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The "First" Irish people
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Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,170 Mod ✭✭✭✭Join Date:Posts: 59098
purplepanda wrote: »So where is this Celtic European DNA present nowadays so we can take exact samples to compare with Ireland's modern day population??? I doubt if you could even extract pure Slavic or Germanic DNA anywhere either.All the lands that were originally Celtic have been invaded & settled by many other people's since the fall of the Roman Empire including Ireland.The modern population of Ireland, particularly the East coast has significant Germanic blood. The West of Ireland also has many surnames that are not originally Gaelic.Vikings, Saxon's, Normans, Fleming's English, Dutch, German's & Scots & Welsh, even the later two could some Germanic blood before their arrival in Ireland.fontanalis wrote:It's not a case of pure, people will still carry old markers.
Again we are applying a modern label to wide groups of people who may not even have called themselves that name.Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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purplepanda wrote: »All the lands that were originally Celtic have been invaded & settled by many other people's since the fall of the Roman Empire including Ireland.0
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The other way to look at it, is that it didn't mutate as such, but merely added to one degree or other the local language? Hence the insular features?
However Irish and Welsh do not do this. Irish and Welsh use something called the verbal noun. This is present in English as well. For instance "run" is a verb, but "a run" is a noun, similarly "understand" and "an understanding". Basically a verbal noun is the noun related to the verb. Let's say I wanted to say "He is doing the work". In Irish this would be achieved with:
"Tá sé ag déanamh na hoibre"
Translating this literally:
Tá sé = He is
ag = at
déanamh = the doing (this is the verbal noun, I now it's hard to imagine what a "doing" is!)
na hoibre = of the work
So,
He is at the doing of the work
or
He is at the work's doing.
So you can see the grammatical ideas here. Rather than "doing the work", there is a thing, called the "doing of the work" and he is "at it".
This construction exists only in Irish, Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Scottish and Manx and no other Indo-European language.
So the possibility is that it existed in the previous languages, because it is not a Celtic thing. However there are five other languages known to do this:
Ancient Hebrew, Ancient Egyptian, Old Arabic, Punic (language of Carthage) and Akkadian (language of Babylon).
What does that mean? Who knows!0 -
fontanalis wrote: »Are there many similarites?
The reason I ask is based on two place names. Dover whichis suppsoed to be based on a Brythonic word for water and Gweedore, where the Dore part comes from an old irish word for water.
Welsh:
Pa (What)
Paham (Why)
Map (Son)
Irish:
Cá (What)
Cé (Who)
Mac (Son)
and a f->g rule:
Irish:
fir (man)
fionn (white)
Welsh:
gwr (man)
gwyn (white)
I use c-->p and f-->g rather than p-->c and g-->f, because Irish is the more conservative language and the Welsh features an innovation.0 -
This germanic notion comes more from that early mistake and the first finds of the culture one could broadly describe as Celtic.0
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The people the Romans call "German" in the records were often linguistically Celtic.0
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fontanalis wrote: »Again we are applying a modern label to wide groups of people who may not even have called themselves that name.
Same as happened to other groups of people, I doubt if the Germanic tribes called themselves by that name either.
The Hungarians don't call themselves by the name that most of Europe knows them as & there are plenty more examples throughout history until the present.
I still maintain that Britain & Ireland are originally related to what are commonly still called Celtic peoples in Europe, not from central & eastern Europe but nearer to our location, from the NW European coast. Gallo-Belgae, Armoricans, & via the Atlantic coastal trading culture Northern Spain & SW France.
As for East Ireland, certainly SE Ireland, has been well documented as having differing DNA markers to other parts of Ireland. I have English, Flemish & Norse names in my family, I don't believe that in the past they all appeared by someone deciding to change their surname because it sounded better. These names are well known in Wexford & they all have historical precedent.0 -
purplepanda wrote: »Same as happened to other groups of people, I doubt if the Germanic tribes called themselves by that name either.
The Hungarians don't call themselves by the name that most of Europe knows them as & there are plenty more examples throughout history until the present.
I still maintain that Britain & Ireland are originally related to what are commonly still called Celtic peoples in Europe, not from central & eastern Europe but nearer to our location, from the NW European coast. Gallo-Belgae, Armoricans, & via the Atlantic coastal trading culture Northern Spain & SW France.
As for East Ireland, certainly SE Ireland, has been well documented as having differing DNA markers to other parts of Ireland. I have English, Flemish & Norse names in my family, I don't believe that in the past they all appeared by someone deciding to change their surname because it sounded better. These names are well known in Wexford & they all have historical precedent.
