Celtic Wal/ Gal

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Re: Celtic Wal/ Gal

Postby macausland » 8:22 am

Nothing would surprise me about the MacDonalds. Especially what they sell in their outlets as food wrapped in cotton wool. Lord MacDonald of Sleat was the one who lived the life of a lord in the casinos of France and Italy and put the rents up every year of his tenants at Braes on the Isle of Skye.

However, wiki seems to have a different version of their origins. Possible male line from Ireland and female line from Norway via Orkney.

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

Historically the MacDonalds saw themselves as descended from the High Kings of Ireland, but then they all did. Although they were the Lords of the Isles for a long time until the king in Edinburgh decided to rein them in.

It's interesting to visit Skye and compare the MacDonalds from old portraits at their visitor centre, which is an excellent museum and well worth a visit, with the portraits of the MacLeods at Dunvegan castle.

The MacDonalds seem to be very fair and really do have that air of 'gentlemen', that kind of public schoolboy look, blue eyed and innocent.

The MacLeods are a swarthy black looking bunch in spite of their claims to be Norwegian.

One of the problems with Scottish clans is that not everyone in the clan was actually related to the clan chief. The chief and his family were a kind of overlord or 'godfather' who protected all those who swore allegiance to him. Of course that meant that the clansmen had to rise up on his side when needed. But having the same name was a way of saying that they were all in the same gang. Conversely people from differently named clans may have been related to the other clan. People tended to keep their own knowledge of their origins through reciting a list of their fathers, grandfathers etc. So the well known Glencoe Macdonald was known as MacIain rather than MacDonald.

As regards the language, I was told many years ago by a Tunisian that Arabic puts the verb before the noun or pronoun. That's what Gaelic does. But then Gaelic uses continuous tenses like English, has no infinitive like English.

The Irish legends tell of ancestors coming from Troy, Egypt etc. Which puts legend at odds with Barry Cunliffe. Unless there were incursions from elsewhere which added to an already permanent population. In these circumstances perhaps Gaelic developed as a 'creole' language, a trading language understandable to populations all along the seaboard as Cunliffe claims?
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Re: Celtic Wal/ Gal

Postby hvered » 12:39 pm

spiral wrote:What nobody mentions in these connections.......... is the C=G

In fact Celt also and its derivatives (!) are exactly the same "word" as Galli,Galatai, Galatoi, Gael Gaul Wales and so on

Your Romans just lumped your (in their eyes) fair skinned untanned primitives under one single label.

Barry Cunliffe seemed to vaguely equate Celts and Gauls, whether because of Classical sources or because he holds this view himself wasn't clear.

He went over quite a lot of old ground and the lecture threw up no surprises though my attention was momentarily caught when an upside-down map was shown (a ruse to wake up his students he said) because his whole case could have been turned on its head too. The idea of Iberians or whoever making their way to the British Isles once the ice melted sufficiently seems rather perverse; the other way round makes a lot more sense if the terrain was indeed iced over, i.e. north to south when the map's right way up.

Anyway the Romans were apparently always complaining about the British weather and installing sophisticated heating systems. Iit might be that celt/ gaul = cold (as per gel words e.g. gelato, gelado, etc.) and northern peoples classifed accordingly?
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Re: Celtic Wal/ Gal

Postby Boreades » 9:38 pm

macausland wrote:The MacDonalds seem to be very fair and really do have that air of 'gentlemen', that kind of public schoolboy look, blue eyed and innocent. The MacLeods are a swarthy black looking bunch in spite of their claims to be Norwegian.


That was one of the things that surprised me when I first met a lady from the northernmost parts of Norway. She regards herself as purebred Norwegian, yet her hair is jet black. Which confounded my stereotype of blond norse folk.

macausland wrote:One of the problems with Scottish clans is that not everyone in the clan was actually related to the clan chief. The chief and his family were a kind of overlord or 'godfather' who protected all those who swore allegiance to him. Of course that meant that the clansmen had to rise up on his side when needed. But having the same name was a way of saying that they were all in the same gang. Conversely people from differently named clans may have been related to the other clan. People tended to keep their own knowledge of their origins through reciting a list of their fathers, grandfathers etc. So the well known Glencoe Macdonald was known as MacIain rather than MacDonald.


There's a very entertaining book called "The French MacDonald" published by The Island Book Trust, that ably demonstrates how fluid Scottish names were . All about Jaques Ettienne Joseph Alexander MacDonald. Originally born a MacEuchan from South Uist, his father Neil MacEuchan had gone to study at the Scots College in Douai in Northern France, but somehow came back as a MacDonald. Perhaps as a defence from anti-Catholic Penal Laws in force at the time, perhaps because his studies were funded by a Jacobite banker, Aeneas MacDonald, in Paris.

Eventually, after Neil MacEuchan/MacDonald had had a key part in the escape of Bonnie Prince Charlie, the whole family moved to France. Neil's son Jaques did rather well for himself: he ended-up as Field Marshall MacDonald in Napoleon's army.
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Re: Celtic Wal/ Gal

Postby Boreades » 9:47 pm

macausland wrote:Possible male line from Ireland and female line from Norway via Orkney.


Which I'm willing to accept, but wonder if it confounds another stereotype of Norse Vikings (presumably male) raping and pillaging their way southwards? In which case (surely?) if the old legends were true it would have been female line from Ireland and male line from Norway via Orkney?

Confusin', ain't it?
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Re: Celtic Wal/ Gal

Postby Boreades » 9:53 pm

Footnotes:

1) It's quite surprising how many Scots Colleges there are scattered round Europe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_College

2) For the Sassenachs amongst us, if, as a "Brit" you have feelings for the fate of Britons sold into slavery by the invading Romans, please read a short history of the Highland Clearances.
http://www.cranntara.org.uk/clear.htm
as a similar account of Highlanders sent to place like the Caribbean as slaves or bonded servants.
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Re: Celtic Wal/ Gal

Postby TisILeclerc » 3:57 pm

Alan Wilson argues that the Welsh etc came from Syria and other points east. He also claims that they had their own alphabet and that historians have suppressed this knowledge principally due to the needs of the Hanoverians and their academic allies.

As for C or G they are both the same sound, just a bit different. An cu is dog in gaelic and usually pronounced an gu.

Wilson's claim is that:

'The fact is British History is the best recorded history in all of Europe and were it not for the Holy Family coming to Britain in AD 37 none of this would be a problem.

Since the beginning of the 18th Century AD there has been a major suppression of British History. To the academic community there is only the tunnel vision mentality of Roman Britain, or Saxon Britain, or Viking Britain, and if any major finds are made by archaeologists they inevitably end up in one of the three mentioned categories, heaven forbid they be Khumric-British - of which there are VAST amounts'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9wo2VKrP7c

Here he is in a talk from the nineties.
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Re: Celtic Wal/ Gal

Postby Boreades » 6:32 pm

Mac/Tisi

Thanks for giving this thread a bump.

Alan Wilson? Another one for the bedside book pile?

I have a strong feeling a bit of cross-pollination of threads is called for!

Cuttings from this thread:

Jools wrote:
Oakey Dokey wrote:I can't find the translation online but my daughter (a fluent Welsh speaker) says that Gall in Welsh also means 'clever' or 'bright'

This Vallancey whom Boreades mentioned claimed that Gal is trader. His notion that Galway is a place of merchants rather than a colony of foreigners as per the accepted etymology could fit the bill.


macausland wrote:Barry Cunliffe ... seems to put forward that the Celtic language of the time was probably a trading language understood by such diverse peoples although he does touch on dna evidence showing a possible origin in Iberia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8FM9nMFbfI


Boreades wrote:Genetically, the MacDonalds are closer to Spain, Ireland and Cornwall than they are to England, Holland and Germany.

