04-04-2010, 02:58 PM
Quote:Hello, Cagwinn
I think we know that Northeastern Iranian-- used by the Saka, Massagetae, Alans-- was not closely related to Celtic.
Saka spoke a separate Southeastern Iranian dialect (see: [url:2xv1ggvk]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Iranian_Family_Tree_v2.0.png[/url]), but anyway, you just said a few messages back that the Alani and Bretons spoke a similar language:
Quote:If my theory is correct, then the British Celts (and Armorican Brits) were not so distant culturally from the Alans, both having the probable same progenitor. Other cultural likenesses between these two tribes existed: they weaved similar tweeds, spoke similar languages...
We seem to have a contradiction here.
Quote:I am an old fart, not a linguist, and made the brash claim that Tocharian had affinities with Celtic... which it does in some ways. Aside from language, if the Urumchi mummies were Tocharian then they had some cultural similarities with the Celts, particularly their weaving, actually using the identical type of loom.
I wear the same type of blue jeans that folks in Japan do - that doesn't mean we speak the same language or have deep cultural similarities. The affinities between Celtic and Tocharian are somewhat superficial - there is no way that a Gaulish speaker or a Proto-Tocharian speaker would have been able to understand one another if they had met and tried to strike up a conversation. Neither could an Alan and a Brittonic speaker in the 5th century (since Alanic and Brittonic were even further apart, linguistically speaking).
Quote:Also, we should remember that Celtic roots also lie in Eastern Europe.
Says who? Most linguists seem to believe that the Celtic languages arose in Central or Western Europe
Quote:I can't sneak into Jestor. But I found http://www.oxuscom.com an interesting read, especially this:
"Based on the similarities between Tocharian and the Italic and Celtic branches... he (Lane) postulates 'rather a long period of close contact..."
Here is the full quotation from the original (Lane, George S. "Tocharian: Indo-European and Non-Indo-European Relationships," in Indo-European and Indo-Europeans, ed. by George Cardona, Henry Hoenigswald and Alfred Senn. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1970) - the emphasis is mine:
"A possible interpretation of the evidence here presented as regards the relations of Tocharian and Italic and Celtic would be, I think, that, while in no way indicative of any original close dialectal unity between them, it does point to rather a long period of close contact after the separation of Tocharian from the nearest of kin, Thraco-Phrygian (and perhaps Armenian)."
Christopher Gwinn
