Answer From Alan Wilson Reference Alphabet & Etruscan Decipherments
gl_w...@my-deja.com
ANSWER FROM ALAN WILSON REFERENCE ALPHABET & ETRUSCAN DECIPHERMENTS
reference objections from Chris Gwinn
On the question of Etruscan and the Ancient British Alphabet. There is
only ONE ancient British Alphabet and therefore it is very surprising
that the enquirer (a) claims some form of expertise, and (b) then states
that he is totally unaware of the same Ancient British Alphabet. The
reference the British Alphabet is in Julius Caesar's "De Bello Gallico"
and is much quoted and extremely well known. Caesar stated that the
Alphabet is similar to that of the Greeks, and was much misquoted on
this by Disraeli and others.
The same Alphabet appears on ancient British Coins, certainly in the
British Museum collections, back to circa 150-100 B.C. So lack of
knowledge of this very well recorded and very well known Ancient
Alphabet is extraordinary.
The same Ancient Alphabet is on ancient stones in Wales, Scotland, and
England back to circa A.D.200, and on artefacts. It is also well
recorded in Manuscript forms and in much poetry certainly to pre
A.D.1267.
A researcher pointed out the near identicality of the British and
Etruscan Alphabets in A.D. 1793 and published both Alphabet and its
ciphers. Another Oxford writer published the ancient British alphabet in
1846, and exhibited the near identicality with Etruscan and Pelasgian. A
whole book of over 500 pages was then published in Welsh and English in
1852. Another writer published the complete Alphabets and Cipher in
1906.
So, for any self proclaimed "expert" to state that he/she is unaware of
the existence or nature of the Ancient Alphabet of the British, and how
to use it, is extraordinary. Unless of course the "expert" is not quite
so "expert" as we might be led to believe.
Anyone who claims that there is NO anti-Welsh=Anti-British environment
in matters of British Ancient History and Arthur I & Arthur II in
particular must live on the Dark Side of the Moon. Certainly he is
unaware of the very vicious and very nasty struggle we have fought off
in the past 26 years. For example, two academics, one English (a
Chemist) and one Scot (an archaeologist specialising in Gaul) wrote
widely referring to all ancient British History we were seeking to
explore as "from start to finish this is a mass of nonsense."
It would seem that the writer is not British (?) and is unaware of the
true state of affairs in the "united ? kingdom". You have to live on
another planet not to know of the vicious campaigns launched against
British-Welsh History , Culture, and Heritage, for centuries.
The "establishment" pretence is that this well documented, easily proven
ancient, British Ancient Alphabet, was forged and invented in circa
A.D.1800. Perhaps the most blatant and obvious political lie of all
time.
There is of course no known connection between the ancient British and
the Celts of Southern Gaul, apart from the vague and much disputed
notation by Tacitus, whose accuracy was criticised in his own lifetime
by his contemporaries. The only possible connection would be the
military expedition led by Urb Lwydawg against Macedonia around 284 B.C.
when returning groups are believed to have settled in parts of Southern
Gaul.
A number of claims have been made to read Etruscan and efforts of this
nature are published by the British Museum, and by many other authors.
The technique is flawed and it does depend on associations with Latin
and Greek no matter how indirectly. And how do we know that these claims
to decipher and translate Lepontic Gaulish are anywhere near correct? If
we are to judge by attempts at Etruscan, then these claims are more than
suspect.
All we do is to trace our ancestral migration trails backwards, rather
like modern Americans visiting their European and other homelands of
their migrating forefathers (and mothers of course). By going backwards
in time and distance Eastwards along the specified ancestral trails we
find inscriptions. These British, Etruscan, Rhaetian, "Pelasgian" Asia
Minor, and other inscriptions are all in the same Alphabet. So it does
not matter about alleged "words" derived from Lepontic Gauls whose
language no longer exists.
We possess (a) the Alphabets (near identical), (b) the Language still
spoken by some 750,000 people despite huge efforts to eradicate it by
London, (c) we have the Ciphers preserved for us by our ancestors.
So armed with the Alphabet (identical), the Language, and the Ciphers,
we can read Rhaetian, Pelasgian, Etruscan, and much more further back
along the trails. This should be simple enough for anyone to understand.
We are looking for connections which our own ancestors preserved for us
and we are using the tools which they handed down to us. So we have no
need of Lepontic Gauls and the claim that the British and the Gauls are
or were closely related is spurious and yet another academic blind alley
created by one man who never ever visited Britain - Tacitus. The ideas
of "os" and "us" endings again derive from this same misguided
theorising that the Irish and Khumry (Welsh) are Celts and Celtic. There
were no Celts in Britain and Ireland and this nonsense is finally being
debunked. The Celts lived in South Eastern Gaul, and none in Britain.
So all this blather about Combroges and Brittonic languages is just that
- useless blather. An execise in total futility.
To accommodate the MODERN idea that the Khumry and the Irish are or were
Celts it is necessary to throw out and reject both British-Welsh and
Irish ancient History. We are proving that this rejection of our Native
Histories is a catastrophic blunder. It is the root cause in creating
confusions. Go back to our ancient Histories and Records and the truth
emerges. It is the modern theories which are wrong and incorrect and NOT
our native ancient Histories. These theories would never have been
invented if the ancient Histories had not been discarded and abandoned.
This notion that the Irish and Welsh were "Celts" and "Celtic" peoples
stems from a suggestion made in 1707, and NO ONE EVER BEFORE THOUGHT IT.
If you destroy a nation's history then you destroy their identity.
Churchill knew that and wrote -"A nation without a past has no future".
So by demolishing the histories of the ancient British the Anglo-Saxon
London government needed to give them a new suitable identity. And they
came up with "Celts". Brilliant.
That's all there is to it. We have the Language, the Alphabet, and the
Ciphers. Just like the French, the Germans, the English, and so on,
having German-English, and German-French, and English-French bilingual
dictionaries.
The statement by Chris Gwinn that Etruscan has been deciphered is
incorrect - to put it mildly. The statement that the values of almost
all Etruscan Letters are already known is incorrect - again to put it
very mildly. In fact academic guesses at Letter Values are generally
wildly wrong. The idea that words are known is incorrect, and again
academics are giving their minds treat, as their guesses at Etruscan
words and their meanings are just that "guesses" and are well wide of
the mark. They are claiming to have done what they definitely HAVE NOT
DONE.
They have constructed a tower of interlinked guesswork which has no
foundation in fact and is based on a quick-sand of useless comparative
guesswork. Guessing does not get it done. If they were honest they would
admit "we don't know." The academics DO NOT KNOW the correct Letter
Values for Etruscan; they DO NOT KNOW the correct Syntax; they DO NOT
KNOW the words or the meaning of the words; they DO NOT KNOW the
Grammar. In short they are making guesses and there is no one before
able to argue with them and to refute their guesswork. They have simply
failed to identify the surviving Language. End of Story.
Chris Gwinn misleads his self and everyone else with these laughable
unsubstantiated claims. The first correct decipherments of Etruscan,
Rhaetian, and "Pelasgian" were accomplished by Alan Wilson and Baram
Blackett, using the correct ancient Language, the correct ancient
Alphabet, and the correct ancient Ciphers and the academic fraternity
has been running away desperately from this truth ever since 1984. It is
evident that phoney academic reputations and their publications are at
risk here. The academics thought that they were safe and no one would
ever find the true way, and so they could do and say what they liked.
Hard luck because the correct method has been identified.
Chris Gwinn complains that if Wilson & Blackett are correct then the
decipherment of Lepontic Gaulish will have to be rejected. So what? If
it is correct it will stand up to examination, if it does not stand up,
then it should be rejected. That's how progress is made. Maybe the
academics have been "giving their minds a treat" and fooling themselves
and the public about Lepontic Gauls, we shall have to wait and see. It
sounds as if more phoney academic reputations are at risk here. This
nonsense should not however be allowed to obstruct and disfigure our
correct authentic BRITISH histories and heritage.
Wilson & Blackett have no interest whatsoever in Lepontic Gauls and if
these Gauls did not speak Etruscan then it is difficult to see how they
could possibly assist in the direct decipherment and translation of
Etruscan, particularly if the alleged decipherment of Lepontic Gaulish
is now in question.
We must avoid these academic distress signals, and there is only one
Question. That is - Does the ancient British Language, the ancient
British Alphabet, and the ancient British Ciphers, serve to correctly
decipher and translate Etruscan, Rhaetian, "Pelasgian", etc? There is
no other question and Lepontic Gauls and the surrounding academic
reputations at risk are irrelevant to us BRITISH.
Fortunately Chris Gwinn who obviously poses and postures as having some
expertise, succeeds in shooting himself in both feet. In an exhibition
of totally absurd muddled-thinking, Gwinn complains that we do not and
cannot construe the word Khumry in Britsh-Khumric = Welsh from the
Greek bastardisation of "Kimmeroi". The Greeks expressed the names of
all other nations, gods, and kings, and so on, in their own language,
and it would be amazing to correctly construe a correct Khumric word
from a muddled Greek version.
The Assyrian records of around 740- 690 B.C.- contemporary, as they are
on baked clay tablets- name the Khumry as the "Khumry" and they also
identify them as the Ten Tribes of Israel. This has been well proven be
various Researchers, professors and other University employees. The
record of the Khumry moving off Westwards from Armenia around 690 B.C.
is also anciently preserved. When these Khumry people got into Asia
Minor the Greeks picked up on them, and in typically Greek fashion they
mangled "the Khumry" into the "Kimmeroi". Nothing at all unusual about
this, and it remains a fact the original form in Israel and Assyria as
with the present form is still the Khumry.
To even think that the name Khumry is incorrect because it does not
construe into the mangled version in a foreign language of an alien
nation - the Greeks - is laughable. It shows an extraordinary level
of totally confused and muddled thinking. Imagine someone complaining
that Julius Caesar was not Julius Caesar because the Khumry called him
"Iwl Kesar" in ancient texts, and moaning that Julius Casaer does not
construe into Iwl Kesar. Hopefully some of these correspondents who
claim expertise will someday begin to demonstrate it. It is ridiculous
to state that the name Khumry should construe into the Greek "Kimmeroi".
Alan Wilson
---Ends---
----- Original Message -----
> Question 1:
> The following quote is taken from B&W's website:
> "In the late 20th century some misguided academics have claimed
> to produce "readings" of Etruscan which totally disregard Pliny's
> warnings. They assume that Etruscan letters are variants of either
> Greek or Latin and they then proceed to try to match them. This done
> they then read the result as if it were Greek or Latin, which it is
> emphatically not.
>
> Time and again these attempts have failed, and until now no-one has
> succeeded in deciphering, translating, and reading Etruscan. This feat
> has now been provably successfully accomplished by Alan Wilson and
> Baram Blackett."
>
> Why do B&W claim to have "deciphered" a language that has already been
> accurately deciphered for some time now? First of all, the letters of
> the Etruscan alphabet are one of the most assured aspects of our
> understanding of Etruscan - in fact, the shapes of the letters are
> quite clearly related to those used by Latin and Greek. Our only
> limitation with Etruscan is that we have plenty of words, but no way
in
> which to determine what they all mean because the language isn't
> clearly (or rather closely) related to any other known language, thus
> limiting our comparative abilities. But, the most important point is
> that the Lepontic Gauls utilized a form of the Etruscan alphabet for
> their own inscriptions - and we are able to read and understand these
> Celtic inscriptions just fine. If B&W are to be believed, then we
would
> need to throw out Lepontic as "mis-deciphered!" Another point is that
> no serious scholar treats any Etruscan inscriptions as if they were
> Greek or Latin - they know that Etruscan is a unique language - so why
> this ridiculous claim?
>
> Question 2:
> Why do B&W insist that "Khumric" is the proper name for the Welsh,
when
> we are quite certain that the actual name, Cymraeg, is a Late
> Brythonic-Archaic Welsh compound name, *Combrogica from *Com
"Together"
> + Brog- "Country," thus Cymry (*Combroges) "Fellow Countrymen?" That
> the earliest form had an -mb- in it is proved not only by the moder
> Welsh form (Brittonic/Archic Welsh -mb- always becomes Modern Welsh
> -m-), but also by the Irish word Combrec "Welsh," which was borrowed
> from Archaic Welsh. Why are they ignorant of the fact that according
> to Welsh sound laws, a Brittonic -mr- combination becomes -fr- - thus
> if Khumric was the original name (which it certainly was not), we
would
> expect this to become Brittonic *Cumric- (there was no such thing as
> -kh- in Brittonic), which would then become Welsh *Cyfrig?
>
> Question 3:
> Another Quote from the website:
> "Titles play an important role e.g. Beli Mawr is not a name ,it means
> Great Tumult and the trick is to find the King behind the title, Annyn
> = Aeneas the Rugged. Caswallon means "Viceroy", Cadwallader means
> "Battle Sovereign", Cadfan means "Prominent in battle". Lack of
> comprehension, using meaningless Romanised forms has caused total
> chaos. Caswallon-"Cassivelaunius", Cynvelyn (Yellow Hair)
> "Cunobelinus"..."
>
> How are B&W qualified to give interpretations of Welsh names? Why are
> their translations so far afield of the accepted derivations? Which
one
> of them actually speaks Welsh and has studied Celtic historical
> linguistics suffieciently to be able to say that the entire science is
> in error? Why do they insist that these alleged "Romanized" forms do
> not come close to the original Brittonic forms when we actually have
> British coin inscriptions from the relevant period bearing the normal
> Celtic endings - os/us for masculines, -a for feminines, etc?
> Furthermore, why do they ignore all of the Gaulish inscriptions which
> clearly display a language that was quite closely related to
Brittonic,
> thus proving Tacitus correct in his statement that the Gauls and
> Britons differed little in language?
>
> Question 4:
>
> Have B&W actually read ANY Arthurian/Celtic journals/books dating
> within the past 50 years? They certainly don't seem to have done so -
> they rather occupy their time blasting 150 year old scholars from a
> period when Celtic/Arthurian studies was still in its infancy? If they
> HAVE read modern journals/books, why do they choose to ignore all of
> the evidence contained in them - especially since none that I have
ever
> read promote Arthur as an "English" king, and certainly none of them
> (with the exception of Linda Malcor and Scott Littleton, perhaps) are
> anti-British or Celtic?
>
> Question 5:
> What British alphabet did Julius Caesar record in 55BC? Cite the
> passage, please.
>
> Question 6:
> Why do B&W ignore current genetic research on the origins of British
> populations and declare the Britons to be the descendants of Semitic
> peoples - specifically the Isrealites - and then confuse them with an
> Iranian people (the Kimmeroi)? Why do they ignore the fact that there
> is no way that an ancient Kimmeroi could possibly produce Cymry in
> Moder Welsh?
>
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gl_w...@my-deja.com
like modern Americans visiting their European and other homelands of
their migrating forefathers (and mothers of course). By going backwards
in time and distance Eastwards along the specified ancestral trails we
find inscriptions. These British, Etruscan, Rhaetian, "Pelasgian" Asia
Minor, and other inscriptions are all in the same Alphabet. So it does
not matter about alleged "words" derived from Lepontic Gauls whose
language no longer exists.
We possess (a) the Alphabets (near identical), (b) the Language still
spoken by some 750,000 people despite huge efforts to eradicate it by
London, (c) we have the Ciphers preserved for us by our ancestors.
So armed with the Alphabet (identical), the Language, and the Ciphers,
we can read Rhaetian, Pelasgian, Etruscan, and much more further back
along the trails. This should be simple enough for anyone to understand.
We are looking for connections which our own ancestors preserved for us
and we are using the tools which they handed down to us. So we have no
need of Lepontic Gauls and the claim that the British and the Gauls are
or were closely related is spurious and yet another academic blind alley
created by one man who never ever visited Britain - Tacitus. The ideas
of "os" and "us" endings again derive from this same misguided
theorising that the Irish and Khumry(Welsh) are Celts and Celtic. There
were no Celts in Britain and Ireland and this nonsense is finally being
debunked. The Celts lived in South Eastern Gaul, and none in Britain. So
all this blather about Combroges and Brittonic languages is just that -
useless blather. An execise in total futility.
To accommodate the MODERN idea that the Khumry and the Irish are or were
Celts it is necessary to throw out and reject both British-Welsh and
Irish ancient History. We are proving that this rejection of our Native
Histories is a catastrophic blunder. It is the root cause in creating
confusions. Go back to our ancient Histories and Records and the truth
emerges. It is the modern theories which are wrong and incorrect and NOT
our native ancient Histories. These theories would never have been
invented if the ancient Histories had not been discarded and abandoned.
This notion that the Irish and Welsh were "Celts" and "Celtic" peoples
stems from a suggestion made in 1707, and NO ONE EVER BEFORE THOUGHT IT.
If you destroy a nation's history then you destroy their identity.
Churchill knew that and wrote -"A nation without a past has no future".
So by demolishing the histories of the ancient British the Anglo-Saxon
London government needed to give them a new suitable identity. And they
came up with "Celts". Brilliant.
That's all there is to it. We have the Language, the Alphabet, and the
Ciphers. Just like the French, the Germans, the English, and so on,
having German-English, and German-French, and English-French bilingual
dictionaries.
The statement by Chris Gwinn that Etruscan has been deciphered in
indr...@my-deja.com
I think we have an emergency here - no, scrap that - where's Mulder and
Scully???
Alan - you don't have any direct access to any sharp implements, do
you?
I'll give my rebuttle when I stop.... laughing.... so... hard.....
Oxygen!! Oxygen .... HELP!!!!!
-Chris Gwinn
gl_w...@my-deja.com
richard wardle
I might help
Mr Wilson has only answered one point for a start.
Mentioned no authors by name ,of any of the tracts he mentions, to wit
"A researcher pointed out the near identicality of the British and
Etruscan Alphabets in A.D. 1793 and published both Alphabet and its
ciphers. Another Oxford writer published the ancient British alphabet in
1846, and exhibited the near identicality with Etruscan and Pelasgian. A
whole book of over 500 pages was then published in Welsh and English in
1852. Another writer published the complete Alphabets and Cipher in
1906."
The rest is a diatribe on Mr Gwinns credulity.
We know B&W know who their sources are,we don't,they allude to them all the
time but never name any one of them. Are they afraid we will read the source
and come to different conclusions.
If they have made such a monumental discovery of the real history of these
islands,dont you think it incumbent on them to share ALL of it with us?
If Mr Wilson can/will/does, name all the Authors in the above Parenthasised
paragraph, on this newsgroup I will stand corrected,and amazed.
--
Regards Richard
Mankind is divided into three classes,
The rich,The poor and Those who have enough
Therefore abolish the rich and you will have no more poor,
For it is the few rich who are the cause of the many poor.
indr...@my-deja.com
> Why? I do not understand your mirth.
You will, young Jedi...you will.
> Please explain.
>
Oh, I'll explain all right. Give me time - I want to savor the creation
of my rebuttal-of-mass-destruction. In the meantime, hide the children.
B&W better PRAY they actually discovered the real King Arthur, 'cause
otherwise I am going to Saxon them back to the Dark Ages.
Heather Rose Jones
>
> The following is from Alan Wilson:
>
> ANSWER FROM ALAN WILSON REFERENCE ALPHABET & ETRUSCAN DECIPHERMENTS
>
> reference objections from Chris Gwinn
>
> On the question of Etruscan and the Ancient British Alphabet. There is
> only ONE ancient British Alphabet and therefore it is very surprising
> that the enquirer (a) claims some form of expertise, and (b) then states
> that he is totally unaware of the same Ancient British Alphabet.
Given that, depending on one's definitions of "ancient", "British", and
"alphabet" there are any number of possible candidates for such a label,
I don't find it at all worthy of derision that someone would want to
establish exactly what is being referred to as "the Ancient British
Alphabet". It is not an intuitively obvious definition.
> The
> reference the British Alphabet is in Julius Caesar's "De Bello Gallico"
> and is much quoted and extremely well known. Caesar stated that the
> Alphabet is similar to that of the Greeks, and was much misquoted on
> this by Disraeli and others.
Would this, then, be a different passage than that in Book VI, paragraph
14 which says of the Gaulish druids (note: Gaulish, not British) "cum in
reliquis fere rebus, publicis privatisque rationibus Graecis litteris
utantur." [... although in almost all other matters, and in their
public and private accounts they make use of Greek letters. trans. and
citation from the Loeb Classical Library edition]
If this _is_ the passage that is intended, then it would be useful to
get an explanation of why a description of the practices of Gauls should
be labelled a "British" alphabet, and of why "Graecis litteris" should
be read as "_similar_ to Greek letters" rather than the more literal
"Greek letters".
If this is _not_ the passage that is intended, then it would be useful
to be given a more precise citation. References to supporting data
should not become a guessing game -- the references should be clear,
precise, and unambiguous. Otherwise they are no more use than "I think
I read it in a book somewhere".
> The same Alphabet appears on ancient British Coins, certainly in the
> British Museum collections, back to circa 150-100 B.C.
Which coins specifically? There are thousands of surviving British
coins. Without a reference to a specific catalog item in a specific
(preferably published) source, this is of no more use than "I saw it in
a museum somewhere". Citation of supporting data should not be a
guessing game.
> The same Ancient Alphabet is on ancient stones in Wales, Scotland, and
> England back to circa A.D.200, and on artefacts.
