big redhead “hotspot” with a concentration of those with ginger hair living in the Upper Volga area. After discovering one of the main cities was called Perm and that it sat roughly on the same line of latitude of Inverness, Dodds set to work.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/redheads-i ... -1-4548900

[TisILeclerc]

There is an idea that most European languages stem from English. English was the language of these islands and went on to civilise Europe by spreading the English tongue.

George Mackay in the mid nineteenth century had a similar idea. Except that he thought English was actually Gaelic.

In fact he wrote a book about it. 'The Gaelic etymology of the languages of Europe, etc.'

He was ridiculed for it of course but he outlines his theory in a long and comprehensive introduction in which he takes Gildas (all four of them), Johnson and others to task.

First, that the Gaelic and other divisions of the Keltic, so despised by Johnson and the succeeding writers whom his false teaching led astray, prevails to a very large extent in the unliterary and colloquial speech of the English people, and that it continually crops up in apparently new, but in reality very ancient slang, or, as they are some-times called, cant words.

Second, that the Gaelic underlies all the languages of the
Western, and some parts of North- Western Europe, especially French,
Spanish, and Italian.

Third, that what is called Anglo-Saxon, should be designated
Kelto-Saxon, and that the word Angle, is a corruption of An Gael, or,
" the Gael."

Fourth, that the " Low Latin " of the Middle Ages, especially that
form of it which is used in law books, is composed of Keltic or Gaelic
words with Latin terminations.

https://archive.org/details/gaelicetymo ... ft/page/n3

In the main section he goes into detail with a dictionary of words, meanings and derivations in English and Gaelic with a bit of French, Greek and Latin thrown into the mix.

Well worth a read on a dark and windy winter's night.

[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]

Roman in the Gloamin.

Tacitus knew a thing or two but then his father in law was Agricola who must have entertained the family with his war time exploits in Britain and elsewhere.

Tacitus tells us that the Silures were more like Iberians with their darkly handsome good looks and not at all like the rest of the Britons. He also had a thing or two to say about the Caledonians. They were one tribe in what is now Scotland so he seems to have been pointing them out for attention.

Tacitus in his Agricola, chapter XI (c. 98 AD) described the Caledonians as red haired and large limbed, which he considered features of Germanic origin: “The reddish (rutilae) hair and large limbs of the Caledonians proclaim a German origin”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caledonians

So, the southern Welsh are Spaniards and the Caledonians German.

Anything else? Strangely he describes a Scandinavian tribe as having the same language as the people of Britain.

Upon the right of the Suevian Sea the Aestian nations reside, who use the same customs and attire with the Suevians; their language more resembles that of Britain. They worship the Mother of the Gods. As the characteristic of their national superstition, they wear the images of wild boars. This alone serves them for arms, this is the safeguard of all, and by this every worshipper of the Goddess is secured even amidst his foes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesti

Surely the people of Britain were speaking ancient Celtic? I'm surprised that no scholar, with the exception of Mr Harper, has raised the possibilities of germanic languages being common in Roman and pre Roman Britain.

Tacitus has more to say of course about links between the British and various parts of Europe at the time.

11. Who were the original inhabitants of Britain, whether they were indigenous or foreign, is, as usual among barbarians, little known. Their physical characteristics are various, and from these conclusions may be drawn. The red hair and large limbs of the inhabitants of Caledonia point clearly to a German origin. The dark complexion of the Silures, their usually curly hair, and the fact that Spain is the opposite shore to them, are an evidence that Iberians of a former date crossed over and occupied these parts. Those who are nearest to the Gauls are also like them, either from the permanent influence of original descent, or, because in countries which run out so far to meet each other, climate has produced similar physical qualities. But a general survey inclines me to believe that the Gauls established themselves in an island so near to them.

https://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/tac/ag01010.htm

[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 [email protected]

[Boreades]

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 [email protected]

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