[Pharmboy]

Asked what linguists thought of his method he said: "To be honest, they don't understand it, most of them. They don't even know what I'm talking about."

This guy must treat his undergraduate students very well (snicker).

[ZULU]

"Geneticists often assume that the rate of mutation will average out over time, so that if one or two branch points in a tree can be dated by fossil evidence, the timing of the other branch points can be inferred."

Other geneticists challenge this, and the concept of a gradual evolution of one species into another has been displaced in many circles by another conept that states evolution occurs suddenly by large jumps instead of slowly over a long period of time as formerly believed. If this is true, dating based on an average rate of genetic change is invalid (i.e. the "African Eve" theory.)

[Sabertooth]

Though the Gauls were strong enough to sack Rome in 390 B.C

Oh.

Dr. Forster said that his estimated date of 3200 B.C. for the arrival of Celtic speakers in England and Ireland was also much earlier than the usual date, 600 B.C., posited on the basis of archaeological evidence.

Dr. Forster said his method of comparing groups of languages was unfamiliar to historical linguists, many of whom study how words in a single language have changed over time. Asked what linguists thought of his method he said: "To be honest, they don't understand it, most of them. They don't even know what I'm talking about."

Ah.

"It's only a matter of time," ping.

[Cacique]

bump for later

[blam]

Italian Archaeologist: Anatolia - Home To First Civilization On Earth

[Cacique]

A few tidbits to wet your appetite.

http://indoeuro.bizland.com/tree/celt/celtic.html

http://www.thezaurus.com/sloveniana/venetic_culture.htm

http://www.prah.net/europaveneta/garumna/garumna.htm

http://www.niagara.com/~jezovnik/anthony_ambrozic.htm

[TruthConquers]

For later reading - BUMPS!!

[blam]

Archaeologists Find Celts In Unlikely Spot: Central Turkey

[Celtic Conservative]

"Celtic found to have ancient roots"

Yes , but if I use a little grecian formula for men, nobody notices =^)

Seriously though, I have seen other sources that places celtic parent culture as originating as far away as nepal or tibet. Whatever the truth may be , no one can debate that as an ethno linguistic group the celts sure do get around.

CC

[SunkenCiv]

Just posting the updated contact information. This was already in the catalog. And, it's one of those two-and-a-half sheets to the wind topics...

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[Cooltouch]

Hmmm . . . I have a couple of degrees in linguistics and have had several classes in historical linguistics. I even addressed the possibility of improved reconstruction methods in my Masters thesis. So, just based on what I've read, lectures I've attended, and research I've conducted, I have a couple of serious doubts.

First, the 8100 BC date seems way out of line. Most Indo-Europeanists agree that the Indo-European diaspora began 5,000 to 6,000 years ago. To suggest that a proto-Celtic appeared some 10,000 years ago is stretching things beyond the bounds of credibility. I don't know of any archeological data that would back up such a claim.

Second, basing such a conjecture on a mere 30 words is extremely doubtful. In linguistics, we have something called the Swadesh List (named after Maurice Swadesh, a linguist who first came up with the idea). The Swadesh List is a listing of either 100 or 200 of the most commonly used words in a language. The usefulness of a Swadesh List to a historical linguist is this list of words will have a greater retention time in a language than other, less used words will. Even if these 30 words were absolutely the most common words used in ancient Celtic -- extremely doubtful -- the total number of them is so small that there is a significant chance that loss due to language change would have reduced any sample to the level of background noise in only a few millenia. And given the almost certainty that these 30 words were simply those that were available due to archeological discovery, it once again stretches the bounds of credibility beyond the breaking point.

Dr MacMahon sounded like she was being polite and non-confrontational. When stating that it was reasonable to base a language family tree on a few well chosen words, she was most likely referring to the Swadesh list. Not 30 words that were unearthed by chance.

It bears pointing out that Merrit Ruhlen is not a mainstream historical linguist. Known as one of the "Long Rangers" for his claims of being able to reconstruct protoforms back into the very distant past, his views on language reconstruction vary starkly from almost all other historical linguists.

It is likely -- virtually certain -- that Drs. Foster and Toth's research will be shredded to pieces in the process of peer review.

[MacDorcha]

Celtic Ping list!

Let me know if you want on/off this list.