Northmen as 'mGall'

[Eduard Selleslagh]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

This is in response to Steve Long's posting of Thursday, September 09, 1999,
Subject: Re: Northmen as 'mGall'

[Ed Selleslagh]

Thanks for the interesting additional information.
Here are a few additional remarks in relation with your reply.

>In a message dated 9/1/99 11:45:25 PM, Ed Selleslagh wrote:

><<Please note that J. Caesar actually mentions the Belgae as distinct from
>the Galli.: "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt
>Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli
>appellantur....>>

>Yes.  But note that all three live in "Gallia."  And are "Gallorum" - of the
>Gauls.

[Ed]

I also mentioned that Caesar says they spoke different languages (implying :
groupwise!), and had different institutions and laws.

>Plus there's something else that Caesar does that is apparently meant to tell
>us something.  He uses two different forms in referring to "Gauls"   See,
>e.g., in the same segment, Gallic War 4.5:
>"His de rebus Caesar certior factus et infirmitatem *Gallorum* veritus,..."
>But, "Est enim hoc *Gallicae* consuetudinis,... "
>While Cicero and others make a further distinction, calling the inhabitants
>of the Roman province of Gallia, "Gallicani."

>So it may be that the Belgae and Aquitani are of Gaul, but not Gallicae.
>Sort of the effect we can observe in the specific names, "America" and
>"Americans" and much larger general geographic names, "the Americas" and
>"North America."  It's worth noting that "Americans" did not give their name
>to "the Americas."  But by an odd twist, it worked the other way around.

>This is all a bit tricky, because Caesar signals the shift in name
>designation from the "Keltoi" to the "Galli" or "Gallici".  Pausaunias, I
>think, also notes it also in a matter of fact way, also without explanation.
>Why the name change?

[Ed]

Probably for the kind of reasons you mentioned : Peruvians live in the
Americas, but are not Americans.

The 'shift' from Celtae to Galli is due to the different usages among Celts and
Romans, according to Caesar; cf. Shqiptar/Albanian.

><<I strongly suspect - as many others - that the Belgae were Brythonic (their
>name seems related to Welsh 'balch', Eng. 'proud' - maybe another candidate
>for the origin of 'walch', as a name for the Belgae, I mean???). >>

>This points to a bit of a hole in the Volcae > walha hypothesis.  The Belgae
>and various other more northern Celtic/Gaulish tribes are much closer to
>where we should expect first contact with Germanic.  (Caesar: "proximique
>sunt Germanis, qui trans Rhenum incolunt...") In fact, the Belgae occupy
>lands by Caesar's time that would have given them full exposure not only to
>Rhineland Germanics, but also to Scandinavians.

[Ed]

This is absolutely true. In the first part of De Bello Gallico Caesar goes on
saying that the Belgae are so fierce ('horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae..')
because they constantly fight with the Germani (seen as barbarians, I suppose)
and are shielded from 'omnia quae pertinent ad effeminandos animos', i.e. 'more
refined' imports from the Mediterranian. It is also possible that Caesar
misinterpreted his interpreter's words who may have said that the name 'Belgae'
meant something like 'the proud/brave ones' (cf. Welsh 'balchai') and went on
to find plausible reasons for that - at least that's what I guess MIGHT have
happened, without any further substantiation.

>The Volcae, except for Caesar's note about the incursion of some across the
>Rhine where they are "Germanized", always show up in Gallia Narbonensis,
>between the Pyrenees and the Rhone.  There it seems Volcae represents
>coalitions.  The Volcae Arecomici.  The Volcae Tectosages.

[Ed]

That's the main reason why I have a lot of doubts about the Volcae > Walh
hypothesis.

>Whether the Belgae spoke Brythonic is logical enough.  But of course there's
>no proof.  In fact there is in archeaological circles a rather strong
>reaction against making these kind of language to Iron Age cultures
>comparisons.

[Ed]

That's not exactly what I was doing: I only mentioned a POSSIBLE P-Celtic
origin of their (self-given?) name, but there is somewhat more, like toponyms:
in southern central Wallonia, not far from N. France, there are quite a few
toponyms of Celtic origin, a number of them similar to Breton (i.e. P-Celtic)
toponyms, like Marbehan, while farther north, there are river names that are
very likely descended from 'Aber' (river mouth, estuary, firth, sometimes
river, in Welsh and Breton) like Amel (both in S. Hollandand in E. Belgium:
Ger. /du. Amel, Fr. Amblève), Amer (also used as 'river bank meadows').

BUT: Things are never simple. In SE. Holland, E. Belgium and NE. France, very
close to the Rhineland, the toponyms of Celtic origin seem to be rather Gallic:
-magus (Nijmegen), -dunum (Lugdunum/Liège, Verdun) and -briga, unless of
course, these had become common Celtic usages. Maybe this has something to do
with the incursion of the (southern, properly Gallic) Volcae across the Rhine
you mentioned?

