Gaulish folk metal band

[spongetaro]

Eluveitie is a folk metal band from Switzerland
Eluveitie is Helvetic Gaulish for "I am Helvetian

Lyrics:
Immi daga uimpi geneta,
lana beððos et' iouintutos.
Blatus ceti, cantla carami.
Aia gnata uimpi iouinca,
pid in cete tu toue suoine,
pid uregisi peli doniobi?
Aia gnata uimpi iouinca,
pid in cete tu toue suoine

Aia mape coime, adrete!
In blatugabagli uorete,
cante snon celiIui in cete!

Vrit- me lindos dubnon -piseti
Vrit- me lindos dubnon -piseti [x2]

N'immi mapos, immi drucocu.
In cetobi selgin agumi,
selgin blatos tou' iouintutos.
Nu, uoregon, cu, uorigamos,
lamman, cu, suuercin lingamos,
indui uelui cantla canamos!
N'immi mapos, immi drucocu.
In cetobi selgin agumi,

Ne moi iantus gnaton uorega,
iantus drucocunos uoregon,
cante toi in medie cete.

Vrit- me lindos dubnon -piseti
Vrit- me lindos dubnon -piseti [x2]

Cu allate, papon sod urege,
eððiIo de iantu in cridie.
VediIumi: cante moi uosta!

Ne, a gnata, cante t' usstami,
ne uostami, ne te carami.
Ne carami, nec carasumi.

Boua daga uimpi geneta.
Immi trouga, lana nariIas.

Vrit- me lindos dubnon -piseti.
Vrit- me lindos dubnon -piseti

[Taranis]

Impressive, and also surprisingly catchy. I had not thought the corpus of Gaulish was this complete to actually write songs and SING in it. Having said that, what I know of Gaulish, the text does actually really make sense.

I have to make two conjectures, however:

- One major obstacle with reconstructing a dead language like Gaulish (one with a less than complete corpus, though Gaulish is by large margin the best-attested language of all old Celtic languages) is that for the greater part we do not know the stresses there were in pronounciations, since the Latin, Greek and Etruscan scripts only very limitedly represent that (it's best represented in Greek, though, from what I know). Also, the pronounciation of certain letters is rather uncertain, for example what kind of "R" Gaulish actually had, or how the so-called Tau Gallicum (represented as "ðð" in the lyrics) was actually really pronounced like.

- There are several cases where the declensions are definitely wrong, and it's probably worse with the conjugations because unlike the declensions, they aren't even really well-attested in Gaulish to begin with.

Otherwise nonetheless, this is very cool and impressive. Great find.

[spongetaro]

One major obstacle with reconstructing a dead language like Gaulish (one with a less than complete corpus, though Gaulish is by large margin the best-attested language of all old Celtic languages) is that for the greater part we do not know the stresses there were in pronounciations

The pronunciation may be very doubtful though it would be intersting to find the actual European language that sounds the most similar

[Taranis]

The pronunciation may be very doubtful though it would be intersting to find the actual European language that sounds the most similar

The closest living languages are Breton and Welsh, with are both part of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages. More distantly would be the Goidelic languages (Irish, Manx and Scots Gaelic). The problem is that any of the modern Celtic languages have 2000 years of additional evolution, so they are not exactly representive of Gaulish.

[spongetaro]

The closest living languages are Breton and Welsh, with are both part of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages. More distantly would be the Goidelic languages (Irish, Manx and Scots Gaelic). The problem is that any of the modern Celtic languages have 2000 years of additional evolution, so they are not exactly representive of Gaulish.

another Gaulish reconstruction:


Famous (in France) Breton song:


TV news in Breton (with French accent):

(Oddly it sounds a bit like TV news in Porvençal to me)

Cornish:


Gaelic (from Scotland):


Gaelic (from Ireland):

[Hermy]

Haha!!

