Posted on 11/26/2002 7:57:18 AM PST by blam
You apparently have no idea what a family of languages is. The first such to be detected was the Indoeuropean family. I believe it was a Briton stationed in India in the 18th century who noticed that the languages of most of India, descendants of Sanskrit, shared surprising similarities with Latin, Greek, and the other major languages of Europe. It had been known for some time that the languages of Europe had similarities but that could be put down to their geographical proximity. Finding a relationship far off in India was something else.
Anyway, a number of such families have since been identified. Indoeuropean remains a major one. Another one, the Semitic family includes Hebrew, Arabic, Berber, and a number of ancient languages such Egyptian and Akkadian.
Note that Hebrew is Semitic. Celtic is in a whole different family, the Indoeuropean one. That's important because all the member languages of a family are more related to each other than they are to languages in any other family.
Now, that doesn't mean that families aren't related in superfamilies. The idea is not widely accepted, but a number of scholars have pointed out underlying similarities that point to these superfamilies. Even granting their existence, superfamilies don't make family relationships go away. That's what several people have tried to do on this thread when pointing out that, for instance, Hebrew has a word for earth that looks a bit like earth. That doesn't make everything Hebrew, sorry!
The problem is that a language in one family essentially will not drift across family boundaries. The Arabs conquered Persia in the 600s AD, bringing them into the emerging Muslim empire. The Persian language, Indoeuropean at root, started absorbing Semitic Arabic loanwords at a high rate. Today it has more Arabic words than Indoeuropean. For all that, the everyday core vocabulary is still after all these hundreds of years identifiably Indoeuropean. You typically don't start using loanwords for "father," "mother," "house," "daughter," "son," etc.
The closest thing to a shift across family boundaries happens when a small population is completely absorbed in a dominant culture. That's what has happened to most of the immigrants to America, at least until La Reconquista got started.
Let's take a migrant group that typically doesn't assimilate, however. The Gypsies apparently left India around 800 AD. They've been and still are everywhere. There are several variants of the Romany dialect in several parts of the world. But they're all not only still Indoeuropean, they're all still identifiably descendants of Sanskrit. It's still an Indian linguistic subfamily, all the branches, everywhere, no matter what the dominant culture or what loanwords have been incorporated along the way. That's just the way languages change. You don't obliterate your roots.
So here's the dilemma for saying that the Hebrews became the Celts. Celtic should be in the Semitic family, far more similar to Hebrew than it is to Latin. The reverse is true. It's far more similar to Latin (or Greek, or Russian, or German, or even Sanskrit) than it is to Hebrew.
You can say that a wave of Jewish migrants went to Europe and got completely absorbed in cultures that already existed there. It's a historically unimportant non-point which does not demand evidence as it would not be expected to leave any. It won't do for your thesis about Lost Tribes becoming this other group.
The burden of proof is always on the extraordinary claim. I've seen nothing but handwaves at the absurd problems for a Lost Tribes = Celts theory.
Taken to Sumer by the refugees from the Black Sea flood, along with farming?
You: I don't see that anywhere in this thread. You're just making that up.
No, I'm not making it up. I'm encountering an self-discrediting readiness to fling irresponsible charges.
When I pointed out to W.T. that the Celts were in Europe well in advance of the event which supposedly lost the Lost Tribes, he invoked a putative earlier diaspora and cited the one from Egypt as a good candidate. Never mind that Exodus says nothing about anybody splitting off from Moses to sail across the pond.
You have the bar pretty low. A reasonably athletic gerbil could jump over it.
Of course you didn't. We all believe that, don't we?
For the record, let it show that deleted #285 contained same text as #288 plus a photo of you with your real name. ALL that information came from your FR web page, and the page which you link to from your FR web page.
All this information was supplied by you on your public web pages, for the purpose of making yourself more public. That you are now embarassed you identified yourself as "Satanic" suggests you are very very devious, perhaps even Satanic as you suggest, as are your devious non-answers throughout this thread.
You identified yourself, now live with it.
