XPost: soc.culture.welsh, soc.culture.cornish, soc.culture.irish   
   XPost: soc.culture.scottish   
   From: innes8@verizon.net   
      
   "Alan Smaill"  wrote in message   
   news:fwesl6lou4k.fsf@collins.inf.ed.ac.uk...   
   > "Chess One"  writes:   
   >   
   >> I had just wondered what you meant by your list, Bob. Obviously lowland   
   >> scots would have to speak something, and I wondered what your emphasis   
   >> was?   
   >> Certainly 'most highlanders don't speak a form of lowland scots   
   >> [dialect]'   
   >> and most lowland scots don't speak Gaellic. Even 'standard' English is a   
   >> [invented] dialect, courtesy the BBC.   
   >>   
   >> I doubt lowland scots to be any more difficult to ken than Cornish   
   >> accented   
   >> English.   
   >   
   > The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language will   
   > disagree with you on that, FWIW.   
      
   O, I am sure that any statement can be disagreed with. My only lines of   
   defence is that I have been a long time in both places, that is to say, I   
   ventured outside the Great Library's Ideas of Things, and that unless things   
   have changed, Cambridge is still in England.   
      
   ---   
      
   But look - I am researching early culture in Europe, and written language is   
   an indicator of it, though obviously not the only or even major indicator.   
   The period of interest includes, but far precedes La Tène 450-50bc, and   
   Hallstatt 700-450bc, and even Urnfield 2000-750bc. More difficult to acquire   
   is a sense of the period immediately preceeding that one.   
      
   Even the good Saxons* are caused to admit a doubt [!] to the 3000 year   
   period 5000-2000bc, and while artifacts trace settlements, two radically   
   differing ideas are at large:   
      
   The migration based theory which would have the Celts radiating from a   
   locus, approx Austria and Hungary circa 3500bc with arrival in Ireland about   
   500bc, and   
      
   The Indigenous-Development theory which, eg, has Goidelic Ireland and   
   Brithonic England 4000bc.   
      
   What conjoins both theories is the general spread to, or evolution of,   
   agriculture to the Islands in 3000bc.   
      
   There is some indicator in the distribution of two main types of Celtic p~   
   and q~ spoken in the Islands [as it was throughout Europe as the principle   
   language there]. After this, there is much comment and specualtion which is   
   not particularly convincing for either case - and Works seem to provide   
   better instances of time and cultural evolution.   
      
   Anatolia /Turkey/ is claimed as fons et origo of all Indo-European   
   languages, and as early as its migrating farm technology [or savvy] 7000bc.   
   Archaeologically this is still a very tenuous hypothesis. More modest   
   explanation for Migration begin a few thousand years later from west central   
   asia.   
      
   To model the indigenous scenario is quite different [and somewhat upheld by   
   Greek records, or mythologs] and still suggest a migratory idea, but from a   
   source that is now absent [ie, an Atlan] which with some logic places   
   ancient people as if in outposts on the western seaboard of Europe - though   
   much earlier than can be substantiated by archaeological means. [Not that   
   received versions are entirely better underpinned.]   
      
   So.... looking at Celtic iconography as well as such meta~ factors as   
   alignment of principle cultural artifacts in the old world is a major   
   remaining resource availabe to explorations. It is obscure stuff, to be   
   sure, yet when received versions are compared, they seem no more improbable.   
      
   I apologise for exciting any petty /frisson/ here in this newsgroup among   
   writers - but the unfortunate history of remaining-Celts has been to abandon   
   their own deep history in an uncritical way - too often relying on what   
   comes out of 'Cambridge' [ibidem] or of some 'authority' - which literally   
   has no original 'author' to substantiate it - since we are far before the   
   written record. Too often Celts seem to reach for romancing the Celts, as   
   the 'English' love to romance the middle-ages in England, and are content   
   with some unsubstantiated and rather improbable fantasy idea of it.   
      
   I began this series with some inquiries of St Michael's and Mounts Bay in   
   Cornwall, and as well as petrified forests there are settlements there, no?   
   [Not to mentione raised beaches too, as at base of Carn Brea, eg]. But no   
   mapping admits a Lyonesse to have existed within the settled period of   
   Europe, or perhaps, that the people were so scarce, with hardly with any   
   language, that they would be incapable of the technological wherewithall of   
   sustaining any settlement.   
      
   Should the indigenous scenario be considered, then the eventual migration   
   was away from an original, now absent, source, and then away from, rather   
   than toward, the coast of Europe.   
      
   I should be interested to read on anyone's views on this [especially if   
   anyone has studied Dr. Thom, on megaliths, or Keith Critchlow, eg, or J.   
   Michel on the megaliths of West Penwith] or from their own perspectives and   
   intimations.   
      
   Cordially, Phil Innes   
      
      
   *It is said, "there is good, even in a Saxon", though not said often enough.   
      
   >> Phil Innes   
   >>   
   >   
   >   
   > --   
   > Alan Smaill   
      
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