Theory that \'Celts\' are a myth

[cagwinn]

[comments removed by moderator]

[D B Campbell]

... it struck me that single word he uses most (it litters the volume) when commenting upon the identity, practices and movements of these ancient Celts is ... probably.

That's archaeology for you. :wink: (It would surely be worse if he -- like many popularisers -- omitted the word "probably".)

[Ghostmojo]

... There is no reason to suppose that they could all understand each other so it is not a common celtic language, rather a group of celtic languages that developed from the same branch. To date, Lepontic was thought to be the oldest celtic language but recently Koch has proposed that the Tartessian scripts, from the 7th cent. BC are celtic ...

That all seems perfectly reasonable to me

... Galicia in NW Iberia and the celtic inscriptions towards the Black Sea are different to what is seen as the expansion of celtic languages. The place name evidence in Galicia. eg. Citania de Briteiros, points to brythonic migrations there, they are not a development from Celt Iberian. Celts near the Black Sea appear to have been a migration of Central European Celtic speakers into that region, ie taking the language there rather than being developed there ...

Again entirely logical. Are the inscriptions you speak about scripted in the Greek alphabet?

Just to return to the original basis of this thread, and perhaps to clarify to some who might have wondered, I don't believe the Celts (ancient Celtae/Keltoi) are a myth - at least when it comes to discussing the well-established and documented group of people occupying either the central European area north of the Alps, or southern France/northern Spain. My own view on the myth aspect of it relates to two things: the first being more modern usage of the term - in as much as people identifying themselves with something which seemingly lacks plausible substance. That seems to me to be more about psychology and a rejection of fact or reality in favour of romantic attachment to a largely artificial construct. There is a complete lack of historic linear continuity for people to claim such descent. It is extremely tenuous at best. The other aspect of it that unsettles me is the fact that the (supposed) modern surviving heartland of Celticism i.e. the British Isles, may be nothing of the sort. There is a paradox there in my opinion. If there is no real proof that out islands were ever invaded by Celts (as opposed to say being affected by imported culture) then why do so many people feel attracted to the contrary notion?

"There is today no convincing archaeological evidence that either island was invaded by Celtic peoples. By contrast, all indications point to continuity from earlier times..."

"In Ireland and Britain, at any rate, Celts remain, as yet, in the shadows. On the European mainland, however, Celts emerge in the full light of history, as larger-than-life figures of flesh and blood, the first to escape the darkness of the unlettered past..."

Dr. Barry Raftery - Professor of Celtic Studies (University College, Dublin) 2001

[authun]

Again entirely logical. Are the inscriptions you speak about scripted in the Greek alphabet?

The Botorrita inscriptions which are Celt-Iberian are written in a Celt Iberian script : [url:iqgswg0k]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Botorrita_1.jpg[/url]

Most of the Leptontic inscriptions are written using the Lugano alphabet, one of a few alphabets in northern Italy derived from the Etruscan alphabet. You can see what this looks like in this paper which also has a lot of useful information about celtic languages : [url:iqgswg0k]http://www.univie.ac.at/indogermanistik/download/Stifter/oldcelt2008_2_lepontic.pdf[/url]

I don't think we have inscriptions for Galicia or the Black Sea, perhaps someone can correct me on that. In Galicia, the evidence is placename only from what I can see and in the black sea a combination of placename evidence and celtic personal names that occur in other texts, eg. Greek.

Just to return to the original basis of this thread, and perhaps to clarify to some who might have wondered, I don't believe the Celts (ancient Celtae/Keltoi) are a myth - at least when it comes to discussing the well-established and documented group of people occupying the central European area north of the Alps. My own view on the myth aspect of it relates to two things: the first being more modern usage of the term - in as much as people identifying themselves with something which seemingly lacks plausible substance. That seems to me to be more about psychology and a rejection of fact or reality in favour of romantic attachment to a largely artificial construct. There is a complete lack of historic linear continuity for people to claim such descent. It is extremely tenuous at best. The other aspect of it that unsettles me is the fact that the (supposed) modern surviving heartland of Celticism i.e. the British Isles, may be nothing of the sort. There is a paradox there in my opinion. If there is no real proof that out islands were ever invaded by Celts (as opposed to say being affected by imported culture) then why do so many people feel attracted to the contrary notion?