You're wishing away a few little problems you need to work out before you hit the big-time (maybe the Art Bell show?) with Lost Tribes = Celts. If I can see a few problems, probably anybody can see a few problems. Let's do a quick summary for anyone who's distracted by your latest insights from my public info:
1) Weren't the Celts and the Hebrews different, parallel groups in different parts of the world? Different everything?
2) Didn't the Celts already exist before the Lost Tribes got lost?
I would think you'd be grateful to have a chance to run this by someone who isn't already a Keeper Of Odd Knowledge. It'll give you an idea how far you're going to get with it outside of the K.O.O.K. threads.
So far I have seen myself implied a racist and called satanic. Lovely theory you've got there. The Taliban would be proud of you.
... one of the frequent posters on creation versus evolution threads, where I number among the "atheistic Satan-worshipping materialist evolutionists," to paraphrase the other side.IOW, I'm paraphrasing what I've already been called many times on other threads by various witch-burner types. Here's the joke, which those generating such nonsense always miss: "Atheistic" and "Satan-worshipping" are mutually contradictory. In fact I'm an agnostic. I could almost get religious, except I keep running into people whom God tells to do bad things.
What? Explain to me carefully why and how it relates to a liberal trick. I didn't say it was your reaction, but you have responded against it and conversation shows that you haven't studied the issue and implications of the evidence, Biblical and historical, enough to take that position. Usually, it's been my experience that when that happens, the responder is emotionally invested in his position.
It is obvious that a number of posters that actually post to a discussion like this have an emotional reaction to the notion of European types being th edescendents of the Northern Kingdom. They call it "racist", "white supremist" and compare it to the British Isrealisists and Christian Identity church. They do this without taking the slightest amount of time to search out the base evidence.
Currently, as I'm sure you've noticed, there is a movement to demonize European types. They've stolen the world's resources, enslaved the worlds people, think their culture is superior to other cultures, blah, blah. You know the rap.
One demonizes when one has no counter-argument and wants to shut down the credibility of the opposition so that lack won't become apparent. That, my friend, is a cheap liberal trick.
Are these behaviors related? What do you think? You haven't expressed an opinion, just made an allegation. And that is another cheap liberal trick. You can tell me that you have not noticed anything like this, as I said, but since you don't, it has to be presumed you have.
You can advocate anything you want about who the Celts were before they were the Celts, or who the Lost Tribes were afer they were the Lost Tribes, but make a case for it. Get off your butt! I'm not going to play that much offense here. You're the one with something to sell.
I have made a case for it in at least the last two threads. None of that case is mentioned in this response, either agreed or refuted. It's a maxim that claims unanswered must be thought of by the respondent as true.
You are the one who needs to get cracking. I, and others, have given you evidence and logical conclusions for the existance of pro-celts, language leakage and influence, cultural chances, migration paths, current LT numbers, for example. This was after your presentation. Ball's in your court.
No kidding?
The "language leakage" arguments don't hunt. For a very patient explanation, try 281. Nobody has done more on this thread than misunderstand the problem. Nothing goes away that way. It's still there for anyone with an education.
Pretending that all polytheisms are alike, all metalworking is alike, and any pre-tech society pretty much is the same as another one does more to moot your point than to prove it.
One more time:
1) Most people think the Celts and Hebrews were different groups. How is this wrong and why has no one before you loonies noticed?
2) Weren't the Celts around before the Lost Tribes went lost? If you're going to cite the Exodus from Egypt as peopling Europe with the first wave of Celts, why don't any sources--not Exodus, not the Egyptians--mention any such thing? What is the evidentiary basis for what looks like an ad hoc revision?
Mumbles and handwaves don't get it done.
You're telling me I'm a racist if I don't shut up and go along with your nutcase theory. Sounds liberal to me.
Your comment reminds me of Genesis 10:25. Here discussing the sons of Shem; And unto Eber were born two sons:the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided... To me this sounded like it had to be a major event. Whatever Peleg means in the tongue of the day it had to do with this event. When science talks of continental drift I always thought of this verse and that perhaps it was no gradual occurance. Never heard anyone expound upon this verse though.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.