1/ Antonines wall occupied 142-64. That was a long occupation, I have socks older than that.
2/ Norse vikings trash Lindisfarne 793.Did they stay? I don't think so. No viking place names in Northumberland.
3/Bernicia turns us over? We are Bernicia, so we invaded ourselves?
4/ Anglo-"Saxons" .I'm stumped by this one.If you mean Athelstan or Edgar turning up and getting their ring kissed. I think the modern equivalent is George W turning up unannounced in Bagdad and not stopping the night.

Yes we might have been fought over for at least the last 2000 years by Scottish English and Southern English but are we either? I don't think so!

Tommy

You're completely missing the point, Harry. You think we spoke Anglo-Saxon which (I thought you were boasting) is still spoken near-enough in Germany today.

<<Are the Parisii of East Yorkshire the same as the Parisii in the Moselle, Ardenne, Champagne region?>>

Yes, I expect so. We have reason to believe that the Belgae were the ruling elite in both places.

<<What language did they speak?>>

Flemish/Dutch

<<This language, which may have existed in England in pre history, may have contributed a large number of words to the germanic vocabulary.>>

Well, yes, the vocabulary of Dutch and German are very close. I cannot say which contributed to the other.

<<Not directly from England of course, but from the other continental regions.>>

Dutch, Frisian, German, Swedish etc might be offshoots of English or of one another or descended from a now extinct language. Since linguistics doesn't go in for any kind of true mathematical analysis, we reamin in the dark.

<<German has of course a large number of non indo european words, between 30% and 50% of the lexis depending on who one reads. They got those words from somewhere.>>

As the most easterly of the family I would expect German to have most "foreign' words. But I would be amazed if it was that high. No, not amazed....I would hang up my hat.

quote:

Originally posted by M J Harper:
BAJR, you're talking out of your hat. I don't mind youse guys inventing imaginary languages if you really have to but I do object to you just ignoring what languages we do have.

The proposition made here that English "might have been" spoken in the British Isles before the Roman conquest equally ignores what direct evidence for the languages of the period in the area we do have. And its not negligable. And it really falsifies the proposition pretty effectively.

1) There are as far as I recall no topographical names which can be shown to be of English origin in any Roman source about Britain, and these are well-studied and fill a thick volume by Rivet and Smith (can supply reference if you are not familiar with it). So we have Londinium and not "Lundenwicium", Camulodunum and not "Camulochestum" or whatever. How odd it would be if lots of places had English speaking inhabitants and not a single one was mentioned by its English name in a Roman source (or a Greek one previous to it or those subsequent to the Roman conquest like Ptolemy). Look at for example the survival of native names in the US.

2) We know a reasonable amount of pre-Roman tribal geography, which survived into the first decades of the Roman period, sometimes as the basis of the new administrative system. Neither the tribal names, nor those of their central places (the ones we know of from written sources and mintmarks) let alone the names of the rulers are capable of being presented as "English". We know quite a few of these names. So where were your postulated "English speakers" hiding?

3) The Roman period was literate. Apart from the monumental inscriptions, average blokes scratched things on their posessions ("this is Rufus' pot, hands off!") or scrawled grafiti on tiles drying in the sun before firing ("Austalis has been going off by himself every day for thirteen days") or the rare letter or lead curse. This sort of material - increasing amounts of which are found annually - is the language of the man in the street, and its linguistic affinities are invariably Latin, Celtic-sounding ("Callisunus, greeting to Epillicus") and there are one or two Greek. Although there are collected corpori and each year the journal "Britannia" publishes new examples, I cannot recall having seen any there prior to the end of the fourth century that are claimed as - let alone demonstrated to be -"English". Have you?

4) In the west country after the Roman period "ends", we have inscribed stones dotted about all over the place, they are in Latin primarily, some Ogham. Personal names are celtic sounding, formulae are latin of Celtic (Irish mostly). It would be odd that if there were English speakers in the British Isles for several millennia before that there is not a single one from this region in English.

5) Tacitus, whose father in law Agricola was governor here wrote a tedious book "Germania" beloved of Nazis and continental archaeologists. In it he refers to an Eastern group he called the Aestii "quibus ritus habitusque Suevorum, lingua Britannicae propior". Now if the language of Britain had been English (i.e. germanic), then this would make no sense, it only makes sense in a situation when the language of Britain was not at this time a germanic one, wouldnt it? And of course since Britain was now part of the Roman empire, the Romans actually knew perfectly well what language they had to explain to them how much tax they had to pay.

6) Also you'd have to explain why Britannia was not inluded in Tacitus;' book as part of "Germania" when Scandinavia (thought to be an island too) was.