"There is today no convincing archaeological evidence that either island was invaded by Celtic peoples. By contrast, all indications point to continuity from earlier times..."

"In Ireland and Britain, at any rate, Celts remain, as yet, in the shadows. On the European mainland, however, Celts emerge in the full light of history, as larger-than-life figures of flesh and blood, the first to escape the darkness of the unlettered past..."

Dr. Barry Raftery - Professor of Celtic Studies (University College, Dublin) 2001

When authors write the sort of statements above, it's important to know what 'old ideas' they are attempting to change. Usually that is set out in the preface or introduction. People of my generation were taught that the Celts were a single people who invaded the British Isles in the iron age and that there were some further invasions between 55/54BC and 43AD. History started with the Greeks, then the Romans, then the Roman invasion and then the Anglo Saxons. Hence Sellar's and Yateman's famous line, 'Britain didn't have a history until the Romans came and gave us one'. Where all these Celts came from was completely omitted, other than a mention of the Belgae.

There are many puzzling aspects about celtic speakers in Britain. For example, the Brigantes, who we think spoke a celtic language, show a good deal of continuity from the Bronze age. Their neighbours in East Yorkshire however show a sudden change around 450BC. Whether this change was cultural or demic is something which is debated but it at least tells us that the 'celtic' Brigantes are older, in terms of archaeology, than the 'celtic' Parisii and that they don't fit into the old 'iron age' series of invasions model. It becomes a question, 'when did groups like the Brigantes enter Britain?'

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authun

[Conal]

There are many puzzling aspects about celtic speakers in Britain. For example, the Brigantes, who we think spoke a celtic language, show a good deal of continuity from the Bronze age. Their neighbours in East Yorkshire however show a sudden change around 450BC. Whether this change was cultural or demic is something which is debated but it at least tells us that the 'celtic' Brigantes are older, in terms of archaeology, than the 'celtic' Parisii and that they don't fit into the old 'iron age' series of invasions model. It becomes a question, 'when did groups like the Brigantes enter Britain?'

And were the Brigantes of Britain related to those in Ireland?

Also there is a tribe named as Menapii in Ireland ... were these related to the Belgic tribe of the same name?

[Conal]

"There is today no convincing archaeological evidence that either island was invaded by Celtic peoples. By contrast, all indications point to continuity from earlier times..."

"In Ireland and Britain, at any rate, Celts remain, as yet, in the shadows. On the European mainland, however, Celts emerge in the full light of history, as larger-than-life figures of flesh and blood, the first to escape the darkness of the unlettered past..."

Dr. Barry Raftery - Professor of Celtic Studies (University College, Dublin) 2001

This takes care if an invasion by a "racial"/"tribal" entity calling themselves Celtic or speaking a Celtic language who took over land and displaced the original non Celtic speaking population. What it does not clear up is were the original inhabitants of Ireland Celtic speakers who in some aspects adopted some culture from linguistic cousins from central europe? If the latter is a real possibilty then my uncle Paddy (and yes I have one and he does have a little of the Gaelic) calling himself Celtic is not unreasonable, if, on a linguistic basis ... and even if he might chose to do in part to differentiate himself from the English and their ancestors. This does not mean that he sees himself directly decended from the Boii but as part of the wider relationship of a language family.

As with most cultures things change over the centuries and even geographically by location between contemporaries within a language group. Gaul did not succumb to a Germanic language but England did. What was left behind in non Saxon Britain was not Latin based like French but related to languages dominent prior to Roman influence despite 400 years of occupation.

I don't see anything wrong with someone in the 1700/1800s making a link between languages and then using Celtic as a shorthand for all of those who spoke/speak a version decended from a central european language. The invasion theory may have been wrong but that is not a reason for chucking everything down the drain. One can can correctly say that no one prior to the 18th century called anyone in Britian or Ireland Celtic ... why does it matter if subsequent research can justify a common language route and a crossing of cultural influence, religeous and material?

Who called who what in ancient times is a bit hit and miss at times so care needs to be taken.

[Kosios]

Hi; i don't write often on this forum, but i want to add my "2 cents".

The other aspect of it that unsettles me is the fact that the (supposed) modern surviving heartland of Celticism i.e. the British Isles, may be nothing of the sort. There is a paradox there in my opinion. If there is no real proof that out islands were ever invaded by Celts (as opposed to say being affected by imported culture) then why do so many people feel attracted to the contrary notion?

