Surviving Continental Celtic languages?

Yes, languages change but they still retain a certain structure. Spanish is far more similar to Latin than Irish or Welsh is. The Italo-Celtic languages quickly branched off from each other so that Gaulish wasn't really similar to Latin. At best, it was as similar as modern German is similar to modern English, and absolutely nothing like the similarity between Old Saxon and Old English which were virtually the same language.
I respectfully disagree. Old (Continental) Saxon and Old English were not the same language. My use of it was to show that a lot of the differences between Gaulish and Latin were of regular sound change eg os endings in Gaulish where Latin had us, b where Latin had qu etc. There's a good summary of Gaulish vs Latin in Empire of the Word which explains it far more eloquently and succinctly than I can.

And you call the killing of over 1 million Gauls by Caesar "odd ethnic cleansing"? For God's sake, Caesar killed 1 in 5 Gauls (seeing how the population of Gaul at that time was about 1/10th of the current population of France). You can't call that mere "ethnic cleansing" and adding the adjective "odd" on top of that instead of genocide. The fact that the Romans kept perpetrating occasional massacres and exploited the area through slavery, not to mention their anti-Druid policies and cultural impositions, buries your notion of a relatively peaceful end to the continental Celtic culture even more.
Rather than get into a disruptive discussion on what counts as genocide can we at least agree that the Romans were more concerned with cultural superiority/dominance than lineage?
 
Rather than get into a disruptive discussion on what counts as genocide can we at least agree that the Romans were more concerned with cultural superiority/dominance than lineage?

There was no active policy of cultural superiority or dominance. Political dominance, yes, but druids aside, there was no active policy to prohibit Celts from speaking their language, or to stop being Celts, as long they acknowledged Roman rule.
 
There was no active policy of cultural superiority or dominance. Political dominance, yes, but druids aside, there was no active policy to prohibit Celts from speaking their language, or to stop being Celts, as long they acknowledged Roman rule.
Thanks for the (minor) correction. My point was to show that there were no deliberate administrative policies to wipe out Celts based solely on their race.
 

Maoistic

Banned
I respectfully disagree. Old (Continental) Saxon and Old English were not the same language. My use of it was to show that a lot of the differences between Gaulish and Latin were of regular sound change eg os endings in Gaulish where Latin had us, b where Latin had qu etc. There's a good summary of Gaulish vs Latin in Empire of the Word which explains it far more eloquently and succinctly than I can.


Rather than get into a disruptive discussion on what counts as genocide can we at least agree that the Romans were more concerned with cultural superiority/dominance than lineage?
You're going to have to try harder than just give me the title of the book. And you keep ignoring the fact that Caesar alone killed over a million Celts, which no matter how you try to spin it is genocide. And you're fallacious in thinking that genocide and dominance are mutually exclusive when both commonly go hand in hand, even if the ruling and dominant side does not see its actions as genocidal.
 
You're going to have to try harder than just give me the title of the book. And you keep ignoring the fact that Caesar alone killed over a million Celts, which no matter how you try to spin it is genocide. And you're fallacious in thinking that genocide and dominance are mutually exclusive when both commonly go hand in hand, even if the ruling and dominant side does not see its actions as genocidal.
You're the poster who claimed that the Romans drove the Celts to extinction:
The reason the Celts didn't survive is because the Romans drove them to extinction, simple as that.
I'm disputing that. Let's not shift the goalposts here.
 

Maoistic

Banned
You're the poster who claimed that the Romans drove the Celts to extinction. I'm disputing that. Let's not shift the goalposts here.
I'm not shifting any goalposts. The Romans did drive the Celts to extinction, which is why their language disappeared. I already clarified I don't mean the Romans literally killed every single Celt, but their mass killing coupled with repression obliterated their culture, something you keep ignoring and are not addressing, just repeating over and over that the Romans didn't commit genocide on them.
 
