Celtic Found to Have Ancient Roots

NY Times ^ | July 1, 2003 | NICHOLAS WADE

[SunkenCiv]

· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic ·
	Gods Graves Glyphs	Just updating the GGG info, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
· Google · Archaeologica · ArchaeoBlog · Archaeology magazine · Biblical Archaeology Society · · Mirabilis · Texas AM Anthropology News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · · History or Science & Nature Podcasts · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists ·

[Cronos]

English is the world’s language because it’s the language of the most powerful nation and because we created the internet. Will it remain? Possibly, but remember that our American English is a much simplified form of British English, and it’s getting simpler still, with reduction in tenses, superfluous letters etc.

[Pharmboy]

Perhaps I should have waited a few years to respond in keeping with the character of this thread, but, although the Internet catalyzed English adoption further, English has been the world language before the Internet due to it's (essentially) global use in science, entertainment and business.

[Cronos]

English has been the world language before the Internet due to it's (essentially) global use in science, entertainment and business.

I agree with you that the Internet catalyzed or speeded up English adoption. But note that English has been "the" world language only since the 70s or so -- when the influences of Anglophone culture spread, but even then there was no need to learn English in communist countries or China and even in India and Africa the "need" was far less when trade with Anglophonia :) was minimal or through middle-men

English as the language of science is also fairly recent as the major discoveries until the Industrial age were written (in Europe at least) in Latin as lingua franca.

Entertainment is also an interesting point -- we Americans tend to over-estimate how spread our culture is -- it's only been recent phenomenon since the 80s and more so since the 90s. When I moved to Poland, most people didn't know some of the staples of 70s and 80s tv-land, so my references were known. However they all knew Friends and surprisingly Alf. in my travels in India, China and the Middle East, this was again the case.

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
Just updating the GGG info, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from July 1, 2003. Thanks Pharmboy.

Seems like a good time for a re-ping. :')

In November 1897, in a field near the village of Coligny in eastern France, a local inhabitant unearthed two strange objects... The other was an ancient bronze tablet, 5 feet wide and 3.5 feet high. It bore numerals in Roman but the words were in Gaulish, the extinct version of Celtic spoken by the inhabitants of France before the Roman conquest in the first century B.C. The tablet, now known as the Coligny calendar, turned out to record the Celtic system of measuring time, as well as being one of the most important sources of Gaulish words. Two researchers, Dr. Peter Forster of the University of Cambridge in England and Dr. Alfred Toth of the University of Zurich, have now used the calendar and other Celtic inscriptions to reconstruct the history of Celtic and its position in the Indo-European family of languages.

[Pharmboy]

Thanks...I think of all the threads I’ve posted, I have learned the most (from Freepers) on this thread.

[madison10]

And we defeated Mexico, but we are going to end up speaking Mexican for sure!!

Sad, but true. In my area the social service positions require a person to be bilingual: Spanish and English. This is the Upper Midwest, not Texas, Oklahoma or Florida.

[BenLurkin]

Very cool!

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/938613/posts?page=156#156

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/938613/posts?page=163#163

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/938613/posts?page=185#185

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/938613/posts?page=181#181

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 7/01/2003 . Thanks Pharmboy.

Coligny Calendar: The 1,800-Year-Old Lunisolar calendar banned by the Romans



Lyon: The Gallic Calendar of Coligny

This unique inscription, engraved on a bronze plaque, shows five years of a lunar calendar during the late 1st to 2nd century AD. Written in a Celtic language not yet fully translated, the calendar shows months of 29-30 days, with an intercalary day every 30 months. The word Atenoux, found at the middle of each month and seen at the top of this section of the calendar, probably indicates the full moon.