There are many puzzling aspects about celtic speakers in Britain. For example, the Brigantes, who we think spoke a celtic language, show a good deal of continuity from the Bronze age. Their neighbours in East Yorkshire however show a sudden change around 450BC. Whether this change was cultural or demic is something which is debated but it at least tells us that the 'celtic' Brigantes are older, in terms of archaeology, than the 'celtic' Parisii and that they don't fit into the old 'iron age' series of invasions model. It becomes a question, 'when did groups like the Brigantes enter Britain?'

Here i will use Celts meaning only "speakers of languages of the Celtic group of Indoeuropean family".

The theory of some scholars (e.g. Venceslas Kruta) is that Celts settled in most of their territories, including Britain and Ireland, during the Indoeuropean expansion (Bronze age). At this time they was not already speaking "Celtic", maybe not even "protoceltic", but a kind of "proto-protoceltic" who evolved in Celtic in most of the regions; in some other regions, it evolved in other languages (like Ligurian) who are not considered part of Celtic group but have strong similarities with it.

So, following this theory (recognised also by Kruta as hypotetic, and refused by some others), there was no Celtic invasion in Ireland during Iron Age because Celts was already there!

[authun]

And were the Brigantes of Britain related to those in Ireland?

Also there is a tribe named as Menapii in Ireland ... were these related to the Belgic tribe of the same name?

These sorts of name similarities, there are others too, was one of the reasons to suppose invasions during the iron age. However, no evidence for invasion does not mean that that they did not come for some other reason and no evidence that they came in the iron age does not mean that they did not come earlier. As Kosios has already mentioned, the Bronze age is important as is the Chalcolithic. As we learn more about the networks once metals become a valuable resource, we are starting to learn that these were more extensive than previously thought.

The name Brigantes may not tell us much as the Briga element is widespread. Depending on which etymology one subscribes to, it either refers to a deity or dwellers in the hills. The Menapi of course does hint at the more specific Belgic tribe.

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authun

[authun]

The theory of some scholars (e.g. Venceslas Kruta) is that Celts settled in most of their territories, including Britain and Ireland, during the Indoeuropean expansion (Bronze age). At this time they was not already speaking "Celtic", maybe not even "protoceltic", but a kind of "proto-protoceltic" who evolved in Celtic in most of the regions; in some other regions, it evolved in other languages (like Ligurian) who are not considered part of Celtic group but have strong similarities with it.

So, following this theory (recognised also by Kruta as hypotetic, and refused by some others), there was no Celtic invasion in Ireland during Iron Age because Celts was already there!

According to the hydronymy, there was a language or languages spoken in Britain before the celtic languages arrived, river names such as Hodder, Clun, Calder, Humber etc. If celtic languages did not arrive in the iron age, they certainly arrived earlier and the Chalcolithic and Bronze age are a good starting point for investigation. That doesn't mean more celtic language speakers didn't arrive later as well and as we find more bronze age boats, we are starting to learn that these societies were more mobile and interacted more with the continent than previously thought.

New advances in metalurgical analysis is also throwing up a few surprises. For example, the copper used in the Nebra Sky disk which is associated with the Ún?tice culture was previously thought to have come from the Götschenberg near Bischofhofen. This was based purely on the hypothesis that this copper producing area supplied many bronze using societies in central europe and even Scandinavia, via the Lusatian culture who had tin. The recent analysis however has shown that the copper came from Cornwall, as did the gold used in the same disk.

Sourcing copper ores is one thing, exploiting them is another. How does one persuade farming communities to stop farming and dig ore? The chances are they won't and so miners may have migrated into areas where ores were found. In addition to miners, one needs people involved in the processing and transportion. After copper comes tin. Tin producing areas are rather scarce in europe, you can see the sources on the map on page 276 here: [url:tz5zl67u]http://www.aditnow.co.uk/documents/personal-album-272/Sources-of-Tin-and-the-Beginnings-of-Bronze-Metallurgy.pdf[/url] The distribution of bronze objects, whether weapons or ornamentation, shows that movement of goods, either tin or copper or bronze in the form of ingots must have been far wider than the sources because so many societies used them. There is ample opportunity for small groups to move along these routes and incentive enough for larger groups to seek to exploit and control the sources. It is impossible to state therefore whether the aquisition of the language was cultural or demic but it is certainly possible that speakers of early celtic or even proto celtic languages moved around during these periods.

