Re: OT: parent languages

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

flash wrote:
> In terms of DNA drift (see "The Severn Daughters of Eve"), the English
> are indistinguishable from the Ost Frieslanders. The English are
> genetically distinguishable from the Scots, Irish, Manx, and
> Welsh--i.e., from the Gaelic-speaking population of the British Isles.
Distinguish the two branches of the Celtic languages: Scots,
Irish, and I think Manx make up the Gaelic or Q Celtic branch
(their patronymical prefix being Mac, the last sound of which the
philologists equate to q, rather in the manner of the Pin-Yin
transcription of Chinese); Welsh, Breton, and I think Cornish
make up the Brythonic, or P Celtic branch, their patronymical
prefix being Map (the common Welsh surname Price is an eliding of
Map Rhys).
> So, apparently, the course of migration/trade/invasion went straight
> westwards, from Frisia, through the Low Coutnries, to England (possibly
> over a land bridge after the last ice age ca. 10,000 years ago).
The Celts might have gone over the land bridge, but the
Germanic-speaking peoples didn't get to the British Isles en
masse until the Anglo-Saxon invasions, after the legions of Rome
were withdrawn (Romano-Celtic appeal to the Roman Consul Aetius,
recorded in Bede: "The barbarians drive us into the sea, and the
sea drives us back to the barbarians"). Before that, Celtic
dialects and a certain amount of Latin (after the conquest of the
island by Rome) were spoken there. Then sometime between 800 and
900 there was a further influx of Germanic speakers when the
Danes invaded, were driven back by King Alfred, and eventually
settled in the Danelaw (Ÿorkshire and all the counties along and
to the east of a line from Derbyshire to Middlesex).
> We should also not forget that the last invader of the British Isles
> were the Normans in 1066, who deposited their language there. English
> has been overlayered several times. Surprising is, how little the Romans
> left behind of their tongue in the land of the Angles.
It wasn't the land of the Angles when the Romans were there. But
what is interesting is that Gaul and Spain were Roman provinces
that also suffered Germanic invasions, yet their languages to
this day are unmistakably derived from Latin. Yet in Britain, the
Romano-Celtic element was, at least linguistically, completely
submerged in the Germanic tongues of the invaders. Apart from the
specialized Latin usages of the Church, Latin-derived words don't
appear again until after the advent of Norman-French (itself a
blend of late Latin with a Frankish Germanic language) in 1066.

--
Patricia M. Godfrey
PriscaMG@xxxxxxxx