7) The continental Germanic languages are written in runes from about 200AD (TAQ), present evidence is that runes don't appear in Britain until the Anglo-Saxons brought them over. If Roman period germanic speakers in Britannia used the Latin alphabet rather than runes, where are the inscriptions? If the continental free Germans deep in the forests of barbaricum felt a need to invent an alphabet to put something down on wood or metal, why would those living in a literate society not feel the need to write something down?

8) It has been proposed earlier in this thread that "English" "might have been" brought over with the first farmers... Now if that HAD been the case several millennia of more or less independent development would have produced so many differences between "English" and "Old Saxon", that English missionaries would have had less of a chance of evangelising to the continental Saxons in their own language than a missionary from the Netherlands speaking Dutch in Birmingham would today. And yet, that is what both the historical and archaeological evidence show what happened, which would seem to be pretty direct evidence that the two languages had not diverged all that much.

10) I've given my thoughts on Win Scutt's "evidence" on Britarch when it was first announced. Suffice to say I find it severely lacking in any evidential value.

There is probably a whole lot more of things I could cite if I put my mind to it, but the direct evidence we have really is enough to show that the proposal that "English might have been spoken" in Britain in the Pre-Roman period has about as much support from it as the existence of abducting aliens. That is to say, none. And that is before we get onto purely linguistic arguments. The only "belief" I can see is needed here is that the evidence which falsifies the proposition does not matter and "anything goes".

All I can add is that Paul has put into more lucid and informed and researched words what I could not.

And I am glad he has added more 'real' name evidence - with not one.. not one person who is a Briton living in Roman Britania having an 'English' Name, living in and 'English' named place.

The evidence is just not there - the evidence to the contrary however is.

quote:

The only "belief" I can see is needed here is that the evidence which falsifies the proposition does not matter and "anything goes".

Hi PMB,

That's a fair summary. The point was made some time ago that there is no english 'fossil'. We are rather more into a discussion about faith. In order to seek the truth, one has to abandon anything and everything one has learned in the past.

It's a very popular recruiting technique amongst cults.

best

Harry A

quote:

<<What language did they speak?>>

Flemish/Dutch

MJ, why do we not see many more flemish or dutch place names in the Champagne region then? We should if we apply your argument about english place names in england.

best

Harry A

1. The reason all the place-names in England are in English is because the local language is and was English.
2. There are a few foreign place-names reflecting the fact that various foreigners occupied the country for periods of time.
3. The reason all the place-names in the Champagne district are in French is and was because the local language was French.
4. There are a few Flemish place-names in the Champagne region reflecting the fact that the Belgae occupied the region for periods of time.

It really couldn't be simpler. But just consider the orthodox alternative:
1. Every place name in both England and France was once Celtic because both populations spoke Celtic (Brythonic and Gaullish are the invented names palaeolinguists term these languages.)
2. Virtually all these places suddenly disappeared during the the time of the Roman occupation (in France) and just after (in Britain).
3. They all then suddenly re-appear with English and French names as soon as we have a record of them.

Very mysterious. Almost cultish one might say.

Rivet and Smith are completely out to lunch. They were working from the premise that Brythonic was spoken in England so, like all the Place Name crowd, they bend and they bend and they bend. And still they do not make much sense. Let me take the examples you quote (I will be happy to deal with any others you may throw into the pot.)

<<Londinium and not "Lundenwicium”.>>
The English word is London. Londinium is the Latinised version. I don’t know why you have coined the word Lundenwicium. Pray tell.

<<Camulodunum and not "Camulochestum".>>
The English word is Colchester ie the old Roman city on the river Colne. However since Camulodunum would appear to be a) the capital of the ruling regime and b) founded by the Trinovantes (Trojans, forsooth!) I doubt very much whether it is an English name at all. Again I do not understand what "Camulochestum” is meant to signify.

As to the rest of your piece, I would only say that everybody mentioned everywhere in every piece of Roman writing has a Roman name and so do the tribal areas (anywhere in the Empire) – or at any rate not a name that can be shown to be a rendering of the demotic language. True, these names can be massaged into representing the language that linguists believe was the demotic but I have yet to be persuaded by a single one. Still I’m a reasonable sort of bloke, let’s have a look at the ones you mention
<<"Callisunus, greeting to Epillicus>>
You say they’re Celtic-sounding. No, they’re not.

<<In the west country after the Roman period "ends", we have inscribed stones dotted about all over the place, they are in Latin primarily, some Ogham. Personal names are celtic sounding, formulae are latin of Celtic (Irish mostly). It would be odd that if there were English speakers in the British Isles for several millennia before that there is not a single one from this region in English>>

Well done…you’re really grasping the situation. As soon as the locals get to express themselves we finally see who they are. They’re Celts. Just like I said. Got any in the ‘east country’ where the English were living?

<<Now if the language of Britain had been English (i.e. germanic), then this would make no sense, it only makes sense in a situation when the language of Britain was not at this time a germanic one, wouldnt it? And of course since Britain was now part of the Roman empire, the Romans actually knew perfectly well what language they had to explain to them how much tax they had to pay.>>

Nobody could possibly mistake English and German.

<<The continental Germanic languages are written in runes from about 200AD (TAQ), present evidence is that runes don't appear in Britain until the Anglo-Saxons brought them over. If Roman period germanic speakers in Britannia used the Latin alphabet rather than runes, where are the inscriptions? If the continental free Germans deep in the forests of barbaricum felt a need to invent an alphabet to put something down on wood or metal, why would those living in a literate society not feel the need to write something down?>>

Wassamater with you? How often have I got to say that the English are speaking English. What the Germans are up to is a matter for them. No doubt the Anglo-Saxon Germans were using runes and brought them over with them to England and carried on using them. How are their English subjects involved in any of this? "Please, Sir, can I play with your rune-stones even though I am speaking an unwritten language."

<<Tacitus, whose father in law Agricola was governor here wrote a tedious book "Germania" beloved of Nazis and continental archaeologists. In it he refers to an Eastern group he called the Aestii "quibus ritus habitusque Suevorum, lingua Britannicae propior". Now if the language of Britain had been English (i.e. germanic), then this would make no sense, it only makes sense in a situation when the language of Britain was not at this time a germanic one, wouldnt it>??

You’re really starting to baffle me. English and German are very different languages. To an outsider they could not possibly be connected together. It seems a bit harsh to blame Agricola for not being a nineteenth century philologist and working out that they are in fact related.

<<And of course since Britain was now part of the Roman empire, the Romans actually knew perfectly well what language they had to explain to them how much tax they had to pay.>>

Do you know of anything in the entire Classical Corpus that addresses the problem of Latin-speaking administrators asking for money from the locals. Can’t say I do, but you seem to be a master of the sources, so I shall await your answer.

<<Also you'd have to explain why Britannia was not inluded in Tacitus;' book as part of "Germania" when Scandinavia (thought to be an island too) was.>>

I expect it’s because Swedish is very close to German and can easily be mistaken for it by foreigners. English isn’t and could never be mistaken for it.

<<It has been proposed earlier in this thread that "English" "might have been" brought over with the first farmers... Now if that HAD been the case several millennia of more or less independent development would have produced so many differences between "English" and "Old Saxon", that English missionaries would have had less of a chance of evangelising to the continental Saxons in their own language than a missionary from the Netherlands speaking Dutch in Birmingham would today. And yet, that is what both the historical and archaeological evidence show what happened, which would seem to be pretty direct evidence that the two languages had not diverged all that much.>>

This is completely weird. The missionaries were Anglo-Saxon. It’s in the all the Annals. ANGLO-SAXON. Anglo-Saxon. Read my lips. I dunno…I give up. I doubt that an English-speaking missionary showed up anywhere in the world before the seventeenth century.

Mr Harper, you really are not helping your case adopting that tone with me.

1) Rivet and Smith summarised the results of nigh on 200 years discussion of these names, and I see no reason for your assumption that they and their predecessors got it all wrong and only you know how to interepret these data properly. You would have us believe that they and the whole group of linguistic scholars in Britain and on the continent are "out to lunch" but only you are not. Sorry, but I'd need more evidence of your ability to demonstrate that before accepting it. So far you've not done too well as far as I am concerned, largely substituting sarcasm and provocation for real argument.

2) The English name of London (which occurs on the earliest Anglo-Saxon coinage and in Bede) is Lundenwic. A name which does not occur in any source earlier than that and a name which looks to be derivative of the name that does.

3) Camulodunum is a name of Celtic derivation, it refers to a settlement that was in existence at that spot well before the Romans. It was also a massive complex covering many hectares.h international connections. How odd it is that "Britain's oldest recorded town" only has a Celtic and not English name if the language spoken in the region was English at the time. As I asked, where are your postulated English speakers hiding? Why can you only account for their absence from the record by special pleading?

You are just side-stepping my original point, the evidence we do have (and its not negligable) contains no trace of your postulated pre-Roman English-speaking population.