I still maintain that Britain & Ireland are originally related to what are commonly still called Celtic peoples in Europe, not from central & eastern Europe but nearer to our location, from the NW European coast
That's what the genetic evidence seems to indicate (but with Britain due to it's location having a lot of interaction with areas across the North Sea) but the whole timing issue is up in the air but why call them celtic? I know I'm being pedantic.
Regarding the timing of movements the whole R1b haplogroup seems to be younger than previously thought.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/09/a-tale-of-y-chromosomes-and-tea-leaves/
As for East Ireland, certainly SE Ireland, has been well documented as having differing DNA markers to other parts of Ireland
Wasn't that area the main Norman settlement area? And the East coast was invaded by Danish vikings. I think both those groups fall under the R1a haplotype, while R1b is more associated with the rest of ireland and the Atlanic Fringe of Europe in gerneral, also Norwegian viking markers could be mixed in on the west coast and hard to seperate due to common ancestry.0 -
Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,170 Mod ✭✭✭✭Join Date:Posts: 59098
purplepanda wrote: »I still maintain that Britain & Ireland are originally related to what are commonly still called Celtic peoples in Europe, not from central & eastern Europe but nearer to our location, from the NW European coast. Gallo-Belgae, Armoricans, & via the Atlantic coastal trading culture Northern Spain & SW France.
Look at the genetic maps I linked to again. For the average European, ones genes overwhelmingly match up within a 100 miles of ones geographical origin. And that's with all the imagined mixing back and forth. It takes a helluva lot of getting down and dirty with locals to overwhelm the local genetic grouping. It seems invaders are bred out remarkably quickly. All sorts of reasons for that. The invaders may only mate with each other, considering the locals beneath them(EG the norse in Britain). They may not remain long enough for any definite echoes to remain and people don't move around as much as we think over time. Women migrate more than men, so Y chromosomes will tend to show less change. Even so the X seems pretty stable geographically too.As for East Ireland, certainly SE Ireland, has been well documented as having differing DNA markers to other parts of Ireland. I have English, Flemish & Norse names in my family, I don't believe that in the past they all appeared by someone deciding to change their surname because it sounded better. These names are well known in Wexford & they all have historical precedent.Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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fontanalis wrote: »but why call them celtic? I know I'm being pedantic.
Blame the historians who decided to label a culture & people who ranged from Holland to North Italy, Spain to Asia Minor all with the same designation.:rolleyes:
Although these various people's were obviously culturally & linguistically similar the term is confusing & too far reaching to refer to such a large grouping of people.
My understanding is that R1b is still much more common in Western Europe than R1a, it all goes back to the end of the last ice age when 3 groups of people moved northwards from their refuges at the edge of the ice sheets to populate Northern European regions.
http://www.fettywww.com/europe_haplogroups.jpg
DNA science confuses me LOL!0 -
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purplepanda wrote: »Blame the historians who decided to label a culture & people who ranged from Holland to North Italy, Spain to Asia Minor all with the same designation.:rolleyes:
Although these various people's were obviously culturally & linguistically similar the term is confusing & too far reaching to refer to such a large grouping of people.
My understanding is that R1b is still much more common in Western Europe than R1a, it all goes back to the end of the last ice age when 3 groups of people moved northwards from their refuges at the edge of the ice sheets to populate Northern European regions.
http://www.fettywww.com/europe_haplogroups.jpg
DNA science confuses me LOL!
I think the idea is that R1a moved up through central Europe from around the Balkan or Ukranian refuge and R1b took the coastal route.
I think the genetic evidnence is best for an overall picture but there may be a lot of small movements that will never get picked up, the whole mutation rate thing is very complicated as estimates have to be made for population size and growth and I think even family sizes, so statistics play a big part i it.0 -
Interesting article about Stone'enge (where a man's a man and the children dance to the pipes of pan). I wonder if anything similar happened with ireland?
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2010/09/bronze-age-mediterraneans-may-have.html0 -
Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,170 Mod ✭✭✭✭Join Date:Posts: 59098
I'd be shocked if it didn't. Only recently a chaps bones found in a Roman graveyard in Italy was found to be of eastern Asian origin, probably Chinese. And this is 2000 odd years ago. We do tend to make the mistake that our forebears were all static and that travel is a 20th century thing. That's not to say they left the evidence of that travel in the DNA, that currently fashionable compass to find humanities way. But they, that sometime small band, even individual, did leave it somewhere else. Something more important. Influence.Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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Crikey
did i start a debate or what?
i wanted to find out more about whereabouts my ancestors came from,and how little relevant history we were taught in primary and secondary school.the excuse seems to be that we are too old as a country to keep tabs on what happenened and when.
i enjoy hearing a name and being able to roughly track where it came from,down to a county,area,or rough background.
it doesnt take much to see that my name is O' Flynn.according to mixture of genealogical companies,it originated from the word Ruddy,or Reddish(being the hair colour/complextion of the people at some stage)
from finding out where various families of O' Flynn/Flynn originated from too,a main body seems to be in Roscommon or West Cork
also popped up that the name in some areas is linked with Lynn,where it was anglicised from e.g John of the Lynn Family to John of Lynn to John O'Flynn.
