Re: Celtic, semitic, etc.

On Thu, 27 Apr 2000, Raymond Brown wrote:

>>Needless
>>to say this has caused something of an uproar in some circles, especially in
>>the so-called "Celtic countries" (a rather contentious and debatable
>>designation, IMO!)
>
>I wonder how many list members can name the "Six Celtic Nations"  :)
I'm sure many of us can! First is Ireland. The rest are Scotland,
Wales, Man, Britanny and Cornwall. Others have added Patagonia,
Nova Scotia and Galicia. Though one might as well toss in Canada,
Turkey, France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Switzerland/Helvetia, Usonia,
Oz and Enzed as well.

>>Whew, that was a huge paragraph! Can you tell I'm following this debate with
>>interest? :-)
>
>  Sort of  :)
I am anyway!

>>>I think that's the idea. What I'd been taught is that there was some
>>>kind of substrate influence on the Celtic that went from Europe to the
>>>British Isles. But not Semitic; the influenceing language(s) would be
>>>those of the pre-IE Europeans.
>>
>>Picts! Picts! ;-)
>
>Nah - not the painted people  ;)
Have they ever been firmly classified even? I have heard
variously that they were a) Q-Celts b) P-Celts c) Iberians
d) some other kind of pre-IE European e) something else
altogether. I'ld imagine that there's too little of the
language to know what the deal is.

Padraic.

>Ray.