4) [QUOTE]I would only say that everybody mentioned everywhere in every piece of Roman writing has a Roman name and so do the tribal areas (anywhere in the Empire) – or at any rate not a name that can be shown to be a rendering of the demotic language [/QUOTE} I am sorry but that is just rubbish. Its not true for Britain and its not true of "everywhere". You just made that up. There are monographs from all over the former Empire of non-Latin personal names taken from just such sources.

5) "<<"Callisunus, greeting to Epillicus>>
You say they’re Celtic-sounding. No, they’re not. Well, first of all this is not my own identification, but I really see NO reason why this name is not Celtic, beyond your bald (bold) denial. But of course you are side-stepping my original point, the evidence we do have and its not negligable contains no trace of your postulated pre-Roman English-speaking population.

6) Well done… you’re really grasping the situation . There is really no need for your patronising sarcasm. All you are doing is side-stepping my original point, the evidence we do have (and its not negligable) contains no trace of your postulated pre-Roman English-speaking population.

Yes, this is connected with "identity", so how did your imaginry pre-Roman English speakers express theirs in what you postulate was a multilingual and multicultural environment? Where are they?

7) Nobody could possibly mistake English and German . Well, you obviously did not read what I said, I said 'germanic'. If you were to look carefully at Tacitus' text (Germania), you will see he pays fairly close attention to the languages spoken as a means of working out who is who. So for example the Basternae are similarly discussed, and he says they are Germans because they speak a germanic language. What Tacitus nowhere says is that the Britons are a germanic people because (some of them) speak a Germanic language (and your postulated early *proto-English I assume would be just such a language would it not?). Ignorance on Tacitus' part? Maybe, but the evidence does seem to be mounting up that pre-Roman English speakers in Britain is a groundless fantasy.

8) Wassamater with you? How often have I got to say that the English are speaking English. What the Germans are up to is a matter for them Well, no its not. You cannot simply make up some story about your little green island and not examine it in the context of what is happening around. Your postulated pre-Roman "English" would have to be a language of the germanic group. In the Roman period throughout the germanic-speaking world from the North Sea littoral to Crimea, as part of a cultural package runes were in use. So they spread right through Europe across terra deserta, through forests and across mountain ranges, but your insular pre-Roman "English" never heard of them or never had need of them? Once again a potential piece of evidence that would support the pre-Roman English is missing. Once again special pleading to explain why.

Let us look at the wider, European, consequences of what you are proposing.

9) The missionaries were Anglo-Saxon. It’s in the all the Annals. ANGLO-SAXON. Anglo-Saxon. Read my lips. I dunno… I give up well, actually that is what I said, isn't it. What you are failing to see is its relevance to your own postulates. The two facts simply do not "fit" and once again you are just side stepping the issue.

10) English and German are very different languages. To an outsider they could not possibly be connected together. and I expect it’s because Swedish is very close to German and can easily be mistaken for it by foreigners. English isn’t and could never be mistaken for it "God's own language" eh? It seems to be emerging from this that you think there is something inherantly superior in the English language that all ancient listeners will immediately identify it as such. This is beginning to sound like "Stormfront" and other White Supremecist nonsense. Mr Harper, I cannot help but think that this would explain a lot of what you write and how and why you write it, but I presume hopefully that I am wrong.

All you are doing is sidestepping the issues I raised which clearly falsify the proposition that "English" was spoken in Pre-Roman Britain.

<<The English name of London (which occurs on the earliest Anglo-Saxon coinage and in Bede) is Lundenwic. A name which does not occur in any source earlier than that and a name which looks to be derivative of the name that does.>>

Look, old chap, I don't mind your not agreeing with me but you have to make the effort of grasping the rudiments of the arguments that are being discussed here. We know the Anglo-Saxon name of London, it's Ludenwic. This 'name' doesn't occur any earlier because the Anglo-Saxons hadn't arrived yet. There's probably a later Danish version when they ran the place. It occurs earlier in its Roman form, Londinium. It doesn't occur any earlier in its English form because English was an unwritten language and hence nobody could actually write down it's name so no document could survive for us to read. As soon as English was written down (systematically in the fourteenth century) then the proper, English name, the one it had been called by since time immemorial, appeared. London.

<<Camulodunum is a name of Celtic derivation>>

No it isn't. It's a name of unknown origin. People who believe its of Celtic foundation have no difficulty coming up with a Celtic explanation. Personally I think its a Punic name and is named after the camels that the Carthaginians brought over. What ho! Isn't this fun!