Which stones? Which artifacts? These are not useful references. The
presentation of supporting data should not be a guessing game.
References to available published sources would be ideal -- ones that
provide either photographs or technical drawings of the inscriptions in
question -- but anything would be better than nothing.
> It is also well
> recorded in Manuscript forms and in much poetry certainly to pre
> A.D.1267.
Which manuscripts? Where in the manuscripts specifically? This is not
a presentation of evidence, it is the equivalent of "I saw it in a book somewhere".
> A researcher pointed out the near identicality of the British and
> Etruscan Alphabets in A.D. 1793 and published both Alphabet and its
> ciphers.
The researcher must have a name -- the publication must have a title.
What is the point to being so coy? This is simply unprofessional and
petty. If you're going to give references, then give references. If
you're going to say, "it was published in a book somewhere" then why
bother?
> Another Oxford writer published the ancient British alphabet in
> 1846, and exhibited the near identicality with Etruscan and Pelasgian.
The writer must have a name; the publication must have a title. "Near
identicality" is a rather vague description. Something more specific
would be more convincing.
> A
> whole book of over 500 pages was then published in Welsh and English in
> 1852. Another writer published the complete Alphabets and Cipher in
> 1906.
Names? Titles? "A whole book of over 500 pages" isn't very useful in
identifying a publication. A whole book on Etruscan? A whole book on
ancient British alphabets? A whole book comparing the two?
<I'm going to snip a bunch of text that is basically ad hominem attacks
and conspiracy theory. Keep in mind: just because they're out to get
you doesn't mean you aren't paranoid.>
> There is of course no known connection between the ancient British and
> the Celts of Southern Gaul, apart from the vague and much disputed
> notation by Tacitus, whose accuracy was criticised in his own lifetime
> by his contemporaries.
What is the intended scope of this claim that there is "no known
connection"? Do you claim that there is no connection between the
languages of the British and the Celts of southern Gaul? Do you claim
that there is no significant overlap between the personal names in use
in the two cultures? What is the alternate explanation for the
duplication of divine and tribal names in Gaul and Britain? Somewhere
in here, Occam's razor has to start operating.
> A number of claims have been made to read Etruscan and efforts of this
> nature are published by the British Museum, and by many other authors.
> The technique is flawed and it does depend on associations with Latin
> and Greek no matter how indirectly. And how do we know that these claims
> to decipher and translate Lepontic Gaulish are anywhere near correct? If
> we are to judge by attempts at Etruscan, then these claims are more than
> suspect.
Let's look at some of the data used in interpreting Etruscan.
- Glosses on Etruscan vocabulary appearing in Latin documents (i.e.,
these are Etruscan words written in Latin letters, identified as
Etruscan, and then glossed in Latin)
- Bilingual inscriptions in Etruscan and Phoenician or Etruscan and
Latin (i.e., a single artifact where the same text appears in Etruscan
written in the Etruscan alphabet and in Phoenician written in the
Phoenician alphabet, or similarly with Latin)
- Artistic representations of clearly-identifiable figures from
Classical mythology and literature with their names written in the
Etruscan alphabet
- Oscan records written in the Etruscan alphabet (which can be compared
with the more usual Oscan records written in the Latin alphabet)
None of the above rely directly on the physical similarities between
Etruscan letters and the Latin and Greek alphabets, but once
letter-values have been tentatively established from data such as the
above, the similarities with Greek and Latin letters are striking and obvious.
Arguing for significantly different letter-values than those established
via evidence like the above leaves major difficulties for the bilingual
inscriptions and for correlating the forms of Etruscan words written in
Latin letters with those in Etruscan letters.
> So armed with the Alphabet (identical), the Language, and the Ciphers,
> we can read Rhaetian, Pelasgian, Etruscan, and much more further back
> along the trails. This should be simple enough for anyone to understand.
> We are looking for connections which our own ancestors preserved for us
> and we are using the tools which they handed down to us. So we have no
> need of Lepontic Gauls and the claim that the British and the Gauls are
> or were closely related is spurious and yet another academic blind alley
> created by one man who never ever visited Britain - Tacitus.
Tacitus is hardly the only source for concluding that there are
linguistic connections between British and Gaulish. I'm don't quite
know where to start if this dialog has to begin by establishing the
validity of the Celtic language family as a concept.
> The ideas
> of "os" and "us" endings again derive from this same misguided
> theorising that the Irish and Khumry (Welsh) are Celts and Celtic. There
> were no Celts in Britain and Ireland and this nonsense is finally being
> debunked. The Celts lived in South Eastern Gaul, and none in Britain.
I'm perfectly willing to support the claim that Classical writers never
used the term "Celt" for inhabitants of the British Isles, but that has
nothing to do with the identification of linguistic relationships. The
Celtic language family is a modern label for a set of relationships that
would exist even if we called it "the Fred language family".
> So all this blather about Combroges and Brittonic languages is just that
> - useless blather. An execise in total futility.
Well, that _does_ make it difficult to have a productive conversation on
topics of mutual interest, doesn't it?
> To accommodate the MODERN idea that the Khumry and the Irish are or were
> Celts
Let's leave aside the question of "Celt" as a cultural or ethnic
identifier and stick with linguistics -- the concept that the Brythonic
and Goedelic language families are more closely related to the
continental Celtic languages than to any other known languages is
extremely solid.
> That's all there is to it. We have the Language, the Alphabet, and the
> Ciphers. Just like the French, the Germans, the English, and so on,
> having German-English, and German-French, and English-French bilingual
> dictionaries.
And just like we have Etruscan-Latin glosses.
> The statement by Chris Gwinn that Etruscan has been deciphered is
> incorrect - to put it mildly. The statement that the values of almost
> all Etruscan Letters are already known is incorrect - again to put it
> very mildly. In fact academic guesses at Letter Values are generally
> wildly wrong. The idea that words are known is incorrect, and again
> academics are giving their minds treat, as their guesses at Etruscan
> words and their meanings are just that "guesses" and are well wide of
> the mark. They are claiming to have done what they definitely HAVE NOT
> DONE.
Except that these aren't "guesses". In the case of the Etruscan
glosses, we have a case where an author who was alive at a time when
Etruscan was still a living language is saying, in effect, "here is an
Etruscan word (written in Latin letters) and here is what it means in
Latin". In the case of bi-lingual inscriptions, we have identical
proper names occurring in the Etruscan and Phoenician texts. In the
case of the Oscan texts, we have similar texts in Latin letters for
comparison. This isn't guesswork -- it's more like a complex logic puzzle.
> They have constructed a tower of interlinked guesswork which has no
> foundation in fact and is based on a quick-sand of useless comparative
> guesswork. Guessing does not get it done. If they were honest they would
> admit "we don't know." The academics DO NOT KNOW the correct Letter
> Values for Etruscan; they DO NOT KNOW the correct Syntax; they DO NOT
> KNOW the words or the meaning of the words; they DO NOT KNOW the
> Grammar. In short they are making guesses and there is no one before
> able to argue with them and to refute their guesswork. They have simply
> failed to identify the surviving Language. End of Story.
I've met plenty of academics who are perfectly willing to say "I don't
know" when they don't know. And I've never met an academic yet who
wasn't willing to argue with their colleagues over differences of
interpretation. This just doesn't wash.
> The Assyrian records of around 740- 690 B.C.- contemporary, as they are
> on baked clay tablets- name the Khumry as the "Khumry" and they also
> identify them as the Ten Tribes of Israel. This has been well proven be
> various Researchers, professors and other University employees. The
Um ... so is Welsh a Semitic language then? Fascinating. And the name
of the language and people has remained completely unchanged for two and
a half millennia, even though no other language has ever remained
unchanged to that degree over even half the span?
Well, all I can say is that maybe now more people in this newsgroup will
understand what sort of logic and argumentation we're dealing with here.
Trying to have a serious, logical discussion under these circumstances
is ... well, like trying to empty the sea with a sieve.
--
*********
Heather Rose Jones
hrj...@socrates.berkeley.edu
*********
Doug Weller
--
Doug Weller member of moderation panel sci.archaeology.moderated
Submissions to: sci-archaeol...@medieval.org
Doug's Archaeology Site: http://www.ramtops.demon.co.uk
Co-owner UK-Schools mailing list: email me for details
Doug Weller
Thanks.
In article <93vtpb$8f9$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, gl_w...@my-deja.com says...
--
Doug Weller
Doug Weller
Thanks.
In article <93vtpb$8f9$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, gl_w...@my-deja.com says...
--
Searles O'Dubhain
think about this Doug?
Searles
"Doug Weller" <dwe...@ramtops.co.uk> wrote in message
news:MPG.14cdfbd1...@news.blueyonder.co.uk...
> In article <93vugk$93b$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, gl_w...@my-deja.com says...
<snip>.
> >
> > To accommodate the MODERN idea that the Khumry and the Irish are or were
> > Celts it is necessary to throw out and reject both British-Welsh and
> > Irish ancient History. We are proving that this rejection of our Native
> > Histories is a catastrophic blunder. It is the root cause in creating
> > confusions. Go back to our ancient Histories and Records and the truth
> > emerges. It is the modern theories which are wrong and incorrect and NOT
> > our native ancient Histories. These theories would never have been
> > invented if the ancient Histories had not been discarded and abandoned.
> > This notion that the Irish and Welsh were "Celts" and "Celtic" peoples
> > stems from a suggestion made in 1707, and NO ONE EVER BEFORE THOUGHT IT.
> >
> > If you destroy a nation's history then you destroy their identity.
> > Churchill knew that and wrote -"A nation without a past has no future".
> > So by demolishing the histories of the ancient British the Anglo-Saxon
> > London government needed to give them a new suitable identity. And they
> > came up with "Celts". Brilliant.
<snip>
indr...@my-deja.com
> On the question of Etruscan and the Ancient British Alphabet. There is
> only ONE ancient British Alphabet and therefore it is very surprising
> that the enquirer (a) claims some form of expertise, and (b) then
states
> that he is totally unaware of the same Ancient British Alphabet. The
> reference the British Alphabet is in Julius Caesar's "De Bello
Gallico"
> and is much quoted and extremely well known. Caesar stated that the
> Alphabet is similar to that of the Greeks, and was much misquoted on
> this by Disraeli and others.
Gee?? Do you mean the Greek alphabet that the GAULISH Druids utilized,
which Caesar mentions in De Bello Gallico (6.14):
(Druides…) Magnum ibi numerum versuum ediscere dicuntur. Itaque annos
nonnulli vicenos in disciplina permanent. Neque fas esse existimant ea
litteris mandare, cum in reliquis fere rebus, publicis privatisque
rationibus Graecis litteris utantur.
“(The Druids…) They are said there to learn by heart a great number of
verses; accordingly some remain in the course of training twenty years.
Nor do they regard it lawful to commit these to writing, though in
almost all other matters, in their public and private transactions,
they use Greek characters.”
This statement follows Caesar’s previous observations [1.29]:
In castris Helvetiorum tabulae repertae sunt litteris Graecis confectae
”In the camp of the Helvetii, lists were found, drawn up in Greek
characters”
Nowhere in De Bello Gallico does Caesar mention any British alphabet!
> The same Alphabet appears on ancient British Coins, certainly in the
> British Museum collections, back to circa 150-100 B.C. So lack of
> knowledge of this very well recorded and very well known Ancient
> Alphabet is extraordinary.
Even more extraordinary is that I actually have Henri de la
Tour’s “Atlas des Monnaies Gauloises” in my lap (portions available on
the web at http://www.kernunnos.com/dlt/home.shtml ), which also
contains renderings of nearly all the major British coin types known as
of the book’s writing (1892 – old, but no revolutionary coins have been
discovered since then – see Recueil Des Inscriptions Gauloises volume 4
for up to date corrections and addenda). Of the listed British coins
which bear inscriptions, all are rendered in the Latin alphabet with a
few Greek letters thrown in for good measure (which were also utilized
in some Gaulish language Latin-alphabet inscriptions in Gaul).
For more on Celtic coins on the web, I recommend:
http://units.ox.ac.uk/departments/archaeology/ccindex/ccindex.htm
http://www.writer2001.com/exp0002.htm
> The same Ancient Alphabet is on ancient stones in Wales, Scotland, and
> England back to circa A.D.200, and on artefacts. It is also well
> recorded in Manuscript forms and in much poetry certainly to pre
> A.D.1267.
Come on, sources, citations – put ‘em up or shut up. The only ancient
monumental inscriptions from Britain known to us so far are written in
either Latin or Ogam alphabets!
> Anyone who claims that there is NO anti-Welsh=Anti-British environment
> in matters of British Ancient History and Arthur I & Arthur II in
> particular must live on the Dark Side of the Moon.
I guess New York City is the Dark Side of the Moon, then. I have always
liked Pink Floyd.
> It would seem that the writer is not British (?) and is unaware of the
> true state of affairs in the "united ? kingdom". You have to live on
> another planet not to know of the vicious campaigns launched against
> British-Welsh History , Culture, and Heritage, for centuries.
I am an American of British and Irish descent and am perfectly aware of
the history of the British - I likely know more than your your average
Briton.
> There is of course no known connection between the ancient British and
> the Celts of Southern Gaul, apart from the vague and much disputed
> notation by Tacitus, whose accuracy was criticised in his own lifetime
> by his contemporaries. The only possible connection would be the
> military expedition led by Urb Lwydawg against Macedonia around 284
B.C.
> when returning groups are believed to have settled in parts of
Southern
> Gaul.
Excuse me, an expedition led by WHOM??
First of all, the connection between the Celts of Southern Gaul and the
Britons is that they spoke virtually the same language and had the same
religion and institutions. This is not only confirmed by Tacitus, but
also by British onomastics recorded in the remnants of Pytheas,
Ptolemy, Strabo, etc. I won’t even go into issues of genetics and
ethnicity here – just to keep it simple, the people of Britain were
culturally Celtic – from Penzance to the Orkneys, London to Lleyn. This
is incontrovertible. They became even more Celtic after the Roman
conquest, with a fresh influx of Gauls serving in the Roman army and
settling down with British wives in Romano-British veterans’ colonies.
> A number of claims have been made to read Etruscan and efforts of this
> nature are published by the British Museum, and by many other authors.
> The technique is flawed and it does depend on associations with Latin
> and Greek no matter how indirectly. And how do we know that these
claims
> to decipher and translate Lepontic Gaulish are anywhere near correct?
If
> we are to judge by attempts at Etruscan, then these claims are more
than
> suspect.
Because the Etruscan alphabet has been known for some time - because
bilingual inscriptions have been found, aiding the decipherment of the
letters many, many years ago. You are so completely out of touch -
since you are making such great discoveries, are you sure you don't
want to invent the internet too, just like Al Gore?
> All we do is to trace our ancestral migration trails backwards, rather
> like modern Americans visiting their European and other homelands of
> their migrating forefathers (and mothers of course). By going
backwards
> in time and distance Eastwards along the specified ancestral trails we
> find inscriptions. These British, Etruscan, Rhaetian, "Pelasgian" Asia
> Minor, and other inscriptions are all in the same Alphabet. So it does
> not matter about alleged "words" derived from Lepontic Gauls whose
> language no longer exists.
Moron. That would be the best description for you. The Lepontic
evidence is just one example amongst others where the Etruscan alphabet
was used by other, Indo European languages (in this case a Celtic
language) - we are not talking about any "derived" words - we are
talking about full blown inscriptions in Lepontic from the time period
when the language was spoken.
To top it off, we also have Gaulish inscriptions on stones from
Northern Italy written in an Etruscan alphabet - guess what? Some have
Latin translations on them as well. Yup, they're bilingual - the best
possible condition for translation. They are some of our most assured
translations of Gaulish inscriptions (see Recueil des Inscriptions
Gauloises volume 2).
> We are looking for connections which our own ancestors preserved for
us
> and we are using the tools which they handed down to us. So we have no
> need of Lepontic Gauls and the claim that the British and the Gauls
are
> or were closely related is spurious and yet another academic blind
alley
> created by one man who never ever visited Britain - Tacitus. The ideas
> of "os" and "us" endings again derive from this same misguided
> theorising that the Irish and Khumry (Welsh) are Celts and Celtic.
There
> were no Celts in Britain and Ireland and this nonsense is finally
being
> debunked. The Celts lived in South Eastern Gaul, and none in Britain.
> So all this blather about Combroges and Brittonic languages is just
that
> - useless blather. An execise in total futility.
Apparently you never read Caesar. He himself talks of Belgae having
recently migrated to Britain. All thos -os and -us endings - guess
what, jackass? They come from native inscriptions, not Latin or Greek
ones. You are completely pathetic.
> To accommodate the MODERN idea that the Khumry and the Irish are or
were
> Celts it is necessary to throw out and reject both British-Welsh and
> Irish ancient History. We are proving that this rejection of our
Native
> Histories is a catastrophic blunder. It is the root cause in creating
> confusions. Go back to our ancient Histories and Records and the truth
> emerges. It is the modern theories which are wrong and incorrect and
NOT
> our native ancient Histories. These theories would never have been
> invented if the ancient Histories had not been discarded and
abandoned.
> This notion that the Irish and Welsh were "Celts" and "Celtic" peoples
> stems from a suggestion made in 1707, and NO ONE EVER BEFORE THOUGHT
IT.
If the Britons did not think that they were closely related to the
Celts of Gaul, why did they imagine in their own “Ancient History” (as
recorded by Geoffrey of Monmouth) that one of their legendary kings,
Brennnius, was the very same as the Gaulish chief Brennus who sacked
Rome in the 4th century BC? Furthermore, by assigning Belinus as
Brennius’ brother (obviously derived from Welsh Beli – or Bely - ,
which comes from Brittonic *Bolgios), the Britons conflated Brennius-
Brennus with the Galatian chieftains – Brennus and Bolgios - that
harassed the Greeks a century later.
The Irish themselves assert the Gaulish origins of a portion of their
population – note the Laigin. Furthermore, Gaulish-Belgic origins can
likely be ascribed to the Irish Monapii (later Monaig) as well as the
Fir Bolg and Fir Galeoin.
> Wilson & Blackett have no interest whatsoever in Lepontic Gauls and if
> these Gauls did not speak Etruscan then it is difficult to see how
they
> could possibly assist in the direct decipherment and translation of
> Etruscan, particularly if the alleged decipherment of Lepontic Gaulish
> is now in question.
It's difficult for you, all right!
> Fortunately Chris Gwinn who obviously poses and postures as having
some
> expertise, succeeds in shooting himself in both feet. In an exhibition
> of totally absurd muddled-thinking, Gwinn complains that we do not
and
> cannot construe the word Khumry in Britsh-Khumric = Welsh from the
> Greek bastardisation of "Kimmeroi". The Greeks expressed the names of
> all other nations, gods, and kings, and so on, in their own language,
> and it would be amazing to correctly construe a correct Khumric word
> from a muddled Greek version.
What the F@#$# are you TALKING about??? No body said anything
about "mangled Greek" anything. *Com-broges - the reconstructed Late
Brittonic protoform of Welsh Cymry IS A NATIVE WORD! You are the one
proposing muddled Greek origins by connecting the name with the
Kimmerioi!
In fact, Cymry is not even the ancient name of the Welsh! I DEFY you to
find ONE SINGLE ARCHAIC Welsh source where they call themselves Cymry!
In fact, the oldest Welsh poetry knows nothing of the name (preferring
Brython) - this is because Cymry is a later appelation - proved
linguistically by Eric Hamp (Etudes Celtiques, XIX) corroborating
Rachel Bromwich (Armes Prydein).
> The Assyrian records of around 740- 690 B.C.- contemporary, as they
are
> on baked clay tablets- name the Khumry as the "Khumry" and they also
> identify them as the Ten Tribes of Israel. This has been well proven
be
> various Researchers, professors and other University employees. The
> record of the Khumry moving off Westwards from Armenia around 690
B.C.
> is also anciently preserved. When these Khumry people got into Asia
> Minor the Greeks picked up on them, and in typically Greek fashion
they
> mangled "the Khumry" into the "Kimmeroi". Nothing at all unusual about
> this, and it remains a fact the original form in Israel and Assyria as
> with the present form is still the Khumry.
Well, I award you the coveted “Dolt of the Year Award” - you leaps of
logic would make even Visnu flush with envy. It certainly shows that
you have not even the slightest inkling of linguistic theory – which
likely explains your contempt for it (people always fear the unknown).
First of all, the appellation Khumri (actually Bit Khumri “House of
Omri”) comes from Omri,(actually Hebrew “Amri “Eloquent”), an
historical Jewish king (who reigned 876-869 BC or c. 884-c. 872 BC) .
As far as I have been able to ascertain – and I could be wrong - Omri
is actually spelled with an initial “yod,” a guttural vowel (usually
written as –y-) that the Assyrians rendered as -kh-/-ch- or -gh-. Now I
will speculate - Greeks, however, treated the yod as the equivalent of
their iota (“i” – note Hebrew Yahushua = Greek IHCOYC), thus a Greek
treatment of Hebrew “Omri (or “Amri) might be *Iomri or *Iamri,- and
certainly not Kimmerioi. Seeing that the Kimmerioi are first mentioned
by Homer (who was likely born around 850-800 BC), it seems awfully
bizarre to think that Omri’s people would have had only 50-75 years to
1) aquire the name “People of Omri” (really “House of Omri”), then 2),
make haste for northern Scythian territory and learn to speak an
Iranian language, so as to be recorded by Homer.
