How likely is it that any non-Celtic language was spoken in the British Isles when the Romans invaded?
Upvote:31
The answer appears to be "We don't know." We're sure that there were spoken languages in the British Isles before the arrival of the Celtic languages, because the archaeology tells us that there were working human cultures.
We cannot say with certainty that there was no tribe or clan that preserved a pre-Celtic language to the time of the Roman invasion. All we know is that there is no solid evidence for it.
There were hypotheses that the Pictish language was not Indo-European, but they were based on the unreadability of Ogham inscriptions, and claims of cultural practices, such as tattooing and matrilineal family structures, which were not considered usual for Indo-European speakers, as of the end of the nineteenth century. There weren't any records of the language indicating that it was non-Indo-European. More recent ideas have portrayed Pictish as Celtic with a non-IE substrate language, but those have been undermined by more recent archaeology, leaving Pictish as "Probably a Celtic language."
There are imaginable ways in which we could discover that a non-Celtic language was still in use by the time that the Romans arrived, but they're all pretty unlikely. For example (made up by me, just now), if we were to learn to read Ogham far better (plausible), discovered a lot more writings in it (unlikely) that could be securely dated to before the Roman invasion (really unlikely), and were to find in them phonetic transcriptions of text that was definitely not Celtic, but resembled Basque, that would be evidence of a non-Celtic language being used. Basque is not an Indo-European language, and is not related to any other living language. It may well be a survivor from the period before the IE languages spread into Europe.
More post
- 📝 How many Iraqi civilians were killed directly by US military action?
- 📝 Did Pythagoras visit Judaea, Arabia, and/or India?
- 📝 What does it mean to grant a church to a priory?
- 📝 Was Hitler released from jail in 1924 on condition that he ran democratically?
- 📝 Why did the Monitor and Merrimac (aka Virginia) have such radically different designs?
- 📝 What were French actions against Germany during September 1939?
- 📝 What conditions have led to Abrahmism splitting into different religions sometimes, but not always?
- 📝 Please outline how Philip II gained Normandy from the Third Crusade
- 📝 Why did Frank James (Jesse's brother) get acquitted and how was he close with President Roosevelt despite being an outlaw?
- 📝 What Factors Contributed to the Success of Certain "Long March" Strategies?
- 📝 In Alta California, who worked at the Ranchos del Rey?
- 📝 Correlation between capitalism/democracy and communism/dictatorship?
- 📝 Why did democracy emerge in what is now Greece?
- 📝 Were there any successful revolutions that didn't end in a totalitarian regime?
- 📝 Did the aborigines of Australia and the Maoris in New Zealand know about each other's existence, before the Europeans came?
- 📝 What was the goal of Nicolas de Larmessin etched pictures of artisans?
- 📝 What country has the shortest history of human habitation?
- 📝 Is there a correlation between modern Middle East uprisings/wars and Ramadan?
- 📝 What's so special about the Aerodrome?
- 📝 Explain the symbols in the relief of Thoth raising Seti I in the Temple of Seti I at Abydos
- 📝 What did the Romans do for Judea?
- 📝 How does the "conspiracy theory" work in China and for what purpose?
- 📝 Was Swedish king Charles X Gustav's horse killed during Siege of Kraków (1655)?
- 📝 What does Tuchman mean by transition to a "money economy" in the Middle Ages?
- 📝 Where can I find documents on the 1992 fight between French soldiers and Somalian fighters?
- 📝 Can anyone help identify this World War One uniform?
- 📝 What caused the stagnation in real wage growth in the later half of the 20th century?
- 📝 Missing link in the German tank development?
- 📝 Who governed London during the Great Plague?
- 📝 Did any leader say "We may have lost the battle, but not the war"?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 How likely is it that any non-Celtic language was spoken in the British Isles when the Romans invaded?
- 📝 Is there any evidence to support the claim that the United States was "suckered into WW1" by Zionists, made by Benjamin Freedman in his 1961 speech?
- 📝 How likely it is that a nobleman of the eighteenth century would give written instructions to his maids?
- 📝 Did any ancient polytheistic religion hold that theirs was the only pantheon?
- 📝 How is it possible that the Basque language survived until today?
- 📝 How profitable was India for the British Empire in the 1800s?
- 📝 How widespread was the notion that space travel was impossible prior to the successful launch of Sputnik 1?
- 📝 Is there convincing evidence that the language of Bulgars (proto-Bulgarians) was not Turkic, but Indo-European?
- 📝 How was the transfer of personnel from British women's military services managed?
- 📝 How strong a land force did Germany need for a conquest of the British Isles in the summer of 1940?
- 📝 What was the standard spoken language (dialect) in the Three Kingdoms period?
- 📝 How many people died in the British Isles from religious persecution between 1532 and 1791?
- 📝 Has any generation generally agreed that the next generation was better?
- 📝 Did Viet Nam suffer a famine any time during the 1980s? And if not, how close was it to famine?
- 📝 How widespread was the Arabic Language in Syria before Islamic conquest?
- 📝 Is there any evidence that the book of Isaiah was written before Cyrus?
- 📝 How secret was the US and British involvement in the 1953 Iranian coup d'état?
- 📝 How accurate is Karl Heinz Frieser when he said that the blitzkrieg was a myth?
- 📝 Fanons 'Concerning Violence' makes the point that Nazism was the culminating point of the project of European Colonialism, how true is that?
- 📝 During World War II, were there any parts of the Japanese overseas empire that was capable of local re-supply?
- 📝 Was there ever any co-existence solution to peace with Israel that the Arab Palestinian side proposed or said would accept?
- 📝 Is there any evidence to corroborate the claim that Rudolf Höss was physically abused by the Allies after his capture?
- 📝 Was there any Egyptian Pharaoh that was considered the one and only god that ancient Egyptians worshiped during his life?
- 📝 Was there any official affirmation from the US government that they would win the Vietnam War?
- 📝 At the Battle of Augusta, how did the French learn that de Ruyter was mortally wounded?
- 📝 How were the Big Four compensated when British Rail was formed?
- 📝 How was the British invasion into the US successful in the War of 1812?
- 📝 How pervasive was the idea that we had reached "the end of history" in America during the ninties?
- 📝 How British was Barry Melbourne Hussey, Argentine Navy translator, at the Argentine surrender in the Falklands War?
- 📝 Is there any evidence that the US strategy at Midway was deliberate?
