LL-L "History" 2002.09.27 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 27.SEP.2002 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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 A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
 L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic
               V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeêuws)
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From: Pat Reynolds <pat at caerlas.demon.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "History" 2002.09.26 (06) [E]

Dear Mike,

Relating groups of human beings, known through their bones and other
remains (archaeology) to the stuff they used (archaeology) and the
languages they used (linguistics) is notoriously difficult.  It appears
to get easier when there are texts written by them or about them
(history) but it just gets more difficult - history is not a standard to
judge the accuracy of physical anthropology, archaeology and linguistics
(but then, I'm an archaeologist, so I would say that, wouldn't I!).

It gets harder still in our part of the world, due to the political use
of prehistory during the last century.

Colin Renfrew's _Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European
Origins_ 1987 is the latest publication I have on my shelves on the
subject. There's a chapter on early language dispersal in Europe, which
may have the references you need.

Best wishes to all,

Pat
research student, Department of Archaeology, University of York
--
Pat Reynolds
pat at caerlas.demon.co.uk
   "It might look a bit messy now, but just you come back in 500 years time"
   (T. Pratchett)

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From: George M Gibault <gmg at direct.ca>
Subject: LL-L "History" 2002.09.26 (07) [E]

Fellow lowlanders:

One odd theory is that legends of elves etc. refer to actual hunter
gatherers who were either culturally absorbed or killed off by war and
disease. Some linguists have suggested that certain peculiarities of Gaelic
evidence a pre-Indo European substrate and recent genetic studies shocked
researchers by finding far more than expected similarity between the y
chromosomes of Celts and Basques. Gaelic is a verb subject object language,
and certain family names, such as Hogan are thought to be pre-Celtic. Scots
Gaelic songs also often contain "vocables" such as "ho ri ho ro" and "faill
ill oro faill il o" which could be eroded fragments of a pre Celtic
language. Macaronic "bilingual" songs with alternating lines or verses in
Gaelic and English are well known, so perhaps it was so with a pre-Celtic
language the memory of which eventually faded. While this may seem
unlikely, English shepherds' "counting rhymes" for their sheep turned out
to be survival of the pre-Anglo-Saxon British number system!

In addition to Basque which is clearly pre-Indo European there is the
problem of Sumerian which has not been credibly classified. The Sumerians
supplied us with the twenty four hour day, the sixty minute hour and, from
even earlier sources our system of astrology.

Cavalli-Sforza's works, such as The Great Human Diaspora suggest that
agriculture spread very gradually through Europe from the Middle East,
supplanting largely pre-Indo European hunter gatherers - and that
Indo-European may have spread from the Voronezh region of southern Russia.
Modern Basque, which covers a small area in northern Spain and France has
several quite distinct dialects. It is likely that any other pre Indo
European languages spoken in northern and western Europe would have been
similarly highly differentiated because of the low population densities and
small size of hunter gatherer bands.

George Gibault

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