> To even think that the name Khumry is incorrect because it does not
> construe into the mangled version in a foreign language of an alien
> nation - the Greeks - is laughable. It shows an extraordinary level
> of totally confused and muddled thinking. Imagine someone complaining
> that Julius Caesar was not Julius Caesar because the Khumry called him
> "Iwl Kesar" in ancient texts, and moaning that Julius Casaer does not
> construe into Iwl Kesar. Hopefully some of these correspondents who
> claim expertise will someday begin to demonstrate it. It is ridiculous
> to state that the name Khumry should construe into the
Greek "Kimmeroi".
>
Boy, you have got a lot to learn.
Amazed,
Christopher Gwinn
gl_w...@my-deja.com
"Searles O'Dubhain" <odub...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> Looks like a British-Israelite to me. Is there a K in Welsh? What do
you
> think about this Doug?
>
This from Alan Wilson again:
'...one American writer moans that WE are not called the Khumry and that
WE are mistaken by not calling ourselves "Cumry". Sitting before me as I
write I see copies of Robert Owen's "The Khumry", published in 1891, and
Thomas Stephens' "The Literature of the Khymry" published in 1849, and
John Williams' "An Ecclesiastical History of the Khymry" published in
1846, and so on. The dropping of the "K" and "KH" in favour of the hard
"C" is a modern late 19th and early 20th century academic fad, and
emenates from employees in the colleges trying to be different or
whatever. In fact the "K" and "Kh" can be firmly traced back to 700 B.C.
on inscribed stones and perhaps earlier.'
G L Wilson
gl_w...@my-deja.com
"richard wardle" <ric...@wadl.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
Richard,
I did actually ask Alan Wilson to answer the questions individually. He
chose to answer them in his own way. I queried this and he said that
the way he wrote it covered all the points raised. He also said that
all the points raised about the Khumry are covered in the books (e.g.
"Artorius Rex Discovered" & "The Holy Kingdom") and I don't think he was
too happy at having to go over old ground, as it were. He was
saying words to the effect that how can people criticise what we are
saying if they haven't actually read our works. Which is fair comment
really.
G L Wilson
gl_w...@my-deja.com
OK Chris, please do. I look forward to what you have to say and will
pass it on to Wilson and Blackett.
G L Wilson
Searles O'Dubhain
unacquainted with its existence. When was the "K" introduced? Why was
there no "K" in Old Irish? 18th century and early 19th century texts and
books aren't usually the best sources for such information.
Searles
<gl_w...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:94257c$4dd$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <AkX86.1864$1s1....@news4.atl>,
<snip>
>
> This from Alan Wilson again:
>
> '...one American writer moans that WE are not called the Khumry and that
> WE are mistaken by not calling ourselves "Cumry". Sitting before me as I
> write I see copies of Robert Owen's "The Khumry", published in 1891, and
> Thomas Stephens' "The Literature of the Khymry" published in 1849, and
<snip>
indr...@my-deja.com
> This from Alan Wilson again:
>
> '...one American writer moans that WE are not called the Khumry and
that
> WE are mistaken by not calling ourselves "Cumry". Sitting before me
as I
> write I see copies of Robert Owen's "The Khumry", published in 1891,
and
> Thomas Stephens' "The Literature of the Khymry" published in 1849, and
> John Williams' "An Ecclesiastical History of the Khymry" published in
> 1846, and so on. The dropping of the "K" and "KH" in favour of the
hard
> "C" is a modern late 19th and early 20th century academic fad, and
> emenates from employees in the colleges trying to be different or
> whatever. In fact the "K" and "Kh" can be firmly traced back to 700
B.C.
> on inscribed stones and perhaps earlier.'
>
What an jerk. Apparently he hasn't even read the very Welsh literature
which he claims to be defending. The fact is, there NEVER was any
native spelling of Cymry beginning with a KH! I defy him to produce a
genuine archaic Welsh source with this spelling. The only people who
ever spelled it this way were more modern British Israelites looking to
make a bogus connection between the ancient Assyrian rendering of
Hebrew 'Omri, Khumri, and the Modern Welsh Cymry. This is the most
reprehensible example of wild speculation with no foundation.
-Chris Gwinn
richard wardle
Simon Ward
sound arguments.
Whilst you did well taking Gavin Wilson at his word and providing a list of
questions, I think it's fair to say that you are sliding back into the mud.
We await your refutation.....
<indr...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:9409al$ilj$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
indr...@my-deja.com
> I was asking whether ancient Briton and Welsh had a "K" in its
alphabet. I'm
> unacquainted with its existence. When was the "K" introduced? Why
was
> there no "K" in Old Irish? 18th century and early 19th century texts
and
> books aren't usually the best sources for such information.
>
K is used occasionally instead of C in Old and Middle Welsh. K is an
old letter - it is present in the Latin alphabet during the Roman
period.
-Chris Gwinn
richard wardle
I have read 2 of the books. But I am no wiser because all references are in
the style already quoted.He has not answered all questions either. However
we have made progress in that he has named some source,but all of the 19th
cent.I have asked if he has any prior to this in the other thread.
But if_ he_wants to discuss_ source ,with anyone he will have to go over old
ground anyway. How else does he expect to prove anything to anyone?
Answering point by point is the accepted way anyway. But progress is being
made :>)
Heather Rose Jones
>
> I was asking whether ancient Briton and Welsh had a "K" in its alphabet. I'm
> unacquainted with its existence. When was the "K" introduced? Why was
> there no "K" in Old Irish? 18th century and early 19th century texts and
> books aren't usually the best sources for such information.
The letter "k" was used extensively in Welsh in the medieval period, but
does not show up in Old Welsh (in the data I looked through) and was
eventually eliminated again with the move toward spelling standardization.
Spelling changes can be difficult to date due both to a tendency of
copyists to retain archaic spellings _and_ to modernize archaic
spellings. However, by looking at the date of manuscripts (as opposed
to the date of composition of texts) one can at least identify an early
terminus for introduced changes.
The earliest surviving texts in Welsh use only "c", following Latin
practice (as, indeed, Welsh spelling arose out of an adaptation of
Vulgar Latin spelling practices). Texts showing this, in addition to
early Christian stone inscriptions (largely of personal names) include
the various Old Welsh marginalia and boundary descriptions in the Book
of Llan Dav, and the Juvencus poems. These texts take us up to around
the 10th or 11th century.
When the major body of Medieval Welsh texts starts appearing in the
early 13th century, we find "k" being used regularly primarily in very
specific circumstances: those positions where a Medieval Latin "c" would
be palatalized (i.e., before front, non-low vowels: i, e, y). That is,
at some point between the 11th and 13th centuries (roughly speaking)
Welsh spelling shifted to a system that unambiguously represented a [k]
sound in positions where a "c" in Latin would not be pronounced [k].
The words "Cymru", "Cymro", "Cymraeg" etc. having the letter falling
before "y" were normally spelled with "k" during the medieval Welsh
period. The shift back to "c" begins around the 16th century, the
period when a number of Welsh literati interested themselves in
compiling dictionaries and advocating regularized and reformed spelling.
The question of why this introduction of "k" occurred in Welsh and not
in Irish is open to discussion. In both cases, the writing system using
Latin letters evolved directly from Latin spelling conventions. In both
cases, literacy in the vernacular went hand-in-hand with literacy in
Latin well into the medieval period. So the internal changes in Latin
pronunciation alone are weak pressure for the spelling change in Welsh.
On the other hand, in the relevant period, Welsh also had contact with
two other languages in which "c" before a front, non-low vowel was
pronounced differently from "c" in other contexts (English and French),
so there may simply have been more pressure on Welsh to develop a
spelling system that would be less ambiguous to their neighbors.
Alan Smaill
> Searles O'Dubhain wrote:
>
> >Why was
> >there no "K" in Old Irish?
>
> Didn't need one, as 'C' denoted the sound.
'Q' was around too ....
> --
> Gearóid Mac Cuinneagáin
> abardubh at eircom dot net
> Tá m'aerbhád lán d'eascanna
--
Alan Smaill email: A.Sm...@ed.ac.uk
Division of Informatics tel: 44-131-650-2710
Edinburgh University
indr...@my-deja.com
and Britain (and for those who want to seek in vain for inscriptions in
imaginary British-Etruscan alphabets), visit the Celtic Inscribed
Stones Project website - quite a nice undertaking.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/cisp/database/
-Chris Gwinn
morgan
indr...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:943b2d$5ds$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> For those that want to investigate the known inscriptions of Ireland
> and Britain (and for those who want to seek in vain for inscriptions in
> imaginary British-Etruscan alphabets), visit the Celtic Inscribed
> Stones Project website - quite a nice undertaking.
>
> http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/cisp/database/
Hi Chris,
Thats an interesting link, can anyone though translate this....
OGMOR/1 "[SCIENDUM] EST [OMNIBus] QUOD DED[IT] ARTHMAIL AGRUM DO (=Deo) ET
GLIGUIS ET NERT[_tan_] ET FILI EPILI" (reading by Macalister, R.A.S.)
I don't know what Etruscan is, never heard of it ...would anyone also like
to explain what it is for us mere mortals who enjoy this NG?
Cheers
Morg
John Adcox
This is a debate. An exchange and examination of ideas and the evidence that
supports them. Is it REALLY necessary to be so mean-spirited? Words like "jerk"
don't add anything.
John
http://jadcox.home.mindspring.com
Mythology, Folklore, Literature, the Arthurian Legends, Arts and Entertainment,
Fantasy, Religion and Philosophy, Music, References for Writers and More!
indr...@my-deja.com
"morgan" <morg...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
> indr...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:943b2d$5ds$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> > For those that want to investigate the known inscriptions of Ireland
> > and Britain (and for those who want to seek in vain for
inscriptions in
> > imaginary British-Etruscan alphabets), visit the Celtic Inscribed
> > Stones Project website - quite a nice undertaking.
> >
> > http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/cisp/database/
>
> Hi Chris,
>
> Thats an interesting link, can anyone though translate this....
> OGMOR/1 "[SCIENDUM] EST [OMNIBus] QUOD DED[IT] ARTHMAIL AGRUM DO
(=Deo) ET
> GLIGUIS ET NERT[_tan_] ET FILI EPILI" (reading by Macalister, R.A.S.)
Explore a little more on the site - you will see translations available
for many of the inscriptions. This particular inscription was also
analyzed in 1976 (Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments
in Wales (1976) An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments in Glamorgan
Volume 1: Pre-Norman. Part II: The Early Christian Period. Cardiff:
HMSO.):
Language: Latin
[--] EST[--] QUOD DED[IT] ARTHMAIL AGRUM DO ET GLIGUIS ET NERTAT ET
FILIE SU[A]
Translation:
Be it [known to all men] that Arthmail gave (this) field to God and
Glywys (PN) and Nertat (PN) and his daughter.
Gliguis is the Old Welsh version of Brittonic Gleuum.
> I don't know what Etruscan is, never heard of it ...would anyone also
like
> to explain what it is for us mere mortals who enjoy this NG?
Etruscan is a non-Italic language spoken anciently in parts of Italy by
a people whom the Romans called the Etruscans. The Etruscans commanded
major regional power when Rome was in its infancy. The language is now
long dead.
The Etruscan language is usually thought to be non-Indo European but
some modern scholars see it as a distant cousin of Proto Indo European -
there is still a lot of research to be done on the subject. We have
many Etruscan inscriptions but not enough data on Etruscan grammar and
vocabulary to completely understand those inscriptions that have been
discovered in modern times.
The Etruscans utilized a distinctive alphabet (based on the Greek
alphabet) in their inscriptions (which was deciphered by scientists
long ago) - an alphabet that was also borrowed by Celtic speaking
invaders of Northern Italy for some monumental inscriptions.
For a brief article on Etruscan see:
http://www.britannica.com/seo/e/etruscan-alphabet/
To see some Etruscan inscriptions, go to:
http://web.infinito.it/utenti/e/etruscan/links.htm
Heather Rose Jones
>
> For those that want to investigate the known inscriptions of Ireland
> and Britain (and for those who want to seek in vain for inscriptions in
> imaginary British-Etruscan alphabets), visit the Celtic Inscribed
> Stones Project website - quite a nice undertaking.
>
> http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/cisp/database/
Thanks -- that's a great site! (Especially the indexing.)
indr...@my-deja.com
> Guys,
>
> This is a debate. An exchange and examination of ideas and the
evidence that
> supports them. Is it REALLY necessary to be so mean-spirited? Words
like "jerk"
> don't add anything.
Well, this is an informal debate - in other words, no rules. Words
like "jerk" may not add anything as far as you are concerned, but it
does me good to vent.
I appologize to the weak of heart for my abrasive comments.
-Chris Gwinn
Christopher Gwinn
> 4) On the language he writes:
>
> "So far all attempts to decipher the Etruscan language have failed. More
> than ten thousand inscriptions are known, but most of them are brief; nine
> tenths consist of funerary and votive inscriptions, containing the name
and
> family relationships or official title of the dead person, and a few verbs
> or nouns...
>
> "No bilingual or trilingual inscription, no Rosetta Stone for Etruscan,
has
> so far come to light. But something approaching it has been found at Pyrgi
> (Santa Severa). On July 8, 1964, three rectangular sheets of thin gold
were
> discovered between the foundations of two temples. One is inscribed in
Punic
> [the language of Cathage] and two in Etruscan. They are dated to about 500
> B.C. Two years later, a bronze tablet, also in Etruscan, was found. ...The
> Punic inscription has been translated and says that Thefarie Velianas,
ruler
> of Caere, had given a sacred place dedicated to Astarte within the temple.
> The Punic is not a translation of the associated Etruscan tablets, but the
> general sense is similar...
See the following Britannica.com Article:
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/1/0,5716,109191+4+106271,00.html
Here are some relevant quote from the article:
"The 20th-century notion that there is a "mystery" regarding the Etruscan
language is fundamentally erroneous; there exists no problem of
decipherment, as is often wrongly asserted. The Etruscan texts are largely
legible. The alphabet derives from a Greek alphabet originally learned from
the Phoenicians. It was disseminated in Italy by the colonists from the
island of Euboea during the 8th century BC and adapted to Etruscan
phonetics; the Latin alphabet was ultimately derived from it. (In its turn
the Etruscan alphabet was diffused at the end of the Archaic period [c. 500
BC] into northern Italy, becoming the model for the alphabets of the Veneti
and of various Alpine populations; this happened concurrently with the
formation of the Umbrian and the Oscan alphabets in the peninsula.)"
"The real problem with the Etruscan texts lies in the difficulty of
understanding the meaning of the words and grammatical forms. A fundamental
obstacle stems from the fact that no other known language has close enough
kinship to Etruscan to allow a reliable, comprehensive, and conclusive
comparison. The apparent isolation of the Etruscan language had already been
noted by the ancients; it is confirmed by repeated and vain attempts of
modern science to assign it to one of the various linguistic groups or types
of the Mediterranean and Eurasian world. However, there are in fact
connections with Indo-European languages, particularly with the Italic
languages, and also with more or less known non-Indo-European languages of
western Asia and the Caucasus, the Aegean, Italy, and the Alpine zone as
well as with the relics of the Mediterranean linguistic substrata revealed
by place-names. This means that Etruscan is not truly isolated; its roots
are intertwined with those of other recognizable linguistic formations
within a geographic area extending from western Asia to east-central Europe
and the central Mediterranean, and its latest formative developments may
have taken place in more direct contact with the pre-Indo-European and
Indo-European linguistic environment of Italy. But this also means that
Etruscan, as scholars know it, cannot simply be classified as belonging to
the Caucasian, the Anatolian, or Indo-European languages such as Greek and
Latin, from which it seems to differ in structure."
"The traditional methods hitherto employed in interpreting Etruscan are (1)
the etymological, which is based upon the comparison of word roots and
grammatical elements with those of other languages and which assumes the
existence of a linguistic relationship that permits an explication of
Etruscan from the outside (this method has produced negative results, given
the error in the assumption), (2) the combinatory, a procedure of analysis
and interpretation of the Etruscan texts rigorously limited to internal
comparative study of the texts themselves and of the grammatical forms of
the Etruscan words (this has led to much progress in the knowledge of
Etruscan, but its defects lie in the hypothetical character of many of the
conclusions due to the absence of external proofs or confirmations), and (3)
the bilingual, based on the comparison of Etruscan ritual, votive, and
funerary formulas with presumably analogous formulas from epigraphic or
literary texts in languages belonging to a closely connected geographic and
historical environment, such as Greek, Latin, or Umbrian. Nonetheless, with
the increase of reliable data, in part from more recent epigraphic
discoveries (such as the gold plaques at Pyrgi mentioned above), the need to
find the one right method appears to be of decreasing importance; all
available procedures tend to be utilized."
The article also mentions that a few short bilingual Latin-Etruscan
inscriptions have indeed been found, along with the bilingual
Phoenician-Etruscan inscription already mentioned.
Christopher Gwinn
Phrygia
> and is the same as the Etruscan is not so far fetched when one considers
the
> history of Anatolia. According to the Ency. Brit.:
What British alphabet are you talking about? Show me a single example of it.
> More work needs to be done on this before I personally would endorse the
> idea that the Cimmerians and Bit Omri are one and the same. There is also
> some suggestion that the Cimmerians or Gimirrai are the same peoples as
the
> tribe that were later called the "Cimbri" and who made a massive invasion
of
> first Gaul and then Italy at the end of the 2nd century BC. They are
> generally regarded as having been Teutons or Teutonized Celts but to my
way
> of thinking it is not at all impossible that they were related in some way
> to the Cyrmy or Cambrians of Briton.
There is a giant difference between Assyrian Khumri (rendering Hebrew 'Omri
/ 'Amri) and Assyrian Gimmirri (rendering Iranian[?] *Kimmeri-)- just
because they look similar to your modern eyes doesn't mean that they did so
to the eyes and ears of the Assyrians. The forms are different enough not to
have been confused anciently.
Secondly, as we have already seen, Khumri is the Assyrian version of Hebrew
'Omri / 'Amri - why the hell would a Hebrew not recognize his own ethnic
name in the [Iranian] Kimmerioi / Assyrian Gimirri and furthermore, render
it as Gomer instead of Hebrew 'Omri/'Amri??
> 7) If one believes the ancient bards, the name "Cymry" or Kymry" (perhaps
> even Khymry) for the Welsh goes back to the first establishment of a
Cimbric
> colony in Britain. In the Historical triads this name is used repeatedly
for
> the people who took over Britain. Nowhere are they ever called "Celtic".
For
> example:
Lord all mighty! Why would they need to call themselves "Celtic?" We do not
know when the Gauls began to call themselves Celtae - but even if it
predates the arrival of Celtic languages in Britain and Ireland, there is no
reason for them to have retained an old tribal name. Names changed all of
the time and as disparate tribes gained a new common identity in a new land,
they would have taken on a new ethnic name. This is exactly what happend to
the Irish - they borrowed the name Goidel "Gael" from the Welsh, perhaps in
the 6th or 7th century AD.
> In a note to the above the author quotes from "Davies's Celtic
Researches":
> "Hav, in our old orthography (as in Lib. Land.), would be Ham; it may
import
> Haemus or Haemonia. Defrobani may be either Dy-fro-Banau, the land of
> eminences, or high points, Thrace in general; or else Dyvro-Banwy, the
land
> or vale of the Peneus, Thessaly, Haemonia."
>
> I would add that if it imports to "Haemus" then this could also be a
> reference not to Thrace but rather Lydia, the Valley of the River Hermas
> from where the Etruscans were believed to have come. Could it not be that
at
> the time of the Etrucan migration there were other migrant groups, with
the
> same origin, who sailed beyond the Pillars of Hercules and settled in
> Gascony and the north coast of France? Could these not be out "Primitive
> Cymry" who joined with Hu Gadarn in his settlement of Britain, perhaps
after
> the Trojan wars? If this is so then the language of these "Cymry" would
have
> been virtually the same as the Etruscans and Lydians. In other words Welsh
> is a language descended from one or another of the dialects of Lydian. If
> this is true, then surely W & B are to be commended for attempting to
> translate Etruscan using Welsh.
>
My god, you are so completely ignorant of the Welsh language and linguistics
in general, it hurts! Welsh is a Brittonic dialect! BRITTONIC was a CELTIC
language group with clear affiliations with GAULISH! The CELTIC languages
are WESTERN INDO EUROPEAN LANGUAGES! This is INCONTROVERTIBLE! Do you get
it? No? Why don't you hit the library?
Cymry is the Modern Welsh form of the name. The origin of the name is Late
Brittonic (or Early Neo Brittonic) *Kom-Broges "Fellow Countrymen." The name
is a late invention, superceding the older apellation Brython from
Brittones. There is no argument of this - the matter was proven years ago
and is accepted by all except the most dim-witted of British Israelites.
