DBG

My point of view from the start was that there is
no known criterion to distinguish these two parts.

>
> ****GK: There is Caesar's opinion, an

excellent one,

> based on information passed on by many local

Gauls,

> esp. Iccius and Antebrogius of the Remi (DBG 2:3).
> This

is much more reliable than speculative

> reinterpretations two thousand

years removed.****

>

============ ========= ========= ========= ===

A.F : We don't even understand what the word "Gaul" means.

Obviously, both Gallia and Belgica include tribes that have

definitely non-indo-european features :

Haedu living near the Arar river

Carnuti living near the Atura rive.

These names with a_u scheme have a non-indo-european profile.

And they just happen to be tax-exempted by the Romans

because they helped Romans against the P-Celts Gauls.

And both areas include tribes that have definitely p-celt features.

So this dividing line is falsified by DATA !!!

Caesar's opinion is untrustworthy.

My method is to start from facts and data

If Caesar is ok with facts and data, I just do not care.

If Caesar is not ok with facts and data, I care even less.

You are tinkering with data and fancying about with "borders"

and language invasions.

And Sorry to be especially harsh and brutal, you say I speculate :

Please Remember that story about straw and beam in the eyes...

==========================

> A.F :
> I don't know

who is reinterpretating speculatively. So far, I made

>it clear that I

deem DBG as not trustworthy.

Why?

A.F : it collides with obvious facts about toponyms and hydronyms.

=================================

> What you are

describing in an "act of faith" : one has no reason

>to express doubts

about words (unrecorded) transmitted by a man,

>Caesar, (notoriously

untrustworthy enough to get murdered by his own

>familly),

This is why? Caesar was murdered by Brutus because he lied in BG?
Please explain.

>transmitted by a chain of people (we know about none at >99% rate).

Two, actually. I think we can say we know about Caesar.

>That kind of "act of faith" could also apply to Jesus, for

example.

True. Jesus > Mark, Luke, John, Matthew > us.

>It is probably easier to list of the chain of popes and

apostles

>from Jesus to present-day, than to list the chain of people

from

>Iccius down to us.

Iccius > Caaesar > us. That was not so hard.

> How can we be sure that Iccius even existed?

How do I know you are not a computer in a government basement in Paris?

> We

might also believe everything Herodotes wrote with such an "act

> of

faith".

One might also believe him without it.

> And Heraklês resisting Sirens' singing, tied to his mast.

Is that Herodotus?

=================

A.F : I believe in facts above all, not alleged words.

You blindly believe what people say.

Up to you. I do not.

By the way, it was Not Heraklês but Ulysses.

====================================

> So far, my approach is based on historical phonology

: I consider

>that we have enough data kept in sufficiently precise state

to be

>able to make documented statements about what is what, what is

clear,

>what is unclear. And From this lexical and phonological basis,

duly

>ascribed to known (or supposed) languages, we can try to figure out

>scenario, without forgetting Occam's razor : undocumented

languages

>do not exist.

What's an undocumented language? Do you mean PIE?

=======================

I mean this "belgian" stuff.

PIE is a body of data and hypotheses that display coherence.

"Belgian" does not.

If Belgian and other Germanic invaders displays no data and no

phonological and traceable features : this is the eight letter word

I said I would not write anymore. or undocumented languages

in a more academic verbatim.

=====================

> I will not move from this way of dealing with this

Gallia /

>Belgica dichotomy, the nature of which is to be determined and

is not

>to be postulated ex nihilo (or because dixit Caesar).

Get off the horse, Napoleon. BTW ex nihilo and dixit Caesar are two
different things.

>Caesar's DBG is just (a bit of) data : not an untouchable

principle

>upon which everything has to rotate like the Earth around the

Sun.

I don't think anybody has required anything to rotate around BG. It's
just data.

============================

A.F :

All Data are not be be blindly swallowed.

This body of data appears to be untrustworthy.

==============================

> As a

starting point, I consider this dichotomy as totally

>unproved. Otherwise,

I suppose it would be easy to provide the

>necessary data.

Kuhn has demonstrated the northern boundary of Celtic placenames with
several typical Celtic placename elements.

===================================

A.F :

I previously wrote that Kuhn's has demonstrated nothing :

there are obvious data lacking : Condette etc

there are obvious absurdities : Dunum don't occur in flat lands.

THe word Nantu that displays this a_u scheme is most probably

a non-Indo-European word, that can help us determine where

non-indo-european people were inhabiting.

It does not help determine Celtic positions.

This nantu word has no PIE cognate and appears in the Alps area :

an area with the most obvious reservoir of non indo-european features.

You definitely have a very strange approach to data and the way

things can be demonstrated and discussed.

Overlooking data, making unsensical analysis and

relying on the wrong words is not good work,

and does not demonstrate anything.

========================================

>I have

sensed that the blunt and blithe conviction that this
dichotomy is valid is starting to melt.

What gave you that idea?