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authun

[Ghostmojo]

When authors write the sort of statements above, it's important to know what 'old ideas' they are attempting to change. Usually that is set out in the preface or introduction. People of my generation were taught that the Celts were a single people who invaded the British Isles in the iron age and that there were some further invasions between 55/54BC and 43AD. History started with the Greeks, then the Romans, then the Roman invasion and then the Anglo Saxons. Hence Sellar's and Yateman's famous line, 'Britain didn't have a history until the Romans came and gave us one'. Where all these Celts came from was completely omitted, other than a mention of the Belgae.

I guess I am of the same generation Authun! In a funny way my curiosity about all of this goes right back to school, and the way 'native' history was taught back then. It was kind of very vague ancient Brits stuff (can't even remember if the teachers called them Celts) with phrases like stone age, bronze age, iron age liberally thrown around; then the Romans arrived; then they went; next came the Anglo-Saxons; the following week the Vikings; after half-term it was the Normans; then the Plantagenets, Tudors, Stuarts etc. What struck me as odd was the lack of discussion about what happened to previous groups when new ones arrived and whether there was any interaction. It was almost like the country became a blank slate for each new wave of immigrants to write their story upon. Thereafter I always thought that with history always being about the 'big' people during these times (kings, warrior bands etc.) it was clear that the 'little' people were always around - it was just that nobody ever took any notice of them!!!

There are many puzzling aspects about celtic speakers in Britain. For example, the Brigantes, who we think spoke a celtic language, show a good deal of continuity from the Bronze age. Their neighbours in East Yorkshire however show a sudden change around 450BC. Whether this change was cultural or demic is something which is debated but it at least tells us that the 'celtic' Brigantes are older, in terms of archaeology, than the 'celtic' Parisii and that they don't fit into the old 'iron age' series of invasions model. It becomes a question, 'when did groups like the Brigantes enter Britain?'

And who were the Brigantes anyway - and what about the Caledonians ... what about the Picts?

I have become somewhat persuaded by some of the propositions of Stephen Oppenheimer regarding the more obscure parts of our history. I don't think anybody could accuse him of some kind of English/Anglo-Saxon based revisionism given his mixed background. He seems to me to approach the subject from a very neutral position. What I did take away from his book was something that chimed in with a view that I had long held - that the English (as well as the Welsh, Scottish, Irish & others) for the most part, may well have been resident for a great deal longer in these islands than traditional accepted orthodoxy holds. The problem as ever comes down to nomenclature, just as the same issue attaches itself to the Celts. If for arguments sake (as a name rather than race/culture) the pre-Roman peoples of the west of Britain might be termed Celts/Brythones/Britons - Celtobritons if you will; could not there also be an parallel group of inhabitants (as Oppenheimer speculates (with good reason)) occupying the east (for whom we really do not have a name) who might also be termed Celts(?)/Others/Britons - Anglobritons or Belgaebritons for want of a better term? His theory has most of us in these islands descended from post-glacial settlers who were well in place long before the arrival (or non-arrival) of the Celts; Romans; Angles; Saxons; Jutes; Frisians; Danes; Norse; Normans etc. These incoming influences being more in the way of dominating cultured warrior elites, rather than massive waves of immigrants (hence the problem of what happened to all those massacred/displaced previous peoples not really being an issue). And of course his treatise stipulates with considerable voracity that there were two separate groups which co-existed; it was just that they had been doing it all along, rather than the original 'indigenous' people (Celts/Britons) displaced/nudged over by incoming 'arrivee' settlers/invaders (Anglo-Saxons et al). With the various cultural and linguistic influences that both physical invaders/settlers and commercial importation brought; it is entirely reasonable to see us all as far more 'mongrel' in our make-up (and less pure) and also far more interconnected as well. The contention that English as a language was also developing independently of other Germanic tongues before the arrival of the Frisians etc. is also hugely interesting and worthy of greater investigation and discussion.

