Hi Steffan Actually I was using the royal @we@ (as I'm Irish/American).
Although, being born in London, I call myself English, on many history programmes and in many books the English are referred to as Anglo-Saxons. This is why I wondered.
As a matter of interest does anyone know who the linguists were who determined that English contains hardly any Celtic words (and when they did their work)? Would they have recognised a Celtic word if they had seen it?
I remember reading a thread on the BBC Radio Devon site about 'Celtic Devon' in which someone took a fresh look at placenames in the county and found that, far from being rare, Celtic names were extremely common.
"I'm afraid I don't accept the DNA aspects of this as being evidence of a post-Roman genocide of the Britons or the cause of a diaspora throughout the island.
The term 'Celtic' is not a racial one, it represents a linguistic grouping of peoples......"
I realise the whole area of what is, or is not, "Celtic" is a minefield. However the findings of the UCL researchers I posted above are very stark - a clear genetic difference between "English" and "Welsh". How would you account for this? Do you dismiss what they are saying about England being created as the result of an ethnic cleansing event?
What do you think of the written sources that have come down to us?
"The language element is seperate....... I would suggest that after 400 years of being Roman Britannia, the language of the lands annexed by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes was Latin and not Brythonic."
I am not sure that the language issue is seperate. Is there any evidence that the language of the lowlands "annexed" by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes was Latin? During the later A/S period the language of government - charters - and the church was Latin, but the common spoken language was Germanic in origin. Similarily Norman French was the language of the upper classes for around 300 years post-conquest....but it wasn't the spoken language of the mass of the people.
In any event the people of lowland Britain, whatever they spoke before, came to speak English and that is clearly a product of force.....and of mass immigration from the area of North Germany. How else would the Angles, Saxons and Jutes "annex" the place? Bede I think described them as 3 of the most powerful tribes of Germany.
"I realise the whole area of what is, or is not, "Celtic" is a minefield. However the findings of the UCL researchers I posted above are very stark - a clear genetic difference between "English" and "Welsh". How would you account for this? Do you dismiss what they are saying about England being created as the result of an ethnic cleansing event?"
That particular study is inconsistent with the other DNA studies published in recent years. One explanation is that the selected towns were in the areas controlled later by the Vikings and Danes - whose DNA cannot be distinguished from North German immigrants. According to the "Blood of the Vikings" survey, the similarity with Welsh DNA is much greater in Southern and Western England.
And the numbers of possible immigrants are far too small to have been capable of ethnic cleansing - except in relatively small localities.
As for Bede, he was writing a long time after the supposed invasions and relying on other (probably unreliable) sources.
"That particular study is inconsistent with the other DNA studies published in recent years. One explanation is that the selected towns were in the areas controlled later by the Vikings and Danes - whose DNA cannot be distinguished from North German immigrants."
I don't think that's inconsistent with early English settlements in those areas. It would be interesting to know which towns were being studied......Vikings didn't control all of them....York and the 5 Boroughs OK, but Northumberland, East Anglia eg Thetford say? The Danes proceeded by conquest and no doubt a good bit of ethnic cleansing themselves when the Danish armies split up and divided the land out between themselves....you can't really do that without turfing out whoever was there before.
"According to the "Blood of the Vikings" survey, the similarity with Welsh DNA is much greater in Southern and Western England"
I think sounds reasonable because from what is known of the historical record the English advanced rapidly towards the west towards the end of the 6th century. They conquered a lot of territory and came into possession of a sizeable subject population.
"And the numbers of possible immigrants are far too small to have been capable of ethnic cleansing - except in relatively small localities."
Then how did they get hold of the land and set up all those seperate kingdoms? And how come it was their language which came to be spoken?
"As for Bede, he was writing a long time after the supposed invasions and relying on other (probably unreliable) sources."
Bede describes really quite nasty ethnic warfare between the Northumbrians and the British kingdom of North Wales within 100 years of writing the book.
