Talk:Belgae

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Contents 1 Language of the Belgae tribes 2 Caucasian or Assyrian? 3 John Raciti's Belgae DNA Modal & Nordic-Celtic Project 4 Geography

[edit] Language of the Belgae tribes

In Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars, he clearly labels at least 5 Belgic tribes as fully Germanii. The Nervii, Atuatuci, Eburones, Condrusi and Paemani.Another 11 are described as being related to the Germanii. German linguist Harold Kuhn found very limited Celtic place names North of the Seine in Belgica. Oxford Proffesor David Evans, in Gaulish Personal names, admits that Belgica was probably not Celtic overall. Do we agree that several Belgic tribes spoke Germanic and not Celtic? Can we take Julius Caesar as the best 1st hand reference to Belgica? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.4.14.251 (talk) 19:36, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Caesar labels exactly four tribes as Germani (not Germanii, that's a misspelling) - the Eburones, Condrusi, Caerosi and Paemani - but it is not clear from the text that he means that linguistically. Ambiorix, the rebel of the Eburones who Caesar says were unambiguously Germanic, has an unabiguously Celtic name. Caesar also makes a clear distinction between the Belgae, who had Germanic ancestry, and the Germani themselves, and he can't simply be speaking geographically as he says the Menapii had lands on both sides of the Rhine.

Tacitus later says that the Nervii and Treveri claimed Germanic rather than Gaulish ancestry - and is clearly not referring to language. The picture that emerges from Caesar and the other classical authors is of a group of peoples of Germanic (whether linguistic or merely geographic) origin who by classical times were speaking a variety of Celtic. This is not unusual - the Normans were of Scandinavian origin but were speaking French very soon after they settled in France. Language is not genetic. --Nicknack009 (talk) 09:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Ambiorix is often given as an example of a Celtic leader of the Eburones, however Ambio is a Germanic root with a Celtic suffix added. This simply showed that the Germanic Belgic tribes viewed Celtic as an elite culture/language to copy. The fact Caesar tells us many were Germanic can only be based on language, Caesar would have known little of their history. Remember that the French ruled England for centuries with French names, but the language never caught on. It is to do with numbers. The number of Elite Celts in the Belgic areas was never enough for the language to catch on. To conclude that the majority of Common Belgae spoke Celt just doesn't hold. It is only a possibility. The Topynomy of Belgic Gaul is overwhelmingly Germanic, and Topynomy is higher in hiearchy to both Archaeology and History.

See a very in depth analysis of Belgic languages by Luc Van Durme at http://www.multilingual-matters.net/jmmd/023/0009/jmmd0230009.pdf --92.4.20.80 (talk) 08:14, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Caesar certainly wasn't going by language, he was going by what the Gauls told him of their history - see De Bello Gallico, 2.3-4. Other than that, I don't think we're in total disagreement. I think it's fairly clear that the Belgae were on the interface between Celtic and Germanic - and different enough from both the Galli/Celtae and the Germani not to be considered either. Caesar also draws a distinction between those Belgic groups who were actually Germani, and the majority who were mostly descended from the Germani, and in this I think he is making a linguistic distinction, because he doesn't include the Menapii among the Germani, even though he does say they had lands east of the Rhine. So it's likely that the four he names as Germani were speaking Germanic, while the rest of them weren't.

The distinction between the elite and the farming population is also an important one. I think that when Caesar speaks of, say, the Menapii or the Nervii or whichever group, he's probably only referring to a ruling aristocratic clan - similar to the early medieval Irish dynasties like the Uí Néill - rather than an ethnic group that included all strata of society. When he wiped out the Eburones, and we later find the Tungri attested in the same area, I don't think that means he exterminated the entire population of the area and another ethnic group moved in to replace them - I think he wiped out the extended family whose members dominated the region and from whom their kings were chosen, and another local aristocratic family filled the vaccuum. The peasant population stayed the same, and just paid their protection money to a new lot of robber barons.