> These are not my words but those of a very eminent professor. And if you
> think all that I have written above is typically surreal nonsense from a
> "moron" then just pause for a moment. A few weeks ago I was in Sardinia,
the
> large island of the west coast of Italy. The people there have a language
of
> their own which like Etruscan is completely different from Italian, Latin,
> Greek or any known language. The people I met told me that it is now being
> recognised that the root of this language is Ancient Summerian, with which
> language they share many words. Which all goes to show there is much that
we
> do not understand about ancient history and the migrations of peoples and
> cultures.
Statements like this further point to the fact that you absolutely do not
know what you are talking about. First of all, Sardinian is most assuredly a
Romance language descended from a dialect Latin. It does indeed show some
small signs of pre-Italic substratal influence on aspects of the grammar and
a few vocabulary words - but make no mistake, this language is majority
Italic. As far as connections with Sumerian, I doubt that any consensus has
been reached by modern linguists on this theory.
-Chris Gwinn
Ellis
"Christopher Gwinn" <son...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:hwr96.2216$Zv5....@typhoon.nyc.rr.com...
> > 6) The contention that the British alphabet may go back to Lydia or
> Phrygia
> > and is the same as the Etruscan is not so far fetched when one considers
> the
> > history of Anatolia. According to the Ency. Brit.:
>
> What British alphabet are you talking about? Show me a single example of
it.
> -Chris Gwinn
I think he may mean the one invented by Iolo in the C18th.
Steffan
Ellis
"news_surfer" <agil...@freeuk.com> wrote in message
news:Jsy96.182542$eT4.15...@nnrp3.clara.net...
I posted about
> the connection between the Etruscans and the Lydians to show that
> historically speaking there is a connection between the Etruscan alphabet
> and Anatolia. Since the Cymry also claimed to come from the same region
> (Troy), there seems to me good reason to think that their language may
also
> have its origins in Anatolia.
They didn't and they still don't. The Cymry are not sure where they 'come
from'. They do, however, realise that the Troy story is just that - a story.
Not even the ones who wear sheets at the Eisteddfod believe it for one
minute. If there is a contra - claim to the Celtic inheritance POV, it is
the one arising from recent studies of DNA sampling in West Wales which
shows more of a genetic link with the Basques than those North of the Alps.
> I don't claim to know Welsh
That's all too obvious, I'm afraid.
>but it is clearly
> of a completely different family from the Romance and >Germanic languages
Maybe not with the Germanic, but there are many similarities in structure,
grammar and even some vocabulary with Latin.
> which are what most modern Europeans speak today. It must have come from>
somewhere.
> Adrian Gilbert.
>
>
Yes, it must have come from somewhere - I don't know where. Ordinarily I
would say that your guess is as good as mine, but I'm not sure about that in
this case.
Steffan
indr...@my-deja.com
Perhaps - but B&W claim that this "British Alphabet" is found on
ancient coins and monuments! Quite exasperating.
-Chris Gwinn
Heather Rose Jones
> "news_surfer" <agil...@freeuk.com> wrote in message
> news:Jsy96.182542$eT4.15...@nnrp3.clara.net...
> > I don't claim to know Welsh
>
> That's all too obvious, I'm afraid.
>
> >but it is clearly
> > of a completely different family from the Romance and >Germanic languages
>
> Maybe not with the Germanic, but there are many similarities in structure,
> grammar and even some vocabulary with Latin.
>
> > which are what most modern Europeans speak today. It must have come from>
> somewhere.
> > Adrian Gilbert.
When talking about linguistic difference and similarity, you have to
consider what "completely different" can look like when concluding that
a language is "completely different" from another language. If you
compare the degree of difference between Welsh and Arabic, between Welsh
and Swahili, between Welsh and Turkish, between Welsh and Mandarin,
between Welsh and Navaho and so forth, with the difference between Welsh
and Latin or Welsh and German then the latter starts looking a lot more
like similarity than like difference. _Within_ the Indo-European
language family, the difference between Welsh and German, or Welsh and
Latin, can look fairly great, but in a context where people are
suggesting linguistic connections between Welsh and Etruscan or
Assyrian, it really helps to have a realistic scale of "completely
different" to judge against.
Unfortunately, it you want to get a gut-level understanding of
linguistic similarity and difference (rather than accepting the opinion
of people who specialize in the field) you have to sit down and study a
large number of languages. I say this not to brag but to give a context
for my own comments: among the older Indo-European languages, I've
studied Hittite, Sanskrit, Latin, classical Greek, Old Icelandic,
Gaulish, Old Irish, and Medieval Welsh (if you add modern IE languages,
you can add German and a touch of Russian); I've also studied two
non-Indo-European languages (Ingush and Basque). From that perspective,
the place of Welsh among the western families of the Indo-European
language group is under no doubt whatsoever. And the suggestion that
Welsh is more closely related to Etruscan or Assyrian than it is to
Gaulish is so mind-bogglingly wrong that it is difficult to know where
to start listing the problems.
Christopher Gwinn
> Well there we have it. We can all go back to sleep and forget about the
> possible similarity between Etruscan, Welsh and the language of Lydia. The
> expert has spoken.
>
Now you are making sense, Adrian
-Chris Gwinn
Christopher Gwinn
of
> Latin and Coelbren letters. For example if you look at the Samson stone in
> Llantwit Major, you will see the use of a coelbren "S" in the name Samson.
> This is written with a symbol very similar to a "Y".
>
> On the subject of old Iolo, if he was the forger of the Coelbren alphabet,
> which incidentally is written about extensively in the work of ...I was
> going to write more but hell! Why should I bother when you'll only throw
out
> more abuse.
No Coelbren letters are utilized on this inscription.
For anyone who want to see the analysis of this stone (including Iolo's
observations), go to the CISP site:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/cisp/database/
Search for Llantwit (geographical) or Samson (name), or utilize the CISP
code: LTWIT
-Chris Gwinn
morgan
Not a bad idea about Llantwit Major, (Llan Illtyd Fawr....Church of St
Illtyd), could start my own little tourist trade, make S Wales a Hippy New
Age Haven....nah we've enough crap like that in this green, grey Island of
ours. Perhaps we should have an alt.legend.king arthur expedition, a great
jovial meeting of enthusiasts, a right royal knees up and a bit of sight
seeing...bookings taking place now, accomodation free, donations welcome.
"news_surfer" <agil...@freeuk.com> wrote in message
news:__T96.45510$0d.51...@nnrp4.clara.net...
>
> "Christopher Gwinn" <son...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:sPL96.384>
> > No Coelbren letters are utilized on this inscription.
> >
> > For anyone who want to see the analysis of this stone (including Iolo's
> > observations), go to the CISP site:
> > http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/cisp/database/
> > Search for Llantwit (geographical) or Samson (name), or utilize the CISP
> > code: LTWIT
> >
> > -Chris Gwinn
> >
> >
> I am now heartily fed up with this argument. Since I have actually seen
the
> stone itself and seen the coelbren "S"s written on it, this is an amazing
> statement to say the least.
>
> This stone was found by Edward Williams and dug up by a team of people in
> 1789. In his description of the stone he writes:
>
> "The letters are promiscuously Roman and Etruscan." [Iolo MSS p.364].
Since
> he, the discoverer of the stone, says this and I have actually seen the
said
> letters with my own eyes, I think it is you who has some explaining to do.
I
> would suggest that next time you are in Wales you go to Llantwit Major
> Church and have a good look for yourself. Perhaps Morgan will take you
> there.
>
> By the way, how many manuscripts are there in existence from Western
Europe
> dating from, say, c. 500 BC? Can we be so sure that the language of the
> peoples of at least parts of Britain and Gaul was not Lydian/Etruscan?
Could
> not this language be the very "Gaulish" that you are so interested in? The
> Etruscans, by the way, were a sea-faring nation and Britain was the major
> centre for the mining of tin, which is needed for making bronze. Britain
> also exported gold, silver and lead to the Mediterranean world. Rude
savages
> of the sort described by Caesar there may have been roaming the wilds of
> Scotland. However we can be pretty sure that Cornwall and Wales were at
> least visited by traders interested in Britain's mineral wealth, which was
> largely concentrated in the west. Could not some of these people have been
> either Etruscans or Lydians seeking the precious metals? Could not some of
> them have settled in Britain and brought with them stories of their
> homelands in Anatolia and Italy?
>
> I write this more in despair than hope, knowing that I will once again
have
> these observations thrown back in my face. But then some people don't
> believe that Jesus Christ was crucified or even lived because we don't
have
> examples of his hand-writing. Maybe you are one of these Chris.
>
> Adrian Gilbert.
>
>
Christopher Gwinn
> I am now heartily fed up with this argument. Since I have actually seen
the
> stone itself and seen the coelbren "S"s written on it, this is an amazing
> statement to say the least.
I have not visited the stone, but I have read the analysis by archaeologists
and epigraphers. They say that the letters are not Colebren.
> This stone was found by Edward Williams and dug up by a team of people in
> 1789. In his description of the stone he writes:
>
> "The letters are promiscuously Roman and Etruscan." [Iolo MSS p.364].
Since
> he, the discoverer of the stone, says this and I have actually seen the
said
> letters with my own eyes, I think it is you who has some explaining to do.
I
> would suggest that next time you are in Wales you go to Llantwit Major
> Church and have a good look for yourself. Perhaps Morgan will take you
> there.
HMM, I see - you are reading more current archaeological studies now,
Adrian? 1789! Very impressive. Everyone, of course, knows that archaeology
and science in general was quite advanced in 1789. Iolo the forger wouldn't
have had any hand in this statement, would he?
> By the way, how many manuscripts are there in existence from Western
Europe
> dating from, say, c. 500 BC?
Not manuscripts - but we do have the odd inscription on stone or clay here
and there.
> Can we be so sure that the language of the
> peoples of at least parts of Britain and Gaul was not Lydian/Etruscan?
Not unless Lydian/Etruscan had a branch that remarkably looked exactly like
an Indo European Celtic language! Don't be a dolt - Celtic looking tribal
and placenames in Britain and Ireland were recorded as early as the 6th
century BC
> Could
> not this language be the very "Gaulish" that you are so interested in?
You truly ARE an idiot. We have literally hundreds of Gaulish inscriptions -
mostly short, but quite a few long ones - enough to give as a very good idea
of the language's relationship to other Indoe European langugaes. We also
have 10,000 or so Etruscan inscriptions - even if we don't understand what
they all mean, we know that they are from an unrelated (or not closely
related) language family and not Indo European. In fact, Etruscan looks
nothing like Gaulish. Of course, if you were not such an uneducated twit,
you might know this.
> The
> Etruscans, by the way, were a sea-faring nation and Britain was the major
> centre for the mining of tin, which is needed for making bronze. Britain
> also exported gold, silver and lead to the Mediterranean world. Rude
savages
> of the sort described by Caesar there may have been roaming the wilds of
> Scotland. However we can be pretty sure that Cornwall and Wales were at
> least visited by traders interested in Britain's mineral wealth, which was
> largely concentrated in the west. Could not some of these people have been
> either Etruscans or Lydians seeking the precious metals? Could not some of
> them have settled in Britain and brought with them stories of their
> homelands in Anatolia and Italy?
Anything is possible - but the simple fact is that ONLY Celtic speaking
people left their language to be spoken across Britain before the Saxons
arrived.
> I write this more in despair than hope, knowing that I will once again
have
> these observations thrown back in my face. But then some people don't
> believe that Jesus Christ was crucified or even lived because we don't
have
> examples of his hand-writing. Maybe you are one of these Chris.
My religious ideas are my own personal property - not for discussion on this
list. The problem with you, Adrian, is that you are a religious zealot that
lets his faith cloud his scholarship. You are in good company - as long as
you have a time machine to take you back to 1789.
-Chris Gwinn
Graham Nowland
The key Arthurian historical writer, Nennius in his 9th century work,
gives us an ancient British tradition. This is about the remote
origins claimed by the nation Arthur is supposed to have led against
the Saxons.
Geoffrey of Monmouth developed the story two centuries later and
through his influence surfaces in some later legends.
Nennius describe the journeyings of proto-Britons from Troy in Turkey,
with a long period in what is now called Etruria, in the Tuscany area.
There they are said to have founded a major civilisation. After
defeat and more travels they migrated through France, finally reaching
Britain.
For this Nennius story to have any truth the remote proto-Britons must
have spoken the language of the Etruscans, one of history's unsolved
mysteries.
If that were true their descendents may have retained the language
which could have evolved by contact to resemble a dialect of what is
now called Celtic.
Some months ago, unaware of Wilson and Blackett's work I was puzzled
by bits of information in standard history books.
For example a 5th Century bishop said that people in Treves in North
Eastern Gaul spoke the same language as the people in Anatolia in
Turkey. The bishop had worked in both Treves and Anatalioa which is
how he knew.
This implied the language in the Treves area was different from the
main Celtic language of late Roman Gaul.
Another source suggest people from the Treves area are said to have
had already formed a part of, if not the nucleas of Iron Age migrants
(Iron Age C) to Britain.
I raised the isse with Chris Gwinn in this news group but he insisted
the Iron Age people could only have spoken Celtic though he did not
say how he knew this.
Meanwhile I learned that classic writers had described people in the
Anatolia area of Turkey, near Troy, as having a meeting place of some
kind called Drunemeton. The Nemeton part of this word means grove or
meeting place or perhaps both.
These Anatolian people are widely accepted to be Celts. They were
probably the Galatians who backslid into paganism which St Paul made
the subject of his famous epistle.
Opinion appears to be divided about whether the dru in Drunemeton
prefix means oak or wisdom. I wondered about the apparent connection
with the word druids.
But I was also very interested in the mem part of Drunemeton because
classic writers also record a famous pre Roman sacred grove in Italy
called Nemi. (This is the famous grove of Fraser's Golden Bough). This
sacred oak grove temple was near Alba in the part once called Etruria.
Alba is the city the proto Brits were supposed, in the Nennius
account. to have founded in Etruria.
I also learned there was an authenticated inscription at Bath of all
places, to Nemetona, a grove goddess. The nem stem again and the grove
association.
Furthermore the inscription was made by a person who said in his
dedication that he originated from the Treves area. This part of Gaul
as I mentioned, I had already found linked elsewhere to Anatolia in
Turkey.
Obviosuly anyone with an opone mind cannot ignore this.
But Chris Gwinn did back then when I put this stuff on this news
group. He closed the discussion after one exchange, characterising
the Celts as feeling inferior and borrowing their heritage from the
Romans, who also claimed to descend from the Trojans.
The orthodox view is that Etrurians influenced the Celts to the north
with their sense of design for example, by trading. In this scenario
Celts later invaded Italy, destroying the Etruscan civilisation,
leaving the area to be developed from a new centre at Rome.
Since the problems of the Etruscan language have not been solved. I
wondered if orthodoxy is in fact right outside its comfort zone on
this whole issue. What assumptions are having to be made to make
things fit.
I could make no progress and shelved the project.
Then it was revealed that Wilson and Blacket had done a great deal of
work on this too. The formerly reticent Mr Chris Gwinn was galvanised
out of his silence and we now have this extradinary discussion.
Obviously W & B are far more of a threat to the establishment than
little old me.
I have to say that the W & B stuff I have seen so far is tantalising
but inconclusive.
The close focus on linguistics seems too intense, too bogged down in
tiny issues. I doubt if you can unravel history by linguistics alone.
In the big picture it must only be a secondary technique.
Chris Gwinn still hasn't put forward much of any substance except an
extract from the Encyclopaedia Britannica. He seems less concerned
with truth than in defending the bastions of orthodoxy with his shield
of linguistics.
None of the questions I would like to discuss have yet come up in the
discussion.
Why not shift the focus to make the argument more relevant?
Regards
Graham
richard wardle
>Is the Etruscan Row An Athurian topic?
>
>The key Arthurian historical writer, Nennius in his 9th century work,
>gives us an ancient British tradition. This is about the remote
>origins claimed by the nation Arthur is supposed to have led against
>the Saxons.
>
>Geoffrey of Monmouth developed the story two centuries later and
>through his influence surfaces in some later legends.
>
>Nennius describe the journeyings of proto-Britons from Troy in Turkey,
>with a long period in what is now called Etruria, in the Tuscany area.
>
>
>There they are said to have founded a major civilisation. After
>defeat and more travels they migrated through France, finally reaching
>Britain.
>
>For this Nennius story to have any truth the remote proto-Britons must
>have spoken the language of the Etruscans, one of history's unsolved
>mysteries.
>
Etruscan on accepted linguistics is not thought to be connected to the
"Celtic" language family. Use of the Etruscan alphabet I can understand ,but
construction and sounds would probably be different(adapted) to the Celtic
Language?
>If that were true their descendents may have retained the language
>which could have evolved by contact to resemble a dialect of what is
>now called Celtic.
>
See above
>Some months ago, unaware of Wilson and Blackett's work I was puzzled
>by bits of information in standard history books.
>
>For example a 5th Century bishop said that people in Treves in North
>Eastern Gaul spoke the same language as the people in Anatolia in
>Turkey. The bishop had worked in both Treves and Anatalioa which is
>how he knew.
>
>This implied the language in the Treves area was different from the
>main Celtic language of late Roman Gaul.
>
Probably dialectic differences ,as has happend to Brythonic Celtic in
Wales,Cornwall, Cumbria and Brittanny,after long periods.
>Another source suggest people from the Treves area are said to have
>had already formed a part of, if not the nucleas of Iron Age migrants
>(Iron Age C) to Britain.
>
Emminently possible
Quite true (the last statement) all the other stuff is fascinating. But the
Celts (as other peoples did) took their Gods/ess's with them as they
travelled around.
>But Chris Gwinn did back then when I put this stuff on this news
>group. He closed the discussion after one exchange, characterising
>the Celts as feeling inferior and borrowing their heritage from the
>Romans, who also claimed to descend from the Trojans.
>
>The orthodox view is that Etrurians influenced the Celts to the north
>with their sense of design for example, by trading. In this scenario
>Celts later invaded Italy, destroying the Etruscan civilisation,
>leaving the area to be developed from a new centre at Rome.
>
>Since the problems of the Etruscan language have not been solved. I
>wondered if orthodoxy is in fact right outside its comfort zone on
>this whole issue. What assumptions are having to be made to make
>things fit.
>
>I could make no progress and shelved the project.
>
>Then it was revealed that Wilson and Blacket had done a great deal of
>work on this too. The formerly reticent Mr Chris Gwinn was galvanised
>out of his silence and we now have this extradinary discussion.
>
>Obviously W & B are far more of a threat to the establishment than
>little old me.
>
>I have to say that the W & B stuff I have seen so far is tantalising
>but inconclusive.
>
The problem with B&W as I keep saying is their refusal to back things up
with conclusive source appraisal.This leaves them open to all sorts of
accusations.If people cannot see the evidence on which they base their
conclusions,or cannot by using (some)of the texts themselves come to the
same conclusions they want to know how they(B&W) arrived and what path was
used.Unfortunatley when they ask that sort of question they get
diatribe,abuse and accussed of being in league with the "establishment" to
discredit them. I know I have asked them
>The close focus on linguistics seems too intense, too bogged down in
>tiny issues. I doubt if you can unravel history by linguistics alone.
>In the big picture it must only be a secondary technique.
>
>Chris Gwinn still hasn't put forward much of any substance except an
>extract from the Encyclopaedia Britannica. He seems less concerned
>with truth than in defending the bastions of orthodoxy with his shield
>of linguistics.
>
>None of the questions I would like to discuss have yet come up in the
>discussion.
>
Then post them to G.L Wilson on the NG,though wether you will get an answer
is another matter,a reply possibly ,an answer unlikely.
>Why not shift the focus to make the argument more relevant?
>
>Regards
>Graham
>
Regards Richard
indr...@my-deja.com
> Is the Etruscan Row An Athurian topic?
Not really - but this list gets stagnant without the occasional
argument like we have seen here with the B&W "debate."
> Nennius describe the journeyings of proto-Britons from Troy in Turkey,
> with a long period in what is now called Etruria, in the Tuscany area.
>
> There they are said to have founded a major civilisation. After
> defeat and more travels they migrated through France, finally reaching
> Britain.
>
> For this Nennius story to have any truth the remote proto-Britons must
> have spoken the language of the Etruscans, one of history's unsolved
That is true - in order for the Etruscan legend to have been true, the
Britons, as well as the Aedui (who also claimed Trojan descent) would
need to show signs of having an Etruscan based culture with possibly
remnants of Etruscan language still visible. Unfortunately for this
theory, we have no evidence for this at all - nothing other than
wild "popular" tales.
> If that were true their descendents may have retained the language
> which could have evolved by contact to resemble a dialect of what is
> now called Celtic.
Apparently you know nothing about historical linguistics and language
development - especially through contact. Languages do not
slowly "evolve" into entirely different language families - at best
they attach enough foreign vocabulary words until their native
vocabulary is the minority - this happened to Albanian and is happening
to English - but grammatical and morphological laws are always the last
to go.
As an example, Gaulish did not "evolve" into Vulgar Latin (then giving
us French) - over a period of 500 years, the Gauls gradually stopped
speaking Gaulish and SWITCHED to Latin - however they spoke Latin with
a Gaulish accent, warped the words with Gaulish mutations, and even
reshaped bits of the grammar and formed new words based on Gaulish
patterns.
Brittonic and Goidelic languages show no Etruscan influence at all - in
fact they are both quite archaic Celtic branches with little substratal
influence - mostly of uncertain provenance.
