English and Irish might be related

[Kosmo]

NEW YORK: Britain and Ireland are so thoroughly divided in their histories that there is no single word to refer to the inhabitants of both islands. Historians teach that they are mostly descended from different peoples: the Irish from the Celts and the English from the Anglo-Saxons who invaded from Northern Europe and drove the Celts to the western and northern fringes.

 

But geneticists who have tested DNA throughout the British Isles are edging toward a different conclusion. Many are struck by the overall genetic similarities, leading some to claim that both Britain and Ireland have been inhabited for thousands of years by a single people that have remained in the majority, with only minor additions from later invaders like Celts, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Vikings and Normans...

 

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/05/new...5BRITS.full.php

 

He also adopts Forster's argument, based on a statistical analysis of vocabulary, that English is an ancient, fourth branch of the Germanic language tree, and was spoken in England before the Roman invasion.

Edited March 6, 2007 by Kosmo

[docoflove1974]

He also adopts Forster's argument, based on a statistical analysis of vocabulary, that English is an ancient, fourth branch of the Germanic language tree, and was spoken in England before the Roman invasion.

 

I can't talk about the genetic argument...but it's common linguistic knowledge that English is part of the Germanic family, part of the Low German sub-group (which also includes Afrikkans, Dutch, Flemish, Modern Low German, and Frisian). As for arguing that there was a group of Germanic speakers before the Romans got there...I don't know. IIFC, there are supposed to be some similarities between Old Celtic and Proto-Germanic, but the ties between Old Celtic and Latin are supposed to be closer. Either way, the history of English, as well as the peoples who have spoken it over the years, supports much of the differences that exist. To say that English is a branch in-and-of-itself...I have my doubts.

 

This page from a Georgetown professor's site shows the Lord's Prayer in the various Germanic languages at various stages; one can see the similarity among the languages. Furthermore, the Low German or Western Germanic subgroup has numerous similarities, particularly in the 'key' words--nouns, verbs and adjectives which are of common use--and in the syntax.

 

I'm trying to find a page with both the written and oral versions of the text...I know it exists, and supposedly a former professor of mine (Prof. W. Benware at UC Davis) had a project going on it...but I can't find it online. If I find it, I'll edit it back into this post.

[spittle]

The theory that Anglo-Saxons invaded in large numbers and wiped out the Celts of England is now questioned due to DNA evidence not supporting the theory and a lack of archeological evidence (such as mass graves of the celtic dead).

The most recent theory is that an Anglo-Saxon cultural elite introduced new values into the Celtic communities and changed the Celts lifestyles, rather than replaced the actual population.

 

This theory can be heard on a BBC Radio history programme that is available on the net.

[Bripus Klmunus]

I've never personally accepted it any other way. I can't see how these two land masses that were once basically a whole did not contain the same peoples.

 

It is interesting, and perhaps a little far fetched in my opinion (I am a teacher and mathematician, not a historian) to claim that the original inhabitants were from Spain (to me it always seemed more likely that they were from France or the Netherlands).

 

Ironically and sadly enough; should this actually be proven to be true, I doubt that it will have any effect on relations between the two peoples.

[Andrew Dalby]

I've never personally accepted it any other way. I can't see how these two land masses that were once basically a whole did not contain the same peoples.

 

It is interesting, and perhaps a little far fetched in my opinion (I am a teacher and mathematician, not a historian) to claim that the original inhabitants were from Spain (to me it always seemed more likely that they were from France or the Netherlands).

 

Ironically and sadly enough; should this actually be proven to be true, I doubt that it will have any effect on relations between the two peoples.

 

It's fun to question received knowledge. And of course lots of people all over Britain are of Celtic descent, no question about that at all. But when it comes to languages, there's no doubt among serious linguists that English and Frisian together form a branch of the Germanic (and specifically, nearly all agree, of the West Germanic) languages. The link between them is quite difficult to explain, and the only adequate explanation has to relate to the Germanic invasions of Britain in the 5th century and after.

 

If 'proto-English' was already spoken in Britain under the Romans, why does Anglo-Saxon contain so very few Latin words? Welsh and Breton contain far more, naturally, because Welsh and Breton really do descend from the language spoken in Roman Britain.

[Northern Neil]

I read somewhere - and as usual I have forgotten where - that germanic laguages may have been spoken in late Roman times in most of the military zones of the Island because of the large numbers of Germanic auxilliaries. The view that the indigenous people of Britain stayed put and simply adopted Anglo Saxon is now more or less mainstream - the only people in Britain who followed the Germanic 'Morphological' type ( Tall, blonde etc) reside in Essex and the south east.* Where you would expect them. But then, are they descended from the Belgae, who also had this appearance, but spoke Celtic?

