No Proto-Celtic?

[Stanley Friesen]

At 02:47 AM 5/6/01 -0400, JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

>In a message dated 5/5/01 9:06:24 PM Mountain Daylight Time,
>sarima at friesen.net writes:

>> True - though it does happen.  In fact the very French you mention is the
>> result of one such occurrence.  A small minority of Romans managed to
>> convert a much larger number of Gauls into speaking Latin.

>-- it does happen, but Gaul may not be such a good example.  Recent
>investigations indicate a much more dramatic settlement of Italian
>Latin-speakers in the western provinces than previously thought.  Something
>like 30% or more of the citizen population of Italy was resettled in the
>provinces during the reign of Augustus alone -- and there had already been
>hundreds of thousands before him.  This represented the migration of
>something like 2-3 million Latin-speaking individuals.

1. They were spread over many provinces.
2. Gaul was quite populous on its own.

So, the result was still a minority of Italians in Gaul establishing the
Latin language.

>Further, since they were settled as communities, they had the all-important
>_local_ majority in areas of intensive colonization, even where they
>represented minorities of the overall provincial populations.

This may be a key factor in a minority converting a majority - local
"dense" colonies.

>Also, with the Roman state, there were institutions of Romanization (and
>hence Latinization); the army, particularly, where people from many
>linguistic backgrounds were taken away from home and submerged in a
>Latin-speaking environment, and then released back into the civilian world
>as veterans, with their families.  That would have been at least several
>thousand familes in Gaul, every year -- and concentrated in the northern
>districts where civilian colonization wasn't so heavy.

As I said - one factor was the continuing influx of Latin speakers over
several centuries.  It continually renewed the Latin base.

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at friesen.net