Who Were The Celts?

newmug · 03-06-2012 4:19pm

bolgios wrote: »

I suggest we forget about the Tuatha Dé Danann DNA thing.

Whatever about the Basques (whom I have no problem with - lovely people!), the people on this island until recently spoke Irish, which is a Celtic language. If they spoke (speak) a Celtic language, surely they are descended from Celts. Or am I missing something?

We all speak english now, but very few of us are decended from english peoples in the last 150 years.

bolgios wrote: »

With respect, where exactly is this mixture of mythology, Basques, 'hairy creatures who lived in the woods', and pseudo-DNA studies supposed to lead us?

bolgios wrote: »

Thanks. Could I just ask that any DNA evidence be accompanied by references to where it came from? There's a lot of 'DNA evidence' out there, not all of it serious.

Just this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58HJPiigxR0&feature=related

bolgios · 03-06-2012 5:01pm

My mistake. I thought this was a serious site.

When I tried to post links about Celtic archaeology the thread was censored/shut down. Now we are being treated to 'hairy creatures in the forest' theories, and pathetic comedy links. I wish your sad little site all the best.

Enkidu · 03-06-2012 5:32pm

bolgios wrote: »

Now we are being treated to 'hairy creatures in the forest' theories, and pathetic comedy links. I wish your sad little site all the best.

You are the only person who mentioned hairy creatures (I think). What is it exactly that you wish to know about the Celts?

Mountainsandh · 03-06-2012 7:39pm

Sorry Slowburner (and others) you all seem to know so much about everything, I assumed you'd know about that.

Ours are a variant I guess, I was always told by my mum that this signified we were from Southern (relative to Lyon, France) people, that is, Italians etc...

Interestingly, my daughter who is my clone had it as a baby I think (these marks disappear with age), but my son who seems to take more from the Dad's side didn't have anything that I remember.

My Mam's mark was so strong that she still has it. Mine...

... goes off to check her lower back...

Mountainsandh · 03-06-2012 8:03pm

Sorry Bolgios, for my off topic posts above.

People here are helpful, and very knowledgeable. We all get annoyed at some things on here at times, but it's a site worth sticking around, no need to get all worked up about things...

slowburner · 03-06-2012 10:01pm

bolgios wrote: »

My mistake. I thought this was a serious site.

When I tried to post links about Celtic archaeology the thread was censored/shut down. Now we are being treated to 'hairy creatures in the forest' theories, and pathetic comedy links. I wish your sad little site all the best.

The problem is that you didn't post about Celtic archaeology.
I wish you had.
You posted nothing more than a succession of links to one web page without making any other form of contribution to the forum.
The thread was closed, and with more than fair warning, combined with an invitation to make a reasonable contribution.
You made a reasonable contribution, and were duly thanked for doing so.

The web page you persistently linked to, was actually pretty interesting, it was clearly referenced and well written.
It's a pity that you didn't share or discuss some of that knowledge with us in the forum.
As it was presented on the forum, it smacked of nothing more than free publicity.
I should add that the closed thread received one reply in almost three months - the new thread has had thirty six in two days (thirty seven if you include this piece of unnecessary guff).

That this forum is not a vehicle for linking to your web page is something you might resent - but you are alone with that.

If you no longer wish to engage in Boardsian dialogue, c'est la vie.

slowburner · 03-06-2012 10:07pm

Mountainsandh wrote: »

Sorry Slowburner (and others) you all seem to know so much about everything, I assumed you'd know about that.

Ours are a variant I guess, I was always told by my mum that this signified we were from Southern (relative to Lyon, France) people, that is, Italians etc...

Interestingly, my daughter who is my clone had it as a baby I think (these marks disappear with age), but my son who seems to take more from the Dad's side didn't have anything that I remember.

My Mam's mark was so strong that she still has it. Mine...

... goes off to check her lower back...

Nope. Completely new to me.
By any chance, did your mother think that the southern French were superior?

(...there's plenty here that know a lot; I know very, very little, and realise it more and more!)

Mountainsandh · 03-06-2012 10:15pm

slowburner wrote: »

By any chance, did your mother think that the southern French were superior?

