LL-L "History" 2007.04.05 (02) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  -  05 April 2007 - Volume 02

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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "History" 2007.04.04 (02) [E1

> From: Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
> Subject: LL-L "History" 2007.04.03 (01) [E]

>          Actually, as far as I know, the Italo-Celtic hypothesis is
>         pretty much defunct. There are definitely similarities, even
>         within IE as a whole, but the current line of thinking is that
>         the resemblance between the Italic* languages and Celtic ones
>         is due to areal proximity rather than genetic relationship.

Certainly when I was learning Welsh the ancient latinisms in the
language (eg "pont" for "bridge") were never considered to be anything
more than straightforward borrowings from Latin during the Roman
occupation. The Romans had a strong presence in Wales, particularly at
Caerleon.

>         Mark: It was near enough that Julius Caeser reports in his
>         Commentaries that he made a point of writing his dispatches in
>         Greek, in case they were intercepted by Gaulish spies.

>         I for my part find this odd, but in a different way. Just
>         because the Gauls weren't in close contact with the Romans
>         doesn't mean they also weren't in contact with the Greeks.
>         Masselia was a Greek colony after all. There were almost
>         certainly a good few Greeks around who spoke Gaulish, & more
>         Gauls who read Greek.

Using a natural language as a code is a notoriously poor strategy, but
it does seem to have found favour with the military at times, and I've
read that it was also used by the Americans in the first world war, who
believed (incorrectly) that the Germans wouldn't be able to understand
American Indian languages.

It perhaps makes some sense as a "better than nothing" solution, there's
always the chance that the other lot won't happen to have someone just
handy-by with the necessary language skills and will at least have some
trouble with it.

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

•

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