<Tozer>
Posted
The towns studied by Dr Mark Thomas(English and Welsh races apart) were apparently - North Walsham, Fakenham, Bourne, Southwell and Ashbourne, and two in North Wales, i.e. Abergele and Llangefni. All five English towns are to the East of the Danelaw line.
quote:Originally posted by SallyatHillside: Hi Steffan Actually I was using the royal @we@ (as I'm Irish/American).
Although, being born in London, I call myself English, on many history programmes and in many books the English are referred to as Anglo-Saxons. This is why I wondered.
Sally
Hi Sally.
Isn't the idea that the Anglo-Saxons became the English with contributions from the Danes, Normans etc and many others over the following centuries. The debate that followed your comment is over the question of pre-Saxon people also contributing to the English 'matrix'.
They didn't seem to have considered themselves 'British' until into Tudor times. Bede and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles speak of Saxon kings of Britain, but that was probably in as much as they were overkings with Scottish and Welsh kings and princes paying fealty to them.
Many English writers up to the early twentieth century used the term British as an equivilent of Welsh when discussing the ancient language and people of Wales. However, in Welsh the word Saeson (Saxons) is still used for the English. I believe Sassenach is the same in Scots and Irish Gaelic.
quote:Originally posted by Hinso: As a matter of interest does anyone know who the linguists were who determined that English contains hardly any Celtic words (and when they did their work)? Would they have recognised a Celtic word if they had seen it?
I remember reading a thread on the BBC Radio Devon site about 'Celtic Devon' in which someone took a fresh look at placenames in the county and found that, far from being rare, Celtic names were extremely common.
I'm sure any linguist worth his salt would have an inkling. It is true though, I'm sure. Place-names are another matter altogether. It is often used as another piece of evidence for the absence of a post-Roman 'Celtic' people in England. The exceptions have to be the south - western penninsular and the very north. Cornish remained a spoken language until comparitively recent times and in the north Cumbria, for example shows signs of lasting as a 'Celtic' homeland for quite some time through the Saxon period (and possibly beyond - think of the Cumbrian counting vocabulary used by shepherds).
The Devon thing doesn't surprise me at all (I think 'Devon' itself is a Celtic name, is it not?)
quote:Originally posted by Tozer: Steffan I realise the whole area of what is, or is not, "Celtic" is a minefield. However the findings of the UCL researchers I posted above are very stark - a clear genetic difference between "English" and "Welsh". How would you account for this? Do you dismiss what they are saying about England being created as the result of an ethnic cleansing event?
Steffan - Hi Tozer - Firstly there's the ethnic differences that already may have existed as I mentioned before. However, another aspect is the location of the samples used by the surveys. In a belief that the most westerly areas of Wales and Scotland would be best to use as they were furthest from English influence, they may have complicated things further. These areas happen to be those that were most heavily occupied and influenced by Irish settlers. Therefore, the DNA that is identified as being native Brythonic or whatever, could actually be Irish. The origins of an Irish DNA is even more difficult to get to grips with. Consider, for example, the DNA report that identified SW Wales DNA with that of the Basques! An excellent example of why one cannot equate DNA with Language groupings.
What do you think of the written sources that have come down to us?
Steffan - As with any of the sources from that period, they have to be considered within the context of their time, what the reasons were for their being produced and how much the copyists have altered them until the versions that we have came into being. They can be good indications of events etc. but they obviously cannot be taken at face value.
I am not sure that the language issue is seperate. Is there any evidence that the language of the lowlands "annexed" by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes was Latin? During the later A/S period the language of government - charters - and the church was Latin, but the common spoken language was Germanic in origin. Similarily Norman French was the language of the upper classes for around 300 years post-conquest....but it wasn't the spoken language of the mass of the people.
In any event the people of lowland Britain, whatever they spoke before, came to speak English and that is clearly a product of force.....and of mass immigration from the area of North Germany. How else would the Angles, Saxons and Jutes "annex" the place? Bede I think described them as 3 of the most powerful tribes of Germany.
