mothed out wrote:
> Michael O'Neill wrote:
>> mothed out wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>> There were definately seafaring
>>> and cultural links, as you surmise,
>>> between that South West British
>>> culture and Brittany. In fact the
>>> presence of the Breton culture on
>>> the Breton peninsular is due to the
>>> invasion/colonisation of the region
>>> by Celtic-British people around the
>>> 3rd century AD in the wake of the
>>> collapse of Roman power.
>> Its getting so that Wikipedia is smothering online discussion, but here
>> goes nothing...
>>
>> From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornwall
>>
>>
>> =============================================
>> The first account of Cornwall comes from the Sicilian Greek historian
>> Diodorus Siculus (c.90 BC-c.30 BC), supposedly quoting or paraphrasing
>> the fourth-century BC geographer Pytheas, who had sailed to Britain:
>>
>> The inhabitants of that part of Britain called Belerion or the
>> Land's End] from their intercourse with foreign merchants, are
civilised
>> in their manner of life. They prepare the tin, working very carefully
the
>> earth in which it is produced...Here then the
>> merchants buy the tin from the natives and carry it over to Gaul,
>> and after travelling overland for about thirty days, they finally bring
>> their loads on horses to the mouth of the Rhône.[5]
>>
>> Who these merchants were is not known. There is no evidence for the
>> theory that they were Phoenicians.[6]
>>
>> Julius Caesar was the last classical writer to mention the tin trade,
>> which appears to have declined during the Roman occupation
>> =============================================
>>
>> The relevant phrase appears to be:
>>
>> "merchants buy the tin from the natives and carry it over to Gaul"
>>
>> this suggests pre-Roman commerce between Cornwall and Brittany.
>>
>
>
> Definately - seafaring trade in various goods would have been going on
> well before the Roman era, certainly in the Bronze age, perhaps even
> before.
>
> Mind you, trade and other commerce between areas obviously doesn't
> necessarily mean that the general populations of the trading
> populations shared a common language, or one with such a strikingly
> close relation****p, prior to the existence of the historic kingdom of
> Brittany, though I've no doubt that links and contact go back into the
> mists of time. There seems to have been some pretty significant events,
> in particular, the establishment of a Kingdom placed under the control
> of a king whose powerbase was on the island of Britain, which would
> have had a big effect on the language of the region.
> The history of the time seems to be a bit obscure, but the
> establishment of the Breton kingdom appears to be connected with the
> political and military enterprises of a Romano-British warlord in the
> 4th century whose name is styled in Latin as 'Magnus Maximus'. Various
> sources suggest Maximus himself was of Spanish origin, but had been
> declared 'king of the Britons'.
> He seems to have had ambitions to control the whole Western Roman
> Empire, and various different do***ents I have googled ****tray him as
> taking part in war in Gaul and various parts of the fragmenting Western
> Roman Empire, but at some point establi****ng for the first time a
> kingdom named Brittany and putting it under the control of one of his
> sup****ters/sponsors/allies (?) called Cynan in Welsh or Conan in
> English - one source I have browsed connecting him with influence in
> what is now Wales. This was apparently accompanied by a migration of
> people from Britain, [at least, according to Wikipedia : ) ] , with
> some legend/oral trad referring displacement of the existing
> language(s). There's surely a considerable likelihood that the
> establishment of a language so very close to British languages such as
> Cornish and Welsh was indeed connected to migration of people from the
> island of Britain and the establishment of a kingdom placed under the
> control of an ally/client/sup****ter of the putative 'king of the
> Britons' of that time. The naming of the kingdom 'Brittany' or
> 'little Britain', and fact that the king, Cynan, seems to have been
> connected to what is now Wales, and the extreme closeness of the
> languages which you cite seem to point to something like this
> happening.
>
>
>> More than that, from a study of shared words in the language at
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornish_language
>>
>> we see that; -
>>
>> =============================================
>> The Cornish language (in Cornish: Kernowek, Kernewek, Curnoack) is one
of
>> the Brythonic group of Celtic languages (Brythonic also includes Welsh,
>> Breton, the extinct ***bric and perhaps the hypothetical Ivernic). The
>> Celtic languages of Scottish
>> Gaelic, Irish and Manx are part of the separate Goidelic group. Cornish
>> shares about 80% basic vocabulary with Breton, 75% with Welsh, 35% with
>> Irish, and 35% with Scottish Gaelic. By comparison, Welsh shares about
>> 70% with Breton. Cornish continued
>> to function as a community language until the late 18th century, and
was
>> again revived early in the 20th century. As of 2006, it has been
>> estimated that currently around 3,500 speak Cornish to a basic
>> conversational level, and around 500 fluently.[1] . Perhaps a
>> score or more children and young adults can be considered native
speakers
>> of Revived Cornish. [citation needed]
>> =============================================
>>
>> This suggests closer historical links with Britanny than even the
nearby
>> Welsh coastal areas and emphasises the shared and seafaring naturel of
>> the culture, which was probably based on trade.
>>
>> M.
>
Very interesting discussion. I am cross-posting it on the Cornish and
Breton newsgroups.
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