h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There's a theory that French, Italian, and Portuguese are not descendants of Latin, but rather blends of Latin with local Celtic dialects.
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/25472-Did-Latin-merge-with-Celtic-languages-to-form-Romance-languages

Gallic was never a Romance language. It was continental celtic.

What I'd like to know is whether Gallic merged with Latin to form French.

Several dozen historical linguists are probably reading this thread now and tearing out their hair.

While its standard practice to derive the Romance languages from Latin, that's a consequence of actions rather similar to those pursued by Chin of China in his effort to create a unified system of language and law for the five kingdoms after his conquest of them.

Latin was the language of law and commerce over Roman Europe long after the collapse of the Roman Empire in the west.

My suggestion is that the languages of western Europe were for the most part in a common family even before the rise of the Roman Empire, of which, Latin itself was a member even before Latin became preeminent.

Very little documentation of the pre-Roman language survives, most of that in the form of inscriptions in archaic lettering systems.

Its generally agreed that the languages of Iberia and France of pre-Roman times were in a group with the Gaelic of the Irish and the Scots, both of the latter derived from a common root language of Irish derivation.

Since Ireland was never Romanized, instead was Christianized at about the same time of the collapse of the Roman Empire in the west, the Irish Gaelic and the Scottish Gaelic derived from it represent some of the best survivals of the pre-Roman language, though strongly influenced by Welsh, which is in turn related to the local dialect of Brittany.

With respect to derivation of modern terms of modern dialect, its often uncertain when they resemble Latin usages whether they're derived from Latin usages or from the pre-Roman usages.

In conditions of culture shock like that following the Roman conquests, words in common between two languages tend to be adopted and accepted and to survive preferentially.

Mmkay.

Ready for more topic drift?

The wrongheaded bicycle http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0

Yep... that's nearly how I felt learning to ride my Flevobike.


But I was still able to ride a normal one.

"Several dozen historical linguists are probably reading this thread now and tearing out their hair." [Dmitri]

Is the hair-pulling a result of my extreme cluelessness? Or that of any of the rest of you [I'll select 2Legs because, well, whenever any hair is being pulled out, it's likely that he's not far away ]?

Not knowing much about the languages that preceded Latin is sort of the elephant in the room. Or maybe it's Waldo, who's right there but you can't see him.

That bicycle video is . (And nobody will ever get me on one of those things, ever again.)

That was just because the whole subject is way too complicated, Paul. It reminds me of the German army officer I met years ago, when I first went to Germany to study German linguistics. He said, 'But Latin is the basis of ALL languages...' I was sort of stunned.

Germanic languages are fun because the 'laws' are so easy to observe. You can even make a map of where the sound shifts start...it starts down in Bavaria and heads north to the North Sea...then it hits the 'Anglo-Frisian shift' and keeps going...

So, Professor Moser said, 'One is not supposed to imagine that one day, somebody got on the train heading north and shouted out the window, 'Starting tomorrow, erste Lautverschiebung!' (First Vowel Shift)'

I thought he was a hoot.

That's owlways the case.

Latin has the advantage over all European langages other than Greek that it was written down. Nobody wrote Irish until the 8th century and nobody wrote down continental Celtic at all. Etruscan was written down but not enough of it for any modern person to figure out what it means. So much so that they know the Etruscan names for the numbers one to ten but haven't yet figured out which is which.

Which brings us to English farmers counting sheep.

Amen. A good topic drift......

Don't let Tacsatduck see those sheep.

<BB<

Yan tan tethera pethera pimp

Tayter layter overa covera dix

Wire, briar, limber lock,
Five Geese in a flock... (Vermont, 1814)

Six Trump fans brawling,
5 golden rings.....

I have decided that people in church aren't listening to the words of hymns.

Last Sunday, we sang, 'The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend...'

And I seemed to be the only one who choked on the line.

My own earliest experience of Donald Trump was back when he had reorganisational control of the Spotlight 29 Indian Casino in Coachella, CA, only 20 miles from home and along the course I used to drive when commuting to work in the central coast area (near Paso Robles, CA).