I'm not shifting any goalposts. The Romans did drive the Celts to extinction, which is why their language disappeared. I already clarified I don't mean the Romans literally killed every single Celt, but their mass killing coupled with repression obliterated their culture, something you keep ignoring and are not addressing, just repeating over and over that the Romans didn't commit genocide on them.
*sigh*
The Romans occupied Britain and did not drive them to extinction.
The Romans did not wipe out the Gauls when Gaul was occupied.
The reasons that Latin replaced Gaulish was not because all the Gauls were killed.
Latin replaced Gaulish due to prestige, similarity of language, and administrative dominance.
Yes, administrative dominance will have involved suppression of rebels but Gauls that accepted Roman rule (ie not rebels) were not targeted with suppression/oppression/repression or extinction.

You are claiming that any Celt under Roman rule was killed if they spoke their native tongue, that they were deliberately targeted because of that. That is inaccurate.
 

Maoistic

Banned
*sigh*
The Romans occupied Britain and did not drive them to extinction.
The Romans did not wipe out the Gauls when Gaul was occupied.
The reasons that Latin replaced Gaulish was not because all the Gauls were killed.
Latin replaced Gaulish due to prestige, similarity of language, and administrative dominance.
Yes, administrative dominance will have involved suppression of rebels but Gauls that accepted Roman rule (ie not rebels) were not targeted with suppression/oppression/repression or extinction.

You are claiming that any Celt under Roman rule was killed if they spoke their native tongue, that they were deliberately targeted because of that. That is inaccurate.
You keep repeating the same things over and over without addressing the mass killings, cultural imposition and general repression of their culture. There was no language policy but there was still a general policy of forced Romanisation that with Caesar alone included the deaths of 1 million Celts, which again, you keep ignoring. That is genocide and is indeed wiping them out. You're so desperate that you even bring the insular Celts despite the fact that we're discussing the continental Celts.
 
You keep repeating the same things over and over without addressing the mass killings, cultural imposition and general repression of their culture. There was no language policy but there was still a general policy of forced Romanisation that with Caesar alone included the deaths of 1 million Celts, which again, you keep ignoring. That is genocide and is indeed wiping them out. You're so desperate that you even bring the insular Celts despite the fact that we're discussing the continental Celts.
You keep only mentioning Caesar in his wars to occupy the lands of the Gauls.
I included the Britons because you did not declare your phrase only applied to continental Celts in general or specifically the Gauls.
Even if you are saying "the Romans drove the Gauls to extinction" perhaps you can point me to any policy after the occupation of Gaul where Gauls submitting to Roman authority were targeted with extinction.
 
If I may interject I do think it is noteworthy to mention how the Romans within the confines of Britannia sought to eradicate the druids. The defeat of the druids at Anglesey gives clear reference to the intentions of the Romans imho - they were clearly capable of committing genocidal acts in order to destroy any overt challenge to their power. Whether Rome consciously decided to destroy Celtic culture is a difficult question to fully answer but with my limited knowledge of continental Celtic history I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the case. However it is true that Gaulish survived as a language throughout the roman period which suggests that any roman attempt at Celtic cultural destruction was ultimately unsuccessful or more likely Rome was more concerned with power and wealth acquisition than Celtic annihilation.
 

Maoistic

Banned
You keep only mentioning Caesar in his wars to occupy the lands of the Gauls.
I included the Britons because you did not declare your phrase only applied to continental Celts in general or specifically the Gauls.
Even if you are saying "the Romans drove the Gauls to extinction" perhaps you can point me to any policy after the occupation of Gaul where Gauls submitting to Roman authority were targeted with extinction.
Genocide doesn't need to consciously include the end of completely exterminating a people, such as a conscious policy (although there was a conscious policy of Romanisation as you can see by the construction of Roman temples and amphitheatres, the imposition of a Roman government with Latin-speaking officials, and the periodical massacres and persecutions of Celts and Druids). You're basically applying the same arguments used by the Armenian genocide deniers that the Ottomans didn't consciously try to exterminate the Armenians when that's not the point. Mass killing alone is enough for it to qualify as genocide, alongside or followed by other measures such as mass slavery and mass repression.
 