There are more confusing facts, but they can be explained (if they are real,
not chance resemblances) by placing them in a pre-Celtic time frame: a number
of toponyms or river names in S. Belgium ('Wallonia') look like Vasconic, e.g.
the rivers Our (Bq. ur = water), Ourthe (Bq. urt(h)e = nowadays 'year', but
presumably its earlier meaning may have been something like 'water/rain
season'; there is still a custom of water throwing and rhymes ['ur goiena, ur
barrena...] about it on New Year's Day in the Basque Country. Urt(h)e can also
be explained as 'water area', since the suffix -te has various meanings, all
related to space and time 'intervals'), and a ford in the river Ourthe called
'Tibièwé' (possibly *tibi-a-wé´. Walloon wé = Fr. gué, Eng. ford.
Bq. ibi = ford, and in Basque [not in this case] and Iberian doublets with
and without initial t are quite common).  Of course, I cannot prove this in any
way: I just present it for your information.

>You wrote:
><<What is the presently favored classification of Gaulish? Goidelic?
>'Common'?...
>Geography seems to suggest that the Goidelic Celts belonged to an earlier
>wave than the Brythonic Celts, if they all came from the continent that is..>>

>There's a pretty strong dispute about the classification "Common Celtic" in
>general.  (The new breed of archaeologists don't like it at all.)  One of the
>odd things about the P-Q distinction is the interesting conclusions it has
>generated.  This is an example I picked up from an official Irish website:

><<The Goidelic and Brythonic groups of Celtic languages differ in
>that Goidelic preserves the velar element of the Indo-European
>labiovelar qu sound (later written c), whereas Brythonic renders this
>sound as p. Thus Irish cuig or coo-ig (or cuig), "five" corresponds to
>Welsh pump.>>  Some might think the /p/ in five is closer to the original(!)

>Goidelic, viewed as the oldest version of Celtic, creates other problems,
>particularly with regard to Gaulish, where the apparent language habits
>(e.g., /v/ versus /f/) either represent something closer to the original or a
>Latin influence.

[Ed]

Isn't that rather /w/? (How do we know what the Latin character V actually
meant to the Galli?). To me, it looks more like a similar evolution in
Germanic.

>(One can however compare the attested -pe ending in the early continental
>Lapontic Celtic, equivalent to -que in Latin.  This might actually bring
>Goidelic closer to Latin than Lapontic on the p/q scale.)

>Brythonic, being somewhere in between the two, has its own claim to being
>closest to Common Celtic.

[Ed]

I don't understand that reasoning.

>You wrote:
><<The Aquitani are generally classified as Vasconic.>>

>Boy, does that open a whole 'nother can of worms.

[Ed]

I don't think so: All Aquitanian inscriptions, in whatever alphabet or
language, point to Aquitanian as a direct ancestor, or at least a very close
relative of the direct ancestor, of Basque. There is a long standing consensus
on that. Of course, this may only apply to the southern part (nowadays the
Landes/Landak and the N. Basque Country/Iparralde) of the area between the
Garonne and the Pyrenees: the river name and the toponyms of the famous wines
on the S bank are generally considered Celtic.

>You wrote:

><<The most intriguing thing in Ceasar's account is that 'Galli' is the name
>given by foreigners, in casu the Romans, which might be of Germanic origin,
>'(g)walch' or '(h)walch' vel sim. Cf. Gascogne, Guasconia (< Eusko-, i.e.
>Basque)>>

[Ed]

I might add that probably Eusko- > the tribe of the Ausci mentioned by the
Romans (in th N. Basque Country).

Eusko- > Guasconia, Gascogne is believed to have involved Germanic intervention
(Visigoths): Eusko- > Wasko- (by metathesis of the /w/ sound) , reinterpreted
by Romance speakers as Guasco-; this last phenomenon is quite common in
Spanish, and still active ('very well' > beri güell !!).

>I wrote:

><<if these Northmen happened to be from "Valland" [Gaul, modern France]>>

>You wrote:

><<Could that be 'Hwalland' or 'gualland' vel sim.?>>

>I had an intern working for me who seemed to know how to do research spend
>two days a major school library and she could not find one serious reference
>to anything but Volcae as the origin of 'walh' - but she was limited to
>English.

[Ed]

I'm not surprised: on the one hand, there is a tendency to copy earlier
publications, especially if there are no direct alternatives in sight, and on
the other hand, frequent repetition seems to create an impression of proven
truth - a fact well known to all kinds of manipulators of public opinion..

>Some consideration of the relation between "walh" and either the Celtic or
>Germanic forms of Gaul or Belgae would seem worth considering.

>Regards,
>Steve Long

[Ed]

It certainly would. I would be very happy if somebody with more competence in
linguistics and history than I have would take it up.

Ed.