A.F :

I interpreted questions, suggestions, silences and ideas

coming from others as the proof that there were signs

of doubts and room for more balanced assessment of

more than one possibility.

============================

>And I

believe the debate has reached a new stage when we can

>seriously exchange

data to be examined and weighed in order to arrive

>at a sensical shared

point of view, which remains to be defined.

You don't think I was being serious before?

>

============ ========= ========= ========= ====

>
> > These two parts hence being basically
> > one and only Gaulish

country and undividable,

> > the alleged dichotomy having no

whatsoever

> > ethnolinguistic relevance.
>
> ****GK:

Willful rejection of reliable data is not very

> laudable even if wrapped

in French Jacobin slogans

> (:=))****

Not Jacobin, Colbert, I believe. I saw a 17th century French map on
which was included all the future provinces of France: Nice, Franche
Comté, Alsace, Lorraine, Saarland, Flandres, and also all of the
Netherlands. Is this project of natural borders at the Rhine still
official French policy? That would make Vlaams Belang insurgents
against their natural fate.

====================================

A.F

Let me remind you that the French invented the right for people

to freely determine their present and future, and wage a 15 year long

war against all European kings and queens to impose that point of view.

We made people vote to determine who they wanted to be : French or not.

Most voted to become French and still are.

The Swiss voted against and are Swiss not French.

If this method we invented and promoted was applied throughout the world,

many wars would be unnecessary.

I don't think French people or Dutch people ever contemplated the idea that

the Dutch were supposed to become French.

I have little to say about the obvious and increasingly painful

inability of Wallons and Flemish to agree on anything.

A divorce usually transform two people into two unhappy losers.

> A.F :
>
> I accept the justified criticism for

having deliberately and

>knowingly used (provocative) wording.

That's not what you were criticised for, you were criticised for
making claims ex nihilo.

>My real intimate conviction is that

"Gaulish" is a catch-all concept

>that has to be refined.

Into two cultures, Gallic and Belgic.

> Which "reliable data" are you talking

about ?

>
>
>

============ ========= ========= ==

>
> > I believed

some (or maybe most) of you were

> > contending
> > that

"Belgica" was a non-Gaulish and a not even

> > Celtic area.
>
> ****GK: That is my preferred view for the northern
> half of what

was "Belgica" in Caesar's DBG****

>
> A.F :
>
> You

are free to like or prefer any opinion. (And so am I). But I

>will be more

easily convinced by facts and data that this hypothesis

>makes sense.

We tried and failed.

>My naive point of view is that science

deals with facts, concepts

>and data. Feelings are something else, even

though they interfere.

===========================

de Gaulle had an idea of 'la douce France', wherever he got that idea
from. I heard he sometimes signed himself 'mijnheer van Rijsel', since
he was from Lille.

A.F :

You make very personal and ugly sounding remarks.

If you have some personal stuff and corpse in the cupboard

to be settled with somebody else or the French in general,

I suggest you look for a better place to settle that.

As far as I am concerned, I try to hate

as few people as possible.

Hatred befuddles the mind and make you a slave.

I believe love makes you free and happier.

So I advise you to try love.

"France la doulce" dates back to the early Middle-Ages.

And De Gaulle's name is obviously Flemish not French.

It is strange that such a talented know-everything like you

did not notice this obviousness.

I told you hatred befuddles the mind : try love.

> >

============ ========= ========= ======

> > >

A.F

> >
> > the linguistic precise nature of these

"Belgians"

> > is definitely what is at stake.
> > "Germanic"

is too fuzzy.

> > We know how to recognize Norse, Flemish, Saxon,

Frankish, etc.

>
>

============ ========= ========= ======

>
> ****GK: A

methodological issue. How many of the

> "Celtic" place names of ancient

Gaul (including

> Belgica) have survived in their pristine Gallic

form

> rather than as reconstructed from later Latin and
> French

revoicings ?

>
> Next: how many of the identifiable
> Norse,

Flemish, Saxon, Frankish terms could be viewed

> as N. Fl. S. or Fr.

reinterpretations of ancient

> (pristine) Germanic

labels?****

Actually, it's true that one can distinguish Frankish, Flemish and (in
Normandy) Norse names in French onomastic material.

> A.F :
>
> You say you disagree with

speculations. So, insofar as a word is

>clearly ascribable to a known

language and there is no hint that this

>requires a better idea, the most

documented ascription is to be held

>as the only legitimate

interpretation.

I think that means that you will stick to the etymologies of existing
placename dictionaries no matter what. Am I right?

>

The rest belongs to God, to the extend he (or she ! or they)

>

exists.

I don't think it is documented that God is interested in placename
research.

