alternatehistory.com

"Moreover, of the nine branches into which the living Indo-European languages are divided (or eight, if one takes Balto-Slavonic as a single branch), only one branch, Celtic, is not represented in the U.S.S.R...." https://books.google.com/books?id=QTU7AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA142

"The Soviet Union was host to a large number of genetically and typologically diverse languages. ... In fact, all branches of Indo-European *except Celtic* [my emphasis--DT] were spoken on Soviet territory." https://books.google.com/books?id=WUeWBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA8

OK, so the challenge is obvious: get a Celtic language spoken on the territory of the Russian Empire and its successor state the USSR.

I can think of two possibilities:

(1) A very ancient POD: "The Galatians were a Celtic people that dwelt mainly in the north central regions of Asia Minor or Anatolia, in what was known as Galatia, in today's Turkey. In their origin they were a part of the great Celtic migration which invaded Macedon, led by Brennus. The original Celts who settled in Galatia came through Thrace under the leadership of Leotarios and Leonnorios c. 278 BC. These Celts consisted mainly of three tribes, the Tectosages, the Trocmii, and the Tolistobogii, but they were also other minor tribes. They spoke a Celtic language, the Galatian language, which is sparsely attested." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galatians_(people) Can we have some of them make their way to the Caucasus? They might have better chances of survival as a separate people in that mountainous area than they did in Asia Minor.

(2) A more modern possibility: Catherine the Great establishes Irish-speaking colonies in New Russia (after all, she invited lots of other European ethnic groups to settle there). They are later reinforced with new arrivals after the Irish potato famine.

I know, incidentally, that Yuzovka (later Stalino, later Donetsk) was founded by a Welshman, the businessman and mining engineer John Hughes, after whom it was named. "By 1900, when John Hughes had died and the factories were run by his sons, twenty-two Welshmen, some with their families, were recorded as living at Yuzovka." http://tinyurl.com/jlhjez7 But I'm not sure that they spoke Welsh, and even if they did they would not be numerous enough to count for my purposes.

Any other ideas? There used to be a theory that the Cimmerians were proto-Celts (from the resemblance to "Cimbri"--though it's actually not clear whether the Cimbri were Celtic or Germanic, anyway) but that seems pretty much discredited. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimmerians
Top