Genocide doesn't need to consciously include the end of completely exterminating a people, such as a conscious policy (although there was a conscious policy of Romanisation as you can see by the construction of Roman temples and amphitheatres, the imposition of a Roman government with Latin-speaking officials, and the periodical massacres and persecutions of Celts and Druids). You're basically applying the same arguments used by the Armenian genocide deniers that the Ottomans didn't consciously try to exterminate the Armenians when that's not the point. Mass killing alone is enough for it to qualify as genocide, alongside or followed by other measures such as mass slavery and mass repression.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think anyone is trying to defend Caesar's actions in Gaul. He certainly committed war crimes as we would now understand. Rather, people are suggesting that his massacres are not alone the reason why the Gaulish language became extinct, as the majority of the Gauls survived and continued to speak their language for a few more centuries.
 
The surviving Celtic languages in the present day are Welsh, Irish, Breton, Scottish Gaelic, Cornish, and Manx. These are all Insular Celtic languages.

How could we get some of the Continental Celtic languages, like Gaulish or Galatian, to survive?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Celtic_languages

As long as you don´t come up with the earliest allowed POD, this is very simple. Avoid a Roman conquest of Gaul. You might even go back to the early fourth century BC and let the Gauls crush Rome entirely. This way Celtic might flourish in Italy as well. Of course, the later the POD, the more difficult to keep Continental Celtic alive. I would suggest that you rephrase the question. "What would be the latest possible POD which could ensure a Continental Celtic language to survive until the present?" I would assume that if Continental Celtic had survived in present-day Brittany (Armorica), it would have had a fair chance to survive until the present, as Insular Celtic have managed to survive here from the fourth century AD until the present.
 
Genocide doesn't need to consciously include the end of completely exterminating a people, such as a conscious policy (although there was a conscious policy of Romanisation as you can see by the construction of Roman temples and amphitheatres, the imposition of a Roman government with Latin-speaking officials, and the periodical massacres and persecutions of Celts and Druids). You're basically applying the same arguments used by the Armenian genocide deniers that the Ottomans didn't consciously try to exterminate the Armenians when that's not the point. Mass killing alone is enough for it to qualify as genocide, alongside or followed by other measures such as mass slavery and mass repression.

Emphasis mine: Actually, it really does need to for it to count. Here, check the UN definition while you're at it.
 

Maoistic

Banned
Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think anyone is trying to defend Caesar's actions in Gaul. He certainly committed war crimes as we would now understand. Rather, people are suggesting that his massacres are not alone the reason why the Gaulish language became extinct, as the majority of the Gauls survived and continued to speak their language for a few more centuries.
And that's what I'm disputing. It's certain that without the Roman conquest and genocide of Gauls, their language wouldn't have died out.
 
The definition includes "in part". So I'm actually right.
Without making anyone else wrong. That's the problem you're having. It's not a dichotomy.

And that's what I'm disputing. It's certain that without the Roman conquest and genocide of Gauls, their language wouldn't have died out.
Actually no. If the Roman administration in the century following occupation had failed it's altogether possible that Gaulish would survive and evolve.

All in all, perhaps a better analogy to help you understand would be the Han administration of China.
 

Maoistic

Banned
Without making anyone else wrong. That's the problem you're having. It's not a dichotomy.


Actually no. If the Roman administration in the century following occupation had failed it's altogether possible that Gaulish would survive and evolve.

All in all, perhaps a better analogy to help you understand would be the Han administration of China.


Way to go with saying exactly what I'm saying. Roman rule is what drove the Gaulish language to extinction, through genocide both physical and cultural.
 
Way to go with saying exactly what I'm saying. Roman rule is what drove the Gaulish language to extinction, through genocide both physical and cultural.
Please prove it. You've not provided any evidence of policy to eliminate Gauls who accept Roman rule following occupation.
 
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