Surviving Continental Celtic languages?

Maoistic

Banned
Please prove it. You've not provided any evidence of policy to eliminate Gauls who accept Roman rule following occupation.
There doesn't have to be a written policy. Just the fact that the Romans initially killed over 1 million Gauls (and mass enslavement of a million more, which I already linked but you have ignored) and then imposed Roman culture, replacing Celtic religion with Roman religion and persecuting Druids, not to mention the repressive expeditions whenever there were revolts such as that of Vindex, is more than enough to show that there was a genocide, both physical and cultural, that destroyed the Celtic language. Sure, it survived for some centuries more, but as a minority language that could no longer withstand the continued assaults made by Latin. The same thing happened to Phoenician, to put another prominent example.
 
There doesn't have to be a written policy. Just the fact that the Romans initially killed over 1 million Gauls (and mass enslavement of a million more, which I already linked but you have ignored) and then imposed Roman culture, replacing Celtic religion with Roman religion and persecuting Druids, not to mention the repressive expeditions whenever there were revolts such as that of Vindex, is more than enough to show that there was a genocide, both physical and cultural, that destroyed the Celtic language. Sure, it survived for some centuries more, but as a minority language that could no longer withstand the continued assaults made by Latin. The same thing happened to Phoenician, to put another prominent example.
None of these are of persecution both after occupation and of Gauls accepting Roman rule and thus don't back up your original claim. I notice despite the same persecution of Druids, whose religion was opposed to Roman rule, in Britannia you aren't claiming the Romans drove them to extinction.
 

Maoistic

Banned
None of these are of persecution both after occupation and of Gauls accepting Roman rule and thus don't back up your original claim. I notice despite the same persecution of Druids, whose religion was opposed to Roman rule, in Britannia you aren't claiming the Romans drove them to extinction.
Because we're debating here about the continental Celts, not the insular ones. And how they don't back up my original claim that the Romans drove the Celts to extinction. Again, you only repeat the same thing without actually providing any argument and not addressing mine. I'm tired of repeating the same things like Caesar slaying 1 million Celts at a time - 1 in 5 -, which is the purest form of genocide there can be and pointing out to the extirpation of the Druids or the violent imposition of Roman rule and culture on top of that. At this point you're just in denial that the Romans committed mass genocide on the Celts.
 
Because we're debating here about the continental Celts, not the insular ones. And how they don't back up my original claim that the Romans drove the Celts to extinction. Again, you only repeat the same thing without actually providing any argument and not addressing mine. I'm tired of repeating the same things like Caesar slaying 1 million Celts at a time - 1 in 5 -, which is the purest form of genocide there can be and pointing out to the extirpation of the Druids or the violent imposition of Roman rule and culture on top of that. At this point you're just in denial that the Romans committed mass genocide on the Celts.
I am not disputing Caesar!
I am disputing your claim that "the Romans drove the Celts to extinction"
You've not addressed that. Saying "Caesar Caesar Caesar!" and "Druids!" does not say anything on genocide on LOYAL Gauls POST CONQUEST.
All you've provided is proof of decimation and ethnic cleansing to turn Gallia from independent territories into a loyal province or two. Not one to eliminate Gaulish as a spoken language.
 
Celtic culture and languages survived in Gaul and Roman Britian to an extent (Britain moreso than Gaul). Not everyone in Roman Gaul spoke Latin.

Gaulish as a languate survived until the 5th century AD. After four centuries of Roman rule. Which meant that it was not extinct during the first three centuries of Roman rule. St Jerome mentioned in the late 4th century that it was still spoken, that the language of the Belgic Treveri was similar to the language spoken in Galatia rather than to Latin. So all you have to do is to prevent the final extinction during the fifth century, during 400s A.D.

Since the OP only mentions survival, all you have to do is to keep one single locality to continually speak Gaulish rather than transitioning to Vulgar Latin in the fifth century.

That should be very doable.

When did Continental Celtic go extinct? Is it possible to find out?
 

Maoistic

Banned
I am not disputing Caesar!
I am disputing your claim that "the Romans drove the Celts to extinction"
You've not addressed that. Saying "Caesar Caesar Caesar!" and "Druids!" does not say anything on genocide on LOYAL Gauls POST CONQUEST.
All you've provided is proof of decimation and ethnic cleansing to turn Gallia from independent territories into a loyal province or two. Not one to eliminate Gaulish as a spoken language.
Yes it does because the Gallian population was utterly decimated. Aside from killing 1/5th of it, we have another fifth enslaved which would have included high mortality rates, effectively eliminating 2 million people, leaving the rest of the population to suffer from periodic punitive expeditions, continual slavery and extirpation of their religion, which as I've shown happened during the time Gaul was already a secured Roman territory. Those things turned Gaulish into a minority language that eventually disappeared and got replaced with Latin, with the Celtic identity also becoming extinct.
 
Yes it does because the Gallian population was utterly decimated. Aside from killing 1/5th of it, we have another fifth enslaved which would have included high mortality rates, effectively eliminating 2 million people, leaving the rest of the population to suffer from periodic punitive expeditions, continual slavery and extirpation of their religion, which as I've shown happened during the time Gaul was already a secured Roman territory. Those things turned Gaulish into a minority language that eventually disappeared and got replaced with Latin, with the Celtic identity also becoming extinct.
I'm beginning to think you are deliberately misunderstanding me.
You've not shown anything about loyal Gauls at all.
Offer me ANYTHING about loyal Gauls being genocided after Gaul is Roman. Loyal Gauls, not rebellious Druids or those fighting against the conquest.
Give me that and I'll accept your claim.