> For example a 5th Century bishop said that people in Treves in North
> Eastern Gaul spoke the same language as the people in Anatolia in
> Turkey. The bishop had worked in both Treves and Anatalioa which is
> how he knew.
>
> This implied the language in the Treves area was different from the
> main Celtic language of late Roman Gaul.
No, it does not imply that at all! First of all, the area of Anatolia
that he was speaking about was Galatia (named for the Galatai,
ie "Gauls"), which had been invaded and colonized in the 3rd century BC
by Celtic people, some of whom had roots in Gaul and Belgica. The
people of Treves - the Treueri - would have spoken a Belgic dialect of
Gaulish, which we know from onomastic evidence (and the fact that
Belgae had a strong influence on Brittonic) that this dialect differed
very little from Gaulish - it likely was a matter of unfamiliar
northern accent which made people comment that it was a different
language (even though they admit that it was very similar to Gaulish).
One interesting fact - perhaps Belgic influenced - is that Galatia was
invaded by chieftains named Bolgios and Brennus. This same pair of
names ends up in British myth as the brothers Beli(nus) [Beli comes
from *bolgi-o] and Brennius (Welsh Bran) - both British kings that sack
Rome (which is due to a conflation between the Galatian Brennus and the
Gallic Brennus that sacked Rome a century before Brennus and Bolgios
entered Anatolia).
> Another source suggest people from the Treves area are said to have
> had already formed a part of, if not the nucleas of Iron Age migrants
> (Iron Age C) to Britain.
Belgae certainly were widely represented in the British population of
Caesar's day.
> I raised the isse with Chris Gwinn in this news group but he insisted
> the Iron Age people could only have spoken Celtic though he did not
> say how he knew this.
Duh, because
a) we have British and Irish onomastic evidence ranging from place and
tribal names to personal and river names and snippets of vocabulary on
coins which date back in some cases to the 4th century BC (with some
other slight evidence dating back to the 6th century BC) - all of which
is provably Celtic in nature.
b) Tacitus (a native of southern Gaul), whose buddy Agricola (also born
in Gaul) actually lived in Britain and told Tacitus all about his
excurion there. Tacitus reports that the language and religion of
Britain differs little from that of Gaul.
c) amongst all of our recorded onomastic data, we have only the
slightest bit of substrata evidence (mostly a few river names) - none
of which can be asigned to any particular language family (some of
which may actually turn out to be Celtic after all), but there is
nothing ruling out a pre-Celtic Proto Indo European dialect having been
spoken before the advent of Celtic.
> Meanwhile I learned that classic writers had described people in the
> Anatolia area of Turkey, near Troy, as having a meeting place of some
> kind called Drunemeton. The Nemeton part of this word means grove or
> meeting place or perhaps both.
It literally means "sanctuary" in Gaulish.
> These Anatolian people are widely accepted to be Celts. They were
> probably the Galatians who backslid into paganism which St Paul made
> the subject of his famous epistle.
They certainly were.
> Opinion appears to be divided about whether the dru in Drunemeton
> prefix means oak or wisdom. I wondered about the apparent connection
> with the word druids.
Surely it has a connection. Dru- in Celtic was an intensive prefix -
ie "great"/"strong" - but its origin lies in the Proto Indo European
root *deru-/*dreu-"solid/firm" - which also gives us the English
words "true" and "tree." PIE *deru is also the root of Celtic words for
oak (the "great/strong" tree).
> But I was also very interested in the mem part of Drunemeton because
> classic writers also record a famous pre Roman sacred grove in Italy
> called Nemi. (This is the famous grove of Fraser's Golden Bough). This
Nemi and Nemeton have the same Proto Indo European root, *nem- "bend"/
*nemos "grove."
> Alba is the city the proto Brits were supposed, in the Nennius
> account. to have founded in Etruria.
Due to a false folk etymology of Albion.
> I also learned there was an authenticated inscription at Bath of all
> places, to Nemetona, a grove goddess. The nem stem again and the grove
> association.
And this proves...?
> Furthermore the inscription was made by a person who said in his
> dedication that he originated from the Treves area. This part of Gaul
> as I mentioned, I had already found linked elsewhere to Anatolia in
> Turkey.
Big deal - a Treveran was serving in the Roman army and was stationed
in Britain. He learned some Latin and made a dedication to a Celtic
goddess - what is so fantastic about this?
> Obviosuly anyone with an opone mind cannot ignore this.
>
> But Chris Gwinn did back then when I put this stuff on this news
> group. He closed the discussion after one exchange, characterising
> the Celts as feeling inferior and borrowing their heritage from the
> Romans, who also claimed to descend from the Trojans.
You are sorely misrepresenting my words - I have ignored nothing (it is
not as if I have never heard any of tis before!). The simple fact is
yes, the Aedui and the Britons both tossed out their native creation
myths in favor of Trojan origins. The reason is quite simple - keeping
up with the Joneses. The Romans claimed descent from the Trojans, as
did various Germanic people at a later date.
Here is a quote from Viktor Rydberg ("Teutonic Mythology")on the
subject:
(quote)
"In fact, a great part of the lands subject to the Roman sceptre were
in ancient literature in some way connected with the Trojan war and its
consequences: Macedonia and Epirus through the Trojan emigrant Helenus;
Illyria and Venetia through the Trojan emigrant Antenor; Rhetia and
Vindelicia through the Amazons, allies of the Trojans, from whom the
inhabitants of these provinces were said to be descended (Servius ad
Virg., i. 248) Etruria through Dardanus, who was said to have emigrated
from there to Troy; Latium and Campania through the Æneids Sicily, the
very home of the Ænean traditions, through the relation between the
royal families of Troy and Sicily; Sardinia (see Sallust); Gaul (see
Lucanus arid Ammnianus Marcellinus); Carthage through the visit of
Æneas to Dido; and of course all of Asia Minor. This was not all.
According to the lost Argive History by Anaxikrates, Scaniandrius, son
of Hektor and Andromache, came with emigrants to Scythia and settled on
the banks of the Tanais; and scarcely had Germany become known to the
Romans, before it, too, became drawn into the cycle of Trojan stories,
at least so far as to make this country visited by Ulysses on his many
journeys and adventures (Tac., Germ.). Every educated Greek and Roman
person’s fancy was filled from his earliest school-days with Troy, and
traces of Dardanians and Danaians were found everywhere, just as the
English in our time think they have found traces of the ten lost tribes
of Israel both in the old and in the new world."
"In the same degree as Christianity, Church learning, and Latin
manuscripts were spread among the Teutonic tribes, there were
disseminated among them knowledge of and an interest in the great
Trojan stories. The native stories telling of Teutonic gods and heroes
received terrible shocks from Christianity, but were rescued in another
form on the lips of the people, and continued in their new guise to
command their attention arid devotion. In the class of Latin scholars
which developed among the Christianised Teutons, the new stories
learned froni Latin literature, telling of Ilium, of the conflicts
between Trojans and Greeks, of migrations, of the founding of colonies
on foreign shores and the creating of new empires, were the things
which especially stimulated their curiosity and captivated their fancy.
The Latin literature which was to a greater or less extent accessible
to the Teutonic priests, or to priests labouring among the Teutons,
furnished abundant materials in regard to Troy both in classical and
pseudo-classical authors. We need only call attention to Virgil and his
commentator Servius, which became a mine of learning for the whole
middle age, and among pseudo-classical works to Dares Phrygius’
Historia de Excidio Trojæ (which was believed to have been written by a
Trojan and translated by Cornelius Nepos !), to Dictys Cretensis’
Ephemeris belli Trojani (the original of which was said to have been
Phoenician, and found imi Dictys’ alleged grave after an earthquake in
the time of Nero !), and to " Pindari Thebani," Epitome Iliados Homeri."
(end quote)
> Then it was revealed that Wilson and Blacket had done a great deal of
> work on this too. The formerly reticent Mr Chris Gwinn was galvanised
> out of his silence and we now have this extradinary discussion.
>
> Obviously W & B are far more of a threat to the establishment than
> little old me.
Threat??!! You have got to be kidding me! They are a laughing stock -
which is why nobody bothers with them. It is only because I generate
pleasure out of mocking pseudo-intellectuals that I have taken the time
to rip them apart.
> I have to say that the W & B stuff I have seen so far is tantalising
> but inconclusive.
You can say that again.
> The close focus on linguistics seems too intense, too bogged down in
> tiny issues. I doubt if you can unravel history by linguistics alone.
> In the big picture it must only be a secondary technique.
Who the hell only relies on linguistics? Certainly not me - I also
study comparative mythology, archaeology and ancient written history. I
just specialize in linguistics, which is why I make comments on
people's ridiculous speculations on Celtic languages.
> Chris Gwinn still hasn't put forward much of any substance except an
> extract from the Encyclopaedia Britannica. He seems less concerned
> with truth than in defending the bastions of orthodoxy with his shield
> of linguistics.
Idiot - I gave the E.B. entry for those lazy people who don't know the
directions to the library - it was a convenient web link to provide and
not the source for my theories and comments.
Your portrayal of me is simplistic, ill-informed and contemptuous. You
do not know who I am, nor what I have studied. I am not defending
any "bastions of orthodoxy" - what an asinine comment. I am not
involved in, nor do I have any stake in any kind of orthodoxy. I just
know what I have seen and what I have read over a 16 year period of
study and feel that I am qualified to make judgements on certain
issues. I am not an academic and I am not selling any books - Arthurian
and Celtic matters are simply my passion and hobby - a hobby on which
have spent thousands of dollars and more hours than I care to think
about, all so that I could consider myself an expert. I am not there
yet, but pretty damn close.
- Chris Gwinn
Peter Guy
stuff meet, so why can't we. I'd love to see some faces to go with the
names. And maybe some of the conflicts could be resolved over the
proverbial "pie & pint"?
Peter
"morgan" <morg...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:ePW96.1644$eI2.52815@NewsReader...
Heather Rose Jones
> Nennius describe the journeyings of proto-Britons from Troy in Turkey,
> with a long period in what is now called Etruria, in the Tuscany area.
>
> There they are said to have founded a major civilisation. After
> defeat and more travels they migrated through France, finally reaching
> Britain.
>
> For this Nennius story to have any truth the remote proto-Britons must
> have spoken the language of the Etruscans, one of history's unsolved
> mysteries.
It might be worth examining the linguistic geography of Italy before the
homogenizing effects of the Roman expansion. Italy, at that time, was
blessed with an extreme diversity of languages and dialects, some
related to each other (as, for example, the Latin/Oscan/Umbrian group)
some probably members of similar families but where only one has
survived to be known, some possibly language isolates even at that
period (sole survivors, perhaps, of some family that was more diverse
and widespread at an earlier date).
One should not assume, for example, that everyone in Etruria spoke
Etruscan, simply because it is convenient to use that name for the
region. Even leaving aside the question of the historic accuracy of the
tale of the British wanderings from Troy (and that's a big question to
leave aside) the presence of proto-Britons in Etruria would not require
an assumption that they spoke Etruscan, any more than the presence of
proto-Romans in Etruria requires an assumption that _they_ spoke
Etruscan, rather than proto-Latin.
Large amounts of linguistic diversity even in fairly small geographic
regions is a normal state of affairs in much of the world. Before the
cultural and political dominance of Rome and hence of the Latin
language, the linguistic situation in the Italian peninsula was
considerably more diverse than what we find in the post-Classical world.
(In terms of language diversity, Europe is actually something of an
oddity, and it is unfortunately easy to make the mistake of assuming
that Europe's odd linguistic geography is a "normal" and expected state
of affairs, and to make assumptions about the pre-Classical linguistic
geography on that basis.)
> If that were true their descendents may have retained the language
> which could have evolved by contact to resemble a dialect of what is
> now called Celtic.
Language contact certainly can make changes in a language -- one needs
only to look at English to observe that. But language contact makes
certain _types_ of changes, and not the types of changes that would be
necessary to turn something very like Etruscan into the Brythonic
languages. Vocabulary is the most common type of contact change;
pronunciation is another common type. Things like verb inflections, or
number and pronoun systems, are _extremely_ resistant to change from
language contact, and these very resistant features of the Brythonic
languages place them firmly in the same immediate family as Irish and
Gaulish. When you look at languages that _have_ been strongly affected
and changed by language contact, it becomes vanishingly improbable that
the Brythonic languages could have these "Celtic" features by mere
contact, rather than by ancient inheritance.
> For example a 5th Century bishop said that people in Treves in North
> Eastern Gaul spoke the same language as the people in Anatolia in
> Turkey. The bishop had worked in both Treves and Anatalioa which is
> how he knew.
>
> This implied the language in the Treves area was different from the
> main Celtic language of late Roman Gaul.
This raises two questions:
- Was the bishop familiar with Celtic languages in other parts of late
Roman Gaul? Consider the possibility that this bishop had had a post in
Anatolia, and a post in Treves, and had not otherwise traveled much in
Gaul. In that context, his comments should not be taken as implying a
contrast with Gaulish regions other than Treves -- rather, he could
simply be making a narrow and precise observation about the language he
could observe directly: that of Treves. (This sort of observation is
actually much more valuable than more general and wide-sweeping
observations that could only be based on hearsay, and perhaps false
assumptions by the observer.)
- Secondly, the 5th century is pretty late in the decline of Gaulish --
the ordinary, everyday language in much of Gaul was a form of Latin by
that period. If, by that period, Gaulish simply wasn't spoken (or was
rarely spoken, or spoken only in rural pockets) in the rest of Gaul, the
bishop's observation could not be taken as implying anything about a
contrast between the Gaulish of Treves and that of other regions.
These are questions that would need to be examined further before you
would know that implications it might be reasonable to read into the
bishop's comments.
<snip various discussions of the Galatians in Anatolia>
> Obviosuly anyone with an opone mind cannot ignore this.
Nobody is that I know of. The existence, and Celtic language of, the
Galatians in Anatolia is firmly established and accepted, as are the
various cultural connections with western European Celtic-speaking
cultures, via divine names and the like. None of this is anything new
or startling. And it doesn't support a "special origin" for
Brythonic-speaking people from Troy. (Keep in mind the significant time
gap between the Troy of the British origin-legends and the time of the Galatians.)
> The close focus on linguistics seems too intense, too bogged down in
> tiny issues. I doubt if you can unravel history by linguistics alone.
There's a catch-22 here: if discussions of linguistic evidence _don't_
focus on "tiny issues" then the linguists are accused of making sweeping
generalizations without supporting evidence. Linguistic evidence is
entirely composed of vast numbers of "tiny issues" that painstakingly
build a big picture. Without the "tiny issues", that big picture can be
dismissed as "just one opinion". It is exactly the tiny issues -- and
the vast and systematic numbers of them -- that supply the convincing
proof for that big picture. You can't sweep away the details as
"getting bogged down" and then turn around and dismiss the picture they
create as "just one opinion".
> In the big picture it must only be a secondary technique.
I don't think there are any "secondary techniques" -- every approach to
history has its strengths and weaknesses, and each supplies a different
type of evidence. The best understanding of history comes from taking
the evidence of all the techniques and putting them together as overlays
to form a complex whole. And the unfortunate nature of the beast is
that, the more one devotes oneself to becoming knowledgeable about a
particular field and type of evidence, the less time one has to devote
to a broad, multi-field approach. It is quite natural for someone who
is not a linguist to dismiss linguistic evidence simply because they
don't have the same gut-level comfort with it that a linguist does --
they don't like having to take other people's word for those "tiny
issues" and the conclusions that can be drawn from them. But nobody is
going to be an expert in all the possible fields of evidence, and in the
end you just have to cope.
richard wardle
What about it Morgan fancy setting up something?
I'll dig out the hipster flares, the Purple shirt with big coller, sandals
and bandana,borrow a wig.......
Go for it!!!:>)))
--
Regards Richard
Mankind is divided into three classes,
The rich,The poor and Those who have enough
Therefore abolish the rich and you will have no more poor,
For it is the few rich who are the cause of the many poor.
Peter Guy wrote in message ...
richard wardle
--
Regards Richard
Mankind is divided into three classes,
The rich,The poor and Those who have enough
Therefore abolish the rich and you will have no more poor,
For it is the few rich who are the cause of the many poor.
indr...@my-deja.com wrote in message <94cji4$r8f$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
richard wardle
--
Regards Richard
Mankind is divided into three classes,
The rich,The poor and Those who have enough
Therefore abolish the rich and you will have no more poor,
For it is the few rich who are the cause of the many poor.
Heather Rose Jones wrote in message
<3A69F832...@socrates.berkeley.edu>...
Joe Jefferson
Etruscan-speaking Israelites from Assyria?
--
Joe of Castle Jefferson
http://www.primenet.com/~jjstrshp/
Site updated October 1st, 1999.
"Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the
poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the
hand of the wicked." - Psalm 82:3-4.
Joe Jefferson
>
> <snip>
> > The Assyrian records of around 740- 690 B.C.- contemporary, as they are
> > on baked clay tablets- name the Khumry as the "Khumry" and they also
> > identify them as the Ten Tribes of Israel. This has been well proven be
> > various Researchers, professors and other University employees. The
>
> Um ... so is Welsh a Semitic language then? Fascinating. And the name
> of the language and people has remained completely unchanged for two and
> a half millennia, even though no other language has ever remained
> unchanged to that degree over even half the span?
And do the various unnamed researchers, professors, and other university
employes offer any explanation as to why these Israelite refugees were
writing things in Etruscan and not Hebrew?
Graham Nowland
<agil...@freeuk.com> wrote:
>You seem to have done some very good research and I am not
>at all surprised by your conclusions.
Thanks for that.
>.... Again I would say you are
>definitely on the right track but don't expect any thanks for it from Chris
>Gwinn. All you will get is vitriol.
I did - in triplicate. What's the emoticon for <smirk>
Regards
Graham
Graham Nowland
<ric...@wadl.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>Can't understand why you say this?
>Etruscan on accepted linguistics is not thought to be connected to the
>"Celtic" language family. Use of the Etruscan alphabet I can understand ,but
>construction and sounds would probably be different(adapted) to the Celtic
>Language?
>
Chris Gwinn seems to have picked up the point I was making. He
responded:
>That is true - in order for the Etruscan legend to have been true, the
>Britons, as well as the Aedui (who also claimed Trojan descent) would
>need to show signs of having an Etruscan based culture with possibly
>remnants of Etruscan language still visible. Unfortunately for this
>theory, we have no evidence for this at all - nothing other than
>wild "popular" tales.
This is why it is interesting that the Treveri were alleged to have
spoken a different language to the rest of Gaul.
Regards
Graham
Graham Nowland
<hrj...@socrates.berkeley.edu> wrote:
snip excessively to
>Was the bishop familiar with Celtic languages in other parts of late
>Roman Gaul?
I'll have to check it out at some point. The reference to the source
is close to hand but the actual source may be harder. I'll post it if
and when I come across it. (Unless someone can post the orginal
comment easily. He was a fifth century saint and bishop but the name
escapes me for the moment. I believe the comment is recorded by a
contemprary source.)
The comments you made on aspects of Gaulish and about the dynamics of
change to language were very interesting. I see a lot of parallels
here in Australia where we have the recent contact between a
dominating culture and hundreds of indigenous languages and dialects.
This has thrown up all sorts of interesting situations evolving now in
differant stages all over the country. The local situation is
paricularly poignant and tragic.
More generally, as well as the kind of dynamics you mention, there are
also subsidiary patois, evolved pidgins, full creoles, and original
languages, all exchanging in varying degrees and interacting with each
other and English, so it is easy to see living examples at differant
stages.
Thers also a couple of centuries of documentation.
I'm not a linguist, just interested as a writer and I ended up writing
in some detail about one particular form of change to the locl
indiigenous language.
It is possible to draw some analogies with this sitation here and that
in early Europe which I find quite interesting. But I think that would
be straying too far off topic.
I didn't want to belittle linguistics, just that I see the discipline
in a similar specialised role to that of pathology in a justice
situation.
There a watertight alibi and reliable eye witnesses can overrule what
seems to be like overwhelming pathological evidence.
In the same way reliable eye witnesses may be able to overrule
linguistic analysis in the court of history. There may be actual
examples but I don't know of any. The verdict in history is anyway
less formal than in a court of law and seems to depend on the
consensus of peers.
I agree that in the end we all cope with an imperfect world.
Regards
Graham
Graham Nowland
Thanks Chris for your interesting response
In fact the first half was very helpful. I was most flattered that you
consider me capable of an "asinine" response.
I am not contemptuous of anyone BTW. Too conscious of my own frailty
for that.
Regards
Graham
Heather Rose Jones
> This is why it is interesting that the Treveri were alleged to have
> spoken a different language to the rest of Gaul.
If the wording of the comment was conveyed accurately in the previous
post, it doesn't appear to say that at all. It appears to say that the
Treveri spoke a language similar to the Galatians. No comment that I
noticed about the rest of Gaul at all.
Perhaps the original quote could be posted? (Ideally in the original as
well as in modern translation?) When arguing over what a historic quote
says, it's most useful to have the quote itself, rather than ending up
arguing over various people's interpretations of the quote as if they
were the quote itself.
richard wardle
>Regards
>Graham
Regards Richard
Christopher Gwinn
> spoken a different language to the rest of Gaul.