When I left college I had a landlord who owned my flat with whom I got on quite well. Mr. Clement-Evans was very Welsh and very proud of it. He also had a keen interest in history and often ribbed me (in friendly fashion) about how the Welsh were the actual aboriginal Britons and 'us lot' were just mongrel later arrivals. I used to remind him of my Welsh heritage (both sides of my family - my paternal side including the Tudors) which I think gave me some brownie points with him. Oh how I would like to debate this issue with him now. The viewpoint of the historic make-up of the peoples of the British Isles has developed enormously since my school days (the same orthodoxy he subscribed to) and I guess will continue to unabated. 8)

Nationalism is the worry - especially nationalism based upon name, territory and language. Nationalism is exclusive and tribal. It doesn't exactly represent the best of ourselves as humanity, despite being fascinating for the social historian. And what is a name, a people, a border? Take the land north of the border - Scotland. The people there are descended from a mix of invading/arriving Scotti (who were Irish); surviving Picts; Strathclyde Britons (and Welsh); Norse; and Angles in Lothian. Add to that later Anglo-Norman and English incursions etc. and even more recent arrivals from all manner of places. The name in itself has no bearing upon either the original peoples or those who brought it since it means raiders or pirates (much as Viking did). Caledonia, Alba etc.? Nope - Scotland = Raiderland! Wales of course gets its name from foreigners appended by the English rather than their own Cymru term. The Welsh too are pretty multi-cultural these days; but even before that is the mix of west Britons; coastal Irish and Scandinavian infringers; alongside later English. And finally England (named after just one small group of Angle settlers) with certainly the broadest mixture of the lot. All of these countries could/should have claims on celtic history/ancestry should they choose to make them (and some do) and yet perhaps none do at all - or only groups within the larger collective. One good reason for the continuance of the word and catch-all identity of British. We may well have started off as far more of a heterogeneous (but connected) crowd than many would care to admit - and in modern times we have become even more so. So why not accept that the British identity is now doing pretty much what it was doing two thousand or more years ago? 8)

[Conal]

I have become somewhat persuaded by some of the propositions of Stephen Oppenheimer regarding the more obscure parts of our history. I don't think anybody could accuse him of some kind of English/Anglo-Saxon based revisionism given his mixed background. He seems to me to approach the subject from a very neutral position. What I did take away from his book was something that chimed in with a view that I had long held - that the English (as well as the Welsh, Scottish, Irish & others) for the most part, may well have been resident for a great deal longer in these islands than traditional accepted orthodoxy holds.

Oppenheimer is an amateur genetisist who, IIRC, is loathe to open his methodology up to "peer" (professional) review. That is worrying ... why would he not?

The theory you are identifying, according to Oppenheimer, sets a German speaking people as dominent in south east Britain, a people who the Romans missed completely... for 400 years?

This sums it up very well http://www.grsampson.net/QOppenheimer.html

[authun]

And who were the Brigantes anyway - and what about the Caledonians ... what about the Picts?

The Brigantes are attested in roman sources and from inscriptions but appear to be a confederation of tribes in the north of England rather than a single tribe. Early roman writers tell us of the Caledonians but later sources write of the Picts, whose language is unclear. Although there is no concensus, the tendency is to think that the Picts spoke yet another type of celtic language, but it should be stressed that this may be an incorrect view. The linguistic border between brythonic speaking peoples and those speaking the language of the Picts appears to be the Firth of Forth. The people of Caledonia during the roman period therefore would, on the face of it, appear to be Britons in the south and Picts in the north. Those in the south, more or less between Hadrian's Wall and the Antonine Wall such as the Novantai, Selgoves and Votadini were probably very similar to northern tribes south of Hadrian's Wall such as the Carvetti, around modern day Carlisle.

I have become somewhat persuaded by some of the propositions of Stephen Oppenheimer regarding the more obscure parts of our history. I don't think anybody could accuse him of some kind of English/Anglo-Saxon based revisionism given his mixed background. He seems to me to approach the subject from a very neutral position. What I did take away from his book was something that chimed in with a view that I had long held - that the English (as well as the Welsh, Scottish, Irish & others) for the most part, may well have been resident for a great deal longer in these islands than traditional accepted orthodoxy holds.

Oppenheimer's book is based on a hypothesis which was out of date before the book was even published. It's a commercial product, not a contribution to science.

The hypothesis appeared in the peer reviewed genetic science with Jim Wilson's 'Genetic evidence for different male and female roles during cultural transitions in the British Isles' (2001). To establish a baseline or genetic reference point for the indigenous British male lineages, Wilson chose 94 samples from Anglesey. He noted the similarity between the mix of genetic markers in that Welsh sample and the mix of genetic markers in a sample taken from the Basque region. The genetic marker with the greatest frequency in each of these groups was a marker called R1b.

