Did Latin merge with Celtic languages to form Romance languages ?

Latin could only have merged with a southern gallic/celtic language to form Romance , since these languages where entwined pre gallic-roman war time.
L'oc ( from ancient to middle ages) stayed basically close to latin while L'oil became more germanised. Distance prevented a full merge with latin early on.
 
Obviously the expansion from central Europe.

To conclude, I think our opinions are close one to another, even if we agree that everything is not explained.

I would like to ask you a question (but it is out of this subject) :
Do you have an opinion on the interpretation of J Koch about the Tartessian inscriptions ?
(I have just received his later book Tartessian 2 ). I am personnally totally unable to have an opinion.

Sorry I didn't see this post until now. :embarassed:

There is this criticism of 'Celtic from the West', which points out many problems with the interpetation of the interpretation of Tartessian as Celtic. Let me say this, I am very convinced that Tartessian was not a Celtic language, but I have no idea what it really was, and from the current perspective it's safe to just say that it is an unclassified language.
 
I said this before: Concerning Iberia, my suspicion is that Lusitanian was not the first IE language spoken in Iberia - and it may not have been Tartessian (classification currently under debate, therefore, the consensus is that it remains unclassified). Did a very early Celtic language develop in the Iberian Peninsula by virtue of long-term social and commercial exchange along the Atlantic Facade, perhaps via multiple influences, particularly from the British Isles?
 
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I said this before: Concerning Iberia, my suspicion is that Lusitanian was not the first IE language spoken in Iberia - and it may not have been Tartessian (classification currently under debate, therefore, the consensus is that it remains unclassified). Did a very early Celtic language develop in the Iberian Peninsula by virtue of long-term social and commercial exchange along the Atlantic Facade, perhaps via multiple influences, particularly from the British Isles?

Unless someone can correct me.........I was told/taught that there was no celtic spoken in the british isles until around 100BC, in england it was brittonic, in scotland it was pictish and also in ireland it was a dialect or original pictish ( Goidelic) .
 
Unless someone can correct me.........I was told/taught that there was no celtic spoken in the british isles until around 100BC, in england it was brittonic, in scotland it was pictish and also in ireland it was a dialect or original pictish ( Goidelic) .

I am sorry, but this is definitely wrong. What is true is that knowledge of the British Isles is scarce before the 1st century BC. However, in the 4th century BC, Pytheas of Massilia visited the British Isles, and he recorded the name 'Pretannike' (modern Welsh 'Prydain'), which is where the later name 'Britain' (or Latin 'Britannia') comes from.

As for the language situation, it's unclear wether the Picts really were distinct from the Britons or wether this is a pure artifact of the Hadrian's Wall and the 'Picts' actually just spoke Brythonic too. Either way, what little is known of the Pictish language (tribal names, place names) it can be said that they spoke a P-Celtic language akin to Brythonic or Gaulish.

Ireland spoke Goidelic (specifically, an earlier variant of the language recorded in the Ogham inscriptions).
 
I am sorry, but this is definitely wrong. What is true is that knowledge of the British Isles is scarce before the 1st century BC. However, in the 4th century BC, Pytheas of Massilia visited the British Isles, and he recorded the name 'Pretannike' (modern Welsh 'Prydain'), which is where the later name 'Britain' (or Latin 'Britannia') comes from.

As for the language situation, it's unclear wether the Picts really were distinct from the Britons or wether this is a pure artifact of the Hadrian's Wall and the 'Picts' actually just spoke Brythonic too. Either way, what little is known of the Pictish language (tribal names, place names) it can be said that they spoke a P-Celtic language akin to Brythonic or Gaulish.

Ireland spoke Goidelic (specifically, an earlier variant of the language recorded in the Ogham inscriptions).

Still there is a timeframe where these original languages dominated over celtic or did Latin dominate them first,. Or do you mean, that before Latin arrived in the british isles, celtic was there.
I am unsure who came after the brittonic and Goidelic languages of the isles
 
Still there is a timeframe where these original languages dominated over celtic or did Latin dominate them first,. Or do you mean, that before Latin arrived in the british isles, celtic was there.
I am usure who came after the brittonic and Goidelic languages of the isles

I think you don't understand, Goidelic, Brythonic and Pictish are (or in the case of the latter, were) Celtic languages. I described the situation as it was described before the Romans arrived. The critical point really is that by the time the Romans showed up in Britain, no non-Celtic languages were apparently spoken in Britain.
 