<<it refers to a settlement that was in existence at that spot well before the Romans. It was also a massive complex covering many hectares.h international connections. How odd it is that "Britain's oldest recorded town" only has a Celtic and not English name if the language spoken in the region was English at the time. As I asked, where are your postulated English speakers hiding? Why can you only account for their absence from the record by special pleading?>>

I've covered this point many times but here I go again. Colchester is a town which has clearly been an administrative centre for aeons. As you say, it was there when the Romans arrived. It was used by the Romans. They Latinised its name when they in their turn used it. They called it Camulodunum. Unfortunately they omitted to mention what the ruling elite before them called it. That previous ruling elite may have been Celtic-speakers. Camulodunum may be a Celtic name. We just don't know. I have no strenuous objections to it being a Celtic name.

You ask where the English-speaking inhabitants were? A lot of them were living in Camulodunum. This is the Roman version of its name. It does not mean that the inhabitants were all Latin-speakers. I expect they were mainly the same people as when it had its Celtic name (or its Belgic name or its Trojan name...or whatever.) It's like claiming everybody changed their language when Bombay became Mumbai.

<<You are just side-stepping my original point, the evidence we do have (and its not negligable) contains no trace of your postulated pre-Roman English-speaking population.>>

There is no direct evidence at all of what the pre-Roman British population was speaking. The evidence we do have is indirect. It has to be conjectured, hypothesised, fitted into the prevailing paradigm etc etc. You prefer your version, I prefer mine. Please do not accuse me of ignoring evidence. The evidence for me is exactly the same as the evidence for you. It is how we interpret that evidence that sends us down radically different roads.

<< <<"Callisunus, greeting to Epillicus>>
You say they’re Celtic-sounding. No, they’re not. Well, first of all this is not my own identification, but I really see NO reason why this name is not Celtic, beyond your bald (bold) denial. >>

A perfect example of your historical method. You admit this is not your view but just something somebody else says. Why don't you, just this once, make your own mind up. Do Callisunus and Epillicus sound Celtic to you? Once you decide they don't, go back to the original adacemic source and see how they have justified their Celtic claim. Once you have picked yourself up off the floor and stopped laughing you will begin to see that "hundreds of years" of scholarship are quite often wrong because they are working from incorrect basic assumptions. It happens all the time throughout history. Do you really think we live in some magical age when the scholars happened to have got everything right?

<<so how did your imaginry pre-Roman English speakers express theirs in what you postulate was a multilingual and multicultural environment? Where are they?>>

If you tell me how people with an unwritten language could express themselves in any fashion whatsoever I'd be happy to oblige. When I point out one of the very few ways they actually can do this (for instance in the form of the name of virtually every village in England) I expect you will claim that these aren't English at all but all built by the Anglo-Saxons.

<<Nobody could possibly mistake English and German . Well, you obviously did not read what I said, I said 'germanic'. If you were to look carefully at Tacitus' text (Germania), you will see he pays fairly close attention to the languages spoken as a means of working out who is who. >>

Yes, a most valuable source. He clearly has a better grasp of the situation than you do. You think that by renaming English as "Germanic" you can lump everything in together. Not a mistake Tacitus made.

<<So for example the Basternae are similarly discussed, and he says they are Germans because they speak a germanic language. What Tacitus nowhere says is that the Britons are a germanic people because (some of them) speak a Germanic language (and your postulated early *proto-English I assume would be just such a language would it not?). Ignorance on Tacitus' part? >>

No, ignorance on your part. When Tacitus was writing he understood that while there were various different peoples in Germany, they all spoke recognisably the same language. Just as they do today. Swabish is different from Hoch Deutsch but recognisably the same. The English weren't speaking proto-English, they were speaking English. It hasn't changed mush since Chaucer, so I don't expect it changed much from Chaucer to Tacitus. Hence Tacitus wouldn't have thought English was Germanic.

However I must enter a caveat. Classical authors didn't do much primary research. They had to rely on more or less official "travellers tales". Romans (and all other ancient ruling castes with a written language) tended to deal with other ruling castes. When Caesar fights Vercingtorix we cannot be sure whether he is fighting the native population or the previous ruling caste. Dito Boadicea. I will accept your strictures on this point with a broad back.

On the question of runes and missionaries, I stand pat.

<<It seems to be emerging from this that you think there is something inherantly superior in the English language that all ancient listeners will immediately identify it as such. This is beginning to sound like "Stormfront" and other White Supremecist nonsense. Mr Harper, I cannot help but think that this would explain a lot of what you write and how and why you write it, but I presume hopefully that I am wrong.>>

Yeah, yeah. I'm a fully paid up member of something or other. Look, poppet, we disagree on a technical question. That's all. There's no hidden agenda. Let's insult each other on strictly intellectual grounds.

quote:

Clown, fascist...now a cult leader. Harry, try to keep up with the arguments instead:

MJ,

I have not called you a clown or a fascist and the cult bit was tongue in cheek. Sorry if I offended.

