I'm not going to argue language on this, quite frankly I only have a laymans knowledge of the subject. And I salute your extensive knowledge of pre-Roman Britain which is quite frankly more extensive than mine.
Thanks, though I suppose the ancient sources I used deserve more credit there than I do.
However I do live by the North Sea and as wild and as nasty as it can get I do know that it is not an insurmountable barrier to people with the appropraite boat building skills.
I think that if you say that in 300AD Germans only lived to the east of the North Sea and only Celts lived to the west of it then I think you are grossly over simplifying a possibly very complex situation. Migration across the English Channel/North Sea was probably an ongoing fact of life for most of the years since Doggerland was finally submerged. There is clear evidence that most of the tribes of eastern Britain were recent immigrants, to the south of where I live the Parisii for example were said to be recent immigrants from part of Modern France that still retains their name.
On a smaller scale if a small group of squatters set up house on some waste land that nobody wanted they would probably be left unmolested so long as they caused no trouble and paid the traditional tribute and/or taxes. You could always try to evict them but if they refused to play ball and retreated into the marshes or dense forest you might find yourself bogged down (literally) in a campaign that costing more than it's worth.
Well, I'm personally willing to actually go for a "middle ground" of sorts. It's conceivable for me that Germanic presence in Britain already started during the Roman period (say 3rd century AD onwards), but based on the absence of evidence in terms of typonomy, I find it rather unreasonable to assume there was Germanic settlement in Britain in the 2nd century AD or earlier. This leaves you with a time period of roughly 300-400 years to get the result we see as documented by Gildas - a time frame in which I would think the occuring changes are entirely plausible.
Many of the tribes you mention in your links came from parts of Gaul where there is some doubt as to the language spoken. As I stated earlier some of them come from the Belgic areas where it is not clear cut as to whether they spoke celtic or germanic or some language that has died out without trace.
This is true. However, as I stated, many of the Belgic names have readily identifiably Gaulish etymologies:
"Atrebates" - "Treba" (building or settlement, compare Welsh "tref")
"-dunum" ("town"/"fort", though "dunum" is actually the latinized form of it, in Gaulish it's actually "-dunon", compare with modern Irish "Dun" and modern Welsh "Dinas")
Eburones - "Eburo-" (yew)
Morini - "More" (sea, also found in "Aremorica" which basically means "Upon-Sea-Land")
Nemetes - "Nemeto-" (sanctuary, sacred place)
-magus ("field", compare Irish "Mag")
Based on what there is preserved in terms of toponyms, as well as deity names and personal names, I find it unreasonable to assume that these tribes did not speak a Celtic language. Occam's Razor and all that. Also, by typonomy I find it equally unreasonable to assume that there was a major difference linguistically between Gallia Celtica and Gallia Belgica.
I agree however that it is very difficult to discern exact ethnic affiliation along the entire Celtic/Germanic contact zone. We probably have a mix of Celticized Germanics, displaced Celts who originally lived beyond the right bank of the Rhine, Germanicized Celts and Germanic tribes who had recently settled in Celtic areas - all scenarios probably existed. I also wouldn't wholly rule out the possibility that there originally was a separate language that was neither Celtic nor Germanic in the approximate area of the Rhine Delta.
Last edited: