Keeping your feet dry, 8,000BC

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Re: Keeping your feet dry, 8,000BC

Postby TisILeclerc » 6:57 pm

Image

That's one possibility and we do know that the body that was buried at Stonehenge was supposed to have been born in Switzerland or somewhere in that vicinity.

But another possibility is different way. Goseck is on the river Saale which leads to the Elbe and into the North Sea by Cuxhaven after passing Hamburg.

http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/gos ... ew/google/

If we look at the Doggerland map we can see that there is a lake in the south just scraping the southern edge of Dogger Bank. If you enlarge that picture you can see a river coming from the Wash into the western side of the lake and another river running up to Cuxhaven and beyond, in other words the Elbe. And the river coming from and back into the Wash is the Ouse.

That would have been another possibility. Take the Ouse to the Wash, turn right to the Dogger lake or whatever it's called, carry on to Hamburg and keep on sailing till you reach the Saale which will drop you off at the doorstep. You have reached your destination.

In my life as a ships' chandler we used to get small european barges, German, Danish and even Dutch sneaking up the river to unload whatever they had brought. They looked strange sitting low down in the water next to big ocean going vessels but if they've been doing this kind of thing since the ice age I doubt if they'll be worried.
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Re: Keeping your feet dry, 8,000BC

Postby Boreades » 8:50 pm

Sounds good to me. Shipping long distances by barge is much more effective that trying to run donkey/mule trains for comparable distances. And more comfortable.

But I'm still wondering what language the Dogger Folk would have spoken. Was it English or something else?

Do we need to get Mick to write a new book? The History of Doggerland Revealed (THODR), a paradigm-busting sequel to THOBR.
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Re: Keeping your feet dry, 8,000BC

Postby TisILeclerc » 9:47 pm

That's a very interesting question, what language was spoken in Doggerland and presumably surrounding border areas.

What we know is that some sort of 'celtic' language is spoken on the far western margins, Ireland, Scotland, Man, Wales, Cornwall, formerly Cumbria and lowland Scotland, Brittany etc. I don't know whether they've resolved the question of Pictish yet.

We also know that Germanic languages were and are spoken in eastern Britain, England and Scotland and western Europe, Holland, Belgium, Denmark and Norway. Dutch was also spoken in northern France and north western France.

Which makes Doggerland possibly a Germanic speaking area.

We know that western Britain and Ireland were populated by tradition with people from Iberia and from for example Troy and Egypt. This is a very strongly held tradition which is of course ridiculed by academics. But we do know that there was a great deal of trade between all these areas and the Mediterranean in the copper, tin and other metals trade. So the two areas were known to each other on a commercial basis.

New genetic findings tell us that the main dna in Britain and especially in the west is the R1b type which goes through the Mediterranean into the area of Georgia. A relation in R1a took a different route by heading through eastern Europe to northern Europe and Scandinavia.

Linguistically the celtic languages share similarities with the hamitic group of languages especially with verbal order. Verb comes first followed by noun or pronoun.

http://www.academia.edu/283231/Remarks_ ... c_question

Here is an academic paper which goes into this in some detail. Although it must be said that most academics ridicule the idea.

If the original settlers of western Britain left Spain by ship, which is what Irish tradition tells us the natural swing westwards of the French coast would tend to force them to the extreme west because at the time of Doggerland there was a lot more coastline heading in that direction. But those heading in a more direct northerly migration, following herds perhaps would quite naturally move straight into Doggerland and eastern England.

There is also the possibility that there were languages already being spoken in the area which had no relation to the celtic or Germanic languages. And also that there were a mixture of languages which eventually morphed into the more recognisable languages we know today.

What we do know is that from the celtic languages across to Flemish and Dutch these languages are very gutteral, with the exception of English which may point to a more Norse origin or connection. Perhaps living in a perpetually damp climate at near sea level affects the vocal chords?
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Re: Keeping your feet dry, 8,000BC

Postby Boreades » 12:17 pm

TisILeclerc wrote: Which makes Doggerland possibly a Germanic speaking area.


How do the Frisian languages fit in then?