It is refreshing to see humour in such a debate. It's a sorry state if we can't have a bit of fun on a list such as this. Your humour is welcomed by me at least and I certainly don't confuse it with your more serious argument.

I have some sympathy with William of Ockham's approach even though I find his shaved franziskan hair do a little 'iffy'. I also have some sympathy for your argument with academia but, as Phyllisve's link showed, there are those who do also question the established 'facts'. I too am disappointed that the existence of an unknown language seems to be falling somewhat out of favour thesedays.

The fact remains, academia do require a fossil and without one, they will not be turned. Not that I am an academic, I haven't studied english since 'O' level and that nearly 40 years ago. My pub reference is quite genuine. I am simply interested when I hear words like 'rain', 'cow' and 'thursday' spoken by the locals.

Your point 1 above is what the debate is really all about. You argue that those AS place names are not really AS but predate them and should be more correctly termed 'english'. I can't argue with academia as I have no ammunition. All I can ask is why there are no 'stede' or 'rode' names which are supposed to belong to the oldest settlements in northern germany. Where are the examples in England of that most 'saxon' of saxon placenames, the 'büttel' endings?

I never get any answers but am still not willing to say the whole thing needs turning on its head.

best

Harry A

quote:

Rivet and Smith are completely out to lunch.

LOL MJ,

Now that's the sort of humour I like. It reminds me of a Swedish academic, Dr Ingemar Nordgren, who said something similar:, "Sometimes even you are out sailing"

He too posits a large 'out of scandinavia' migration in prehistory as evidenced by the various ring cultures. He'd support, in part, your view on the early settlement in Ireland though I don't think he'd support the linguistic argument.

And he's a very funny guy too.

best

harry A

quote:

Nobody could possibly mistake English and German.

quote:

You’re really starting to baffle me. English and German are very different languages.

They are now MJ yes, but that is because they have both diverged from a common origin. Modern German is neither Anglo Saxon nor continental low saxon. Most Germans don't understand 'Platt'.

Some of it would be recognisable:

'What is that?' 'Wass ist das?' 'Watt is dat?'

But some platt is more easily understood by english speakers than modern german speakers, 'süürsdai' or 'thörsdei'.

best

Harry A

I'm never offended, Harry, only amused. Maybe occasionally irritated. But OK, let's concentrate on this fossil language business because it looks like being the bottom line. You're right of course to say I can't produce one. I'm right too in saying orthodoxy can't produce one either. The difference is that they are in possession of the castle and we barbarians-at-the-gate have (apparently) to climb over a higher hurdle of proof.

So, if there is no proof, what kind of evidence is there? Let's list the various typologies (and maybe you can add anything I overlook).
1. There are native names that appear in Classical accounts (and the occasional doubtful non-Classical inscription). Here are the problems:
a) given names are not necessarily native. I'm named after a Hebrew archangel and...um...the English word for 'playing the harp'. Or an Irish instrument. Or an Anglo-Saxon one...everybody played the goddamn harp.
b) we don't know what they called themselves. Boadicea/Boudicca (note we can't even agree what the Ancients called her) but neither of these are (in all probability) what she called herself.
c) We don't know whether the people the Romans dealt with are the actual native population. Boadicea might be a Belgic warlord, she might be a Celtic warlord, she might be the leader of the actual locals.

2. We have the names of tribes and tribal units. This is even less diagnostic.
a) The Brigantes. The Atrebates. The Iceni. Now, I'm sorry, but nobody is ever going to persuade me that these are Celtic names or English names or anything-else names. They're just names. We don't know how old. We don't know if the people running them are named after the place or the place is named after the people running them. It's all just chat.
b) We don't know if the Brigantes, the Iceni etc etc are actual locals ruling themsleves or whether they are outsiders, speaking a foreign language. The normal picture for England, right up until c 1200 AD when the Normans lost Normandy, is for the rulers to speak a different language from the ruled.
c) Whenever we have an apparently clear reference to the rulers but it doesn't conform to the paradigm, the evidence is just ignored. The Trinovantes regarded themselves as Trojans but does anyone take this seriously. No, they're just Celts along with everybody else.