Lord, you are not paying attention! The Treuiri spoke a Northern dialect of
Gaulish (which is all that Belgic is). This is without doubt - we have
plenty of onomastic material from their region to back this up.
-Chris Gwinn
Christopher Gwinn
all, certain people are taking for granted that Etruscan's origins lie in
Anatolia - there is actually no real evidence for this.
Let me also clear up another issue - the language Lydian is Indo European -
it is an Anatolian language clearly related to Luvian (and therefore also
Carian, Milyan, Lycian, Pisidian and Sidetic). Lydian is known from over a
hundred inscriptions dating from 500-300 BC.
The current consensus among Indo Europeanists is that the residents of Troy
during the Trojan war were either Luvian or Phrygian (another Indo European
language that shows strong ties with Greek and Balkan languages like
Thracian).
Etruscan shows no signs of being an Anatolian language. At best, Etruscan
may be a form of Proto-Proto Indo European, a much mutated sister of the
parent language which gave birth to the various branches of IE languages -
but even this is often contested.
-Christopher Gwinn
Christopher Gwinn
Anatolia.
Preface to Book II, Commentary on Galatians
"One remark I must make, and so fulfil the
promise with which I started. While the Galatians, in common with the whole
East, speak Greek, their own language is almost identical with that of the
Treviri; and if through contact with the Greek they have acquired a few
corruptions, it is a matter of no moment. The Africans have to some extent
changed the Phenician language, and Latin itself is daily undergoing
changes through differences of place and time"
(read more here:
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-06/Npnf2-06-23.htm#P8115_2636890 )
- Christopher Gwinn
indr...@my-deja.com
> I'll have to check it out at some point. The reference to the source
> is close to hand but the actual source may be harder. I'll post it if
> and when I come across it. (Unless someone can post the orginal
> comment easily. He was a fifth century saint and bishop but the name
> escapes me for the moment. I believe the comment is recorded by a
> contemprary source.)
>
St. Jerome (331-420 AD) - an Illyrian who had spent time in both Gaul
and
Anatolia.
- Christopher Gwinn
Christopher Gwinn
> This assumes we know what the Etruscan language is like. "Translating" a
few
> pot inscriptions does not a language make. Unfortunately the major pieces
of
> text available, the stone from Lemnos and the Zagreb shroud have not (to
my
> knowledge) been translated by the experts. Bear in mind also that the even
> where the orthography may appear known, this can be wrong. Letters
> themselves can have quite different values in different languages. For
> example in Greek the letter "P" is actually an "R" from the perspective of
> the Latin alphabet. The Romans had no letter "U", instead they used "V".
In
> Welsh the letters "W" and "Y" are vowels, whereas in English they are
> consonants. In old English "f" is frequently used for "s". In Scotland the
> letter "Z" can have quite a different meaning.
> For example the name "Menzies" is not properly pronounced "Men-zees" but
> rather more like "Mingus". Thus attempts to translate Etruscan texts using
> Latin and Greek can be way off the mark. In my opinion we need to take
> seriously the claim made by Herodotus and others that the Etruscans came
> from Lydia and work from there.
Adrian, it is no use for you to ramble on about alphabets - you have already
proven that you know nothing about the historical development of various
alphabets utilized in Europe.
Also, how come nobody else has been commenting much on the fact that B&W
outright lied by claiming that Caesar spoke about a British alphabet in De
Bello Gallico (he actually spoke about the Gauls using the Greek alphabet
for everyday use - confirmed by archaeology)? If this is not one of the
greatest proofs that they are liars, I don't know what else is. I am certain
if we al look a little closer, we will detect even more lies (I am currently
trying to figure out where in Ammianus Marcellinus he speaks of the British
alphabet - another non-citational claim on B&W's website).
As a side note,
I found a funny article on the web all about debunking "scholar" who think
that they have (for the first time ever) been able to "decipher" Etruscan.
Check it out:
http://www.geocities.com/erwan-ar-skoul/crack.html
-Chris Gwinn
indr...@my-deja.com
indr...@my-deja.com
crackpot."
http://www.geocities.com/erwan-ar-skoul/crackpot.htm
Any of this sound familiar to anyone?
-Chris Gwinn
Graham Nowland
<hrj...@socrates.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>When arguing over what a historic quote
>says, it's most useful to have the quote itself, rather than ending up
>arguing over various people's interpretations of the quote as if they
>were the quote itself.
If Chris Gwinn had bothered to respond to my original post on this
several months ago it would have come forth then.
Chris has now kindly posted the quote himself which saves me the
trouble of hunting it down.
.
St Jerome certainly doesn't come across as unsophistictaed, a casual
observer, blinkered or prone to blinkered gaffes and he singls out the
Treveri not Gauls generally.
>Preface to Book II, Commentary on Galatians
>One remark I must make, and so fulfil the
>romise with which I started. While the Galatians, in common with the
>wole
>East, speak Greek, their own language is almost identical with that of
>the
>Treviri; and if through contact with the Greek they have acquired a few
>corruptions, it is a matter of no moment. The Africans have to some
>extent
>changed the Phenician language, and Latin itself is daily undergoing
>changes through differences of place and time"
Regards
Graham
Graham Nowland
Chris
Thanks for that. I really was dreading going though my mess of notes
to try and find it.
My memory wasn't totally wrong then. He does single out the Treveri.
I suppose there is still room for arguing he may have only been
referring to the Treveri as a representative group of the Gauls he
knew.
Hwever that scenario is a bit like someone saying after a visit to
Cornwall, "The Americans speak the same langauge as the Cornish," This
analagy may not stand up to the fierce torch of your powerful
intellect and huge knowledge.
Since the Bishop specified the Treveri and he doesn't look like a
loose thinker, there has to be a possibility that he actually meant
just that.
Don't you think?
Regards Graham
Christopher Gwinn
> I suppose there is still room for arguing he may have only been
> referring to the Treveri as a representative group of the Gauls he
> knew.
He spoke of the Treuiri because those are the people that he came into
contact with in Gaul. As I have already stated, we know that the language of
the Treuiri was Gaulish.
> Hwever that scenario is a bit like someone saying after a visit to
> Cornwall, "The Americans speak the same langauge as the Cornish," This
> analagy may not stand up to the fierce torch of your powerful
> intellect and huge knowledge.
The Americans DO speak the same language as the modern Cornish (with minor
dialectal variations), as far as I am concerned - what is this analogy
supposed to prove?
> Since the Bishop specified the Treveri and he doesn't look like a
> loose thinker, there has to be a possibility that he actually meant
> just that.
>
I really don't understand what this is all about, St. Jerome said that the
language of the Galatians was very close to the language that he heard
spoken in Gaul amongst the Treuiri. This makes perfect sense - Galatia was
settled by various Celtic tribes - some of whom may have been Belgic. How is
any of this relevant to the argument at hand?
-Chris Gwinn
Heather Rose Jones
>
> On Sun, 21 Jan 2001 09:56:51 -0800, Heather Rose Jones
> <hrj...@socrates.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>
> >When arguing over what a historic quote
> >says, it's most useful to have the quote itself, rather than ending up
> >arguing over various people's interpretations of the quote as if they
> >were the quote itself.
> St Jerome certainly doesn't come across as unsophistictaed, a casual
> observer, blinkered or prone to blinkered gaffes and he singls out the
> Treveri not Gauls generally.
>
> >Preface to Book II, Commentary on Galatians
> >One remark I must make, and so fulfil the
> >romise with which I started. While the Galatians, in common with the
> >wole
> >East, speak Greek, their own language is almost identical with that of
> >the
> >Treviri; and if through contact with the Greek they have acquired a few
> >corruptions, it is a matter of no moment. The Africans have to some
> >extent
> >changed the Phenician language, and Latin itself is daily undergoing
> >changes through differences of place and time"
So my point stands: he doesn't _say_ that the Treveri speak a different
type of Gaulish than people in other parts of Gaul. There may be any
number of reasons why he said "Treveri" rather than "Gauls" -- I
mentioned possibilities in my previous post.
And if I point out that there is no basis in this quote for concluding
that the Treveri spoke a different language/dialect than other people of
Gaul, there is no basis for concluding that I am accusing Jerome of
being "unsophisticated" or "prone to gaffes". I'm simply noting what
_is_ and what is _not_ contained factually in the quote.
Heather Rose Jones
> news:33Da6.51334$0d.59...@nnrp4.clara.net...
>
> > where the orthography may appear known, this can be wrong. Letters
> > themselves can have quite different values in different languages. For
> > example in Greek the letter "P" is actually an "R" from the perspective of
> > the Latin alphabet. The Romans had no letter "U", instead they used "V".
> In
> > Welsh the letters "W" and "Y" are vowels, whereas in English they are
> > consonants. In old English "f" is frequently used for "s".
While the "long s" is relatively similar in shape to an "f", it is not
identical -- the two are always distinguished when used together. It is
not the case that "f" is used for "s".
> > In Scotland the
> > letter "Z" can have quite a different meaning.
> > For example the name "Menzies" is not properly pronounced "Men-zees" but
> > rather more like "Mingus".
The letter in question is named "yogh" and, while modern typography
substitutes a "z" (leading in some cases to changes in pronunciation,
based on the perceived spelling), this is substituted for a rather
different symbol used in manuscripts -- one more closely resembling a
"3" set half a line lower. The yogh and z were distinctly different
letters, and were only merged with the rise of printing (printers didn't
want to deal with "odd" letters) at a time when the use of yogh was
waning and uncommon. That is, it's the functional equivalent of the
modern use of "y" to substitute for a thorn in contexts like "ye olde
shoppe". When the letter was in active use, it was distinct in form;
the typographer's substitution occurred outside the context of its
active use (either temporally or geographically).
Graham Nowland
<son...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>The Americans DO speak the same language as the modern Cornish (with minor
>dialectal variations), as far as I am concerned - what is this analogy
>supposed to prove?
The point is that such a person is more likely to say "the Americans
speak the same language as the *English.*
>He spoke of the Treuiri because those are the people that he came into
>contact with in Gaul. As I have already stated, we know that the language of
>the Treuiri was Gaulish.
>I really don't understand what this is all about, St. Jerome said that the
>language of the Galatians was very close to the language that he heard
>spoken in Gaul amongst the Treuiri.
Well you're twisting it a bit. He didn't mention Gaul. He was very
specific.
What he actually said of the Galations was:
>"their own language is almost identical with that of
>the Treviri; and if through contact with the Greek
>they have acquired a few corruptions, it is a matter of no moment."
What you seem to saying is that if Jerome had been posted to some part
of southern Gaul he would likely have inserted the name of the tribe
there, instead of Treveri. At that point you depart from linguistics
and enter into a literary and psychological interpretation.
>How is any of this relevant to the argument at hand?
Which argument do you think is at hand? We are way off topic here
anyway as you have already agreed.
You have given two reasons why you are bothering to argue linguistics
with W & B
The first was in the response to teh circuit breaking thread title I
put up *above* That led with the question: "Is the Etruscan thread on
topic?"
You responded:
>Not really - but this list gets stagnant without the occasional
>argument like we have seen here with the B&W "debate."
The second reason you gave further down in the same post.
>"It is only because I generate pleasure out of mocking pseudo-intellectuals
>that I have taken the time
>to rip them apart."
At least you're honest but I don't think you have succeeded in that.
You've probably helped B & W to sell more books by giving them so much
sensational attention.
I can almost imagine them saying to Adrian every now and again. "Sales
are slipping, Ade boyo, go and wind up that bastard Gwinn again and
see if he'll give us some more free publicity."
That's your "argument at hand" dealt with.
My argument at hand (he said piously) is to determine whether Jerome's
comment could conceivably throw any light on Nennius's comments about
the so called Brut journeying.
It doesn't matter much if the Galatians and Treveri both spoke Gaulish
or anything else. What is interesting is that they are the same
language.
That then could account for the beginning and the end of the Brut
journey. But in the middle of the Brut route you have the alleged
sojourn in Etruria.
For the Brut account to make any sense at all the Etruscan langauge
may have to be same as that at the Turkey and Britain ends. But not
necessarily.
Unfortuately the Etruscan language is a mystery. I understand W & B
argue it's a different language to Galatian/Gaulish and draw
conclusions from that.
In my line of speculation, and that's all it is, the Etruscan and
British don't have to be related.
That's because I wonder if migrating Celts who passed though Turkey
finally ended up in Britain bringing a tradition that they had also
passed through Italy (perhaps during the Etruscan decline, when Celts
invaded Etruria).
If then after the Roman invasion of Britain they blended that
migration tradition with the Roman one about the fall of Trory. The
full blown Brutus story could have came down to us that way.
For the British to have tacked the Troy story on totally cold would
have been hard I think. It seems to me that they would have been
better able to adopt the Roman/Troy legends, if there was already some
underlying structure there to encourage a sympathetic grafting.
That may apply to the other cultures adopting the Troy story.
Are there in fact any proved examples of whole cultures taking on
other cultures heritage stories cold, without any sympathetic
underlying tradition. And don't mention the British. I am looking for
documented parallels.
I sense there's nearly always a layer of stubborn resistance at story
telling level by the dominated group, no matter how glamorous the
invader.
All this may seem a stupid waste of time to you but at least it takes
me somewhere close to the newsgroup's topic. In the end I am trying to
sort out to my own satisfaction exactly what in Nennius to accept and
what to reject.
When I weigh up all the responses, not just yours, to my queries about
this particular conundrum and then think about it, I am still not yet
persuaded to drop the Brut line of inquiry altogether.
It is though very much secondary to my main interest in Arthurian
literature and historicity.
I must say the debate has helped me to clarify in my own mind exactly
what I am trying to do.
Regards
Graham
Christopher Gwinn
> >He spoke of the Treuiri because those are the people that he came into
> >contact with in Gaul. As I have already stated, we know that the language
of
> >the Treuiri was Gaulish.
>
> >I really don't understand what this is all about, St. Jerome said that
the
> >language of the Galatians was very close to the language that he heard
> >spoken in Gaul amongst the Treuiri.
>
> Well you're twisting it a bit. He didn't mention Gaul. He was very
> specific.
> What he actually said of the Galations was:
>
> >"their own language is almost identical with that of
> >the Treviri; and if through contact with the Greek
> >they have acquired a few corruptions, it is a matter of no moment."
>
> What you seem to saying is that if Jerome had been posted to some part
> of southern Gaul he would likely have inserted the name of the tribe
> there, instead of Treveri. At that point you depart from linguistics
> and enter into a literary and psychological interpretation.
I am sure he would have - but the fact remains that it was amongst the
Treuiri (for it was their territory that he visited after being scholled in
Rome) that he had occasion to become familiar enough with the Gaulish
language to recognize it another country thousands of miles away.
> >How is any of this relevant to the argument at hand?
>
> Which argument do you think is at hand? We are way off topic here
> anyway as you have already agreed.
I thought we were talking about Etruscan.
> The second reason you gave further down in the same post.
>
> >"It is only because I generate pleasure out of mocking
pseudo-intellectuals
> >that I have taken the time
> >to rip them apart."
>
> At least you're honest but I don't think you have succeeded in that.
> You've probably helped B & W to sell more books by giving them so much
> sensational attention.
>
> I can almost imagine them saying to Adrian every now and again. "Sales
> are slipping, Ade boyo, go and wind up that bastard Gwinn again and
> see if he'll give us some more free publicity."
Hey, if people are dumb enough to fall for them....It's not as if I want to
deny them their living -I would just rather see their books in the fiction
section. Apparently it's pretty hard to get their books, anyway, so it
doesn't bother me much. B&W were already getting enough publicity from
Adrian, I just thought I would put in my own 2 cents, seeing that nobody
else was doing any really serious challenging of their theories.
> My argument at hand (he said piously) is to determine whether Jerome's
> comment could conceivably throw any light on Nennius's comments about
> the so called Brut journeying.
>
> It doesn't matter much if the Galatians and Treveri both spoke Gaulish
> or anything else. What is interesting is that they are the same
> language.
It's not really that amazing - as I have said, the Treuiri were Belgic,
which means they spoke a northern dialect of Gaulish. Galatia was settled in
the 3rd century BC by a mixture of Celtic tribes - some that we know had
sister tribes in Gaul (the Tectosages) and others of uncertain provenance.
The remains of Galatian - mostly place, tribal, personal and river names
prove that it was the same language as both Gaul proper and Belgica - and
also that it was extremely close to Brittonic. Why is this so fascinating to
you?
> That then could account for the beginning and the end of the Brut
> journey. But in the middle of the Brut route you have the alleged
> sojourn in Etruria.
How is the fact that the Gauls entered and stayed in Anatolia going to prove
anything about the Bruts?
> For the Brut account to make any sense at all the Etruscan langauge
> may have to be same as that at the Turkey and Britain ends. But not
> necessarily.
>
> Unfortuately the Etruscan language is a mystery. I understand W & B
> argue it's a different language to Galatian/Gaulish and draw
> conclusions from that.
Etruscan's origins are a mystery, but the language isn't so much a mystery
as it is a language tht we don't have suitable translation for a great
number of its vocabulary words.
> In my line of speculation, and that's all it is, the Etruscan and
> British don't have to be related.
Good, because they aren't
> That's because I wonder if migrating Celts who passed though Turkey
> finally ended up in Britain bringing a tradition that they had also
> passed through Italy (perhaps during the Etruscan decline, when Celts
> invaded Etruria).
>
When exactly would the Galatians have sent emigrants to Britain? They only
just got to Anatolia in the early 3rd century - and we know the last
significant incursion of Celtic people into Britain were the Belgae that
arrived a century or so before Caesar's invasion. You are imagining that
Galatians some time between 300 and 150 BC sent a massive expeditionary
force to Britain, thus explaining the Bruts? You do realize that the Bruts
are based on the Aeneid, don't you?
> If then after the Roman invasion of Britain they blended that
> migration tradition with the Roman one about the fall of Trory. The
> full blown Brutus story could have came down to us that way.
The most that I would concede is that the ancient Britons may have had a
folkloric eponymous ancestor, perhaps named *Brittos, who was confused with
Brutus when the Britons first began reading Latin and Greek literature.
> For the British to have tacked the Troy story on totally cold would
> have been hard I think. It seems to me that they would have been
> better able to adopt the Roman/Troy legends, if there was already some
> underlying structure there to encourage a sympathetic grafting.
Why would it be so hard? People altered their genealogies all the time. Once
the druids were smashed, most of their native tales would have been wiped
out. The British needed SOME kind of origin story - and what better one that
Brutus - the name seemed a close match and the story put the British on
equal racial footing with the Romans. How could the British be barbarians if
they shared the same blood as the Romans? Note that this same process occurs
with Christianity - everybody dumps their native histories for ones that mke
all Europeans the descendants of Hebrews.
> Are there in fact any proved examples of whole cultures taking on
> other cultures heritage stories cold, without any sympathetic
> underlying tradition. And don't mention the British. I am looking for
> documented parallels.
You ever heard of a guy named Japhet? He was one of the three stooges, with
his brothers Shem and Ham.
-Chris Gwinn
Steve Beard
Nowland) wrote:
>Chris Gwinn still hasn't put forward much of any substance except an
>extract from the Encyclopaedia Britannica. He seems less concerned
>with truth than in defending the bastions of orthodoxy with his shield
>of linguistics.
>
>None of the questions I would like to discuss have yet come up in the
>discussion.
>
>Why not shift the focus to make the argument more relevant?
>
>Regards
>Graham
>
A quick 5 minute scan through Chris' recent posts elicits the
following "substance" backing up his agruments:
Links:
Celtic Inscribed Stones Project website:
For a brief article on Etruscan see:
http://www.britannica.com/seo/e/etruscan-alphabet/
To see some Etruscan inscriptions, go to:
http://web.infinito.it/utenti/e/etruscan/links.htm
More Etruscan:
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/1/0,5716,109191+4+106271,00.html
Celtic Coins:
http://units.ox.ac.uk/departments/archaeology/ccindex/ccindex.htm
http://www.writer2001.com/exp0002.htm
CISP site:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/cisp/database/
Search for Llantwit (geographical) or Samson (name), or utilize the
CISP code: LTWIT
Primary Sources
De Bello Gallico
Tacitus, Pytheas, Ptolemy, Strabo
Secondary Sources
Henri de la Tour’s Atlas des Monnaies Gauloises
Recueil des Inscriptions Gauloises volume 2
Eric Hamp (Etudes Celtiques, XIX) corroborating Rachel Bromwich (Armes
Prydein).
This is by no means all of Chris' "substance", just the results of
reading a few of his posts - would W&B supporters care to forward a
similar list?
On a related issue, myself and Richard also put forward questions (
mine are even non-lingustuc ones!) for debate. Will any answer to
these be forthcoming?
Steve
richard wardle
<SNIP to point>
>
>> For the British to have tacked the Troy story on totally cold would
>> have been hard I think. It seems to me that they would have been
>> better able to adopt the Roman/Troy legends, if there was already some
>> underlying structure there to encourage a sympathetic grafting.
>
>Why would it be so hard? People altered their genealogies all the time.