I think you don't understand, Goidelic, Brythonic and Pictish are (or in the case of the latter, were) Celtic languages. I described the situation as it was described before the Romans arrived. The critical point really is that by the time the Romans showed up in Britain, no non-Celtic languages were apparently spoken in Britain.

So is this link wrong in regards to dates of the celtic languages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Celtic_languages

If not, what was spoken in the isles pre 300BC
If it is wrong, then what are the starting dates of all these celtic languages
 
So is this link wrong in regards to dates of the celtic languages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Celtic_languages

If not, what was spoken in the isles pre 300BC
If it is wrong, then what are the starting dates of all these celtic languages

In the case you didn't notice, the article talks about Continental Celtic languages. Brythonic and Goidelic, in contrast, are Insular Celtic languages.
 
In the case you didn't notice, the article talks about Continental Celtic languages. Brythonic and Goidelic, in contrast, are Insular Celtic languages.

yes true , which is why you need to start with the continent and since the continental languages begin in 300BC and you say the isles is a branch of celtic , the question is who
"laid" the first celtic linguistic egg?

If it was the continent , then clearly the isles language was not truly celtic. If it was the isles, then this business that celtic originated in southern Germany is wrong

Edit: Proto-celtic

The question still remains, for celtic P or Q where did it start
 
yes true , which is why you need to start with the continent and since the continental languages begin in 300BC and you say the isles is a branch of celtic , the question is who
"laid" the first celtic linguistic egg?

If it was the continent , then clearly the isles language was not truly celtic. If it was the isles, then this business that celtic originated in southern Germany is wrong

The terms "Insular" and "Continental" Celtic languages are mostly just geographic designations, though one of the Insular Celtic languages (Breton) is actually spoken on the continent. This has little to do with the actual relationship between the Celtic languages, since the Brythonic languages are P-Celtic languages (like Gaulish and Galatian), whereas Goidelic (like Celtiberian) is Q-Celtic.

Anyways, in terms of features, the distinction (very broadly) goes as follows:

The Continental Celtic languages have an SVO order (subject-verb-object) and an elaborate declension system (akin to Latin, Greek or Sanskrit), whereas the Insular Celtic languages have VSO order (verb-subject-object) and largely made away with the declension system, and developed very unique features such as inflected prepositions and initial consonant mutations. However, it's clear that this is a later innovation of the Insular Celtic languages, because Oghamic Irish is essentially Continental Celtic in character, and often it's declension forms are identical to those of Gaulish.

Also, the oldest attestations of continental Celtic languages are actually from the 6th century BC (Lepontic).
 
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The terms "Insular" and "Continental" Celtic languages are mostly just geographic designations, though one of the Insular Celtic languages (Breton) is actually spoken on the continent. This has little to do with the actual relationship between the Celtic languages, since the Brythonic languages are P-Celtic languages (like Gaulish and Galatian), whereas Goidelic (like Celtiberian) is Q-Celtic.

Anyways, in terms of features, the distinction (very broadly) goes as follows:

The Continental Celtic languages have an SVO order (subject-verb-object) and an elaborate declension system (akin to Latin, Greek or Sanskrit), whereas the Insular Celtic languages have VSO order (verb-subject-object) and largely made away with the declension system, and developed very unique features such as inflected prepositions and initial consonant mutations. However, it's clear that this is a later innovation of the Insular Celtic languages, because Oghamic Irish is essentially Continental Celtic in character, and often it's declension forms are identical to those of Gaulish.

Also, the oldest attestations of continental Celtic languages are actually from the 6th century BC (Lepontic).

As i suspected, 6th century BC by the lepontic in the Italian alps. Which would mean the isles would have spoken there own language which was later modified by celtic vocabulary and then associated as an insular celtic tongue.

Puts an end to the theory of western areas as a starting point for celtic
 
As i suspected, 6th century BC by the lepontic in the Italian alps. Which would mean the isles would have spoken there own language which was later modified by celtic vocabulary and then associated as an insular celtic tongue.

Well, as for who "layed the first egg", it's hard to say: I would personally argue for an origin of the P-Celtic languages in southern Central Europe (due to the absence of Q-Celtic languages in the east) and a subsequent spread to Atlantic France and Britain, whereas Q-Celtic languages survived in Ireland and Iberia. Where Proto-Celtic was spoken is a matter of hot dispute. I maintain however:

- there was an earlier and/or more thorough Celtization of the British Isles than of Iberia due to the numerous presence of non-Indo-European languages (Basque, Iberian, possibly Tartessian) on the Iberian penninsula in Antiquity, and the complete absence of non-Celtic languages on the British Isles at the same time. I think that this is a significant signal, and that the different terrain of Britain and Iberia does not explain the whole story.