One school of thought at that time was that the Basques represented the ancestral paleolithic population of europe. As Wilson explained, this was based on three factors: the Basque language, an isolate remnant of the Vasconic group, a non Indo European language; blood type, highest frequency of O and rhesus cde and another hypothesis that claimed the female lineages in the Basque population contained the lowest input of post neolithic mtDNA. In other words, the hypothesis about the yDNA lineages of the Basques representing the paleolithic was not based on yDNA at all but on blood group, language and mtDNA. Wilson did warn however that "we know of no other study however, that provides direct evidence of a close relationship in the paternal heritage of the Basque and the Celtic speaking populations of Britain."

In 2005 Santos Alonso's "The place of the Basques in the European Y-chromosome diversity landscape" set out to investigate the "trend to consider the gene pool of the Basques as a 'living fossil' of the earliest modern humans that colonized Europe.". That study came to two important conclusions:

(1)"... the strong genetic drift experienced by the Basques does not allow us to consider Basques either the only or the best representatives of the ancestral European gene pool. "

(2)"Contrary to previous suggestions, we do not observe any particular link between Basques and Celtic populations beyond that provided by the Paleolithic ancestry common to European populations, nor we find evidence supporting Basques as the focus of major population expansions.

The problem is calculating the age of the R1b genetic marker. R1b is present in something like half the population of western europe. If it is an old genetic marker, it would explain why researchers like Richards concluded that agriculture and the neolithic was a development from the european paleolithic. If it is a younger genetic marker, it would explain why researchers such as Chikhi concluded that agriculture and the neolithic was the result of a mass migration of people into europe. Several other studies, including some of different disciplines, all pointed to population replacement with the onset of the neolithic, for example:

'Radiocarbon evidence indicates that migrants introduced farming to Britain' (Collard)
Ancient DNA Reveals Lack of Continuity between Neolithic Hunter-Gatherers and Contemporary Scandinavians. (Malmström)
Genetic Discontinuity Between Local Hunter Gatherers and Central Europe’s First Farmers. (Bramanti)

but as long as one holds onto the view that the Basques were paleolithic and somehow untouched by events since the neolithic, there remained a contradiction.

Yuval Itan's 'The Origins of Lactase Persistence in Europe. (2009) shows that the Basques are heavily influenced by events since the neolithic. They have a very high frequency of the lactase persistent allele 13910 which is dated post neolithic. The frequency is in stark contrast to other southern europeans so, as with the language, it marks the Basques as different but now, younger than the paleolithic.

Balaresque's 'A Predominantly Neolithic Origin for European Paternal Lineages' (2010) uses new dating on R1b and examines the microsatellite diversity of many european sub populations. She concluded: "The distribution of this lineage, the diversity within it, and estimates of its age all suggest that it spread with farming from the Near East. Taken with evidence on the origins of other lineages, this indicates that most European Y chromosomes descend from Near Eastern farmers."

Researchers like Wilson took haplogroup frequency data and compared the basket of haplogroups for one population with the basket of haplogroups for another population. What Oppenheimer did was to take Capelli's STR data and created his own groups. STR data are the number of repeat counts at certain loci or positions on the Y chromosome. For example:

13, 14, 13, 15, 23, 11
13, 14, 13, 15, 27, 10

are two examples of the STR counts at 6 loci for two people who both have the R1b marker. You can see that the first four are the same but the individuals differ on the last two. Capelli's data has something like 140 groups of 6 STR values, all within R1b. Oppenheimer reduces this list of 140 into 16 'clans'. In other words he looked at the two sets of STR data above and made a decision, is this one group or two? He doesn't say on what basis he reduces 140 down to 16. That means no scientist can repeat the experiment to verify the result. It's not peer science and, in my opinion, the book is more to do with generating interest in a view of history and an invitation to take the Oppenheimer Test at Ethnoancestry to see how you fit into Oppenheimer's view of history, [url:ygb1i610]http://www.ethnoancestry.com/oppenheimer.html[/url]. It's commercial, not science and Oppenheimer's book is not cited or referenced by the peer science.

The contention that English as a language was also developing independently of other Germanic tongues before the arrival of the Frisians etc. is also hugely interesting and worthy of greater investigation and discussion.