Steffan - I have no evidence for the language of the majority in Roman 'England'. However, in certain parts of Britannia the populace took quite quickly to the trappings of Roman 'civilization' (Tacitus as good as mocks them for it). This was in the first century. Even before the Claudian invasion it seems likely that the royal families of the Britons were receiving Latin education. The mosaics of British villas often have scenes from Latin literature reflecting the probability that the owners either were familiar with such works or aspired towards them. The language of administration, the military, taxation, trade and law would have been Latin (as well as religion -especially the new Christianity). Perhaps Brythonic was still spoken at the homes of the rural underclasses. However, if anyone wanted to get on in life - Latin would have been the language to speak; Brythonic may have been viewed as 'old fashioned'. It isn't that improbable. Look at Gaul - what is left of Gaulish after the fall of the Empire?
I agree that the DNA situation looks very complicated. Of the Welsh towns studied by Dr Thomas -Abergele and Llangefni - they may well be subject to Irish influence as you point out. It's been said of the English towns(North Walsham, Fakenham, Bourne, Southwell and Ashbourne) that what we may be seeing is evidence of Danish DNA(indisinguishable from A/S) which I think is a fair comment up to a point. Having looked at at a map these towns are surrounded by by villages with apparently both Scandanavian and A/S place-names. On the other Danish control of the Danelaw was by no means complete or long-lasting - it was "reconquered by the 10th century Wessex kings, and during Ethelred's reign East Anglia was the area of the fiercest resistance to the Danes. The fact apparently remains that the "eNGLISH" and "Welsh" DNA is different. In the Danelaw area the obvious explanation is that there was heavy A/S settlement somewhat displaced by Danish. It would be very interesting to see some data from English Mercia - from Wednesfield(Woden's plain) or Wednesbury(Woden's fort) perhaps.
"They can be good indications of events etc. but they obviously cannot be taken at face value."
I agree with this - they should be set in context, but there seems to be a tendency to discount them heavily - in pursuit of a particular view, that there was no "invasion" as such, and the Brits adopted A/S culture seemingly of their own volition - though why they should do that remains unexplained. With Gildas what he says is a rant but in the context it is quite possible that he had a great deal to rant about.
Some sources are near cast iron though surely. I mentioned Bede and the war between the Northumbrians and the Welsh. Take the laws of Ine king of Wessex at the end of the 7th century - these set a lower wergild(blood-price) on the life of a Briton than on an Englishmen in Wessex. Aldheim records in a letter that "many British subjects of the West Saxons(were led) to the celebration of the Catholic Easter. The Celtic influence in Wessex was strong but what we seem to have here is the dominance of one ethnic group over another - which they can only have got by conquest.
There are a number of examples of the inferior status of Brits(Welshmen) living in England - a Cambridge guild in the 1ith century insured their members against the possibility of killing a Welshman at half the compensation price of an Englishmen.
"However, if anyone wanted to get on in life - Latin would have been the language to speak; Brythonic may have been viewed as 'old fashioned'. It isn't that improbable. Look at Gaul - what is left of Gaulish after the fall of the Empire?"
ok - but why would the Christian Brits then have started to speak "Englisc" - a language of the pagan tribes of North Germany?
The thread starts with an account of his presentation of the paper at a recent conference. It becomes clear as you read through the thread that Thomas contradicts his own conclusions in a more recent paper he co-authored. Contributions to the thread include more information on DNA results around England - with percentages of 'indigenous' (pre-A/S) results for different areas.
Fascinating thanks - great discussion on here. Interesting about all the hidden agendas. The 50-100% replacement is certainly well out of order it seems.
However if this guy's figures are anything like then it looks like there was the critical mass of population to generate the military manpower to conquer the territory occupied by the Brits, over time. Given especially that armies were small and as Ine put it...7 and under are thieves, between 7 and 35 is a war-band and anything over is a here, an army.
