Re: Sin once more

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "indravayu" <sonno3@...> wrote:

>
>
> > > Oppenheimer's arguments are ludicrous and don't meet any kind of
> > > academic standards.
> >
> > Still don't care to elaborate?
>
> I don't have the time or energy to type up every one of
> Oppenheimer's ridiculous claims. I can mention a couple of his more
> glaring, bone-headed ideas:
>
> 1) The Celtic languages spread from Anatolia via the Mediterranean
> 7,000 years ago.

p. 237 under fig. 5.8:
E3b: Male Neolithic gene flow west from the Balkans along the
Mediterranean. Although E3b is ultimately of East African origin, its
European sub-cluster (E-M78-alpha) expanded in the Balkans during the
Early Neolithic 7,800 years ago. Part of this expansion traveled via
Italy and then round Spain, eventually arriving in the British Isles,
including a major founding event in North Wales. E3b is a putative
geographic associate both for the spread of Cardial Ware pottery and
for celtic languages.

> [You will find few linguists who would support such a deep
> chronology for the Celtic languages - we would seem much greater
> diversion from the other IE languages if Celtic had split off so
> early]

Of course few linguists would, if they don't discuss genetics.

> 2) Medieval Irish literature supports this alleged migration theory.
>
> [in fact,

Fact?

> the Irish migration legends are for the most part medieval
> literary inventions based on Continental pseudo-histories - anyone
> who would treat them as genuine folk memory is out of their mind!

I must be out of my mind.

> We can easily detect the trail of transmission from early medieval
> Spanish authors such as Isidore and Orosius to the Irish authors
> who compiled books such as the Lebor Gabala Erenn]

I can easily detect the myth of Napoleon in 19th century newspapers
and journals. It follows that he didn't exist.

> 3) He believes that the Germanic invasions of Britain during the 5th
> were over-exaggerated by 6th century authors such as Gildas.
>
> [Makes no sense whatsoever - Gildas may have been a little shaky on
> the distant past, but he certainly knew what was happening around
> him during his childhood...his book, which was meant for his
> contemporaries, not 21st c. academics, would have carried no weight
> if it was full of exaggerations and outright fibs about the state of
> affairs in the island at that time]

Oppenheimer has his own agenda here, since he compares Gildas and his
work to Enoch Powell and his 'Rivers of blood' speech, in other words
Gildas is an alarmist. I have no strong opinion on the matter in
either direction. Further, this has to do with his methodology: he
assumes, in part implicitly, that as soon as one particular genetic
variant comes into being, its bearer went immediately to the area
where it is later found, and his kin was never dislodged from there
ever after; considering that invasions are done family- or tribe-wise,
ie. by people of the same descent, I find that an oversimplification;
also, the assumption that replacement never happened runs counter to
my impression.

> [Thus he asks us to ignore the few historical sources from the time
> period that we now possess, as well as ignore]

Like you recommend we ignore the Lebor Gabala Erenn?

> 4) He uses the lack of Celtic words in English to support his
> idiotic notion that the Belgae were Germanic speakers.

He should have read Kuhn more carefully. He dismisses Kuhn's work
apart from that on the borders of Celtic placenames towards Belgic
ones with the remark that Kuhn has another 'agenda', he doesn't
specify which.

> [The paucity of Celtic words in English can be explained not only by
> the fact that Celtic was low-prestige to the Germanic invaders, thus
> there was no incentive to use it,

American English has a number of Native American loans, many more than
English has Celtic ones. One the other hand, English has a large
number of words with Kuhn's diagnostic p- in anlaut and *T1VT2- form,
for T unvoiced unaspirated; some of them identical to continental NWB
words, some not, and some of them appearing even in Insular Celtic as
loans. Those words have to be explained.

> plus large areas of Britain were apparently de-populated [both due
> to war, emigration to the Continent or Western Britain, and
> plague/famine], thus there was no one around to teach the newcomers
> Brittonic in the Eastern parts of the island.

How come Western Britain wasn't?

> Additionally, when they reached the Roman cities of Britain,
> Germanic newcomers were more likely to have encountered Latin
> speakers than Brittonic]

Why was that not the case in Western Britain?

> Ugg...there's so much other crap...I can't even get into it all
> here.

Please do.

> > > In fact, there is little-to-no doubt among modern linguists
> > > that the Belgae spoke a Celtic dialect. -

That would be those who can't read German?

> > So Kuhn is old-fashioned? That is a serious accusation.
>
> Well, if he thinks the Belgae didn't speak Celtic...he might be
> daft.

You won't know till you read him. I wonder if I should translate his
most important articles?

> > > the onomastic material alone supports this fact.

Which onomastic material?

> > Actually, at least in the edition I have, the whole discussion he
> > has of the northern boundary of the Celtic names seems to be
> > founded in the discussion we had of it here in cybalist.
>
> Funny that only tin-foil-hat types find any validity in his shoddy
> linguistic research.

Who is which here?


Torsten