Celtic (Anglo-Saxon thread)

[Umberto Rossi]

> 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?  

Yest, but those three languages of the Uralo-finnic family were (and
are) spoken by peoples who came to Europe like our Indo-European
ancestors.  They are immigrants like us, that's why I didn't mention
them.  As for the Hungarians, they are the descendants of the Huns,
and we know quite well when those peoples arrived in Europe.  

As for the Etruscans, somebody proposed (but there is no agreement on 
this hypothesis) that their language had some feature in common with 
euskara, and this could mean:

- that both those languages were specimens of pre-indo-european 
languages;

- that Basques and Etruscans came from the same place X centuries 
ago.

There are wilder hypotheses, but they are maybe *too* wild.

Umberto Rossi

"A commission is appointed 
To confer with a Volscian commission 
About perpetual peace"--and nobody told me!