I don't know, never thought of it in those terms

But now that you say it, I think they may well be

:cool:

slowburner · 03-06-2012 10:58pm

I've often wondered about the degree of affinity between the Irish and the French (except in rugby, of course).
I've often wondered if this affinity (real or imagined) stems from the well documented P-celt/Q-celt distributions.
Or perhaps the affinity is recent (the Flight of the Earls, General Humbert).
And of course wine .

I think (speaking from personal experience) that there is a similar affinity between the Irish and the people of Cornwall and Brittany.

Mountainsandh · 04-06-2012 9:12am

P and Qs are something I haven't learned about yet

There's probably something in what you're saying. Haven't learned enough about the celts to form a proper idea on this yet.

bolgios · 04-06-2012 10:38am

slowburner wrote: »

The problem is that you didn't post about Celtic archaeology.
I wish you had.
You posted nothing more than a succession of links to one web page without making any other form of contribution to the forum.
The thread was closed, and with more than fair warning, combined with an invitation to make a reasonable contribution.
You made a reasonable contribution, and were duly thanked for doing so.

The web page you persistently linked to, was actually pretty interesting, it was clearly referenced and well written.
It's a pity that you didn't share or discuss some of that knowledge with us in the forum.
As it was presented on the forum, it smacked of nothing more than free publicity.
I should add that the closed thread received one reply in almost three months - the new thread has had thirty six in two days (thirty seven if you include this piece of unnecessary guff).

That this forum is not a vehicle for linking to your web page is something you might resent - but you are alone with that.

If you no longer wish to engage in Boardsian dialogue, c'est la vie.

Boardsian dialogue, c'est la vie? Sieg heil u pretentious little git!:D

slowburner · 04-06-2012 10:52am

See here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

Infraction issued for personal abuse.

bolgios · 04-06-2012 12:31pm

slowburner wrote: »

See here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

Infraction issued for personal abuse.

If the shoe fits ...

Enkidu · 04-06-2012 12:38pm

bolgios wrote: »

If the shoe fits ...

What did you want to know about the Celts?

dubhthach · 05-06-2012 9:26pm

Mountainsandh wrote: »

P and Qs are something I haven't learned about yet

There's probably something in what you're saying. Haven't learned enough about the celts to form a proper idea on this yet.

The most basic way of dividing existing Celtic languages is to do with a sound mutation where a hard "Q" like sound mutated to be pronunced like a P. This didn't happen in Irish but did in Welsh and also Gaulish (the Celtic pre-Roman language of France). Likewise that mutation didn't happen in Latin either.

Example

Irish: Ceathair
French: Quatre
Latin: Quattuor

vs.

Welsh: Pedwar/Pedair (Masculine/Feminine)
Gaulish: Petuarios

Some of the extinct Italic languages (sister languages of Latin) did have a shift to a P sound for that specific sound. However they became extinct early with the expansion of Roman power.

Gaulish itself is recorded as late as the 6th century in parts of Eastern France.

slowburner · 08-06-2012 11:05pm

dubhthach wrote: »

The most basic way of dividing existing Celtic languages is to do with a sound mutation where a hard "Q" like sound mutated to be pronunced like a P. This didn't happen in Irish but did in Welsh and also Gaulish (the Celtic pre-Roman language of France). Likewise that mutation didn't happen in Latin either.

Example

Irish: Ceathair
French: Quatre
Latin: Quattuor

vs.

Welsh: Pedwar/Pedair (Masculine/Feminine)
Gaulish: Petuarios

Some of the extinct Italic languages (sister languages of Latin) did have a shift to a P sound for that specific sound. However they became extinct early with the expansion of Roman power.

Gaulish itself is recorded as late as the 6th century in parts of Eastern France.