- There is a strong 'Para-Celtic' element (Lusitanian, and possibly other languages, according to Eugenio R. Luján Martínez) in western Iberia which in my opinion predates the arrival of the Celtic languages. However, at the same time the Celtiberian language is a very distinct language that is generally considered the first branch of the Celtic languages to have diverged.

Puts an end to the theory of western areas as a starting point for celtic

Not directly. By the time the Celtic languages are attested, they are already diversified (Lepontic is P-Celtic). I would argue however that the presence of non-Indo-European and otherwise non-Celtic languages is a good argument that an area was not the starting point.
 
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- there was an earlier and/or more tho



Not directly. By the time the Celtic languages are attested, they are already diversified (Lepontic is P-Celtic). I would argue however that the presence of non-Indo-European and otherwise non-Celtic languages is a good argument that an area was not the starting point.


We consider Caucasus to be the starting point of IE languages, still there are non IE languages in the Caucasus.
 
We consider Caucasus to be the starting point of IE languages, still there are non IE languages in the Caucasus.

Well, do we? If we go by the Kurgan hypothesis, I would say the Pontic-Caspian steppe, rather than the Caucasus. In any case, disregarding that, everybody (except for people who would argue for a Paleolithic continuity of Indo-European, which is a minority view that is quite in conflict with a lot of evidence) should agree that the Celtic (and more broadly non-Indo-European) languages are not native to Western Europe. From that perspective, we would expect non-Indo-European languages to have been spoken there at least at one point. If the Iberian penninsula was the starting point of the Celtic languages, we would expect it to be most thoroughly Celticized region since it has the longest Celtic language tradition, wouldn't we?
 
Well, do we? If we go by the Kurgan hypothesis, I would say the Pontic-Caspian steppe, rather than the Caucasus. In any case, disregarding that, everybody (except for people who would argue for a Paleolithic continuity of Indo-European, which is a minority view that is quite in conflict with a lot of evidence) should agree that the Celtic (and more broadly non-Indo-European) languages are not native to Western Europe. From that perspective, we would expect non-Indo-European languages to have been spoken there at least at one point. If the Iberian penninsula was the starting point of the Celtic languages, we would expect it to be most thoroughly Celticized region since it has the longest Celtic language tradition, wouldn't we?


Imagine that a certain region of Iberia (western and central Iberia) suddendly spread the Celtic languages northward but that part of the Peninsula remains non-Celtic.
Compare it with the spread of Buddhism. Buddhism was created in India but was most successful in other countries (Thailand, Japan). We don't expect India to be the most buddhist country because it originated there.
Look at Christianism. We don't expect near east to be the most Christian area of the world because it originated there.

I read on DNA forum that they've found high levels of L11* in Portugal. This could be an evidence of early IE move in the area (Bell beakers?).
 
Imagine that a certain region of Iberia (western and central Iberia) suddendly spread the Celtic languages northward but that part of the Peninsula remains non-Celtic.
Compare it with the spread of Buddhism. Buddhism was created in India but was most successful in other countries (Thailand, Japan). We don't expect India to be the most buddhist country because it originated there.
Look at Christianism. We don't expect near east to be the most Christian area of the world because it originated there.

Well, you definitely have a about these comparisons, but for this scenario to work out (especially the India analogy), we would expect the Iberian penninsula at one point to have been predominantly Celtic, and this would (potentialy) require that Para-Celtic and non-Indo-European languages arrived later (or expanded later towards the positions they have in Antiquity). And I'm quite sceptical of that.

I read on DNA forum that they've found high levels of L11* in Portugal. This could be an evidence of early IE move in the area (Bell beakers?).

I'm personally divided about that. I must add this: for a while, I was definitely was a strong proponent of the idea that Beaker-Bell spread R1b as well as the Indo-European languages in Western Europe, but as of lately I have become very sceptic of that. The main linguistic argument is the presence of non-Indo-European words for metals and metal-working in the Basque languages. This is something that should not be expected if metal-working in the Atlantic region was originally spread by Indo-Europeans. In contrast, there are Indo-European loans amongst the Finnic languages for metals, as is to be expected due to early contact with Indo-Europeans. My conclusion is that either the Basques arrived later from somewhere else (the more unlikely option in my opinion, due to the fact that Basque is an isolate language with no clearly demonstrable relationship to another language family, and we have a number of demonstrable language relationships that are considerably older), or that we must assume the existence of a non-Indo-European culture in Western Europe that spread metal-working. For the latter, the Beaker-Bell Culture is the only sensible candidate in my opinion. There is the additionally complicating issue (noted by the late Vascologist R. L. Trask) that there are surprisingly few loans from Celtic into Basque, and indeed most Indo-European loans into Basque are Latin or Romance. So, my conclusion is that while we cannot ad-hoc rule out from current data that Beaker-Bell was indeed Indo-European, I think that if it was Indo-European it makes the 'Basque problem' (and it isn't just a Basque problem, since we also have Iberian and Tartessian attested in Antiquity) even worse and even more inexplicable because we are forced to explain how the Basque language ended up with non-Indo-European terms for metals and metal-working.