The O'Flynn vs Flynn argument depends on who wrote the name down for census/written/legal reasons,again matter of opinion.
Here is my take on some myth or legend
The story of the Fir Bolg is plausible,as they are described as an Ugly race(would this tie in with the Neanderthal?),they werent very pretty.
Also I believe,some Fir Bolg people survive(check out the nightclubs on any weekend)
The language thing confuses me though,about celtic language.i had a chat with a random Latvian guy i met at work a few years ago and he was able to plot backwards the age of the Albanian language,that it was the oldest language in europe,if not the world itself.
Most Celtic reference pictures seem to show more Norse traits than Irish/Welsh/Scottish traits
Bringing me back to my own name,generations of my grandfather and before seem to have passed down the notion that the O'Flynn or Flynn people came from the Nordic countries.it waould be nice to have some proof,or a place name to back it up.
i dont think it will be as simple as hopping on a plane and looking for cousins in Norway though.
Add to the pot the fact that europe was all joined up at some stage and the earths plates seperated to form continents,most records were kept by the church and nobody knows who the nine hostages were that gave Niall his name.0 -
Here is my take on some myth or legend
The story of the Fir Bolg is plausible,as they are described as an Ugly race(would this tie in with the Neanderthal?),they werent very pretty.
Also I believe,some Fir Bolg people survive(check out the nightclubs on any weekend)The language thing confuses me though,about celtic language.i had a chat with a random Latvian guy i met at work a few years ago and he was able to plot backwards the age of the Albanian language,that it was the oldest language in europe,if not the world itself.Most Celtic reference pictures seem to show more Norse traits than Irish/Welsh/Scottish traitsBringing me back to my own name,generations of my grandfather and before seem to have passed down the notion that the O'Flynn or Flynn people came from the Nordic countries.it waould be nice to have some proof,or a place name to back it up.
i dont think it will be as simple as hopping on a plane and looking for cousins in Norway though.Add to the pot the fact that europe was all joined up at some stage and the earths plates seperated to form continents,most records were kept by the church and nobody knows who the nine hostages were that gave Niall his name.0 -
Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,170 Mod ✭✭✭✭Join Date:Posts: 59098
The story of the Fir Bolg is plausible,as they are described as an Ugly race(would this tie in with the Neanderthal?),they werent very pretty.
Plus its very common for the victors to reduce the vanquished in the eyes of history. Make them smaller or brutish or ugly. Make them barbarians basically.The language thing confuses me though,about celtic language.i had a chat with a random Latvian guy i met at work a few years ago and he was able to plot backwards the age of the Albanian language,that it was the oldest language in europe,if not the world itself.
I reckon your Latvian guy was just bigging up his culture more than having any basis in fact. You hear Irish people say similar about Irish as the oldest language, but they're on more solid ground. Certainly as a local written language.Add to the pot the fact that europe was all joined up at some stage and the earths plates seperated to form continents,most records were kept by the church and nobody knows who the nine hostages were that gave Niall his name.Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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Crikey
did i start a debate or what?
i wanted to find out more about whereabouts my ancestors came from,and how little relevant history we were taught in primary and secondary school.the excuse seems to be that we are too old as a country to keep tabs on what happenened and when.
i enjoy hearing a name and being able to roughly track where it came from,down to a county,area,or rough background.
it doesnt take much to see that my name is O' Flynn.according to mixture of genealogical companies,it originated from the word Ruddy,or Reddish(being the hair colour/complextion of the people at some stage)
from finding out where various families of O' Flynn/Flynn originated from too,a main body seems to be in Roscommon or West Cork
also popped up that the name in some areas is linked with Lynn,where it was anglicised from e.g John of the Lynn Family to John of Lynn to John O'Flynn.
The O'Flynn vs Flynn argument depends on who wrote the name down for census/written/legal reasons,again matter of opinion.
Here is my take on some myth or legend
The story of the Fir Bolg is plausible,as they are described as an Ugly race(would this tie in with the Neanderthal?),they werent very pretty.
