Re: Celtic Origins

"Alan Crozier" <name1.name2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:x2qBf.43173$d5.199342@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> "JMB" <johnmbyrne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:43d624c8$0$24958$ba620d2c@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> "Doug Weller" <dweller@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
> message
>> news:0e8ct1tmel4qpumolrutpkq26e96ordaq8@xxxxxxxxxx
>> > On Tue, 24 Jan 2006 12:24:22 +0100, in sci.archaeology,
> Peter Alaca wrote:
>> >
>> >>
>> >>Brian McEvoy, B, M. Richards, P. Forster
>> >>& DG. Bradley (2004)
>> >>"The Longue Durée of Genetic Ancestry: Multiple
>> >>Genetic Marker Systems and Celtic Origins on
>> >>the Atlantic Facade of Europe"
>> >>Am J Hum Genet. October 2004; 75(4): 693-702.
>> >>
>> >> " Celtic languages are now spoken only on the
>> >> Atlantic facade of Europe, mainly in Britain and
>> >> Ireland, but were spoken more widely in western
>> >> and central Europe until the collapse of the
>> >> Roman Empire in the first millennium a.d.
>> >> It has been common to couple archaeological
>> >> evidence for the expansion of Iron Age elites in
>> >> central Europe with the dispersal of these
>> >> languages and of Celtic ethnicity and to posit a
>> >> central European "homeland" for the Celtic
>> >> peoples. More recently, however, archaeologists
>> >> have questioned this "migrationist" view of Celtic
>> >> ethnogenesis. "
>> >> [...].
>> >> " What seems clear is that neither the mtDNA
>> >> pattern nor that of the Y-chromosome markers
>> >> supports a substantially central European Iron
>> >> Age origin for most Celtic speakers-or former
>> >> Celtic speakers-of the Atlantic facade. The
>> >> affinities of the areas where Celtic languages are
>> >> spoken, or were formerly spoken, are generally
>> >> with other regions in the Atlantic zone, from
>> >> northern Spain to northern Britain. Although
>> >> some level of Iron Age immigration into Britain
>> >> and Ireland could probably never be ruled out by
>> >> the use of modern genetic data, these results
>> >> point toward a distinctive Atlantic genetic
>> >> heritage with roots in the processes at the end
>> >> of the last Ice Age. "
>> >>
>> >>For the full, long, abstract with maps and full refs,
>> >>see on PubMed http://tinyurl.com/8sxpe
>> >
>> > I know Barry Cunliffe suggests the possibility that Celtic
> originated in
>> > what is described above as the Atlantic zone.
>>
>> Although there are hints of a pre-Celtic language surviving in
> Ireland until
>> at least the 5th century AD, so I would doubt that the Celtic
> languages
>> originated here. I'd still be inclined to believe that trade
> and commerce
>> brought the Celtic language here, and that it slowly replaced
> the previous
>> languages. By here, I just mean Ireland, not the other areas
> included in
>> the Atlantic zone).
>
> Would trade and commerce be enough to make a native population
> adopt a new language?

The way Ireland seems to have been back then (as far as population dispersal
goes), I would imagine that there were several languages spoken here at the
time. I'd be inclined to think that trade caused Celtic to become a second
language to all, which also became necessary for communicating with the
other Irish who spoke different first languages, and eventually replaced the
"first" language.

> I would imagine that it would require some
> speakers of the new language actually settling in the country.

I'm sure some did, but not in any large numbers.

> If those speakers also had power and prestige there would be
> greater incentive for the natives to adopt the new language.

I'd say it would be more a case of some of the Druidic classes coming over,
or more likely, Irish going over there, learning the stuff, and coming back
(at least, I think the latter was responsible for higher numbers of Celtic
speakers than the fromer).

>
> In other words, I incline to the old view of the Celts as an
> invading warrior aristocracy in Ireland, whose language
> gradually dominated and eradicated the old one(s). The speakers
> of Celtic need not have been numerous to achieve this, just
> powerful. This old view is not inconsist with the latest DNA
> evidence.
>
> Or am I missing something?

It would be inconsistant with the archaeological evidence. It would be
unlikely that such invaders would only bring their language, and nothing
else of their culture. There is a continuity of culture in Ireland that
stretches back as far as we have archaeological evidence to compare. From
dwellings, to burial practices (especially the latter), to artefacts.

>
> Alan
>



--
John Byrne


.

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