Lovely post, Karen. Impressive stuff. I'm fairly sure though, that the
Q-Celts(forebears of Irish, Scots, Manx) moved in from continental Europe
first, maybe around 3000 BCE (I think these have been associated with the
Beaker People, but I don't realy know if the is a clear correlation),
presumably displacing the aboriginal inhabitants who then became the Picti
of the slighltly less green and pleasant north (they were called the
Picti=painted ones, by the Romans - many Pictish words were absorbed into
Gaelic, and many of the place names around my home town are Pictish to this
day).
*Then*, around a thousand years later, the P-Celts (ancestors of Welsh,
Breton, Cornish) came in and dominated, being the Ancient Britons, and in
their turn pushing Q-Celtic language and culture to the margins, surviving
only on Ireland and Man(?).
The coming of the Romans, and their tendency to settle German "Foederati"
in Brittania, marginalized the P-Celts whose culture was largely effaced,
except where they in their turn now fled to the margins= the Welsh hills.
"Welsh" is an old English word meaning something like "foreigner" or "lowly
native". I'm moderately sure that the Cornish/Cornwelsh held out a bit
longer and sent emigres to what would then become Bretagne, which had, like
the rest of "France"/Gaul been Celtic speaking too, before Roman culture
and the Latin Language completely dominated, though I know not whether they
be P- or Q-Celts.
Eventually there was a gradual (5thC or so) domination of the Western
Isles of Scotland by Q-Celts, the Scots, who successfully penetrated
further east. There is almost no historical record for that place and time,
but by the 9th Century they have united to become the Kingdom of the Picts
and Scots, whose Gaelic speaking culture extended south including
Northumbria nad Westmoreland.
The ethnic shuffling did not by any means end there, but let's stop, eh?
Oddly enough preliminary genetic studies seem to show that up to 70% of
the aboriginal (i.e. pre-Celtic) genome is still in the population of the
region, suggesting the same old story of the same-cake-with-different-icing
supplanting of one ruling class by another, with the lowly peons being much
the same right through.
And now on to my next post. john
At 05:45 PM 5/23/01 -0400, you wrote:
>Just thought I'd clarify the relationship, linguistically and
>historically, between Welsh, Scottish, and Irish (and what the hell, also
>Cornish, Manx, and Breton).
>
>All are indeed Celtic languages. However, Welsh, Cornish, and Breton are
>all products of the first Celtic incursion into the British isles, which
>brought the Brythonic-rooted Celtic language to the islands, where it
>evolved into Welsh and later Cornish and Breton, thanks to the zeal of
>Dewi Sant to convert the heathen of Cornwall's and Brittany's
>not-so-distant shores.
>
>It wasn't until the second Celtic incursion that the Gaelic-rotted Celtic
>language arrived in the British Isles, where it was first established in
>Ireland, then moved - you guessed it, with missionaries - to
>Scotland and the Isle of Man, evolving into the closely related but
>essentially different Irish, Scottish, and Manx dialects of Gaelic.
>
>In addition to their much closer linguistic relationship, there is a much
>closer historical relationship between Ireland and Scotland than there is
>between either country and Wales. Indeed, the original "Scots" were
>actually the Celtic peoples of Ireland - called "Scots" by the Roman
>Britons (who knows why?) who considered them another annoying thorn in the
>side of Pax Romana (it was the Picts who were the native inhabitants of
>Scotland at the time). In the 500s, the "Scots" of Ireland sent their
>missionaries to convert the heathen in the Western Isles of Scotland, and
>the rest is linguistic history. (Saint Columba, the chiefest among those
>Irish Scots missionaries, also spread the word - and language - into
>Northumbria, but it didn't "take" long term there.)
>
>The Welsh, who I believe are essentially a gentler, more warm-blooded race
>:) never made missionary overtures to the islands to their
>north. Instead, Wales' evangelising Saint David (aka Dewi Sant) set his
>sights southward, spreading the Word - and by extension his
>Brythonic-rooted tongue - to Cornwall and Brittany. Though Cornish has
>died out, Breton has survived the ages, a charming version of Welsh with a
>French accent.
>
>Of course, there is another consideration when it comes to deciding
>whether to sing Irish, Welsh, or anything but Scottish music at your
>Kirking of the Clans. Since the death of Mary, Queen of Scots, the Scots
>have been a fervently *Protestant* people. In this, they actually have
>much more in common with the Welsh than with the profoundly (one might
>even say primitively) Catholic Irish, though the Scots have tended to be
>Calvinists, Presbyterians, and Church of Scotland (i.e., Anglican), while
>the Welsh have tended toward Chapel (Methodist) and Church of England
>(also Anglican, but with a different accent). I mention this because it's
>likely that the sentiments of any Irish sacred text set to music are
>likely to be entirely too "papist" for Scottish consumption.
>
>Then also think about the nature of the event. It's *VERY* Scottish. I'd
>be extremely hesitant to sing anything that isn't also *very* Scottish at
>an event that is so strongly and clearly celebrating SCOTTISH culture.
>You'd be far better off just singing a hymn by the great Scottish
>hymnodist Horatius Bonar - in the absence of a more sophisticated choice -
>than to go looking around for an Irish, Welsh, or English song. By the
>way, there's a page devoted to Bonar and his hymns in the Cyberhymnal at:
>
>http://www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/b/o/bonar_h.htm
>
>Or you might consider singing "O God, Thou art the Father" - which was
>originally written by Saint Columba, the Christianiser of Scotland, and
>later translated by the very Scottish poet Duncan Macgregor, albeit sung
>to the tune "Aurelia" by the very English Samuel Sebastian Wesley, a
>member of the notorious Wesley clan of chronic hymnodists.
>
>Another Scottish hymnodist of note was John Ross Macduff.
>
>Karen Mercedes
>............................
>NEIL SHICOFF, TENORE SUPREMO
>http://www.radix.net/~dalila/shicoff/shicoff.html
>
>My Own Website
>http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
>
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> + I sing hymns with my spirit, +
> + but I also sing hymns with my mind. +
> + - 1 Corinthians 14:15 +
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
>
>
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
John Blyth
Baritono robusto e lirico
Brandon, Manitoba, Canada
|
|  |
