Tartessian, Europe's newest and oldest Celtic language

History Ireland ^ | Mar/Apr 2009 | (it appears to be) John T. Koch

[SunkenCiv]

One of the enduring consequences of the era of Phoenician influence -- which had by around 800 BC progressed from trading outposts to full-blown colonies in southern Spain -- was the adoption of alphabetic writing by the native population, first in the south-west. The number of known Tartessian inscriptions on stone is now about 90 and steadily rising with new discoveries. Concentrated densely in southern Portugal (the Algarve and Lower Alentejo), there is a wider scatter of fifteen over south-west Spain. The best exhibition of the inscriptions is on view in the new and innovative Museu da Escrita do Sudoeste, in the charming provincial town of Almod?. In the significant minority of cases in which the stones have been discovered in their original context and this has been published, the find-spots are necropolises of the Iberian First Iron Age (800-500 BC), showing that the inscriptions belong to a funerary tradition. In this respect they continue the 100 pre-literate 'warrior stelae' of the Iberian Final Bronze Age (1250-750 BC). In four apparently transitional monuments incised heroic images are combined with Tartessian texts.

The oldest Celtic language?

Thus far, the theory that Tartessian is partly or wholly Celtic has been advanced only with an understatement and tentativeness that has failed to break through the habitual inattention of Celtic scholars in Ireland, Britain and North America towards evidence emerging in the Iberian Peninsula. Most Celticists know that the Celtiberian language of the eastern Meseta during the last centuries BC was Celtic and that there were also numerous ancient Celtic place- and group names in the western peninsula (e.g. names ending in -briga 'hillfort' = Old Irish brÌ 'hill', for example). But that's about as far as it usually goes.

[SunkenCiv]

tartessian is celtic

Google

[SunkenCiv]

Shallit Lecture given at BYU on March 17, 2008. The Celts living in the middle of Europe were the fearsome opponents of the Greeks and Romans and in c. 390 B.C. they actually besieged Rome. The classical writers have much to say about their warlike activities but where did they come from? Until recently it used to be thought that they emerged in Eastern France and Southern Germany and spread westwards to Spain, Brittany, Britain and Ireland taking their distinctive language with them which survives today as Breton, Welsh, Gaelic and Irish. But recent work is suggesting that the Celtic language may have developed in the Atlantic zone of Europe at a very early date, and DNA studies offer some support to this. So who were the Celts? We will explore the evidence and try to offer an answer.

Barry Cunliffe: Who Were the Celts? | BYU Department of Anthropology | Published on Feb 4, 2014 | YouTube

[SunkenCiv]

Barry Fell (quit moaning!) id'ed Celtic ogham inscriptions in Iberia as well as the British Isles.

[SunkenCiv]

One of *those* topics.

---

join or quit view topics view or post blog bookmark post new topic subscribe

---

Tarshish
by Immanuel Velikovsky

References to the ships of Tarshish and to a place of that name, in the Old Testament, beginning with the time of Solomon (10th century), to the time of the prophets of the 8th and 7th centuries, make me think that by this designation the Cretan navigators and Crete itself were meant. The Minoan civilization survived until the great catastrophes of the 8th century and it would be strange if it and its maritive activities remained unmentioned in the Old Testament.

The usual explanation puts Tarshish in Spain, though other identifications are offered, like Tarsus, in Asia Minor. One of the old names for Knossos sounds like Tarshish.

Caphtor
by Immanuel Velikovsky

The island Caphtor is named in the Scriptures. The usual identification is Crete, because the Keftiu bringing presents (vases) to Egyptian pharaohs are thought to be Cretans.

I prefer Cyprus as the biblical Caphtor and the Egyptian Keftiu.

If Caphtor is not Cyprus, then the Old Testament completely omits reference to this large island close to the Syrian coast. The phonetics of the name also point to Cyprus. Separately I show that Tarshish was the name of Crete.

It seems that the Philistines arrived in Palestine from Caphtor following the catastrophe that brought there the Israelites after their wandering in the Desert.

[SunkenCiv]

New Light On The Dark Age Of Greece, "Tarshish"
by Jan Sammer

...So far we have based our discussion of the identity of Tarshish on Biblical sources; but there also exists an allusion to that land in another source, a cuneiform text found about a hundred years ago at Assur on the Tigris. The text is part of the annals of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon, who ruled over Assyria from -681 to -669. It reads:

"All the kingdoms from (the islands) amidst the sea -- from the country of Iadanan and Jaman as far as Tarshishi bowed to my feet and I received heavy tribute."

The identities of the first two countries mentioned by Esarhaddon are known: Iadanan is Cyprus and Iaman is the Ionian coast of Asia Minor; the location of Tarshishi, however, became the subject of some debate, for this statement by Esarhaddon is the only time the name appears in any Assyrian text. It was noted that "Tarshishi" has the determinative mãt for "country" in front of it, as do Idanana, or Cyprus and Iaman, or Ionia. The only clue to its location was its being described as a kingdom "amidst the sea", apparently somewhat farther removed from Assyria than either Cyprus or Ionia.

When Esarhaddon's text was first published and transliterated the name was read as "Nu-shi-shi." At that time there were several conjectures as to the identification of this land. The city of Nysa in Caria was one suggestion; another was that the world refers to "nesos" for Peloponnesos. In 1914 D. D. Luckenbill ventured that "Knossos, for Crete, would fit better." Three years later B. Meissner made a fresh examination of the cuneiform tablet and found that the original transliteration of the name had been mistaken, and that "Tar-shi-shi" was the correct reading. The new reading took away Luckenbill's chief reason for his identification; yet he had the right solution, even if he reached it on wrong grounds. More recent scholarship identifies the land of Tarshishi mentioned by Esarhaddon with the city of Tarsus in Cilicia. Had Tarshishi been a city the name would have been preceded by the determinative URU; however, as mentioned above, it has mãt for "country". It is also difficult to see how a place in Cilicia would fit the description "from Iadanana and Iaman as far as Tarshishi." Clearly Tarsisi was farther west than either Cyprus or Ionia. These criteria are filled admirably by Crete.

[yarddog]

I once saw a Roman map of The British Isles. Everything was in Latin but Ireland was labeled “Scots” just like we spell it.

[SunkenCiv]

The Scoti went over from Ireland over a hundred years after the Romans left Britain.

[Don Corleone]

One translated as,”Kilroy was here”.

[SunkenCiv]

:^)

[SunkenCiv]

The opening lecture from the 2016 Celtic Mythology Conference at the University of Edinburgh.

John T. Koch.Thinking about Indo-European and Celtic Myths in the 2nd and 3rd Millennia
CeltScotVideos | YouTube | Published on Nov 29, 2016

[OldNewYork]

If the Celts are even more autochthonous to Atlantic Europe than previously believed, it makes the attempt at population replacement in the remaining Celtic countries even worse than it is when it’s been believed the Celts were early invaders.

[SunkenCiv]

One of the tidbits in the Cunliffe lecture is that the most widely spoken tongue in Ireland is English (not surprising); second most is Polish; third mos is Chinese (!). Gaelic is still spoken (and sung) in Ireland, but not as much as it was even 30 years ago.