Celtic Found to Have Ancient Roots

NY Times ^ | July 1, 2003 | NICHOLAS WADE

[man of Yosemite]

Perhaps the language of the conquering males is adapted to the language of the conquered females, especially those engaged in prostitution.

[Ciexyz]

English will never be replaced by Spanish. We'll turn into Canada -- with two national languages.

[muawiyah]

Illium, Allium, Troy ~ all same thing GI.

The folks who lived there for the previous one thousand years were obviously culturally advanced over their attackers!

[VadeRetro]

Actually Rome did not fall until the 1400s when the city of Byzantium and it's environs were seized by the Turks (who were, by that time, quite civilized themselves, or things would have been much, much worse).

The Constantinople that fell to the Turks in 1453 had indeed been the capital of Constantine, but it had already fallen once in the Fourth Crusade. There was no Byzantine ("Roman") Empire for almost 60 years, 1204 to 1261, the duration of something called the Latin Kingdom of Constantinople. Continuity was lost there. 1204 should probably be marked as the disappearance of the last remaining real shreds of the Roman Empire.

Yes, that nation still in 1453 called itself the Roman Empire. Nevertheless it was a small, uniformly Greek-speaking kingdom, no empire at all. It had lost the last shreds of empire centuries earlier. Nor was it the last kingdom to style itself the Roman Empire. Attempted revivals include the Holy Roman Empire and Napoleon crowning himself as Roman Emperor as late as 1800.

[Polybius]

The Carthaginian language (Punic) was eliminated in Africa by eliminating its speakers through genocide (and a well-deserved genocide it was), ......

And pray tell, why was it a well deserved genocide? The Phoenicians were respected by the GReeks and Romans as great traders, maritime adventurers and the only one of the ancients who traversed beyond hte pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar and Jabl al whatever on the other side inMorocco). ... The phoenician alphabet is the first phonetic alphabet in the world and the Greek alphabet is derived from the phoneician. How was it good to have slaughtered these wise ancients?

The Phoenician mother land was removed from Carthage by a few centuries just as America is removed from Britain.

The Phoenicians excelled at trade. The Carthagenians excelled at war.

Is was by sheer determination that Rome was not destroyed as a civilization during the Second Punic War. When you come that close to being destroyed yourself, you get a little less squeamish about listening to Cato the Elder when he would again repeat, "Cartago delenda est."

[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

[Celtic Conservative]

The article raises an interesting point: most people assume that languages spread by conquest, but that doesn't seem to hold so well. The Romans conquered the Greeks, but the Greeks still speak Greek and probably more Romans learned Greek than Greeks learned Latin. Likewise, the Gauls maintained their language for centuries after Caesar's conquest, but lost it after they successfully conquered back territory. The Germanic Franks conquered Romanized Gaul, but wound up speaking a language more Roman than German. 3 posted on 07/01/2003 8:58:08 AM EDT by wideawake

Culture plays a big part in The adoption of language. the normans invaded Ireland in the 10 and 11th centuries. rather than the irish becoming like the normans, the normans became "quo hiberniam ipso hibernes" e.g. more irish than the irish themselves. Any modern irish with the prefix "fitz" in their name can trace their lineage to the normans, as fitz comes from the latin speaking norman "fils" meaning "the son of"

CC

[Cronos]

Pick up a dictionary and sample the derivations. Latin is very heavily represented now. It's probably the single most common source of word roots although the core vocabulary of the language is Germanic.

Again that's true. The best way to really learn English is to learn Latin. Try learnign Sanskrit or Avestan, now those are polished languages!

[Cronos]

English will never be replaced by Spanish. We'll turn into Canada -- with two national languages.

or, more likely we'll have a hybrid language -- Spanglish.

[Cronos]

The folks who lived there for the previous one thousand years were obviously culturally advanced over their attackers!

True. THe Hittite records int he years 1500 to 1200 BC talk of Mycenean pirates. SO the great heroes of the Illiad were nothign more than pirates and the battle itself was an extended pirate campaign against an establisehd city.

[Cronos]

the Turks (who were, by that time, quite civilized themselves, or things would have been much, much worse)
Quite correct, the Turks/Mongols were civilised quite a bit by that time (100 years after the butcher Timur e Lang)

[Cronos]

Nor was it the last kingdom to style itself the Roman Empire. Attempted revivals include the Holy Roman Empire and Napoleon crowning himself as Roman Emperor as late as 1800.

The Dukes of Moscow called themselves Caesar or Tsar and styled Moscow as the Third Rome. The German Kings called themselves Kaiser, Caesar.

[Cronos]

The Phoenicians excelled at trade. The Carthagenians excelled at war.

on what basis do you say that? The Carthaginian wars were primarily against Roman and Greek intrusion on Carthaginian colonies and trading posts.

[Cronos]

Is was by sheer determination that Rome was not destroyed as a civilization during the Second Punic War. When you come that close to being destroyed yourself, you get a little less squeamish about listening to Cato the Elder when he would again repeat, "Cartago delenda est."

True, the Romans were gritty, but they were also helped by the fact that Hannibal's Celtic allies were really treacherous and the Romans' allies -- the Latins were not (after this and the Latin war the Romans gave citizenship to all the cities in the Latinum plain). Rome faced a true military genius in Hannibal and he was revered as such by the Romans for centuries after that.

[Cronos]

Also, the Carthaginains were originally a colony of Tyre. But Tyre was destroyed by Alexander and the rest of the Phoenician towns came under GReek occupation. The phoenician trading links then passed to Carthage. The Carthaginians were traders who were attacked by outsiders -- they had to give up trading in the eastern Mediterranean to the GReeks and were left with the western Mediterranean and Britain. But the Romans wanted that as well, so war was inevitable. After the Punic wars the Romans went on to Epirus and defeated teh GReeks to become undisputed master of the Mediterranean, or as the Romans called it, 'Mare Nostrum' or Our Sea.

[Cronos]

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.

Celtic culture was derived from the main Aryanic culture, but it developed in Europe. the langauge too developed in Europe. And the high points of Celtic culture came after the introduction of Christianity to Ireland. For the time from 400 AD to 1000 AD, IREland WAS the flower of civilisation. However, the Celts are not and were not a primarily racial group, more, as you point out a ethno-linguistic group.

[Cronos]

The adoption of language. the normans invaded Ireland in the 10 and 11th centuries. rather than the irish becoming like the normans, the normans became "quo hiberniam ipso hibernes" e.g. more irish than the irish themselves

The higher culture does tend to win. Similarly the Mongols and Turks adopted Islamic culture in the West and Chinese in the East. and Indian in India (Moghul)

[VadeRetro]

The Dukes of Moscow called themselves Caesar or Tsar and styled Moscow as the Third Rome. The German Kings called themselves Kaiser, Caesar.

Good examples as well.

[Celtic Conservative]

"For the time from 400 AD to 1000 AD, IREland WAS the flower of civilisation."

Very true. Have you Read Thomas Cahills "how the Irish saved civilization", the 2nd book in his "pillars of history" series?. It chronicles the role of the Irish as the guardians of western culture after the fall of the Roman empire. Very good read, and entertaining for such a weighty topic. I just checked and it's still in print.

Just curious,

CC

[COBOL2Java]

Upon closer examination, the NY Times reporter was found to have blonde roots.