Peter Forster's work which Oppenheimer cites is published in a book of experimental techniques and he uses the algorithms of molecular biology to describe the evolution of language. As an experiment, his dates come with error bands and, in the case of English as a 4th germanic language, ie the date at which it separated from continental germanic, the error band is 6000 years. You can pick any one of a number of periods of history and associate the split with any one of a number cultures. Oppenheimer simply chose to associate it with the most distant in the past. Ringe and Warnow and Gray and Atkinson who use modern computational methods to date the splits in the branches of the Indo European tree come up with results which are much more in line with the dates that linguists suggest.


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authun

[Ghostmojo]

As I said - somewhat persuaded - not completely sold over. But, well, I'll let him speak for himself. You've possibly/probably seen this:

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2007/ ... revisited/

I've also read the Richard Coates article:

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/linguistics/doc ... ritons.pdf
_______________________________________________________

Oppenheimer is an amateur genetisist who, IIRC, is loathe to open his methodology up to "peer" (professional) review. That is worrying ... why would he not?

The theory you are identifying, according to Oppenheimer, sets a German speaking people as dominent in south east Britain, a people who the Romans missed completely... for 400 years?

This sums it up very well http://www.grsampson.net/QOppenheimer.html

I enjoyed reading Sampson. He is both informative and entertainingly witty. I can see the logic in all of his comments. Whether he is 100% correct or not remains to be seen. He might be. I'm keeping an open mind on this and will digging further (in both directions). By the way - with my mixed heritage, believe me I have no particular agenda. I'm not a little englander and have stressed my belief in the inclusive value of Britishness (either ancient or modern).

[authun]

But, well, I'll let him speak for himself. You've possibly/probably seen this:

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2007/ ... revisited/

I've also read the Richard Coates article:

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/linguistics/doc ... ritons.pdf

Oppenheimer is not quoted or referenced by any peer science publication. He has to speak for himself because no one else does. When he does speak, he states things like:

"R1b expanded from the Basque Ice Age refuge and predominates in extreme western Europe,"

This is simply wrong and as I explained, based on an old and out of date hypothesis.

Richard Coates' paper needs to be read in the context in which it was presented, stated at the top of the paper, for a conference hosted at Manchester by Nick Higham. Higham is at the minimalist end of the acculturation model for the transition from Roman Briton to Anglo Saxon England, arguing for a takeover by a small military elite. A problem for this argument is the sudden and swift change in language, why are there so few celtic placenames, why are there so few celtic loanwords in English and so on. Both Higham and Coates agree that celtic was spoken in Britain during the Roman period and that the germanic language entered Britain after the roman period, though they disagree as to the numbers involved during the transition. Neither support any hypothesis that a germanic language was spoken in Britain during the pre roman iron age. In fact, no one does and the idea appears to have been dropped. Even at the time it was seen as outrageous because there was simply no evidence and flew in the face of linguistic research.

I enjoyed reading Sampson. He is both informative and entertainingly witty. I can see the logic in all of his comments. Whether he is 100% correct or not remains to be seen. He might be. I'm keeping an open mind on this and will digging further (in both directions). By the way - with my mixed heritage, believe me I have no particular agenda. I'm not a little englander and have stressed my belief in the inclusive value of Britishness (either ancient or modern).

Geoffrey Sampson's view is very much in line with other linguists. You won't find any linguist even considering that english was spoken in Britain in the pre roman period. You'll see Oppenheimer quoting the specialists but not the specialists quoting Oppenheimer.

Although historians, linguists, archaeologists and geneticists argue about the scale of immigration during the 5th and 6th cents and the same demic versus cultural diffusion debate exists about how celtic languages entered Britain, you'll find Oppenheimer is more or less in a club of one. I am aware of one attempt from an archaeologist to support him but the argument was so flawed that it never made it to publication. There is no support in peer journals for genetics or lingusitics. Meanwhile, the Oppenheimer Test continues to be sold for $489 to people who have read his book and want to see how they fit into it.

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[Ghostmojo]

... Meanwhile, the Oppenheimer Test continues to be sold for $489 to people who have read his book and want to see how they fit into it

That is something I was not aware of and does point towards the chap as perhaps being something of a bounder! :roll:

Perhaps somebody could get him to come on here and explain himself then? That commercial attitude certainly disappoints me