 

The differences between the Irish and the English/protestant Irish are thankfully mostly resolved, and to be fair, even the staunchest Irish republicans state that they have no quarrel with the ordinary English people. Again, Bosnia and Serbia - the only difference there is religion, and as in Ireland you cannot tell the people apart by just looking at them. They are the same slavs who descended into the Balkans in the sixth century.

 

*This applies to the earlier 20th century - as in most places, widespread long distance travel in recent years has made this far harder to establish using present day populations as a sample.

[Andrew Dalby]

I read somewhere - and as usual I have forgotten where - that germanic laguages may have been spoken in late Roman times in most of the military zones of the Island because of the large numbers of Germanic auxilliaries. The view that the indigenous people of Britain stayed put and simply adopted Anglo Saxon is now more or less mainstream.

 

Yes, agreed in both cases. Admittedly there was quite a bit of killing -- recorded in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle and in Welsh sources -- and there's little doubt that quite a few Britons, perhaps mainly from the south-west, didn't stay put but fled to "Armorica". I doubt if anyone has much idea of the numbers, but it was sufficient to implant the Breton language there and it led to a new alternative name for the region, "Britannia (Minor)".

[Julius Ratus]

There were Belgae in both England and on the continent in the time of Caesar. The Romans could rarely tell the difference between Germanics and Celtics so if the Belgae were a Germanic people, then a Germanic language would have been spoken in pre-Roman England.

[Kosmo]

I'm not sure if I remeber well but did not Caesar tell that belgae were part germans or pretended to be germans?

[edgewaters]

It is interesting, and perhaps a little far fetched in my opinion (I am a teacher and mathematician, not a historian) to claim that the original inhabitants were from Spain (to me it always seemed more likely that they were from France or the Netherlands).

 

 

You're talking about the Atlantic Facade theory. The idea isn't really that Iberians colonized the British Isles directly from Spain, but, that the whole of Atlantic Europe formed at one time a distinct group, covering all of the Atlantic seaboard from Gibraltar to Scotland - including the north and west of France as well as the Netherlands. Spain and Britain, being more isolated than France or the Netherlands, were simply less affected by population movements which occurred on the continent, which is why they continue to share some heritage.

 

I'm not sure if I remeber well but did not Caesar tell that belgae were part germans or pretended to be germans?

 

 

Caesar couldn't make up his mind about the Belgae. He said they were both Celt-like and German-like.

[Northern Neil]

I'm not sure if I remeber well but did not Caesar tell that belgae were part germans or pretended to be germans?

I seem to remember something like that. The Belgae to me suggest that ethnicity and language are not neccessarily linked. Although celtic speakers, they seem to have resembled in appearance the teutons who were their neighbours. Perhaps they were originally Germans who slipped into the Celtic orbit. just as we Brits are celts who bacame linguistically teutonic. The Bastarnae were celtic speakers, but their material culture was German.

[Virgil61]

This might add to the debate, or not. I'd posted this a few months back: Myths of British Ancestry

 

Excerpt: Everything you know about British and Irish ancestry is wrong. Our ancestors were Basques, not Celts. The Celts were not wiped out by the Anglo-Saxons, in fact neither had much impact on the genetic stock of these islands

[docoflove1974]

Excerpt: Everything you know about British and Irish ancestry is wrong. Our ancestors were Basques, not Celts.

 

I swear, the Basques will claim anything and everything...

[DecimusCaesar]

Most of the articles I come across that deal with the genetic history of Britain is contradictory. I read one by Dr. Mark Thomas of University College London- he stated that there was very little similarity between the genetics of the Welsh and the English. He later claimed that this was because the Anglo-Saxons had wiped out the native Britons. At the same time Prof. David Goldstein said that their were amazing similarities between the DNA of the Welsh and English, and therefore the impact of Anglo-Saxons on the genetic imprint of Britain was miminal. What's strange is that both men work for the same University, in the same department, yet they end up with wildly differing results.

 

They also said that the DNA of the English matched up with the Dutch, and that this wasn't surprising giving that the Anglo-Saxons originated from the Netherlands and Germany. The BBC program 'Blood of the Vikings' claimed that the Irish and the Welsh were genetically identical, while the Scots and the English shared common DNA. This surprised the Scots, who considered themselves to be the descendants of the Scotii - the invaders of Caldeonia, who originated in northern Ireland.

 

Now it appears that the Irish and English are genetically the same. It's hard to know what's real and what's not. But I suppose one of the main reasons for the different results seems to be that they only test the DNA of a few indivduals over a scattered area. Who's to know if some of these individuals aren't descended from French immigrants of the Revolution of 1789, or Dutch immigrants of the sixteenth century?

[docoflove1974]

Well, DC's post is just another in the series of reminders that DNA similarities does not necessarily equal linguistic similarities. I would never rely on solely one versus the other, but a combination of both.

 

I was under the impression that the Angles and Saxons pushed several Britons into Wales; is that theory still viable?