14.1825, Media: NYT: Celtic Found to Have Ancient Roots

[LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List:  Vol-14-1825. Tue Jul 1 2003. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 14.1825, Media: NYT: Celtic Found to Have Ancient Roots

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1)
Date:  1 Jul 2003 14:35:01 -0000
From:  aristar at linguistlist.org
Subject:  Celtic Found to Have Ancient Roots

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  1 Jul 2003 14:35:01 -0000
From:  aristar at linguistlist.org
Subject:  Celtic Found to Have Ancient Roots

And article in the New York Times gives a brief description of the
work of a geneticist named Peter Forster of Cambridge, who purports to
have used genetics-based analysis techniques to trace the history of
Celtic.  The results he has produced are remarkably different from
those linguists have hypothesized -- for instance he places the
break-up of Indo-European around 8100 BC and the split between British
Celtic (presumably both Brythonic and Irish) and Continental Celtic in
3200 BC.  It would be interesting to know if linguists have looked at
seriously his methods, and see them as potentially interesting.  I was
not encouraged by this comment by Dr Forster about linguists: "To be
honest, they don't understand it, most of them. They don't even know
what I'm talking about."

The article can be found at the URL:

http://nytimes.com/2003/07/01/science/01CELT.html

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