"The results of my computation were as follows:-
North and East England:- York 30% Ind 70% G/D Norfolk 40% Ind 60% G/D Morpeth 70% Ind 30% G/D Southwell 55% Ind 45% G/D Uttoxeter 65% Ind 35% G/D Penrith 60% Ind 40% N & G/D
South and West England:- Chippenham 50% Ind 50% G/D Faversham 75% Ind 25% G/D Midhurst 75% Ind 25% G/D Dorchester 70% Ind 30% G/D Cornwall 75% Ind 25% G/D
NB. Ind = Indigenous (Celts) G/D = German/Danish (Anglo-Saxons/Danish Vikings) N = Norwegian (Norwegian Vikings)"
It seems to fit in with Morris(Age of Arthur) for instance who describes in detail the early lodgements in the east.....and then a rapid breakout in the last quarter of the 6th century with the victorious A/S conquering a lot of ground and subject population. So we have 40/60 in Norfolk and 70/30 in Dorchester. There would then have been an elite in Wessex of Germanic origin - and the bulk of the population of somewhat inferior status, judging by Ine's laws. You can't impose a sort of a[partheid without conquest surely!!
The "acculturisation" - which is more or less voluntary adoption of alen culture of relatively few immigrants, as I understand it -argument doesn't make any sense to me at all.
<Tozer>
Posted
The genetic research seems to confirm what theauthor of this article was saying back in 2000 - without benefit of the latest genetic discoveries;
"Perhaps, at the very least, 800,000 Britons survived to become subjects of the new Anglo-Saxon rulers. How many of these there were is even more difficult to guess at; but 200,000 immigrants in all may be a generous estimate, given rough (and admittedly scarcely reliable) figures that we have for invading Germanic peoples on the continent.(1) So, even taking a fairly high Anglo-Saxon figure (200,000) and a low British one (800,000), Britons are likely to have outnumbered Anglo-Saxons by at least four to one. In parts of Anglo-Saxon Britain they almost certainly outnumbered them by very much more."
So it is interesting to speculate how 20% of the population could have become so totally dominant. The early English were pagans and had previously operated as pirates in the North Sea, there was a senior Roman officer whose responsibility it was to hold them off - the Count of the Saxon Shore. So they weren't bringing in cultural goodies and all the evidence is that the Brits hated them.
How come they prevailed? Fairly speculative but;
1) Gildas talks of division, disunity, civil wars against the Brits. It's quite probable that their society suffered long term damage as a result of Roman colonialism. Certainly they were dedependent on the Romans for military prorection and civil administration and when that was withdrawn they were at a loss. Gildas describes their pathetic efforts to combat invaders after the Roman army had gone. There must have been a long-term dependency culture developed. I think that Tacitus wrote that the Romans spoke scathingly of "pathetic little Brits".
2) The warriors and subsequent waves of settlers from across the North Sea must have represented the most dynamic and acquisitive section of Germanic society, and to have been younger on average.
3) I wonder if the Germans had any military advantages - maybe better techniques of producing edged weapons. Perhaps their shield wall formations were tactically superior - I have read somewhere that it wasn't just a matter of interlocked shields but that it would open out to enable the warriors to use their weapons more effectively.
quote:Originally posted by Hinso: As a matter of interest does anyone know who the linguists were who determined that English contains hardly any Celtic words (and when they did their work)? Would they have recognised a Celtic word if they had seen it?
All of them, Hinso, and there are no exceptions. You are talking about the learned elite of many different countries, many of whom had an interest to disprove this - but it is a fact that they couldn't.
The linguistic evidence is so extreme, that it's as if the "Celts" never actually lived in what we now call England, or only until they were subjugated by the Romans, therefter which their language perished in modern day England, surviving only in the unconquered extremities.
This could explain why there are practically no Celtic words in English.
Or, alternatively, simply click on the 'URL' box that appears in the icons above the composing screen; post the long URL into the line marked 'URL'and then put something like 'here' in the 'title' line, giving you a long URL in just a single word in the message.
