LL-L "History" 2006.05.23 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

======================================================================
L O W L A N D S - L * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
http://www.lowlands-l.net * lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net
Rules & Guidelines: http://www.lowlands-l.net/index.php?page=rules
Posting: lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org or lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net
Commands ("signoff lowlands-l" etc.): listserv at listserv.net
Server Manual: http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html
Archives: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html
Encoding: Unicode (UTF-8) [Please switch your view mode to it.]
=======================================================================
You have received this because you have been subscribed upon request.
To unsubscribe, please send the command "signoff lowlands-l" as message
text from the same account to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or
sign off at http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
=======================================================================
A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West) Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)
=======================================================================

L O W L A N D S - L * 23 May 2006 * Volume 02
======================================================================

From: "Paul Finlow-Bates" <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Appellations" 2006.05.22 (02) [E]

From: Karl-Heinz Lorenz
Subject: LL-L "Ethnosymbology" 2006.05.21 (01) [E]


Na ja, the Celts are sort of the Aborigines in Britain, am I wrong? And in
the Highlands there are at least some thousand people who still speak this
language, which I would call "archaic" in the sense of the oldest still
spoken language in Britain, as Raethoromance varieties in the Alps.

If it is archaic in a linguistic way, I can't tell, certainly an expert on
Gaelic language knows it better.

Regards,
Karl-Heinz

Depends what you mean by "Celt", "Aboriginal" and "Ancient".  People were
in the
British Isles long before the first Celtic-speakers, or any Indo-Europeans
for that
matter.  None of their language survives apart from the odd place-name.

  Why is Gaelic any more ancient than English, or German for that matter? 
People
spoke a form of Gaelic 1500 years ago, to be sure, but it wouldn't be
understandable to a modern speaker, anymore than the ancestor of English
from the
same time could be understood today (unless you specifically learned it).

  And the invasions of the Scotti from Ireland into the north and west of
Alba
overlapped with the incoming of the North German tribes into the east and
south of
the British Isles; indeed, the earliest Germanic incomers seem to have been
mercenaries hired to keep them at bay.  The replacement of the native
Brythonic
and Pictish by an Irish language was every bit as much a foreign
imposition as the
spread of English.  The idea that because the invaders were "Celtic", it
somehow
makes them more "indigenous" is equivalent to saying that German invaders in
Denmark or Holland were "native" because they all speak Germanic languages.

  Paul Finlow-Bates

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: History

Those seem like good points to me, Paul.

I think it is high time that we (not only Lowlanders but people in
general) get awayfrom all that simplified ethnogenesis stuff and the
ethnosymbolism based on it.

The advent of Indo-European languages in Europe is really very recent when
seen in the great scheme of things.  The people that built the dolmen
graves and sites such as Stonehenge spoke non-Indo-European languages, as
probably did Oetzi whose mummified body was found in the Alps.  For those
of us with roots in Europe, those are our ancestors too.  They have not
really disappeared, but we carry their genes.  It is just that in the
meantime various layers of Indo-European genes, languages and cultures
have been added to the mix.  Just because we have no concrete knowledge of
pre-Indo-European languages and cultures of Europe doesn't mean that
people with the earliest known Indo-European(-dominated) roots are the
aboriginals.

Even after Indo-European identities had been firmly established in Europe
there were numerous cases of non-Indo-European immigration and admixtures.
 This includes cases such as Uralic (Finnic and Ugric) establishment and
Turco-Mongolic layers in Eastern and Central Europe (including the Mongol,
Ottoman and Hunnic invasions).  There are also lesser-known cases in which
Indo-Europeans layers were added that are not usually associated with
Europe, such as the Iranic-speaking Alans (related to today's Ossetians)
whose presence stretched from China to Spain and Morocco, and who in
conjunction with the Germanic-speaking Vandals inhabited what are now
Poland and Pomerania and there mixed with the Germano-Slavonic population.
 (This makes it very likely that I am of partly Iranian descent, and I
take it that my teenage-years dark unibrow despite blond hair was a hello
from my Indo-Aryan genes.  ;-) )

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

==============================END===================================
* Please submit postings to lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org.
* Postings will be displayed unedited in digest form.
* Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
* Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l") are
  to be sent to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or at
  http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
======================================================================