It's hard to understand how the shift from Q to P occurred.
It's hard to grasp how one could evolve from the other - it's not as if the actual production of the sounds involves using the same parts of the mouth.
For example, the Spanish pronunciation of 'S' sounds like what could be called a lisp.
Allegedly, that was a derivation of a regal quirk, and it was adopted by the general population.
That's a natural understandable progression, which uses similar mouth parts.
Was the transition from Q to P somehow more a statement of identity than a natural progression?

dubhthach · 09-06-2012 12:03am

slowburner wrote: »

It's hard to understand how the shift from Q to P occurred.
It's hard to grasp how one could evolve from the other - it's not as if the actual production of the sounds involves using the same parts of the mouth.
For example, the Spanish pronunciation of 'S' sounds like what could be called a lisp.
Allegedly, that was a derivation of a regal quirk, and it was adopted by the general population.
That's a natural understandable progression, which uses similar mouth parts.
Was the transition from Q to P somehow more a statement of identity than a natural progression?

Well sound changes happen all the time. A good example is to compare English, Dutch and German. In Germany in the early middle ages (600-1000AD) a series of sound changes happened where consonant values changed. So for example d shifted to t
eg.
English: Day
Dutch: Dag
German: Tag

th shifted to d -- this also happened in Dutch (the only one to occur in dutch)
eg.
English: that
Dutch: dat
German: daz

Wiki has some decent articles (with maps showing where certain sound changes don't apply in German)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_consonant_shift

With regards to Proto-Celtic, one of the features that sets Proto-Celtic apart from Proto-Italic and rest of Proto-IE languages is the loss of Proto-IE "P"

example:
Proto-IE: *peysk- (fish)
Proto-Celtic: ēskos
Irish: iasc
Latin: piscis
Italian: pesce

"Q" is used to signify a specific sound in Proto-IE (usually written as K with a superset w -- easier to write Q). The shift of it to P in Brythonic/Gaulish restored a "P" sound to those Celtic languages (though in compeltey different position compare to Proto-IE). The shift is also seen in Greek, if you look at the language of the Linear B tablets from Mycenae you could say they are written in "Q-Greek" as oppose to the "P-Greek" of classic ancient Greek/modern greek.

Some have suggested that a sound shift happened among "Proto-Celtic" speakers in an area that has prestige/power -- for example the area with concentration of Hallstat/La Tene material culture. This then spread out in a wider Proto-Celtic region due to people aquiring what was seen as prestige speech. One can sorta see the same thing happening today among the younger generation and with the spread of "Supraregional Irish English" (New Dublin / "Dortspeak")

Anyways as a similiar shift is also present in some of the extinct Italic languages some have argued it's due to the assimilation of a non-IE speaking population who didn't have that sound in their own language. As a result they couldn't pronunce it correctly resulting in shift to P.

dubhthach · 09-06-2012 9:24am

Everyone of course talks about the Q/P spilt but there are several other ones in surviving Celtic languages. A good example is the following:

Proto-IE "w" -> Irish "f" / Welsh "gw"

The sound shift to different sounds in different branches of existing Celtic languages. This can be seen by looking at Gaulish where the shift didn't happen, as well as other IE languages:

Result:
Proto-IE: *wiHrós (man)
Proto-Celtic: wiros
Gaulish: uiro- / viros
Old Irish: fer / fir (singluar/plural)
Modern Irish:fear / fir
Welsh: gŵr
Latin: vir
Old English: Wer (thence Werewolf = man-wolf!)

Hence the irish word for vision is Fís compared to Latin Visio -- resulting in Telifís vs. Television

Comparing Irish and Welsh when you know the above rule you can see that the words fionn (find in old irish) and gwen are cognates. Both derive from proto-Celtic vindos/windos.

In the Táin the daughter of Meadhbh is Findabair (Fionnabhair), this name is cognate with the welsh Gwenhwyfar -- or as it's known to english speakers: Guinevere

Enkidu · 09-06-2012 9:34am

Dubhthach has already done an excellent job, so I'll just add a little bit to it.

The explanation currently thought to be the most likely is the shift from the Halstatt to La Tène material cultures. The Halstatt was the original Proto-Celtic speaking populace, the La Tène was a group of Celts to the south of the original Halstatt location, living in one of the first areas the Halstatt Celts moved to. Due to trade with the south they sort of Mediterraneanised their culture, creating the La Tène culture which flowed back into other Celtic areas.