Also I believe,some Fir Bolg people survive(check out the nightclubs on any weekend)
The language thing confuses me though,about celtic language.i had a chat with a random Latvian guy i met at work a few years ago and he was able to plot backwards the age of the Albanian language,that it was the oldest language in europe,if not the world itself.
Most Celtic reference pictures seem to show more Norse traits than Irish/Welsh/Scottish traits
Bringing me back to my own name,generations of my grandfather and before seem to have passed down the notion that the O'Flynn or Flynn people came from the Nordic countries.it waould be nice to have some proof,or a place name to back it up.
i dont think it will be as simple as hopping on a plane and looking for cousins in Norway though.
Add to the pot the fact that europe was all joined up at some stage and the earths plates seperated to form continents,most records were kept by the church and nobody knows who the nine hostages were that gave Niall his name.
Out of interest, have you any pcitures to show us?
Off topic but is there any connection between the two images below, obviously the cuchuilainn one is only recent with "The dying Gaul" being very old. Anyone know the history of the cuchulainn one?
Anyway, as Wibbs has said describing someone as trollish or ugly was a way to denigrate them and give the more recent crowd some legitimacy as with trying to link the milesains to the bible.
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Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,170 Mod ✭✭✭✭Join Date:Posts: 59098
Well the dying Gaul is likely more accurate picture of mid european "celt" anyway. I gather its a copy of an earlier sculpture? He's got the spiky hair and torc around his neck, the sword and a horn lying on his shield.
The cuchuilainn one in the GPO is early 20th century IIRC? With a definite victorian ideal to it. The sword looks more greek than celt to me? Nicely done mind.Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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the images i was on about are the likes of this one
and the likes of these men,with viking looking moustaches
i know these arent exactly photos from the day,but are they realistic depictions of what celts looked like?0 -
fontanalis wrote: »I read somewhere about possible links between Southern Wales and Wexford. Might explain that accent!
Is there evidence of Celtic languages being spoken around the North Sea coast.
I think those immigrations from Wales were far more recent. Explains the predominance of Welsh surnames (e.g. Griffin from ap Grufydd) in Wexfordfontanalis wrote: »I read they are a recent creation, used almost as a justification for the Ulster plantation.0 -
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A few pages back, I asked if there were examples known of a language coming to dominate a community without a significant immigration.
Some previous posts mentioned that the English are not genetically Germanic.
However, modern English is Germanic with a strong influence from French (via the Norman invasion) and a lesser influence directly from Latin (via its scholarly use or the Roman invasion or both?). Old English is very Germanic. Do we know how that came to pass?0 -
A few pages back, I asked if there were examples known of a language coming to dominate a community without a significant immigration.
Some previous posts mentioned that the English are not genetically Germanic.
However, modern English is Germanic with a strong influence from French (via the Norman invasion) and a lesser influence directly from Latin (via its scholarly use or the Roman invasion or both?). Old English is very Germanic. Do we know how that came to pass?
I think it's due to the East Coasts proximity to the countries on mainland Europe that border the North Sea. There was supposed to be a lot of back and forth between these two regions for a long time and of course there was the Saxon (may have been a term to bundle together Angles, Jutes and Saxons) take over in the 4th or 5th century.
In Origins of the British, Stephen Oppenheimer claims there may have been a Southern Swedish influence on the development of English, one point I remember was that Beawulf is suppsoed to be one of the main early English works of literature but it describes events in Sweden.0 -
Albanian wouldn't be even close to the oldest in Europe, never mind the world. The first verifiable Albanian was written down as late as the 15th century. Indeed outside the romance languages(greek/latin) Irish would be up there as one of the oldest local languages written down. Way before Albanian anyway. Oldest in Europe may be Basque as it has bugger all links to the rest of the indo european languages. I wonder would Enkidu, who defo has more knowledge of this stuff, be able to see if there are any vague connections between Basque and the "gaelic" languages? Lithuanian would be another old one. Worldwide, Hebrew and Aramaic would be older again and AFAIK Tamil is very old.
I reckon your Latvian guy was just bigging up his culture more than having any basis in fact. You hear Irish people say similar about Irish as the oldest language, but they're on more solid ground. Certainly as a local written language.
Of course it isn't the oldest by a long shot. The real oldest Indo-European language is either Icelandic or Sanskrit. Sanskrit still has a few speakers, but some argue that it isn't really evolving or organic and hence is dead. For example it isn't really any different from a bunch of kids in a few villages in Italy being raised to speak grammatically perfect senatorial Latin in addition to everyday Italian.