Once
>the druids were smashed, most of their native tales would have been wiped
>out. The British needed SOME kind of origin story - and what better one
that
>Brutus - the name seemed a close match and the story put the British on
>equal racial footing with the Romans. How could the British be barbarians
if
>they shared the same blood as the Romans? Note that this same process
occurs
>with Christianity - everybody dumps their native histories for ones that
mke
>all Europeans the descendants of Hebrews.
>
>
all the Arthuriana, following Gilds example.Followed by the
Saxons,Normans,Tudors, and Hanoverians et al are still doing
>> Are there in fact any proved examples of whole cultures taking on
>> other cultures heritage stories cold, without any sympathetic
>> underlying tradition. And don't mention the British. I am looking for
>> documented parallels.
>
>You ever heard of a guy named Japhet? He was one of the three stooges, with
>his brothers Shem and Ham.
>
>-Chris Gwinn
>
>
richard wardle
--
Regards Richard
Mankind is divided into three classes,
The rich,The poor and Those who have enough
Therefore abolish the rich and you will have no more poor,
For it is the few rich who are the cause of the many poor.
Steve Beard wrote in message <3a6c4db4...@news.virginnet.co.uk>...
Christopher Gwinn
> The consensus view occupies the academic high-ground and can
> support itself with any number of quotes from contemporary "experts" in
its
> support. The radical alternative has an uphill climb to even get noticed
> and, given the chance, there will always be any number of Chris Gwinns
> willing to strangle it at birth and pick the bones dry. Unfortunately
these
> types of individuals seldom produce any interesting and original work of
> their own. That is why I defend B & Ws work so vigorously.
Hey Adrian, go take a flying leap. You don't know the first damned thing
about my writings (as I do not generally publish my theories here). It is
idiotic statements like this that endear you to no one and prove that you
speak before you bother to learn all the facts - this seems to be your
favorite MO.
-Chris Gwinn
Simon Ward
Steve Beard <no...@virginnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:3a6c4db4...@news.virginnet.co.uk...
What irks is not so much the lack of substance but the immediate assumption
made by Chris that anything W&B, or anyone associated with them, say, can be
labelled idiotic.
Chris' first posting following Alan Wilson's response to his questions was
outright ridicule. It seems subsequently, from the internet sources you
quote, that Chris hurried off to find some backing and perhaps some
explanation for the position he held. Given the authority which Chris seems
to portray, I would have expected him to have delivered at least a
preliminary rebuke from a sound position and then followed it up with
appropriate references. This is not exactly what we got.
I have followed the links you include and note the following:
"The real problem with the Etruscan texts lies in the difficulty of
understanding the meaning of the words and grammatical forms. A fundamental
obstacle stems from the fact that no other known language has close enough
kinship to Etruscan to allow a reliable, comprehensive, and conclusive
comparison. The apparent isolation of the Etruscan language had already been
noted by the ancients; it is confirmed by repeated and vain attempts of
modern science to assign it to one of the various linguistic groups or types
of the Mediterranean and Eurasian world. However, there are in fact
connections with Indo-European languages, particularly with the Italic
languages, and also with more or less known non-Indo-European languages of
western Asia and the Caucasus, the Aegean, Italy, and the Alpine zone as
well as with the relics of the Mediterranean linguistic substrata revealed
by place-names. This means that Etruscan is not truly isolated; its roots
are intertwined with those of other recognizable linguistic formations
within a geographic area extending from western Asia to east-central Europe
and the central Mediterranean, and its latest formative developments may
have taken place in more direct contact with the pre-Indo-European and
Indo-European linguistic environment of Italy. But this also means that
Etruscan, as scholars know it, cannot simply be classified as belonging to
the Caucasian, the Anatolian, or Indo-European languages such as Greek and
Latin, from which it seems to differ in structure."
[http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/1/0,5716,109191+4+106271,00.html]
A long quote from Britannica that suggests to me that Etruscan is not so
easily worked out and still holds a fair degree of ambiguity.
However, by no means do I claim to be an expert and I can only judge from
what I understand. Having read a series of W&B debates within this forum
over the past five months I can honestly say that it has been the W&B
apologists who have retained some degree of decorum ahead of those who would
support the academic consensus.
W&B are putting forward the assertion that Britain had a developed and
sustainable social structure, well past what we understand as the late Iron
Age, prior to the Roman Invasion. They also assert that this structure was
maintained throughout the Roman occupation and was responsible, following
the Roman departure, for pushing back the Anglo Saxon migration. The reason
for the Anglo Saxon dominance, according to W&B (and likely a few others),
was the cometary disaster, not the prowess of the Anglo Saxons. As far as
this forum is concerned, W&B's contribution has also been to suggest a
lineage and provenance for a King of South Glamorgan for whom they claim the
personage of Arthur.
Whilst the Etruscan debate appears to be off topic, it actually underpins
the formost W&B assumption, that the British were descended from an advanced
culture that brought with them the trappings of a civilised society. Hence
it is probably a fair starting point from which to look at what W&B have to
say.
Those of us who have no grounding in the academic aspects of the subject
have no other wish than to witness an intelligent and thought out debate.
What we don't wish to see is reactionary language.
> On a related issue, myself and Richard also put forward questions (
> mine are even non-lingustuc ones!) for debate. Will any answer to
> these be forthcoming?
I very much hope your questions are answered.
Simon
Christopher Gwinn
> What irks is not so much the lack of substance but the immediate
assumption
> made by Chris that anything W&B, or anyone associated with them, say, can
be
> labelled idiotic.
Lack of substance?? That's a goddamned laugh - I provide more substance than
Adrian and B&W EVER HAVE or EVER WILL! I cite sources, provide quotes, and
answer questions!
> Chris' first posting following Alan Wilson's response to his questions was
> outright ridicule. It seems subsequently, from the internet sources you
> quote, that Chris hurried off to find some backing and perhaps some
> explanation for the position he held. Given the authority which Chris
seems
> to portray, I would have expected him to have delivered at least a
> preliminary rebuke from a sound position and then followed it up with
> appropriate references. This is not exactly what we got.
>
Bulls!#%# - first of all, I was at work when I provided most of the web
links - in other words, I didn't have access to all of my books - secondly,
I am not about to spend all of the required time and energy to type up all
of the necessary arguments/sources to place B&W's theories in the graves -
there is simply too much information to give (enough to fill a small
library). Even typing up all of my bibliographical sources would occupy
several pages and take me several hours - I simply don't have the drive for
it. What do you want, an itemized list of every book that I have
read/own??!! If you need sources, go
> A long quote from Britannica that suggests to me that Etruscan is not so
> easily worked out and still holds a fair degree of ambiguity.
Lord all mighty - can you read?? I never said it was all "worked out!" I
said that it didn't need to be DECIPHERED - in other words, WE KNOW THE
VALUES OF THE ETRUSCAN LETTERS! I have said over and over again that the
vocabulary and grammar was not fully understood.
> However, by no means do I claim to be an expert and I can only judge from
> what I understand. Having read a series of W&B debates within this forum
> over the past five months I can honestly say that it has been the W&B
> apologists who have retained some degree of decorum ahead of those who
would
> support the academic consensus.
>
What a load of bull - I have by far suffered more attacks on average since I
first began posting here than most - apparently you turn blind eyes to the
stabs and jabs that I receive from Adrian, et al. My language may be
different - and I make no apologies for it - but to imply that I am out of
control while B&W supporters are the paragons of civility is simple
ignorance. Go back and dig through the alt.legend.king-arthur archives at
www.deja.com - an entirely different picture will emerge.
> Whilst the Etruscan debate appears to be off topic, it actually underpins
> the formost W&B assumption, that the British were descended from an
advanced
> culture that brought with them the trappings of a civilised society. Hence
> it is probably a fair starting point from which to look at what W&B have
to
> say.
What they have to say contradicts not only a little - but EVERYTHING that
modern scholars have to say on the subject - how could so many smart people
from such diverse backgrounds ALL be wrong? The actual odds are very much
against B&W.
> Those of us who have no grounding in the academic aspects of the subject
> have no other wish than to witness an intelligent and thought out debate.
> What we don't wish to see is reactionary language.
>
Then I suggest you subscribe to journals like Arthuriana, Zeitschrift fur
Celtische Philologie, Studia Celtica, Etudes Celtiques and dig up back
issues of Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies and Revue Celtique, among
many many others.
What people like yourself fail to realise is that this is an informal
newsgroup and is not a good forum for learning - the best you can hope for
is belated news of recent discoveries/new theories and a few web
links/bibliographic sources. Usenet is not a suitable substitute for
actually hitting the books.
-Chris Gwinn
Graham Nowland
<agil...@freeuk.com> wrote:
of my comment to Chris Gwinn
>Oh that life were so simple, Graham! Actually it is not really in my
>interest for B & Ws other books to sell well.
Only joking ;-)
Regards
Graham
Graham Nowland
<son...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> You are imagining that
>Galatians some time between 300 and 150 BC sent a massive expeditionary
>force to Britain, thus explaining the Bruts? You do realize that the Bruts
>are based on the Aeneid, don't you?
Now you are in a muddle. Of course I am not suggesting that and of
course I know the Aenid origin of the Bruts.
I also notice that in your latest post you have resorted to SHOUTING.
Be carfeul you copuld get stuck like that.
>The most that I would concede is that the ancient Britons may have had a
>folkloric eponymous ancestor, perhaps named *Brittos, who was confused with
>Brutus when the Britons first began reading Latin and Greek literature.
Well that's something. I wouldn't want to build on it very much
without evidence just as you wouldn't. It's worth holding in mind
though.
>> For the British to have tacked the Troy story on totally cold would
>> have been hard I think. It seems to me that they would have been
>> better able to adopt the Roman/Troy legends, if there was already some
>> underlying structure there to encourage a sympathetic grafting.
>
>Why would it be so hard?
Well, give me a real example of a culture totally dropping their own
tradition totally and adopting a new and alien one entirely. Your
lengthy citing of the Brits themselves to prove the Brits case is a
circular argument based on pure speculation.
And it ignores the fact that the Celts maintained links to their
culture as best they could after the Roman and then English
repression.
>You ever heard of a guy named Japhet? He was one of the three stooges, with
>his brothers Shem and Ham.
Brilliantly witty. I collapse with laughter. But you give in then?
Of course you do. You simply haven't got an example of a submissive
culture totally abanding all its own traditions and grafting on
traditions from a dominating culture from cold. Perhaps the American
Negro, slave heritage, but even there a strong subculture emerged in
the 1960s and 1970s to claim back its remembered roots.
That's because there's always a residue which the crushed culture
maintains, no matter how hard the oppressing culture tries to stamp it
out.
That's one of the things that characterises the Arthurian tradition.
Sometimes this drive to cling to the crushed tradition can be so
powerful it flows upwards into dominant culture and gets fresh
modifications.
Eg the French Arthurian Romances. Much of the "new" material which
enlivened this devlopment was inspired by *upward* flow of oral
material transmitted ultimately from the oppressed culture.
Regards
Graham
Joe Jefferson
>
> > > In Scotland the
> > > letter "Z" can have quite a different meaning.
> > > For example the name "Menzies" is not properly pronounced "Men-zees" but
> > > rather more like "Mingus".
>
> The letter in question is named "yogh"
Hey wait! There's also a Hebrew letter named "yodh". Such a close
parallel _proves_ that the British were descended from displaced
Israelites. How could we have missed it before?
--
Joe of Castle Jefferson
http://www.primenet.com/~jjstrshp/
Site updated October 1st, 1999.
"Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the
poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the
hand of the wicked." - Psalm 82:3-4.
Joe Jefferson
>
> On a related issue, myself and Richard also put forward questions (
> mine are even non-lingustuc ones!) for debate. Will any answer to
> these be forthcoming?
It seems to have been missed by one and all, but I also had a question:
If the British descended from the ten Israelite tribes displaced by the
Assyrians as W&B claim, why are they trying to claim parallels between
ancient British inscriptions and Etruscan? Wouldn't Israelites have
written in Hebrew?
Christopher Gwinn
> >> For the British to have tacked the Troy story on totally cold would
> >> have been hard I think. It seems to me that they would have been
> >> better able to adopt the Roman/Troy legends, if there was already some
> >> underlying structure there to encourage a sympathetic grafting.
> >
> >Why would it be so hard?
>
> Well, give me a real example of a culture totally dropping their own
> tradition totally and adopting a new and alien one entirely. Your
> lengthy citing of the Brits themselves to prove the Brits case is a
> circular argument based on pure speculation.
Gee - how about the Galatians?! There is no native creation myth left in the
former territory of the Galatians - children who live in former Galatia are
taught that they are descended from Turks (some Turks even believing that
all of humanity descends from Turkish people). The Irish lost their original
creation myth - after Christianity tracing their descent to biblical Japhet
as well as inventing in the 7th century AD an eponymous ancestor, Goidel
Glas. Those ethnic Britons that ended up living in Anglo Saxon territory
abandoned their own histories in favor of the idea that they were actually
descendants of Germanic invaders.
Need more? Well, we also have the complete loss of pre-Celtic creation
myths/histories in Britain and Ireland - in fact we have the complete loss
of pre-Indo European creation myths/histories all across Europe. The modern
descendants of the Gauls have no creation myth and no history that wasn't
written down by outsiders.
The simple fact is, we have lost more histories and creation myths across
Europe than we have retained - I have only given a few of the many examples.
> And it ignores the fact that the Celts maintained links to their
> culture as best they could after the Roman and then English
> repression.
What links would those be? The Gauls were more than happy to toss the baby
out with the bathwater - they saw Roman culture as modern and cosmopolitan
and the vast majority were dying to partake in it - in the same manner that
people across the world find themselves partaking more and more in American
culture - including (under certain circumstances) the speaking of English in
favor of their own native language.
> >You ever heard of a guy named Japhet? He was one of the three stooges,
with
> >his brothers Shem and Ham.
>
> Brilliantly witty. I collapse with laughter. But you give in then?
No. The whole point of me mentioning Japhet is to show you that Christians
all across Europe abandoned their own native histories in favor of the
belief that they were descended from Hebrews.
> Of course you do. You simply haven't got an example of a submissive
> culture totally abanding all its own traditions and grafting on
> traditions from a dominating culture from cold. Perhaps the American
> Negro, slave heritage, but even there a strong subculture emerged in
> the 1960s and 1970s to claim back its remembered roots.
Uhhh - see above.
I don't think the modern term is Negro, btw - how old are you anyway?
African Americans of slave descent have almost no scraps of native histories
left - there have been attempts to reinvent a past, but there was next to
nothing left on American soil to reclaim (a notable exception being the
Vodoo and Santeria religions). The main problem lies in the fact that
African Americans are such a mixed population that very few know _where_
their roots lie. Few even realize that a great number of African Americans
(about 50% in northern states, 10% in the south) have an average of 30%
Caucasian genes and quite a few have Native American roots as well.
> That's because there's always a residue which the crushed culture
> maintains, no matter how hard the oppressing culture tries to stamp it
> out.
Would be nice if that was true, but history has given us many examples of
cultures being lost. How many Uighers can relate to you a Tocharian creation
myth or kings list, no less a sentence in Tocharian.
- Christopher Gwinn
Graham Nowland
<son...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>There is no native creation myth left in the
>former territory of the Galatians -
Do the Galatians even exist now as a group though. I am not saying a
culture can't be competely crushed or assimilated.
Without a separate language and a separate culture, memory of
differences must be hard to maintain inside a dominant culture. You
would know for certain if they still speak Celtic in Anatolia or not.
I certainly don't and my bet is on Turkish.
But if that's right and Turkish speaking descendants of the original
Galations still live there, couldn't they still have some kind of oral
tradition, that refers to the Celtic period.
In remote areas mightn't you find scraps of Gallic language embedded
in the local Turkish dialect. Perhaps unique local words for ancient
implements, or second names for a river or a hill say.
Only field research could flush that possibily out and if the work is
already done it might be only in Turkish. But if any work like that is
accessible, and your comments are based on study which includes it,
then of course I would accept what you say.
I fact I would like to know any accessible source which actually rules
out survival of an oral tradition reaching back to Galatians from
modern field work.
>The Irish lost their original
>creation myth -
>after Christianity tracing their descent to biblical Japhet
>as well as inventing in the 7th century AD an eponymous ancestor, Goidel
>Glas.
But something was preserved in writing by sympathetic Irish monks
wasn't it? Hence the Book of Conquests and our knowledge of Dagda and
all that crew. Or doesn't that count?
>The Gauls were more than happy to toss the baby
>out with the bathwater - they saw Roman culture as modern and cosmopolitan
>and the vast majority were dying to partake in it -
The Celts were initially a threat to all occupants of Italy and
overran the country. Later the Roman Empire crushed them, in what we
call Gaul but only after much effort.
Remnants of the Gallic pagan tradition still survived through oral
transmission and certainly some of it entered the Grail and other
stories. The French are still proud of their Gallic "difference."
Its probably a cliche to say history tends to filter to suit the
dominant culture of the time, but that's what I think. Cliches are
often right.
I also think a newly dominant culture tends to suppress, or at very
best, simplify cultural information about its predecessors and also
tends to claim too early that the previous culture has gone.
I aslo think this claim itself often becomes a tradition, perpetuated
by the dominant and educated stratas of society. The people in those
strata then become blind to the sigificance or completely oblivious to
parts of the old traditon, which often survive in the lower layers of
the society.
You can observe it happening in modern situations. You don't have to
delve in the ancient past all the time.
That's the way it looks to me and it is one reason I am cautious about
overbearing statements on such questions eventhough I am not a
linguist.
But retaining the language does seem basic to retaining pride in one's
separate identity as a culture and all that goes with that. This is a
point the Welsh are also very emphatic about, and rightly too
considering the efforts of the English to suppress their langauge.
>African Americans of slave descent have almost no scraps of native histories
>left - there have been attempts to reinvent a past, but there was next to
>nothing left on American soil to reclaim (a notable exception being the
>Vodoo and Santeria religions).
Slaves transplanted like the African Americans were and are at an
enormous disadvanatge. Again the languages were crushed out.
Your point about voodoo is stimulating because of the stuff about it
scattered about in old US blues. I think that's where a key part of
the African slave resistance to total obliteration of their
transplanted culture took place, in the music and associated oral
poetry.
African words survived in patois and creole and on into US English. I
remember reading a study about the African source of many "slang" jazz
words. Jazz itself is one if I recall rightly and maybe jive and hip
are too.
I suspect you probably know all this and could probably give an
extremely authoritative and helpful response about how fragments of
African languages were carried along in the jazz culture and the
associated jive and hip talk.
Of the history, I get the impression none of the African-Americans
actually forgot where they came from in general terms. A few at least
appear to have known a bit more than that.
They certainly didn't adopt the dominant culture's creation or origin
myth wholesale and start saying they didn't come from Africa.
This is now only remotely relevant as to whether some early Celts in
Britain could have possibly maintained a previous migration tradition
that made it easier for them to adopt the Brutus myth.
Regards
Graham
Steve Beard
<ric...@wadl.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>Dont Hold your breath Steve :>)))
Oh no.........<choke>......vision going
black........<gasp>...........can't hold out much long........
Steve
Steve Beard
<agil...@freeuk.com> wrote:
>
>"Graham Nowland" <graham....@bigpond.com> wrote in message On Mon, 22
>Jan 2001 01:01:36 GMT, > At least you're honest but I don't think you have
>succeeded in that.
>> You've probably helped B & W to sell more books by giving them so much
>> sensational attention.
>>
>> I can almost imagine them saying to Adrian every now and again. "Sales
>> are slipping, Ade boyo, go and wind up that bastard Gwinn again and
>> see if he'll give us some more free publicity."
>>
>Oh that life were so simple, Graham! Actually it is not really in my
>interest for B & Ws other books to sell well. If I were to be purely selfish
>about it, I would advise people only to buy "The Holy Kingdom" as I don't
>receive a penny from the sales they make of their other books. Since the
>likely effect on sales of talking about "The Holy Kingdom" on this
>news-group (which isn't even published in America) is likely to be minimal,
>I am probably wasting my time contributing here anyway. No amount of my
>arguing with Chris Gwinn or Heather Rose Jones is going to persuade them to
>dip their hands in their pockets and go out an buy a copy. I don't suppose
>Steve Beard will either or any of the other skeptics. On the other hand,
>those who are interested and supportive of our work, (such as Morgan) have
>probably got a copy already. I therefore post what I do not out of any
>mercenary motive but because I am genuinely interested in the King Arthur
>enigma and believe that B & W have made some very important discoveries.
I don't know - you ask a few simple questions...
The main problem I have with your posts, Adrian, is you consistantly
fail to provide any support for your ideas. I have no problem with
new/revisionist theories, but I need to see supporting evidence,
preferably from primary sources before I can accept them.
I haven't read your book, and have never commented on it for good or
bad. All of my posts have been directed at ideas posted here or on
W&B's website. I'm still waiting for a number of answers.
You are right about one thing, I won't be dipping into my pocket to
buy your book - I will be reading it though; wonderful things
libraries.
< SNIP W&B and Adrian are right, everyone else is wrong spiel >
Steve
Steve Beard
<Simon...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>Steve Beard <no...@virginnet.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:3a6c4db4...@news.virginnet.co.uk...
<SNIP>
>> This is by no means all of Chris' "substance", just the results of
>> reading a few of his posts - would W&B supporters care to forward a
>> similar list?