The studies I have seen (Myres, Busby), L11* is very rare in Western Europe as a whole. There appares to be a lot of S116* in Iberia, but I personally suspect that much of Iberian S116 actually belongs to the recently-discovered subclade Z196. While we are at Y-DNA, there is also the relative abundance of G2a, J1, E1b and T in western Iberia.

EDIT:
Below is a small list of Basque terms that visualize the problem:

hammer - gabi
forge - sutegi
lead - beruna
smith - (h)arotz
blacksmith - olagizon
iron - burdina
 
I quite agree with your post, but :



Even if Gaulish and Latin were similar, Caesar required interpreters to understang the Gauls or to be understood from them, which tends to mean it was not so easy to pass from a language to the other one.


to go further on latin and celtic gaulish connections, they are not very tighter than their connectiosn with proto-germanic languages, quickly said : western I-E languages - but by no mean was it possible for an italic speaker (a lot of difficulties of understanding between latin and osco-ombrien languages yet!) to undertstand a celtic speaker, maybe already 800 years B.C., and sure at the Julius Caesar time !!! in place or searching the few understandable words of common origin, we have to search the everyday life needed words an compare: no way to go very farwitjout aninterprete -
big problems: loss of common words + I-E 'P' fall in celtic + lenition in celtic + 'Kw' >> 'P' in gaulish and brythonic + I-E *BH >> B in celtic+germanic but >> F in latin and so on and so on...
latin was adopted by the big majority of the countries conquered by Rome thank to the system of social promotion instaured by the Empire for the vanquished elites (to become roman citizen) and the military and commercial net - South Germany, Belgia, lot of Britannia, of Iberia, Romania, Norica, and other lands that lost the latin for the great historic invasions, all of this countries was almost entirely latinized: it's not by force but by organization and time maybe 400 for Gaul - celtic languages was spoken in Switzerland and Bohemia after that yet, according to some scholars, and perhasp in western Aremorica ... the lands that keeped their language was the most remote ones, outside the core of the big commercial traffic.
 
Well, that Urnfield wasn't homogenous is clear (the best examples the Urnfields in Catalonia, in an area that is later on inhabited by the non-Indo-European Iberians).

OK with your answers as a whole (good based) but even if a believe that Urnfields cultures was not homogenous, what push you to conclude the Urnfields was only a cultural movement on the only basis of Iberians occupying a previous Urnfield culture zone? I'm sure of nothing and I ask you: do you know if Iberians of Catalunia keep on the Urnfield way of burying?
I ask that because:
1- I red that Urnfields developments could have implied demic movements (even if not big invasions: I think in R1b-U152 in central Italy and western Poland and the possible tiny links between Urnfields of Villanova and of Lusace, some 'corded' phenotypes in western France at the same periods in nevertheless a poor Urnfield region
2- I red at the contrary that iberization of North Catalunia and South Languedoc implied very poor demic movements
waiting to read you, good evening and good brain storm .
 
OK with your answers as a whole (good based) but even if a believe that Urnfields cultures was not homogenous, what push you to conclude the Urnfields was only a cultural movement on the only basis of Iberians occupying a previous Urnfield culture zone? I'm sure of nothing and I ask you: do you know if Iberians of Catalunia keep on the Urnfield way of burying?
I ask that because:
1- I red that Urnfields developments could have implied demic movements (even if not big invasions: I think in R1b-U152 in central Italy and western Poland and the possible tiny links between Urnfields of Villanova and of Lusace, some 'corded' phenotypes in western France at the same periods in nevertheless a poor Urnfield region
2- I red at the contrary that iberization of North Catalunia and South Languedoc implied very poor demic movements
waiting to read you, good evening and good brain storm .

The problem with the Iberians is this: if we look to the north, the evidence for Iberian place names only extends towards the Roussillon (Elne, which is called "Iliberris" by Ptolemy). In the south and west, the evidence extends as far as the southern central meseta and eastern Andalusia (Granada). It's very clear that the Iberians did not enter Iberia from north.
 

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