No Proto-Celtic?

[David L. White]

----- Original Message -----
From: Ante Aikio <anaikio at mail.student.oulu.fi>
Sent: Saturday, May 05, 2001 6:36 AM

> [I originally wrote:]

>> These claims would of course deserve no attention from the scientific
>> community, were it not that Kalevi Wiik has actively publicized them in
>> the Finnish media, and also quite succesfully managed to market them as
>> a "linguistic breakthrough" to some archeologists, geneticists and
>> historians. Thus, in the recent years Uralists have been forced to mount
>> an attack against the "Anti-Uralists", and this may deceptivily look like
>> a serious scientific debate to non-linguists. I sure hope the situation
>> with Celtic isn't as bad.

> Interestingly, just after I happened to mention Kalevi Wiik in the
> connection of the discussion on Proto-Celtic, it was pointed out to me in
> private correspondence that Wiik is currently also an active supporter of
> the "Celtic lingua franca" theory. The following passage is quoted from
> Wiik's abstract of his paper "On the Origins and History of the Celts",
> which will be read at the "International Colloquium on Early Contacts
> between English and the Celtic Languages" (University of Joensuu Research
> Station, Mekrijärvi, Finland, 24-26 August, 2001):
>
>   "The first Celts, therefore, are the Basque-speaking hunters of western
> Europe who adopted agriculture and the IE language from the LBK culture
> and the Impressed Ware cultures. The area formed a chain of Celtic
> dialects: in the north (Rhine area) the dialects were based on the LBK
> (Central European) dialect of the IE language, while in the south (eastern
> Iberia and southern France), they were based on the Impressed Ware
> (Mediterranean) dialect of that language. In addition, the substrata of
> the non-IE languages were different along the chain of the Celtic
> dialects: the northern dialect had a Basque substratum, while the more
> southern dialects had a Basque, Iberian, or Tartessian substratum. The
> result was the following chain of Celtic dialects/languages: Lusitanian -
> Celtiberian - Gaul - Lepontic.
>   During the Bell Beaker period (c. 2800-1800 BC), the Celtic language was
> used as a lingua franca by the populations of Western Europe. It was the
> language of the élite of the Copper Age (Bronze Age). The centre of the
> Celtic world was in the Únìtice culture in 1800-1500 BC, in the Urnfield
> culture in 1200-800 BC, in the Hallstatt culture in 800-500 BC, and in the
> La Tène culture in 500-50 BC. The Celtic lingua franca was based on
> different Celtic dialects during the six different cultural periods
> mentioned."

        There is good evidence of something like Semitic influence,
sub-stratal or not, in Insular Celtic, and I suspected when I first read Dr.
Trask's initial posting that something like this woud lie behind the views
of the "No-Proto-Celtic" crowd.  The typological lurch of Insular Celtic
toward Semitic, illusory (in terms of actual Semites) or not, does indeed
make it difficult to construct a unified proto-language.  Difficult, but not
impossible.  Such questions as how and when Insular Celtic wound up
verb-initial and so on just have to be answered at some point.  They do no
make proto-Celtic unviable, or suggest any such scenario as just given
above.

> The complete version of Wiik's abstract can be read on the internet at
> http://www.joensuu.fi/fld/ecc/Wiikabstract.htm.

        Substituting "White" for "Wiik", the complete version of my abstract
can be read there as well.  I am not entirely pleased that my work should
find itself in such company, though I suppose I should strive to keep an
open mind.

Dr. David L. White