The most popular theory is that the P shift is associated with this. It's difficult to see why it would occur but the sound denoted by Q is not our English q. Say queen, but instead of your tongue hitting the roof of your mouth in the middle, make it hit your mouth as far back in your throat as you can, a guttural q. You might notice your lips naturally close in on each other, in fact do it strongly enough and you'll make a basic P with the Q.

However I should also say that the whole P/Q things is not that major a division in Celtic. It was thought to be important early on, but really you could slice the languages into two separate groups anyway you want if you pick any random sound division. P/Q is no longer used by Celticists as a subdivision in the languages.

Enkidu · 09-06-2012 9:38am

dubhthach wrote: »

The shift is also seen in Greek, if you look at the language of the Linear B tablets from Mycenae you could say they are written in "Q-Greek" as oppose to the "P-Greek" of classic ancient Greek/modern greek.

Indeed, Homer and the poet Sappho wrote in Q-Greek, where as Plato, Aristotle, e.t.c. wrote in P-Greek. One of the major unanswered questions of Greek history is when and how the P-dialects won out over the Q-dialects, as originally we know (from Egyptian records) that the P-dialects were confined to the Western Islands such as Zakynthos.

dubhthach · 09-06-2012 10:56am

Urnfield is often regarded as the predecessor material-culture to Hallstat during the Late Bronze Age. It occupies most of the same area that Hallstat later appeared in, as well as there been signs of continuity.

Cultures%2C_1200_BC.PNG

A simplified map of the central European cultures, ca 1200 BC. The purple area is the Lusatian culture, the central blue area is the Knoviz culture, the red area is the central urnfield culture, and the orange area is the northern urnfield culture. The brown area is the Danubian culture, the blue area is the Terramare culture and the green area is the West European Bronze Age. The yellow area is the Nordic Bronze Age. (wikipedia)

Nordic Bronze Age is often regarded as been pre-"Proto-Germanic" (the Germanic sound changes occurred rather late)

Bronze “cult-wagon” of the Urnfield culture, found in a crematory grave, Strettweg, Austria, 8th–7th century bc; in the Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz, Austria.

Hallstat-A and Hallstat-B are regarded as part of Urnfield period, which the usage of Iron during Hallstat-C period giving the "classic Hallstat" period (Hallstat-C , Hallstat-D). La Tene material culture arises after Hallstat-D.

Enkidu · 09-06-2012 1:14pm

If anybody wants to know, the full list of changes that changed Proto-Indo-European to Celtic:

Sound changes/Phonology:
1. Common to a lot of languages, the centum merger occur. Basically Indo-European and two types of g, two types of k and two types of gh (g with a puff of air after) Luckily the two types are in English, pretty much:
Normal k: car
Palatal k: Tokyo
Normal g: goat
Palatal g: argue

Now the merger does not mean the sounds were lost, just that they came to be considered one letter.

2. Loss of p, as already mentioned.

3. g(w) became b, g(w) is like the Q I mentioned above, it's g said deep in the throat with a rounding of the lips. So:
Indo-European: g(w)en = woman
Celtic: ben = woman

4. Puffs of air following sounds were removed: g(h)el = yellow went to gel = yellow. (h) is the puff of air. This happened as a consequence of 3.

5. All the Laryngeals were lost, the sounds known as h1, h2, h3. These sounds are:
h1 = Similar to h in English, but with a sort of "stop", like butter in Cockney speech.
h2 = In the Arabic pronunciation of Muhammad.
h3 = The way the Greek g is pronounced. G without your tongue contacting the roof of your mouth.

6. Any tst or dzd in words became just ss. Known as reduction of double dental series.

7. Loss of resonant m and n, known as m(.) and n(.). Think of how you say m in jam compared with bottoms. The second lasts a bit longer. Syllabic m was a good bit longer than that. Same with syllabic n. They became am and an.

8. The only change in vowels (Celtic was very conservative with vowels) is long o became long u at the end of words.

Grammar:
1. Indo-European had two "I wish" forms of the verb. The subjunctive: "If I were a farmer", wishing for things that aren't so. The optative: "If only I could come with you", wishing for something that could happen. Celtic lost the optative. (in Germanic something wierd happened, in "If I were", were is an optative form of the verb, but Germanic gave it a subjunctive
meaning.)