Eluveitie is one of my favorite bands, definitely in my top 5 ^^

I discovered them a year and a half ago. "Omnos" is a song that I really LOVE.

"Omnos" is from their 3rd album, which is really particular and unlike the others because it is more of an acoustic album, and all the texts of the songs (except for Omnos and 2 others) have NOT been written by the band, but are original gaulish texts.

On their other albums, they have some songs in reconstructed gaulish, but not a majority. Their lyrics are always about gaulish history, culture, etc.

So the song "Omnos" isn't really representative of their style since it's from the acoustic album. They are metal, when "Omnos" is not.

Here is a song from their 2nd album (one of their best tracks), in gaulish, and musically much more representative:



Enjoy :))

Their last video, from their 4th album (released a year ago):



Also, I saw them live at the Hellfest last year, they were great!!

[spongetaro]

The Irish Gaelic one sounds Dutch to me

[Regulus]

I listened to each several times trying to get a idea of where to place the sounds if I could.

The reconstructed Gaulish, both from the song and from the male speaker video, have an almost 'romance language' ring to them. At times the sounds reminded me of how some of the sounds made in Slavic are heard.

The Scottish Gaelic clearly sounded like it was being spoken by a Scot. The accent is very unique.

Agreeing with Spongetaro, the Irish sounded like a type of Low Germanic.

The echo in the mine made it difficult to follow the speech, so I gave up on the Cornish.

[spongetaro]

The reconstructed Gaulish, both from the song and from the male speaker video, have an almost 'romance language' ring to them. At times the sounds reminded me of how some of the sounds made in Slavic are heard.

A Serbian member of the Apricity forum said it sounded like Serbian

[Taranis]

Funnily, an acquaintance of mine who actually speaks Irish claimed that it sounds "Germanic".

[Regulus]

Funnily, an acquaintance of mine who actually speaks Irish claimed that it sounds "Germanic".

At the risk of being beaten up for asking a stupid question, I ask the following:

Your friend who speaks Irish Gaelic mentioned that to him/her the Gaulish sounded Germanic.
Is that correct?

[Taranis]

Yes, exactly. He speaks Irish, and claims that Gaulish sounds "Germanic" to him. I hope that the sentence wasn't ambiguous and allowing for an other interpretation, but apparently it was. In that case, I'd like to apologize.

[Regulus]

Yes, exactly. He speaks Irish, and claims that Gaulish sounds "Germanic" to him. I hope that the sentence wasn't ambiguous and allowing for an other interpretation, but apparently it was. In that case, I'd like to apologize.

Clearly no apologies are necessary. I was just curious and wanted to rule out any possibility however unlikely it may have been, that 'it' was not referring to another one of the videos like the Cornish one.

[Reinaert]

The Irish Gaelic one sounds Dutch to me

Well, I am Dutch and it sounds more like Arab to me..

Scots Gaelic sounds more like Dutch.

Especially words that end with a "ch"..

For instance Loch Ness. The Scots and Dutch both pronounce a soft "ch".
Funny enough it seems to be the same word in German.. Loch = a hole.

English speakers pronounce it more like "Log Ness" or more "Lock Ness".

[Cimmerianbloke]

Actually, the Irish broadcast is pretty soft for being from a TG4 program. I lived in that part of Ireland for 7 years and studied Gaeilge in University College Galway and Aras na Gaeilge in Galway. Modern Irish has been heavily standardised and TV broadcasts tend to use a very soft accentuated Irish. The three main dialects (Connacht-west, Ulster-north, and Munster-southeast) have their own accents, vocabulary and grammatical peculiarities. Connacht is known for being the hardest to learn and understand with a special mention for the Aran Islands. I'll try to post some audio recordings later on. For an interesting irish-speaking experience, I recommend the following CDs: Eist, songs in their native language (various artists), and Seven Steps to Mercy (Iarla O´Lionaird).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY7edACmuuA

[sumit_kumar]

great band and great videos also....