3) There are village place names. Now this really should be the smoking gun because unlike people's names and people's political affiliation, these just go on and on and on. So what are the difficulties here?
a) Orthodoxy just shift the bleedin' goalposts. Practically every village in England has an English name, or at any rate a non-Anglo-Saxon name. And most of them are sitting there in the Domesday Book as if they've always been there. But with one bound, orthodoxy is free by claiming every one of theses villages was built just the other day by Anglo-Saxons and therefore named by Anglo-Saxons in Anglo-Saxon. And how did they acquire their oh-so-English-but-not-very-Anglo-Saxon names? Oh...you know...linguistic drift...or something.
b) But how do we know what is an Anglo-Saxon name (or even, since you refer to it, an Anglo-Saxon ending)? We've never yet found an Anglo-Saxon village in the Anglo-Saxon homeland so we have to use English village endings because, we are told, these are all Anglo-Saxon. What a surprise....some of them have got Anglo-Saxon endings. And please note, some of them really must be Anglo-Saxon because even the Anglo-Saxons must have lived somewhere.

Harry, do yourself a favour. Cut your ties with these logic-chopping nincompoops. Come and join the Applied Epistemologists and start blazing your own trail in the wine dark sea.

quote:

Hence Tacitus wouldn't have thought English was Germanic.

He didn't. Tacitus wrote:

Ergo iam dextro Suebici maris litore Aestiorum gentes adluuntur, quibus ritus habitusque Sueborum, lingua Britannicae propior.

Upon the right of the Suevian Sea the Aestyan nations reside, who use the same customs and attire with the Suevians; their language more resembles that of Britain.

Sadly, he doesn't tell us what language the Aestyan nations spoke.

However, if this is Estonia as some do claim, they spoke a Finno Ugric language. Kalevi Wiik argues that Finno Ugric accounts for the substrate effect in much of northern europe. Like Venneman, who argues for Vasconic, he's in a club of one though.

To summarise, the language spoken in Camulodunum is one of:

Celtic (widely supported)
Unknown (less widely supported thesedays)
English (MJH)
Vasconic (Venneman)
Finno Ugric (Wiik, with a little help from Tacitus)

Gentlemen, place your bets.

best

harry A

quote:

Originally posted by M J Harper: you have to make the effort of grasping the rudiments of the arguments that are being discussed here

well, I must admit I am having a bit of difficulty seeing any coherence in what you are saying.

1) So you are proposing that there were pre-Roman English speakers who called a place "London", but neither they nor anyone wrote the word down for centuries. ( "it doesn't occur any earlier in its English form because English was an unwritten language and hence nobody could actually write down it's name ") Why would that be? More special pleading. Or is this supposed to be a joke? More to the point, how do you “know” this to be the case? Why do you say “Londinium” and “Lundenwic” are derivatives of “London” and not the other way round?

2) “ <<Camulodunum is a name of Celtic derivation>> [...]” Personally I think its a Punic name and is named after the camels that the Carthaginians brought over. What ho! Isn't this fun! Well, this remark obviously illustrates your capacity for conducting a rational discussion.

3) “They called it Camulodunum. Unfortunately they omitted to mention what the ruling elite before them called it” They don't have to. We know from the inscriptions on the pre-Roman coins found at the mint there. For goodness sake, make sure of your facts before coming out with such glib statements which are supposed to support your arguments. The fact they don’t simply weakens your credibility.

” No it isn't. It's a name of unknown origin.” . The origin of the name is pretty clear. A moment’s checking shows the name Camulos is well attested right across western Europe and (as no end of literature points out) the ‘dun’ suffix is commonly attested in names of Gaulish origin and generally in ‘celtic’ contexts elsewhere (including enclaves in eastern Europe). So I think you really are stretching our credibility too far denying this. More special pleading inserting glib unsupported statements into the argument and completely ignoring verifiable facts.

You completely sidestep (once again!) the issue of why if there were English speakers in (for example) Camulodunum, there is not a single piece of evidence of that from ANY of the written sources, either references to the place or in any of the inscriptions and graffiti from the area. And just suggesting that anyone who spoke English "must have been illiterate" when a huge amount of evidence shows everybody else (including a Dacian in the town) was not is just feeble special pleading.

3) "There is no direct evidence at all of what the pre-Roman British population was speaking well, as I have shown there IS, and not a little of it. That it does not show what you want it to does not entitle you to just make up any old story that takes your fancy. When we look for evidence to falsify it (as scientific method dictates), it is quite clear that such evidence DOES exist, and it does falsify your argument. And now you are busily trying to explain it away and getting yourself deeper and deeper entangled in improbabilities.

"I prefer mine. Please do not accuse me of ignoring evidence. The evidence for me is exactly the same as the evidence for you " No its not. You ARE ignoring what that evidence plainly tells us, and what is more you are unable to incorporate it in a sensible way into your version of events.