The Frisian languages are a closely related group of Germanic languages, spoken by about 500,000 Frisian people, who live on the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark. The Frisian languages are the closest living language group to English languages, and are together grouped into the Anglo-Frisian languages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisian_languages

I'm confused why they are calling them Germanic languages when they are the closest to English and they're not German?

Together the three language form the Frisian language group, that together with English forms the North Sea group of the West-Germanic languages.
http://language-diversity.eu/en/knowled ... derlanden/

That's Doggerland Languages to you and me.

THODR
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Re: Keeping your feet dry, 8,000BC

Postby TisILeclerc » 3:35 pm

I think they are called Germanic because the academics assumed, perhaps convinced by Hanoverian kings providing the money, that languages start off complicated and then simplify.

Personally if I wanted to speak to people I would use simplified language rather than high faluting language. But that doesn't get you a job in the sacred groves.

So, we have a patois or melange of languages such as English, Frisian, Norwegian, Danish which are fairly simple in grammar terms. And then further east we have German which is a separate case altogether. In fact Mark Twain had certain views on the German language.

http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/ ... nguage.pdf

The more complicated languages appear to be even further east. Czech, Polish, Russian. They not only see the world in masculine and feminine as well as neuter terms but they have instrumentals and non this and the other. As well as all the accusative and other such stuff.

Even Gaelic is free of that sort of thing. But then Gaelic, like English uses a lot of prepositions. So there's no need to change words depending on what is happening to it. Just stick to or at or on etc in front and 'job done' as they say. I would imagine the Germans would have a longer expression for 'job done'.

Perhaps that's why they are so serious and don't understand jokes? By the time you get to the second page the moment has already passed.
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Re: Keeping your feet dry, 8,000BC

Postby Boreades » 3:14 pm

Here's another curiosity about The History of Doggerland Revealed (THODR) that has just occurred to me.

We've already noted that the Stonehenge/Avebury mega-complex are on the same latitude as Goseck, on an east-west axis.

Imagine you are back in the time when the Thames and the Rhine were tributaries of one mightier river (to coin a phrase the Greater Dogger River).

If you went as far as you could go in a due west direction up the Greater Dogger River, before you went over a watershed into the next river basin, where would you get to? Avebury.

If you went as far east as you could go in the same manner, where would you get to? Goseck.
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Re: Keeping your feet dry, 8,000BC

Postby Mick Harper » 3:22 pm

Interesting. Draw us a map.
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Re: Keeping your feet dry, 8,000BC

Postby hvered » 8:46 am

Boreades wrote: That's Doggerland Languages to you and me.

THODR

The language of trade knows no barriers. A programme about tribes of the North-West American Pacific described trade between the natives and Europeans, especially Russians. The most valued import was copper in return for otter pelts.

The presenter was told that otter fur is the densest animal fur of all. The supply as usual ran out eventually but it reminded me of the St Cuthbert legend that recounts how after praying in the sea Cuthbert's feet were warmed and dried on the shore by sea-otters. Perhaps the monks were importing otter fur or even farming otters à la eider ducks.

[The native American people all spoke English. Though the subject of language wasn't discussed, it seems they no longer speak their own language(s) but they all have alternative names with translations attached. Is it usual to retain traditional names even after being completely assimilated into the mainstream?]
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Re: Keeping your feet dry, 8,000BC

Postby TisILeclerc » 12:13 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOLT6ElK6AE

Here's an American video on a Huron settlement that was discovered.

They found a piece of iron buried under the ground and got it analysed. They did more work on it and discovered that it was Basque. From round about 1500.

It turns out the Basques used to take things like axes and knives to trade with the local people on the Canadian Atlantic coast. They went there every year to catch whales and other things and got venison and furs from the locals in return for the stuff they took across.

This piece came from an axe which was chopped into pieces and further traded via the Iroquois to the Hurons further south and inland.

An interesting video although very American and dramatic. I'm sure I spotted some polygonal walls in the bits made in the Basque country.
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Re: Keeping your feet dry, 8,000BC

Postby Mick Harper » 12:21 pm

I find the phrase 'from round about 1500' a little suspect. After all Cabot was there in 1497 so is this a big deal? If (smelted?) iron can be dated to a short window that would be interesting to know but I suspect that 1500 is more convenient than true. The Basque country by the way was still the main source of British iron ore in the twentieth century (AD).
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