The English and the Celts - no genocide?

[Robert Vermaat]

Well this is precisely the point, isn't it. :lol: What Coates is comparing
is the adoption of the native Celtic language by the conquerors.
What he compares is how Franks and Romans in Gaul adopt Gallic with how Anglo-Saxons in Britain adopt Brittonic. It's the relative hostility towards (or disinterest in) the native population by the invader which
is being quantified, here; using linguitsics as a measuring-stick. You
introduce the question of Gauls not being required to forego their native
tongue and speak Latin (exclusively, you mean). But that's not the
question being asked by Coates. Nobody has ever claimed that Gauls
stopped speaking Gallic once they were Romanised, any more than
Romanised Britons stopped speaking both Brittonic and Latin, don't
forget once they were invaded by English-speaking Anglo-Saxons.
It's not the hostility of the native populations towards the invader
which is being questioned, here. It's the hostility of the invader
towards the natives. 8) There's a difference, you know. So, clearly,
there was less hostility from Romans to Gauls (as measured by this linguistic paradigm) than from Anglo-Saxons to Britons.

No no no, I'm not talking about that, I talk indeed about the invader and their adoption of words from the language of the conquered people. And then I ask why there were still so few words from Celtic (and I add the Celts from Italy and Spain and other areas to that) entered Latin.
When you see less hostility from Romans to all these Celts, over a much longer period, then why not even 200 Celtic words in Latin. What percentage are we even speaking of? A very low one. That it's more that tenfold the amount of British words that made it to English is ceratinly true - but it's still a very very low number IF you say that the reason for the latter is something as drastic as population replacement and near-invisiblity of the conquered language. And THEN the comparison fails, for the Romans did not replace the Celts from all thes e areas.

So, there must be something else going on that caused so few word of Celtic entering Latin, and even fewer words of British to enter English.

Hmmm. I'm not sure who is misunderstanding whom, here. But Coates
seems to be making the point that the Anglo-Saxons even went to the
trouble to adopt an Irish word for something that no longer even existed in mainland Britain - a druid' - rather than adopt any Brittonic words, which were closer to home, and described still extant objects. Coates is making the same point as yourself, you just don't realise it.

No, I don't think so, but that's my interpretation. I don't see Coates making the point of the Anglo-Saxons avoiding existing British vocabulary, I think he just used the wrong example here. Although I wonder where the Anglo-Saxons came into contact with Irish people speaking about druids, I thought Ireland was already well-baptised when the English came into full contact with them.

But to say that Anglo-Saxons' vocabulary sufficed is to introduce an
element of special-pleading on their behalf, surely.

You mean by me? NOt my words, it's Coates who brought that up.

As an invading Anglo-Saxon, your vocabulary may suffice for everday
things, but it would still be polite to adopt at least some native words for
things, just to show you aren't completely anti-British. 8) lol:

Oh, sure, many have. Up to the early 1970s it was very common to suggest that the Anglo-Saxons had wiped out the British in their conquered territories, a theory that is also heard when current dna-studies are discussed (next to apartheid, enslavement and ‘breeding out’ of the male British population).

But nobody is suggesting that, today, either.

Coates is arguing that the British population was no longer present in the eastern areas of Britain, either through them being massacred or through mass migration. Did you read that article or not? hock:

[quote="ambrosius":2a97eo2g] The question is why the Anglo-Saxons chose not to adopt the British language - even slightly.

That’s the million-dollar question, indeed!

Good God! You just agreed with me! What went wrong? :lol: :lol: :lol:

But I didn't! D lol: