Celtic (Anglo-Saxon thread)

[Vaska]

At 08:48 PM 5/4/97 +0000, Umberto Rossi wrote:

>Well, Celtic languages are today
>a small family in the greater Indo-Germanic group.  The Indo-Germanic
>languages include: germanic languages (English, Dutch, German,
>Norwegian, etc.), latin (a.k.a. romanesque) languages (like French,
>Italian, Sardinian, etc.), Greek languages (Macedonian and modern
>greek), slavic languages (Russian, Polish, etc.), Iranian, Sanskrit,
>and some smaller families of less famous languages with improbable
>names (like Tocarian, which disappeared long ago so we needn't
>bother about it).  Indo-Germanic languages are divided in two great
>groups, Eastern and Western.  Celtic and Latin languages are
>considered the "more western" families (here "western" does not hint
>at simple geographical aspects, but to some linguistic features
>which would be quite boring to explain).

Just a couple of observations: I think Umberto means the Indo-European
language group.  

The Germanic branch is only one of the eleven main branches of the
Indo-European language family, of which Celtic is another.  Modern
Macedonian, like Bulgarian, Slovene, and Serbo-Croatian, is a South Slavic
language, and is linguistically unrelated to Greek [no one seems to know
much about ancient Macedonian, though we do know that ancient Greeks
considered it incomprehensible and alien, one of the "barbaric" tongues.]  

English, in all its historical manifestations [Old, Middle and Modern],
belongs to the Anglo-Frisian offshoot of the West-Germanic sub-branch.  

And, apart from the mysterious Basque [linguistically mysterious because no
one seems to be able to figure out where it comes from, what other language
it might possibly be related to], there's also Hungarian as the second
extant non-Indo-European language still spoken [and flourishing] right in
the middle of Europe.  And, come to think of it, Finnish would be the third.
Right, Heikki?  

Vaska

P.S.  Ooops.  Almost left Estonian: it, too, belongs to the Finno-Uralic
family, and is not an Indo-European language either.








>
>The Celtic languages are not so original.  The verbal structures, the 
>usage of pronouns, the linguistic roots of terms were much similar to 
>those of other western Indo-Germanic languages.  But you were 
>talking about the Picts and here we plunge deep into mystery.  Let me 
>tell you why.
>
>Indo-Germanic languages spread from an area placed somewhere in the 
>middle of Asia 2-3,000 years before Christ (I may be wrong about the 
>dates, but not very much).  The first Indo-Germanic-speaking peoples 
>to settle in W-Europe were the Celts.  But obviously those lands were 
>not void of men at that time.  When the Celts arrived here in Europe 
>they found other populations, including the Picts.  We do not know 
>very much about them.  Probably there was some attrition and quarrel 
>at the beginning, then a quite peaceful fusion took place.  The 
>Indo-Germanic-speaking learned to cultivate wheat and other 
>graminaceas, to make flour and bread;  the pre-existing peoples 
>adopted Celtic languages.  Then the Latin-speaking peoples arrived, 
>and then the Germanic-speaking... in southern areas the 
>Greek-speaking peoples settled on the shores and islands of the 
>Aegean Sea and you know what happened.
>
>But what about those peoples who existed before?  We do not know very 
>much about them.  There are some hypotheses, though:
>
>1. They were totally absorbed by the Indo-Germanic speaking peoples 
>and left no trace, except for some verbal roots which still exist in 
>modern European languages, English includes (any good etymological 
>dictionary can help you to find out what they are).
>
>2.  They were gradually assimilated but left some traces, i.e. the 
>Etruscan inscriptions on monuments, tombs, coins, jewels.  
>Unfortunately those texts are too small and too few to allow us to 
>reconstruct the Etruscan language.
>
>3.  They left at least one pre-Indo-Germanic language alive, i.e.
>euskara, the language spoken today by most people in Basque
>countries (Spain).  The Basques speak also Spanish, but use their
>original language everytime they can (I have been in Basque
>countries years ago and remember there were local radio stations
>broadcasting in this very odd language).  You may know of the Basque
>terrorist organization called ETA, which means Euskadi Ta Askatasuna
>(I wonder what it may mean).  I also remember their version of the
>anti-Nuclear badge which said "Nuclear Energy? No, thanks!"--the
>euskara translation was "Nuklearra? Ez eskerrik asko!" or something
>like that.
>
>Maybe Pict language was similar to euskara or Etruscan.  Maybe it was 
>something different even from those two languages.  Unfortunately the 
>Picts weren't very good at writing, so there's not much left...
>
>Umberto Rossi
>
>"A commission is appointed 
>To confer with a Volscian commission 
>About perpetual peace"--and nobody told me!
>