> ============ ========= ===
>
>
>
> POSTSCRIPT:
>
> I happen to be in

agreement with those scholars who

> view DBG as having been "serially"

produced. Thus Book

> I would have been likely penned at Modena in the

late

> fall of 58 BC. This, of course, is where Caesar makes
> his

famous comment about the trilingual status of

> Gaul. You don't object

about Aquitania only about

> Belgica. But here is what I think (only me

not "my

> side" (:=)))--- When Caesar wrote this he identified
> the

Belgae with their leading, sovereign, tribe (which

> at that time happened

to be the Nervians (we know this

> when we compare the "Belgan"

characteristics of DBG

> 1:1 with the Nervian ones of DBG 2:4 and 2:15.)

Here I

> quite agree with you: Caesar was wrong to identify
>

Belgica with the Nervii. He corrected himself in DBG

> 2.****
>
>
>

============ ========= ========= ========= ===

>
>

A.F

>
> So far we have not discussed about Aquitania. I probably

would not

> be able to get involved in such a discussion.

You'd lose.

=======================

> Nevertheless, I will not accept this trilingual status in

whatever

> way.

Stop being so emotional.

> My working

hypotheses about the ethnolinguistic status of
"""""Gaul""" " are :

>
> 1. Greek people settled early (-700 ?) and they have

left

>traceable lexical items within a distance of about 200 km

from

>Mediterranean sea-cost (Cf. Wartenburg)
>
> This fact

is not in Caesar's work.

It was already a Roman province, so not relevant in BG.

> 2. Proto-Bask people were necessarily "somewhere". Let us

>Aquitania in order to make it simple and short.

According to Trask, the present Spanish home of the Basques is full of
IE placenames and so must be recent.

> 3. P-celt Gauls (you may have failed to

notice that I use this

>lengthy wording) are obviously in many

places.

>
> Quite strangely, these P-celt Gauls seem to be more

obviously

>present in the Western part of France, even though they are

supposed

>to come from Central Europe. This fact inevitably will require

some

>explanation in one way or

another.

Interesting.

> 4. I have never read anything on

possible kw-celt Gauls in France.

>But this cannot be discarded

altogether. There may be some.

>
> 5. Some of these alleged "Gauls"

are obviously not "Celtic". I

>consider that "Gaulish" is a fuzzy

catch-all word. It only makes

>description obscure and

mixed-up.

> The "Gallice diciuntur" Alp mountain is obviously not a

Celtic

>word : Arduenna is the right Celtic word. Alp is from some

other

>language (whether indo-european or not). Roman allegations about

what

>is "gaulish" is obviously about as (not) trustworthy as the

French

>when they speak about "English" people being the only people in

the

>British Isles. A catch-all word that usually provokes angry

reactions

>from Scot, Welsh and Irish people. (I hope I forgot

nobody)

>
> The ascription of "Alp" to P-celt Gaulish is wrong. Non

P-Celt

>Gallice diciuntur.
>
> 5. My point of view about

Aedui and some people allied with Aedui

>against Arvenes confederation is

that these people most probably are

>non Indo-European people resisting

Celtic invasion. This eastern part

>of France, in Saone river and Alps

mountains, is quite strangely

>occupied by tribes and hydronyms that are

often not even >Indo-European.

>
> the explanation of Aedui as

"fire" is unconvincing.

>
> the river Saone < saucona has kept

its un-indo-european name Arar

>for 1000 years !
>
> 6. There

are a certain number of odd words derivable from PIE thru

>non Celtic non

Latin phonetic laws that are in favour of a possible

>Indo-European people

being pushed forward by the Celts in front of

>them and preceding P-Celt

Gauls invasion.

>
> I have a certain number of cases to be

debated.

>
> 7. The Alps area is a place where non Celtic and

maybe

>non-Indo-European presence is most obviously documented.
>
> 8. I agree that some people like Atuataki """Belgians !?"""
>don't look like P-Celt Gauls. But is their name better understood

>a "Germanic" name ? and then, which German language ? Do we have

>hold these people as pre-Indo-European, P-Celt GAuls,

Germans,

>something else ? I don't know. This is a point to be

determined.

How about the preposition ad plus the stem watw- of the epithet of the
inscriptions MATRONIS ATVIMS and MATRONIS ATVABUS?

http://www.karmanta n.de/bilder/ hinz/goetter. html

========================

A.F

you mean ad + watw can become atvims and atvabus ?

No comments.

Or maybe just one : apart from love : try phonology.

===========================================

>

============ ==

>
> So in a word :
>
> Caesar's

description is not only unreliable : it is not even a

>starting

point.

Because he doesn't mention the non-Celticness of these leftover
tribes? But they might have become Celtic-speaking by Caesar's time.

A.F :

The problem is the word "might"

You keep stockpiling hypotheses upon hypotheses.

All this amounts to nothing.

This is neither demonstrable nor falsifiable.

===============================

It is perfectly possible to write a description of France and leave
out the vanishing languages of Flandres, Alsace, Brittany etc.

============

A.F :

LOL.

Have you ever been in France ?

Do you know how many languages are spoken here now ?

probably more than one hundred.

======================

Torsten