>
>What irks is not so much the lack of substance but the immediate assumption
>made by Chris that anything W&B, or anyone associated with them, say, can be
>labelled idiotic.
>
>Chris' first posting following Alan Wilson's response to his questions was
>outright ridicule. It seems subsequently, from the internet sources you
>quote, that Chris hurried off to find some backing and perhaps some
>explanation for the position he held. Given the authority which Chris seems
>to portray, I would have expected him to have delivered at least a
>preliminary rebuke from a sound position and then followed it up with
>appropriate references. This is not exactly what we got.
Sorry, but that's just wrong. The links/sources I quoted are all from
Chris, but not from one post. They come from a number of his recent
posts, to back up a number of his arguments. And I say again, where
is the "substance" to back up W&B and Adrian's theories?
<SNIP>
>> On a related issue, myself and Richard also put forward questions (
>> mine are even non-lingustuc ones!) for debate. Will any answer to
>> these be forthcoming?
>
>I very much hope your questions are answered.
>
>Simon
>
>
So do I.
Steve
Christopher Gwinn
> Do the Galatians even exist now as a group though. I am not saying a
> culture can't be competely crushed or assimilated.
>
> Without a separate language and a separate culture, memory of
> differences must be hard to maintain inside a dominant culture. You
> would know for certain if they still speak Celtic in Anatolia or not.
> I certainly don't and my bet is on Turkish.
Yes, they speak Turkish - which wiped out Greek. Galatian likely died out
around the same time as Gaulish (though I have read some theories making it
survive a few centuries longer - see David Rankin, "The Celts and the
Classical World").
You did not make set any conditions in your challenge that the people must
retain their native tongue.
> But if that's right and Turkish speaking descendants of the original
> Galations still live there, couldn't they still have some kind of oral
> tradition, that refers to the Celtic period.
I have never seen anything - but Galatian studies are not as fully developed
as Gaulish and Celtiberian.
> In remote areas mightn't you find scraps of Gallic language embedded
> in the local Turkish dialect. Perhaps unique local words for ancient
> implements, or second names for a river or a hill say.
There is likely some much modified onomastic material.
> >The Irish lost their original
> >creation myth -
> >after Christianity tracing their descent to biblical Japhet
> >as well as inventing in the 7th century AD an eponymous ancestor, Goidel
> >Glas.
>
> But something was preserved in writing by sympathetic Irish monks
> wasn't it? Hence the Book of Conquests and our knowledge of Dagda and
> all that crew. Or doesn't that count?
No, because creation is still traced back to the Old Testament and
characters like Lug are stated to be "of the seed of Adam." No native pagan
creation myth survives and the native histories were horribly warped by the
early medieval period.
> Remnants of the Gallic pagan tradition still survived through oral
> transmission and certainly some of it entered the Grail and other
> stories. The French are still proud of their Gallic "difference."
VERY little Gaulish material survived - we are talking in Gaul, remember, of
two foreign layers of influence - Roman and Germanic. I think it is very
debatable how much Gallic material survives in the Grail matter - I still
think that the majority of it stems from Christianized Insular Celtic
legend.
> Your point about voodoo is stimulating because of the stuff about it
> scattered about in old US blues. I think that's where a key part of
> the African slave resistance to total obliteration of their
> transplanted culture took place, in the music and associated oral
> poetry.
That it did.
> African words survived in patois and creole and on into US English. I
> remember reading a study about the African source of many "slang" jazz
> words. Jazz itself is one if I recall rightly and maybe jive and hip
> are too.
As well as Cat (man) - a few others. There was a book out several years ago
called "Black English" that had an entire list - can't remember its author.
> I suspect you probably know all this and could probably give an
> extremely authoritative and helpful response about how fragments of
> African languages were carried along in the jazz culture and the
> associated jive and hip talk.
>
> Of the history, I get the impression none of the African-Americans
> actually forgot where they came from in general terms. A few at least
> appear to have known a bit more than that.
Not really - which is why a new company is now marketing itself to African
Americans - for about $300 or so they will take DNA samples and trace your
family back genetically to areas of Africa (and Europe too, I suppose).
> They certainly didn't adopt the dominant culture's creation or origin
> myth wholesale and start saying they didn't come from Africa.
It was rather too obvious that they couldn't have come from somwhere else.
This type of thing is easier when you and your conquerors have the same skin
color.
-Chris Gwinn
Heather Rose Jones
snarfing up an other culture's origin myths and cosmology and making it
their own, consider pre-Christian Rome and the wholesale appropriation
it made of Greek culture. And this isn't even a case of political
dominance -- Rome was clearly the dominant partner in the scenario. But
Greece was seen as the font of culture and history. The relative
newcomer culture of Rome tried to give itself more solid "roots" both by
inventing connections with Homeric literature and by dressing up the
majority of their deities in Greek clothing.
Muiris Mag Ualghairg
advent of printing Welsh started to use C instead of K. This came about
because there weren't enough Ks in one of the early fonts and to spare the
expense of making more they used the C instead (if my memory doesn't fail me
it was William Salesbury who made that decision).
I would love to see these wonderful stones that have early inscriptions
going back to 700 with Khumry on them. Could you possibly supply their
locations for me?
<gl_w...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:94257c$4dd$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <AkX86.1864$1s1....@news4.atl>,
> "Searles O'Dubhain" <odub...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> > Looks like a British-Israelite to me. Is there a K in Welsh? What do
> you
> > think about this Doug?
> >
>
> This from Alan Wilson again:
>
> '...one American writer moans that WE are not called the Khumry and that
> WE are mistaken by not calling ourselves "Cumry". Sitting before me as I
> write I see copies of Robert Owen's "The Khumry", published in 1891, and
> Thomas Stephens' "The Literature of the Khymry" published in 1849, and
> John Williams' "An Ecclesiastical History of the Khymry" published in
> 1846, and so on. The dropping of the "K" and "KH" in favour of the hard
> "C" is a modern late 19th and early 20th century academic fad, and
> emenates from employees in the colleges trying to be different or
> whatever. In fact the "K" and "Kh" can be firmly traced back to 700 B.C.
> on inscribed stones and perhaps earlier.'
>
> G L Wilson
Simon Ward
> On Mon, 22 Jan 2001 23:45:05 -0000, "Simon Ward"
was
> >outright ridicule. It seems subsequently, from the internet sources you
> >quote, that Chris hurried off to find some backing and perhaps some
> >explanation for the position he held. Given the authority which Chris
seems
> >to portray, I would have expected him to have delivered at least a
> >preliminary rebuke from a sound position and then followed it up with
> >appropriate references. This is not exactly what we got.
>
> Sorry, but that's just wrong. The links/sources I quoted are all from
> Chris, but not from one post. They come from a number of his recent
> posts, to back up a number of his arguments.
In which case it may prove wise to show the context. Graham said that Chris
had failed to provide substance within the contect of the current debate.
What you appear to say here is that Chris has indeed supplied some
substance, but that the references were spread across a number of posts
within and perhaps outside the current discussion.
I rather think that weakens your proposition. Chris' initial reply was
"outright ridicule" (my words) and you have now reduced the substantive
aspects by saying that the links came from a number of different posts.
>And I say again, where
> is the "substance" to back up W&B and Adrian's theories?
I trust you don't expect me to provide that for you. In some respects I
agree with you, what we are all eager for is for W&B to publish their
sources. I hope they do. But equally, I think that even if they do, academia
would still not entertain their ideas since to do so would involve debating
assertions such as Jesus not dying on the cross and also fathering a child
through Mary Magdelene. These arne't matters that your average academic
would wish to get involved in.
Regards
Simon
Peter Guy
Sometimes methinks you doth protest too much.
Peter
indr...@my-deja.com
"Peter Guy" <pgys...@cableinet.co.uk> wrote:
> Chris,
>
> Sometimes methinks you doth protest too much.
>
Think whatever the you want - there are only a few people here (Heather
Jones being another notable example) that bother to take the time to
really help people out by accurately answering linguistic questions and
directing them to sound books and web sites. There are some of us that
have high standards when it comes to scholarship, which we try to share
in our posts, and all we get is a lot of flack in return from a highly
vocal minority. Who needs it? It is not as if I am the one making
bizarre and unwarranted claims about the origins of Arthurian legends
and the British people in general.
I am personally only trying to steer people (who express an interest to
learn) in the right direction and help them to be a little more
discerning when it comes to analyzing different theories. Now I see why
there aren't more academics taking part in lists like this. I should
probably follow their example.
- Chris Gwinn
richard wardle
LOL....Falls off chair ,kicking cat in process...which jumps up sqauking
..hits monitor..OH MY GODDD....:>))))))
Good one Steve,Brill.;>)
richard wardle
groups take with them the social structure they knew,and the language,which
they usually are able to impose on the people they conquer)
However the cometary disaster that W&B claim is not noted in any Historical
record of the period.Although I believe a cometary incident occured and
contributed to outbreaks of plague etc which affected the world at the
time...However W&B to follow up Steves post are extremely short on backup
and any question to them,as I know to my cost,recieves short shrift.
I am like you hoping those questions posted via GL Wilsons request are
answered but time is dragging on.
--
Regards Richard
Mankind is divided into three classes,
The rich,The poor and Those who have enough
Therefore abolish the rich and you will have no more poor,
For it is the few rich who are the cause of the many poor.
richard wardle
<3A6DB15D...@socrates.berkeley.edu>...
Wish I thought of posting it!!;>))))
BTW Glad to see you are progressing healthwise.
I had a pain in the neck once but she grew up and went to uni;>))))
Heather Rose Jones
... must ... refrain ... from correcting Ye Olde Grammar ...
Steve Beard
<Simon...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>Steve Beard <no...@virginnet.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:3a6d77a3...@news.virginnet.co.uk...
>> On Mon, 22 Jan 2001 23:45:05 -0000, "Simon Ward"
>> >Chris' first posting following Alan Wilson's response to his questions
>was
>> >outright ridicule. It seems subsequently, from the internet sources you
>> >quote, that Chris hurried off to find some backing and perhaps some
>> >explanation for the position he held. Given the authority which Chris
>seems
>> >to portray, I would have expected him to have delivered at least a
>> >preliminary rebuke from a sound position and then followed it up with
>> >appropriate references. This is not exactly what we got.
>>
>> Sorry, but that's just wrong. The links/sources I quoted are all from
>> Chris, but not from one post. They come from a number of his recent
>> posts, to back up a number of his arguments.
>
>In which case it may prove wise to show the context. Graham said that Chris
>had failed to provide substance within the contect of the current debate.
>What you appear to say here is that Chris has indeed supplied some
>substance, but that the references were spread across a number of posts
>within and perhaps outside the current discussion.
I didn't think I needed to do that, since all of the references have
been in his posts on this and related threads - basically in reply to
Alan Wilson and the resulting debate.
>
>I rather think that weakens your proposition. Chris' initial reply was
>"outright ridicule" (my words) and you have now reduced the substantive
>aspects by saying that the links came from a number of different posts.
ALL of the substance has come from one side in this debate, and its
not from W&B. Chris' style does tend to lay him open to the "Mummy,
Mummy that man's being nasty to me" kind of response, while ignoring
the points he makes. His initial post did include the point that he
would post a full reply later - which he did.
>
>>And I say again, where
>> is the "substance" to back up W&B and Adrian's theories?
>
>I trust you don't expect me to provide that for you. In some respects I
>agree with you, what we are all eager for is for W&B to publish their
>sources. I hope they do. But equally, I think that even if they do, academia
>would still not entertain their ideas since to do so would involve debating
>assertions such as Jesus not dying on the cross and also fathering a child
>through Mary Magdelene. These arne't matters that your average academic
>would wish to get involved in.
>
>Regards
>
>Simon
>
>
Well, we apparantly are debating their assertions - and so far it's
rather one sided. If they can't convince us of their ideas on this
newsgroup, they'll never persuade academia to change its position.
Why don't they publish their sources? They will never convince anyone
who requires some proof/support before they accept ideas otherwise.
Stiil waiting for the substance ( not from you Simon, it is a
newsgroup after all :-) )
Steve
PS: Off to Holand now, back next week - maybe there'll be some
answers?
Graham Nowland
<Simon...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>Graham said that Chris
>had failed to provide substance within the contect of the current debate.
>What you appear to say here is that Chris has indeed supplied some
>substance, but that the references were spread across a number of posts
>within and perhaps outside the current discussion.
Simon
Thanks for bothering to intervene with this point while I was busy. I
had myself wondered why Steve was suggesting a list of web sites could
replace intelligent discussion.
I was also mildly baffled that he has identified something he calls "W
& B supporters."
Personally I have not observed this. Adrian cannot be counted as a "W
& B supporter" because he is a profesional colleague of W & B.
When confronted with the ideas of W & B, people actually seem to
divide into; (a) neutral and quite polite people who express mild
curiosity in W & Bs ideas; (b) a small but vociferous group of
detractors who from time to time, perhaps coinciding with the phases
of the moon, become swollen with self importance and use emotive
language.
Some of (b) take pride in not having read any of W & Bs work.
Steve who is in the latter group appears may have been trying to
indirectly characterise me as a "W & B supporter."
If so it seems to me that by taking a neutral and polite stance on W &
Bs work, you could be labelled and condemned.
Who else did that something like that now, errrrr.... ummmm...someone
beginning with H who had a funny moustache?
Tooteloo All. I'm off for a break.
Regards
Graham
Eramon1
As an impartial observer I'd like to throw my opinion in here.
There is something called the scientific method which is based on being able to
reproduce results. In this case I should be able to look at the same info that
Wilson and Blackett have looked at and, at the least, follow the reasoning that
has gotten them to their conclusions.
If I don't have access to that information then I can't walk the same trail. If
they withhold the information then it makes me doubt what they say.
I have no problem with them saying they have this info and that info with a gap
that they have bridged with a theory. However if that's the case then they
should acknowledge that it's at the theory stage, unsupported by facts, that
it's merely intuition.
When they are contradicted by knowledgeable people they should, if they want
their theories to gain acceptance, deal with those contradictions.
I've been disappointed by the lack of response from them. Several weeks ago
they were going to answer questions. Unless I missed something (and please let
me know if I have!), we got a response with several anonymous sources along the
lines of "a writer in 1792 said..." which can't possibly convince anyone of
anything. When it was pointed out that such citations were inadequate we didn't
get the names of the writers, did we? I believe instead we saw rather immature
retaliation.
Spending time worrying about manners is, in my opinion, a red herring, a side
issue. What I'd like to know is how W & B reached their conclusions. I'd like
them to answer questions, to deal with the linguistics problem as laid out by
Heather.
Frankly, the burden of proof on any theory is with those who present the
theory. If they want to be heard they must expose their work in every way
possible.
-Eric Ramon
Portland, Oregon
Heather Rose Jones
> When confronted with the ideas of W & B, people actually seem to
> divide into; (a) neutral and quite polite people who express mild
> curiosity in W & Bs ideas; (b) a small but vociferous group of
> detractors who from time to time, perhaps coinciding with the phases
> of the moon, become swollen with self importance and use emotive
> language.
Do tell. And which group do you lump me into? Should I give up on
trying to be calm and polite and explaining things in excruciating
detail? Is there any point to it if you will not allow for a category
of "people who disagree vehemently with W&B's ideas but attempt to
discuss the matter in a polite and dignified manner"?
seddy...@my-deja.com
"Christopher Gwinn" <son...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > What irks is not so much the lack of substance but the immediate
> assumption
> > made by Chris that anything W&B, or anyone associated with them,
>>say, can be labelled idiotic.
>
> Lack of substance?? That's a goddamned laugh - I provide more
substance than
> Adrian and B&W EVER HAVE or EVER WILL! I cite sources, provide
quotes, and
> answer questions!
So the lack of substance bit hit home did it. Let me say again, what
irks most is NOT the lack of substance, but your immediate assumption
that anything W&B have to say can be labelled idiotic. Please deal with
that part of my statement.
> > Chris' first posting following Alan Wilson's response to his
questions was
> > outright ridicule. It seems subsequently, from the internet sources
you
> > quote, that Chris hurried off to find some backing and perhaps some
> > explanation for the position he held. Given the authority which
Chris
> seems
> > to portray, I would have expected him to have delivered at least a
> > preliminary rebuke from a sound position and then followed it up
with
> > appropriate references. This is not exactly what we got.
> >
>
> Bulls!#%# -
You needn't edit out the swearing on my account.
>first of all, I was at work when I provided most of the web
> links - in other words, I didn't have access to all of my books -
secondly,
> I am not about to spend all of the required time and energy to type
up all
> of the necessary arguments/sources to place B&W's theories in the
graves -
> there is simply too much information to give (enough to fill a small
> library). Even typing up all of my bibliographical sources would
occupy
> several pages and take me several hours - I simply don't have the
drive for
> it. What do you want, an itemized list of every book that I have
> read/own??!! If you need sources, go
I don't know where I've got to go, but never mind. Let me take you back
to your initial response in which you stated:
"My lord, my lord - somebody call up those men in the nice white suits -
I think we have an emergency here - no, scrap that - where's Mulder and
Scully???
Alan - you don't have any direct access to any sharp implements, do
you?
I'll give my rebuttle when I stop.... laughing.... so... hard....."
You then supplied another post in reply to Gavin in which you
said: "Oh, I'll explain all right. Give me time - I want to savor the
creation of my rebuttal-of-mass-destruction. In the meantime, hide the
children.
B&W better PRAY they actually discovered the real King Arthur, 'cause
otherwise I am going to Saxon them back to the Dark Ages."
Sounds to me like you were indeed prepared to go off and spend some
considerable time dealing with Alan Wilson's answer to your questions.
Now you state that "I am not about to spend all of the required time
and energy to type up all of the necessary arguments/sources to place
B&W's theories in the graves - there is simply too much information to
give." Please make up your mind.
> > A long quote from Britannica that suggests to me that Etruscan is
not so
> > easily worked out and still holds a fair degree of ambiguity.
>
> Lord all mighty - can you read?? I never said it was all "worked
out!" I
> said that it didn't need to be DECIPHERED - in other words, WE KNOW
THE
> VALUES OF THE ETRUSCAN LETTERS! I have said over and over again that
the
> vocabulary and grammar was not fully understood.
Seems to me then that there is still some work to be done on the
language.
> > However, by no means do I claim to be an expert and I can only
judge from
> > what I understand. Having read a series of W&B debates within this
forum
> > over the past five months I can honestly say that it has been the
W&B
> > apologists who have retained some degree of decorum ahead of those
who
> would
> > support the academic consensus.
> >
>
> What a load of bull - I have by far suffered more attacks on average
since I
> first began posting here than most - apparently you turn blind eyes
to the
> stabs and jabs that I receive from Adrian, et al. My language may be
> different - and I make no apologies for it - but to imply that I am
out of
> control while B&W supporters are the paragons of civility is simple
> ignorance. Go back and dig through the alt.legend.king-arthur
archives at
> www.deja.com - an entirely different picture will emerge.
I have followed the debate closely since the middle of last year and
note that most of the times when you have been attacked it has been as
a result of your postings. If you can't take it Chris, don't give it
out in the first place.
> > Whilst the Etruscan debate appears to be off topic, it actually
underpins
> > the formost W&B assumption, that the British were descended from an
> advanced
> > culture that brought with them the trappings of a civilised
society. Hence
> > it is probably a fair starting point from which to look at what W&B
have
> to
> > say.
>
> What they have to say contradicts not only a little - but EVERYTHING
that
> modern scholars have to say on the subject - how could so many smart
people
> from such diverse backgrounds ALL be wrong? The actual odds are very
much
> against B&W.
I take your point, but note also that the modern concensus contradicts
what was understood to be British History prior to the 19th century.
Thomas Bulfinch wrote in his book on Fables (!) "We shall begin our
history of King Arthur by giving those particulars of his life which
appear to rest on historical evidence.....Arthur was a prince of the
tribe of Britons called Silures, whose country was South Wales."
Whilst I'm not saying that Bulfinch was correct, I am pointing out that
this is what he understood to be correct and historical. Things change
over time, but that change doesn't have to lead to the truth or a
better version of it.
> > Those of us who have no grounding in the academic aspects of the
subject
> > have no other wish than to witness an intelligent and thought out
debate.
> > What we don't wish to see is reactionary language.
> >
>
> Then I suggest you subscribe to journals like Arthuriana, Zeitschrift
fur
> Celtische Philologie, Studia Celtica, Etudes Celtiques and dig up back
> issues of Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies and Revue Celtique,
among
> many many others.
Thanks for the list.
> What people like yourself fail to realise is that this is an informal
> newsgroup and is not a good forum for learning - the best you can
hope for
> is belated news of recent discoveries/new theories and a few web
> links/bibliographic sources. Usenet is not a suitable substitute for
> actually hitting the books.
I disgaree strongly. Heather has written some great postings - in fact
the best that I could have hoped for. You yourself, Chris, have
impressed me on occasion. This NG (the sexual spams aside) has a high
percentage of intelligent and informative postings from which I, and
I'm sure many others, have learnt a great deal.
Regards
Simon
PS. I've had to reply from Deja since my ISP (btinternet) failed to
supply me with Chris' rebuke. I'm also missing Adrian's latest
missives. Anyone else been having problems?