4) " Once you have picked yourself up off the floor and stopped laughing you will begin to see that "hundreds of years" of scholarship are quite often wrong because they are working from incorrect basic assumptions. It happens all the time throughout history ". How many times has the archaeologist heard that from the pseudoscientist from the pyramidiots and von Daniken onwards? As I asked before, why should we accept that only one guy (M.J. Harper) has the access to the truth that generations of people that have devoted their life's work have been stupid enough not to see?

What actually are your qualifications Mr (Dr?) Harper and in what disciplines? Who did you study under that imbued you with such critical facilities which they themselves seem not so far to have exercised? A real case of the student outgrowing the master perhaps?

"Do you really think we live in some magical age when the scholars happened to have got everything right? " I believe that iconoclastic ideas can only be supported by reference to firm data. Otherwise they are just smartass and uninformed sniping at academia and nothing else.

5) Expression of identity... Let us be clear that it is your assumption that your hypothetical pre-Roman English speakers were illiterate. You have to assume this to explain away why no trace of them exists. I would say that in a world surrounded by literacy for four centuries of Roman occupation (and also to some extent before), that they stubbornly refused to put a single word of their language onto any medium is something you have to explain.

As for your challenge ( "If you tell me how people with an unwritten language could express themselves in any fashion whatsoever I'd be happy to oblige ") I am really not at all inclined to get into a discussion of the complex relationships between language, identity and material culture with a camel-joker here. I will say only that it is simply a fallacy to assume that an illiterate society is incapable of any form of expression of identity – we have ample archaeological, anthropological and sociological evidence that this is not the case.

6) Tacitus: " Yes, a most valuable source. He clearly has a better grasp of the situation than you do. You think that by renaming English as "Germanic" you can lump everything in together. Not a mistake Tacitus made ". Well, once again rudeness instead of a concrete answer. I rather think that it is YOU who do not quite grasp the point that was made. (Or is this another "joke"?) English or your hypothetical *Proto-English is/would have been a germanic language whether you like it (or accept it) or not. You are the one trying to play around with (dismiss) linguistic facts not me.

7) " No, ignorance on your part I expect you assume that the more you insult me, the more disinclined I will be to question the things you say. As it happens I have a pretty thorough knowledge of Tacitus, and it is clear from what you say two lines down you have not, so in your place, I'd be careful who I try to label as "ignorant".

8) " The English weren't speaking proto-English, they were speaking English. It hasn't changed mush since Chaucer, so I don't expect it changed much from Chaucer to Tacitus You "don’t expect" it changed... Well, here you fall into the entanglements of your own arguments. As linguistic research time and time has demonstrated an unwritten language spoken by isolated groups in the midst of a society where other languages were spoken does tend to change very rapidly. It is only with the onset of literacy and use as a language of administration that these processes slow down, as we see in the development of other languages (such as some of the Slavic ones like Polish and Russian). Before Chaucer is exactly the period when we would expect the greatest changes in the language to take place!

9) "Classical authors didn't do much primary research " Says who? Those previous scholars you pooh-pooh earlier? So you accept what they say when it suits you and reject them when they don't say what you want to hear? In any case I think that is rather a broad generalization - you cannot for example compare Tacitus with Jordanes, or Jordanes with his contemporary Procopius. You presumably know that Pliny the Elder died doing his primary research.

10)

quote:

Yeah, yeah. I'm a fully paid up member of something or other. Look, poppet, we disagree on a technical question. That's all. There's no hidden agenda. Let's insult each other on strictly intellectual grounds.

Firstly, perhaps you can manage to do without the name-calling and insults.

Your arguments do seem to imbue the English language with some odd inherent qualities which are difficult to explain (or rather, you have difficulty in explaining them in a way which removes doubt about what actually lies behind these ideas). And whether or not you are aware of it, your ideas are nothing new. In the 1940s Nazi “public information literature” produced by the Ahnenerbe and such like organizations proposed something very similar to what it seems you are now saying. This was of course intended by them as ideological bolstering in preparation for the occupation of Britain. Which is why “Stormfront” came to mind, its where we find a lot of these questions debated with uncommon vigour and in much the same tone of rudeness as you adopt here.

In fact if you look at the history of European archaeology from the 1890s (if not before) we see that “ethnogenetic” claims that some group or other was in a territory others deny (or was there earlier) always have a background in some ideology, or social tensions. There is a lot of literature about this. Which makes me wonder what the background is of this particular idea, because as we can see, it most certainly is not in verifiable facts.