Icelandic on the other hand is vibrant and grammatically conservative enough to deal with the modern world and still be the same language it was a millennium ago. Icelandic is conservative enough to be essentially the last surviving dialect of Old Norse, the language of the Vikings. A modern day Icelander can read the old Eddas. Of course there are anachronisms and the script is different, but a few anachronisms and funny letters aren't the reason I can't read Beowulf.
Basque and Gaelic is a very interesting one. Obviously there was a language here before Gaelic and this language was almost certainly a language of Old Europe* like Basque. It is thought it influenced Irish through certain words and grammatical features. The collection of theories related to it is known as the goidelic substrate hypothesis.
Ironically the Old European languages related to Basque were in quite a healthy state in France and Spain until the expansion of the Celtic languages. So you could say the grandfather of Irish killed the siblings of Basque!
*Old Europe is a generic term for Europe before the arrival of Indo-European culture and languages.0 -
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the images i was on about are the likes of this one
and the likes of these men,with viking looking moustaches
i know these arent exactly photos from the day,but are they realistic depictions of what celts looked like?
Who knows, celts from a language speaking people point of view covered a wide group, the romantic notion of celts is just that, a romantic notion.
Like you say the pictures aren't from the day and may reflect the artists own idea.
But then again porn star taches could have been all the rage back then0 -
fontanalis wrote: »Who knows, celts from a language speaking people point of view covered a wide group, the romantic notion of celts is just that, a romantic notion.
Like you say the pictures aren't from the day and may reflect the artists own idea.
But then again porn star taches could have been all the rage back then
i dont know where they went?
i will try and reattach them again tomorrow
i am really enjoying this thread to be honest and i'm learning loads.0 -
fontanalis wrote: »I think it's due to the East Coasts proximity to the countries on mainland Europe that border the North Sea. There was supposed to be a lot of back and forth between these two regions for a long time and of course there was the Saxon (may have been a term to bundle together Angles, Jutes and Saxons) take over in the 4th or 5th century.
In Origins of the British, Stephen Oppenheimer claims there may have been a Southern Swedish influence on the development of English, one point I remember was that Beawulf is suppsoed to be one of the main early English works of literature but it describes events in Sweden.0 -
The real oldest Indo-European language is either Icelandic or Sanskrit.
Two speculative PIE sentences:
ʕʷeuis iosmi ʕuelʔn neʔst ʔekuns ʔe 'dērkt, tom 'gʷrʕeum uogom ugentm, tom m'geʕm borom, tom dgmenm ʔoʔku brentm. ʔe uēukʷt ʕʷeuis ʔkumus: kʷntske ʔmoi kērt ʕnerm ui'denti ʔekuns ʕ'gentm. ʔe ueukʷnt ʔkeus: kludi ʕʷuei, kʷntske nsmi kērt ui'dntsu: ʕnēr potis ʕʷuiom ʕulʔenm subi gʷormom uestrom kʷrneuti, ʕʷuimus kʷe ʕuelʔn neʔsti. To'd kekluus ʕʷeuis ʕe'grom ʔe bēu'gd.
Which meant:
A sheep that had no wool saw horses, one of them pulling a heavy wagon, one carrying a big load, and one carrying a man quickly. The sheep said to the horses: "My heart pains me, seeing a man driving horses". The horses said: "Listen, sheep, our hearts pain us when we see this: a man, the master, makes the wool of the sheep into a warm garment for himself. And the sheep has no wool". Having heard this, the sheep fled into the plain.
and
Pótis gʰe ʔest. Só-kʷe n̥gn̥ʔtós ʔest, sū́num-kʷe wl̥next. So ǵʰutérm̥ pr̥ket: "Sū́nus moi gn̥hjotām!" ǵʰutḗr nu pótim weukʷet: "Jégeswo gʰi déiwom Wérunom." úpo pro pótis-kʷe déiwom sesore déiwom-kʷe jegto. "Kludʰí moi, dejwe Werune!" Só nu km̥ta diwós gʷāt. "Kʷód wl̥nexsi?" "Wl̥néxmi sū́num." "Tód ʔestu", wéwkʷet lewkós déjwos. Pótnī gʰi sū́num gegonʔe.
Which meant:
Once there was a king. He was childless. The king wanted a son. He asked his priest: "May a son be born to me!" The priest said to the king: "Pray to the god Werunos". The king approached the god Werunos to pray now to the god. "Hear me, father Werunos!" The god Werunos came down from heaven. "What do you want?" "I want a son." "Let this be so", said the bright god Werunos. The king's lady bore a son.0 -
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Actually the oldest Indo-European written language is either Luwian or Minoan, both of which go back to c.1800 BC. All Indo-European languages are derived from Proto-Indo-European, spoken c. BC.0
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