Grafted onto this from Book & site list:

Boreades wrote:A western coastal sea empire is very much the theme of this quietly charming video by Bob Quinn....
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xscgzc ... n_creation
A few key notes:
- Irish music not like European music. Music of Connemara is similar to music of Libya.
- W.B.Yeats (usually a stickler for accuracy) mentions North African mercenaries in Ireland and the Barbary Ape found in Ireland.
- Galway trading port prosperity with Spain (Cadiz), trading Wool for wine, In 16th century, one summer, 600 spanish ships counted.
- Language oddities: (Heinrich Vagner says) Irish , Welsh , Breton features not shared by other languages, have the Verb first in sentence, like ancient Egyptian, Berber, Hebrew and Arabic.

My take on it is a timely reminder that I'm far too casual with the use of the word "Celtic", especially when we somehow think that both tall red-haired folk and short dark-haired folk are all Celtic.


In fact, I should prosecute myself under the TME Trading Standards rules. Or the moderators should (hint). All my casual talk of "Celts" is just sloppy and misleading, and does nothing for the cutting-edge reputation of TME. ;-)

Loose lips sink megalithic ships?
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Re: Celtic Wal/ Gal

Postby TisILeclerc » 9:00 pm

I wonder if Cadiz is related to Cardiff?

I came across a book, forgotten of course, in which the author commented on the fact that three countries were famous for the 'th' element in language, Spain, Wales and England.

Absent in gaelic mind you.

As for the rapacious vikings I think we will find that they were. They were slave traders who kidnapped people and sold them to north Africa and the middle east.

However, their ancestors were probably very different. It has been found that there were 'hot spots' in Norway during the ice age and trees and other things survived. I would suggest that people also survived which may explain how Skara Brae started so quickly when it shouldn't have.

http://sciencenordic.com/trees-survived ... candinavia

http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_I1_Y-DNA.shtml

And from our favourite paper

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... since.html

If we add to that the existence of the 'I' haplogroup which appears to have started in Norway and is only found in Europe it could well prove that humans were alive and eating fish a long time while the spanish lot were wondering whether they should move north or not.

Image
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Re: Celtic Wal/ Gal

Postby Boreades » 11:25 pm

Alan Wilson's video certainly makes some telling points, completely in keeping with many TME themes. Like Tudor Britain creation myths, etc.

I can tell this is going to take some painful reconditioning, at least on my part, as I attempt to restructure what I already know, but have not given enough attention.

Wall, head, head, wall.
*I* *must* *not* *say* *Celtic*
*I* *must* *not* *say* *Celtic*
*I* *must* *not* *say* *Celtic*
etc

For a fresh start, what have we got, and what can we call it, to make fresh distinctions?

As Tisi, mentioned, the Norse Haplogroup I1 group? Call it NHI for short? Or Tall Blond People? TDP?

Then there's the High Frequency O blood group in : West Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Iceland, Sardinia and Berber region of North Africa.
HFO? Or the Western Atlantic Fringe group? Call it WAF for short? Or Short Dark People? SDP?

Two completely different groups, but overlapping in some places, like the Western Isles of Scotland. Whatever takes your fancy. So, were the "red-haired ones" a genetic mutation from where they overlapped, commingled and procreated?

And why are there hot-spots of NHI in Italy and Sicily? is this the wayward Normans again?
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Re: Celtic Wal/ Gal

Postby spiral » 8:18 am

This is getting a bit weird.

You now seem to be enjoying the flagellation. (a tiny bit too much)....

Pull yourself together.

Crack on.......where were we?

Umm....the Celts.....err http://www.proto-english.org/l4.html

But I reckon Proto misses the point....

Folks try and group things in order to understand them.....once you have completed the process, you then collect the rest of the stuff...the stuff you dont understand and make a group out of it.

ON another thread I call this stuff SAND.

Does Sand exist...?

Of course....

So dont whip yourself into a frenzy.......
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