2. Loss of the present and past participles. The major source of most of the weird grammar of Irish and Welsh. Germanic languages still have them, so:

I am kicking the ball (kicking = present participle)
I have kicked the ball (kicked = past participle)
I have broken the door (broken = past participle, just to have a verb where it isn't identical to the simple past)

Celtic lost these, to make up for the loss, it came up with verbal nouns to replace the present participle. So you had a noun like " a kicking", "a breaking/a break" and you said:

I am at the breaking/break of the door (Táim ag briseadh an dorais, in Modern Irish) = I am breaking the door.

To cover the past participle, a adjective was created, again with the use of "at":

I have broken the door -> The the broken door is at me (Tá an doras briste agam)

3. Creation of an Imperfect tense (the "I used to" tense)

dubhthach · 10-06-2012 12:27pm

One thing to consider about Ireland is that though La Tene style finds are rare (compare to Britain and especially likes of France) that there is a geographical distrubition that seems to favour the northern half of Ireland. One obvious marker of this is the find of beehive querns.

Decorated Irish querns
1. Clonmacnois, Co. Offaly
2. Ticooly-O'Kelly, Co. Galway

None of the Irish beehive quernstones come from a datable context.Only the Clonmacnois quern bears ornament that can be closely dated on surface ornament, based on similarities with carved bone flakes from Lough Crew and bronze "spoons".

A few hundred quernstones are known from Ireland, and in every instance the upper stone is "un-pierced", that is, the socket, into which the detachable wooden handle is fitted, does not perforate the stone. All were iron mounted and in every case the hopper is funnel shaped.

Beehive querns are unknown in the southern half of Ireland.

Map of beehive quernstone distribution in Ireland. Map taken from: Raftery, B. 1994, Pagan Celtic Ireland, London, Thames & Hudson

In Roscommon you have the Castlestrane Stone likewise nearby in Galway you have the Turoe stone, both heavily carved in La Tene style:

Interesting during construction of the M6 motorway a unknown Hill Fort from the late Bronze Age was discovered (with diameter of 450metres). The motorway cuts through this site. In general I've seen dates of at least 1000BC however at least one piece of metal work that is dated to La Tene period was found. See:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/44912983/Ireland-s-Invisible-People-the-Celtic-present-meets-the-Celtic-past

Personally I find it interesting that the areas with the highest concentration of La Tene finds are those with lowest amount of Ogham Stones by density.

The dividing lines with regard to material goods interesting enough recalls the pseudo-history myth of division of Ireland in two halfs these been:

Leath Cuinn -- Conn's half
Leath Mogha -- Mugh Nuadhat's half

Conn (of the Hundred battles) been the purported ancestor of the Connachta and related Uí Néill dynasties. Mugh Nuadhat (slave of Nuadha -- a god) been the purported ancestor of Munster's Eoghnacht dynasty.

Perhaps the psuedo-history is expressing an older truth wrapped up in a politically sensible (for 7-8th century Ireland) parable.

newmug · 10-06-2012 12:41pm

Those bloody motorways. 3 of them in Meath!!! :mad::mad::mad:

dubhthach · 11-06-2012 8:22pm

One thing I also find interesting about the whole Leath Cuinn vs. Leath Mogha idea is that it also appears to correlate to some major boundaries in the Irish language. For example the below:

The Cnoc -> Croc one is why you always hear native speakers from Connemara and Donegal pronunce Cnoc (hill) as Croc. Whereas in school it's always thought as Cnoc. In Scotland the pronunciation is also Croc. What's interesting about this sound shift is that it obvious had gotten as far as Limerick by the 12th century.

As the name Luimneach was anglisced as Limerick instead of Limenick

slowburner · 11-06-2012 9:05pm

We might have discussed the origins of 'Croagh' elsewhere.
There are two 'Croaghans' (that I know of) in Wicklow. Could these be a relic of the Western dialect pronunciation of 'Cnoc'?