Apologies to everyone else in this thread for the derailment this argument with Maoistic has had.
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
Gaulish is believed to have died out about the year 500. Not sure about the others.

The latest date I've ever seen claimed was 9th century in Switzerland, my own money would be on the early or mid-7th. However, there is a reasonably strong body of evidence for a Gaulish influence on Vannetais Breton, and there is quite a late monastery, with a Gaulish name near there. It may not be entirely true to say continental Celtic died out.

Re. the rest. It's not the case that for a language to die out, a people must be exterminated. It does happen, but it is much more common for people to change languages due to changing sociolinguistic environments. Yes this involves the domination of one culture by another, but it is not the elimination of that people, or even that culture. The Gaulish language almost certainly outlived the Western Roman empire, so to say that Roman "genocide" was to blame for its extinction is absurd. The culture and politics of the Early Middle Ages in Gaul was in large part a continuation of an evolved Roman culture, and it was in that environment that the Gaulish language died. But this complex and long-lasting diglossic situation can not be reduced to "Caesar committed genocide so Gaulish died out".
 
The definition includes "in part". So I'm actually right.

Actually, if you read the whole thing, you'd see towards the bottom that the site specifically highlights Article II of the Genocide Convention incorporated by the UN, which specifies "dolus specialis" (special intent) as essential in determining whether a mass killing was genocide or not.

Quit shifting goalposts and either put up or shut up. You wanna make specious claims about an anachronistic concept like genocide committed by the Romans, cite some actual sources. Otherwise your concession is accepted, and we can actually discuss the OP.

EDIT: I always found the notion of a pocket of Celtic Helvetica (in whole or part) fascinating. Granted it's a bit close to Cisalpine Italia, but also easily cut off from outside influence (witness Romanian's survival in an otherwise Slavic zone).
 
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Even lack of Roman conquest do not guarantee Gaulish language survival. Very likely expanding Germanic tribes would replace/assimilate Celts of Gaul sooner or later like they did in Southern Germany/Bohemia.
 
Even lack of Roman conquest do not guarantee Gaulish language survival. Very likely expanding Germanic tribes would replace/assimilate Celts of Gaul sooner or later like they did in Southern Germany/Bohemia.

But Gaul/France never switched to Germanic, even though they were conquered by the Franks. Of course, the fact that Latin was a prestige language was important, but even if the Germanic invasions had not been butterflied by an independent Gaul, it seems unlikely that the entire Gaul would switch to Germanic. After all, in OTL, you have minority languages like Breton and Basque surviving in parts of France. Similarly, in Britain, the Insular Celtic languages have survived. I see no reason why the same could not have happened with Continental Celtic if Gaul had not been conquered by the Romans.
 
But Gaul/France never switched to Germanic, even though they were conquered by the Franks. Of course, the fact that Latin was a prestige language was important, but even if the Germanic invasions had not been butterflied by an independent Gaul, it seems unlikely that the entire Gaul would switch to Germanic. After all, in OTL, you have minority languages like Breton and Basque surviving in parts of France. Similarly, in Britain, the Insular Celtic languages have survived. I see no reason why the same could not have happened with Continental Celtic if Gaul had not been conquered by the Romans.
Southern Germany switched from Celtic to Germanic, Bohemia too (before Longobards left Bohemia during early 6th Century this area was Germanic). Ceasar already fought Germanic Ariovistus in Gaul. Other leaders would follow Ariovistus' example and move into Gaul territory without Roman rule over Gaul.
 
There is a view that South of France was always Italic Speaking..similar to the belief that parts of britain was always germanic.

I thought the northernmost parts of Italy (Gallia Cisalpina) was Celtic-speaking before the Romans?

Southern Germany switched from Celtic to Germanic, Bohemia too (before Longobards left Bohemia during early 6th Century this area was Germanic). Ceasar already fought Germanic Ariovistus in Gaul. Other leaders would follow Ariovistus' example and move into Gaul territory without Roman rule over Gaul.

That doesn´t mean that Continental Celtic would be wiped out entirely in Gaul with a Germanic invasion.
 
I thought the northernmost parts of Italy (Gallia Cisalpina) was Celtic-speaking before the Romans?



That doesn´t mean that Continental Celtic would be wiped out entirely in Gaul even with a Germanic invasion.

The people that believe that parts of southern france is italic also believe that the celtic languages in Gallia Cisalpina are italic..basically Gallia Narbonensis and Gallia Cisalpina are transition zones between Celtic and Italic.
 

Artaxerxes

Banned
The people that believe that parts of southern france is italic also believe that the celtic languages in Gallia Cisalpina are italic..basically Gallia Narbonensis and Gallia Cisalpina are transition zones between Celtic and Italic.


One of the more frustrating aspects of this topic and the Anglo Saxon Vs Romano-British topic that's further down the page is we have no sources to what languages the average person spoke, and which they considered primary.
 
Even lack of Roman conquest do not guarantee Gaulish language survival. Very likely expanding Germanic tribes would replace/assimilate Celts of Gaul sooner or later like they did in Southern Germany/Bohemia.
The difference between Germanic and Celtic in this period is a distinction without a difference, one created by Caesar to justify stopping at the Rhine rather than based on any actual difference between the people on either side of the Rhine.
 
The difference between Germanic and Celtic in this period is a distinction without a difference, one created by Caesar to justify stopping at the Rhine rather than based on any actual difference between the people on either side of the Rhine.
What do you mean by that? Do you mean there was no difference in self-identification, linguistic, cultural, religious etc. or what specific combination of those?
 
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