Ciaran wrote:
> 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.
Speaking of Conan/Conwy (inpiration for King Arthur ?), when I visited
Breizh (Brittany) I met a young French lady who told me she was going to
the place where King Arthur and the round table really existed. It lies
in a forested part of central Brittany. His exploits expanding the
Breton kingdom eastwards tally nicely with the military success
atrributed to Arthur and the knights of the round table (speaking of
which Breton knights were apparently the main component of the Norman
Conquest army and the Norman royal line was part Breton - more of an
inpiration for Arthurian legend ?).
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