I have to admit I find this linguistic material a bit difficult. I can grasp the 'kin'/'kivin' variations for 'cuimhin' (map 2), but I'm a little lost with the other two.

dubhthach · 11-06-2012 9:16pm

slowburner wrote: »

We might have discussed the origins of 'Croagh' elsewhere.
There are two 'Croaghans' (that I know of) in Wicklow. Could these be a relic of the Western dialect pronunciation of 'Cnoc'?

I have to admit I find this linguistic material a bit difficult. I can grasp the 'kin'/'kivin' variations for 'cuimhin' (map 2), but I'm a little lost with the other two.

The ao one is easy enough, you probably heard people pronunce "saol" (life) as either:

Seel / Seal (equivalent to í -- ee in english)
or Sayl/ Sail (equivalent to é -- ay in english)

Other example would be Naomh (saint)

Neev
Nay-v / naiv

Croghan is actually different root word. Cruach = stack/mountain (eg. Cruach Phádraig -- Croagh Patrick). Crucháin = little Cruach (áin = diminutive)

In munster the name of language is Gaelainn as oppose to Gaeilge in Connacht -- Gaeilg in Ulster

Anyways what I was trying to show is there are divisions between the northern half of Ireland (line Galway - Dublin -- the Eascair Riada) and Southern half. This is seen both linguistically and then with finds of La Tene type objects. Plus there's the pseudo-history "mythology" bout the whole twofold division (Leath Cuinn / Leath Mogha (North/South))

Mountainsandh · 11-06-2012 9:18pm

There's a Crohan hill/mountain near Dungarvan at the Southern tip of the Comeraghs too.

Spelling above is Google maps, not sure if it's also spelled Croaghan.

newmug · 11-06-2012 10:30pm

dubhthach wrote: »

The ao one is easy enough, you probably heard people pronunce "saol" (life) as either:
Seel / Seal (equivalent to í -- ee in english)

or Sayl/ Sail (equivalent to é -- ay in english)

Other example would be Naomh (saint)
Neev

Nay-v / naiv

Croghan is actually different root word. Cruach = stack/mountain (eg. Cruach Phádraig -- Croagh Patrick). Crucháin = little Cruach (áin = diminutive)

In munster the name of language is Gaelainn as oppose to Gaeilge in Connacht -- Gaeilg in Ulster

Anyways what I was trying to show is there are divisions between the northern half of Ireland (line Galway - Dublin -- the Eascair Riada) and Southern half. This is seen both linguistically and then with finds of La Tene type objects. Plus there's the pseudo-history "mythology" bout the whole twofold division (Leath Cuinn / Leath Mogha (North/South))

Which one is the "ay" pronounciation? I live in South Meath, and there is a distinct difference in accent / linguistics with our north Meath counterparts. The north have an accent like Hector, I have an accent more like Christy Moore (I mean in english aswell as Irish). I would definately have the "ay" pronounciation, as in ocht, NAY, deich, cup of tay, waynlings as opposed to weanlings (weenlings)

Enkidu · 12-06-2012 9:08am

slowburner wrote: »

We might have discussed the origins of 'Croagh' elsewhere.
There are two 'Croaghans' (that I know of) in Wicklow. Could these be a relic of the Western dialect pronunciation of 'Cnoc'?

I have to admit I find this linguistic material a bit difficult. I can grasp the 'kin'/'kivin' variations for 'cuimhin' (map 2), but I'm a little lost with the other two.

Dubhthach has explained one of these already, I'll explain the other one, namely "low vowels before tense sonorants".

Basically Irish used to have four R's, N's and L's. Let me just take L. The different L's were:
Slender l: cáil
Broad l: fiolar
Slender tense l: fóill
Broad tense l: feall

The tense L's are written as double l (ll). In most dialects (except Mayo) the tense sounds died out, leaving only two L's. To compensate for this, vowels before these tense L's, R's and N's were modified to make up for the lost sounds. Either becoming diphthongs (Munster) or long vowels (every where else). An example:

ann = there
an = the

Without the tense sounds, there is no difference between these two words. So the "a" was modified.

Who Were The Celts?

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