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Britain/Ireland - genetic vs cultural | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4613 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 1 of 19 05 October 2013 at 5:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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This isn't really philology as such, but it didn't seem quite appropriate for the
general discussion area, and I couldn't find a better one. Please note that I don't want to get into a discussion about race. Neither is it new (so apologies to those for whom this only induces a yawn), but it does throw some light for me on some issues that I have wondered about from time to time. I'm talking about the theories and discoveries of Professor Brian Sykes on the genetic origins of the people of Britain and Ireland and the surrounding islands. Bryan Sykes' Wikipedia page I haven't read it, but it seems his seminal popular work was " Blood of the Isles: Exploring the Genetic Roots of Our Tribal History" (2005), and there is a more recent book "DNA USA: A Genetic Biography of America, W. W. Norton & Company" (2011). I'd always been vaguely aware that it was not strictly correct to think of the Celtic people as being a specific ethnic group, but my thinking on it was fairly woolly. Some of his specific statements help to clarify things. I'd also always vaguely wondered who were the people who inhabited Britain before the people whom we call "The Celts" arrived, and the answer is surprisingly simple (well, not really simple, but anyway, surprising): Because "the Celts" (of Britain and Ireland) and the "Ancient Britons" were essentially one and the same people. And the people who inhabit all parts of Britain and Ireland today are basically the same genetically as the people who inhabited Britain and Ireland in the Stone age. And the people of regions (of Britain or Ireland) we tend today to think of as "Celtic" are genetically very similar to people in what we think of as non-Celtic regions (of England). There was some genetic influence from the Anglo-Saxons, and some from the Vikings, but not as high as people might think (except in the Orkneys and Shetlands where it was very high ~40%). The genetic influence of the Romans and Normans was very small. And the British and Irish "Celts" have little if any genetic relationship with the Celts or Kelts of central Europe. They are closer genetically (if not culturally) to the "Basques", which is another cultural, rather than ethnic term. So, were the "Ancient Britons" always here? Seemingly not: they came to Britain and Ireland from the Iberia during the British neolithic period. There were apparently only a small number of people here when they arrived, people from the British mesolithic period. These later assimilated within the new population. (I don't know if he has any opinions on where the earlier people may have come from). Fascinating stuff, at least to me, and seems to support the idea that there was not, as used to be thought, any significant "ethnic cleansing" of England by the incoming Germanic and Viking invaders, but more like an assimilation of the incomers by the original population. It still leaves plenty of cultural and linguistic questions though: How did the Anglo- Saxons manage to make such a linguistic "clean-sweep" of the Celtic languages, at least in central, southern, and south-eastern England? I think I need to read some of Professor Sykes' books. Edited by montmorency on 05 October 2013 at 6:01pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| darkwhispersdal Senior Member Wales Joined 5825 days ago 294 posts - 363 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Ancient Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 2 of 19 05 October 2013 at 6:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
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You may want to try Nicholas Ostler's Empires of the Word and J P Mallory's The Origins of the Irish to study the cultural and linguistic questions you have.
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| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5350 days ago 938 posts - 1839 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 3 of 19 06 October 2013 at 11:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Which takes us to the highly controversial
http://www.proto-english.org/ 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5350 days ago 938 posts - 1839 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 4 of 19 06 October 2013 at 11:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
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(I don't agree with it btw)
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| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4613 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 5 of 19 07 October 2013 at 4:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
Many thanks. I'll read it with interest, but with my sceptic's spectables on! :-) On a quick skim through, I noticed this:
which reminded me of a discussion I saw in another forum recently about the Normans and Jersey. It mentioned that the Normans - Norse men - came (whether from Norway or Denmark is disputed by historians, apparently) to what we know as Normandy as "recently" as 911, and at one point, threatened to capture Paris. The French ceded Normandy to them "to keep them quiet", although they didn't exactly stay quiet, and grew more and more powerful. Now Jérrias , the old language of the Island of Jersey is usually referred to by English people as "Norman French". Similarly, the language of the people who invaded England in 1066 is also normally referred to here as "Norman French", although perhaps we should simply refer to it as "Norman". Now what kind of a language was it exactly? To what extent was it Norse, and to what extent was it French, and did it have elements that were neither? One would imagine that the people who invaded what became Normandy in 911 spoke something like Old Norse or a variety or descendant of it. To what extent had that become "Frenchified" by 1066? In 155 years? Not that much, I would guess myself. In any event, it seems that English was influenced both by Norman (or "Norman French"), and later on by "mainstream French" (if I can put it like that), partly reflecting the gradual loss of power by the Normans in Normandy, eventually losing it altogether to the French. The Wikipedia articles on the Normans and the "Anglo-Norman" language seem to suggest that the people who became the Normans were quick to adopts the Romance languages of the lands that that they invaded and took possession of, and further , that the people who came over with William The Conqueror in 1066 spoke a range of French dialects, not just Norman. All very intriguing, but does not really answer the question in my mind: why did the people who became known as the Normans give up their Norse language (if indeed that's what they did) so relatively quickly? Edited by montmorency on 07 October 2013 at 4:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5238 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 6 of 19 08 October 2013 at 7:17am | IP Logged | |||||
If the Norse invaders were a minority in Normandy, I don't find it strange that they became "Frenchified" in 155 years, or five generations. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5350 days ago 938 posts - 1839 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 7 of 19 08 October 2013 at 9:54am | IP Logged | |||||
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'If the Norse invaders were a minority in Normandy, I don't find it strange that they
became "Frenchified" in 155 years, or five generations. ' I agree with this, but it does raise the interesting question as to why the Anglo-Saxon- Jutish invaders in England didn't become Welshified (if I may) and, in fact, why there are practically no Brythonic words in English save some place and river names (the etymology of which is often contentious). 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5317 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 19 08 October 2013 at 12:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
There's a famous and highly amusing story about the Norman invasion. From Wikipedia:
The French still agreed to the treaty, which gives you some idea of their negotiating position. The influence of Norman French on English can be traced very neatly by means of w/g doublets, where a w -> g sound law between early Norman and later standard French led to matching pairs of words in modern English: ward versus guard, warden versus guardian, and warranty versus guarantee. Later, during World War II, the Bayeux Tapestry depicting the Norman invasion of England was saved from destruction. According to materials sold at the museum, this was allegedly because somebody told the local German forces, "Hey, the Normans were really Norsemen, which makes them 'Aryan.' And so this tapestry is really the record of a bunch of Aryans who crossed the channel and invaded England." The German forces were sufficiently impressed by this, and they declared the tapestry a major cultural treasure. To this day, Norse last names are common in northern France. My wife's family name can be directly traced back to the Norman invaders, and I can find the corresponding name on runic inscriptions found throughout northern Europe. Norman history is fun. Edited by emk on 08 October 2013 at 12:02pm 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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