It was also usually only the elite who raided and settled. We know that Belgic groups raided and settled in Britain in the century or so before Caesar's time, and we know they didn't take a Germanic language with them, so the elite at least were speaking Celtic by then. But Germanic toponymy doesn't necessarily mean that the farming population still spoke Germanic - many river names in England are of Celtic origin, and Celtic hasn't been spoken there for nearly 2,000 years, so it's perfectly possible for people in the Belgic region to have adopted a Celtic language and retained older, Germanic placenames. As I understand it, although Caesar says the Celtae and the Belgae had different languages, linguists have been unable to find any identifiable difference in the language of inscriptions in Celtic and Belgic Gaul (or in Britain). Toponyms will give you the oldest available evidence, but inscriptions will tell you what language was spoken at the time they were written. --Nicknack009 (talk) 10:51, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Thats a good analysis, I'd agree with the Elite certainly being Celtic, and agree that the "Germanic" element could indeed be pre-Celtic-Germanic aboriginal being squeezed in between, we dont know. The question is whether the Belgae as a whole can be referred to as "Celtic". I think that pure label is misleading and they should at best be referred to as "Celticised" or as hybrid-Celts. After all the Welsh are Anglicised, and are still being Anglicised by you cant call them English. The objection I have to calling them Celts is, at a glance many people see the "Celtic" label and are not aware of their clear independance and distinction from true Celtic tribes (possibly as well as German ones). The distinction is important due to the clear Belgic connections of South Coast England(The Saxon coast), and the hypothesis that they could well have spoken a non-celtic proto-English prior to the Roman invasion.

(With regard to British Celtic inscriptions, bear in mind that England is almost devoid of Celtic inscriptions, they are found abundantly only within Wales/Scotland/Cornwall and Cumbria, which were unquestionably Celt, but nowhere along the "Saxon Coast" areas which had close links to the near by continent, particularly Belgica, and they may have shared a non-Celtic language, presumably pre-English) --92.0.41.121 (talk) 15:59, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I prefer not to talk of anyone as "being Celtic", because it's ambiguous and, with the amount of nonsense published on Celtic subjects, too prone to misinterpretation. If I describe a group as being "Celtic-speaking" or "of Celtic ancestry", there's less chance of anyone getting the wrong end of the stick.

I'm not convinced by the hypothesis that the Belgae in Britain spoke a Germanic proto-English before the Roman invasion - Tacitus comments on the language in Britain being similar to that of Gaul, writes of events both in and outside the zone of Belgic influence and had a first-hand source, but never suggests there was more than one language being spoken in Britain, and the traditional histories of both the English and the Welsh, while not entirely reliable, agree that the ancestors of the English arrived after the Romans and took over lands then occupied by the ancestors of the Welsh, a unanimity that suggests at least broad accuracy. Whatever language the pre-Roman Belgae spoke, after the Roman conquests of Gaul and Britain it was marginalised by Latin and isolated from its continental cousins. I'm no expert on Germanic linguistics, but I suspect the similarities between Old English and continental Germanic languages like Icelandic (continental in the sense that Iceland was settled from Scandinavia) and Frisian don't support them having been separated for a half-millennium longer than is generally thought. --Nicknack009 (talk) 19:25, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Nicknack, I think you have a good writing style and logic... if you have sources to back it up (which is key) please add to article. Goldenrowley (talk) 19:53, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Tacitus's comment on the language in Britain being similar to Gaul, does not tell us what part of Britain or Gaul. The closest points between the two are Kent and Belgica. It is as likely that Germanic was spoken both sides of the channel at that point. Theo Vennemann believes that the High German consonant shift occurred prior to the Roman invasion of Britain, and yet English/Proto English is completely unaffected by it. Both he and Stephen Oppenheimer believe there were some proto-English speakers in South East Britain before the Romans. The concept of the so-called Anglo-Saxon wipeout has been debunked via DNA, see Oppenheimer's The Origins of the British. The British are and have always been non-receptive to language change. The Saxon invasions were no different to the Roman, Norman or Viking ones, were language had a limited impact. Gildas mislabelled all Germanic Peoples as Saxons, as is evident by his misdescription of Angles as Saxons. This was a common mistake. The Belgae would also have been called Saxons at that time in Britain. Francis Pryor is another who is sceptical of an all Celtic Britain. The Picts are known to have spoken non-Celtic as Celts needed translators to communicate with them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.4.58.173 (talk) 08:48, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

If Tacitus was aware that there were both Germanic and Celtic languages spoken in Gaul and/or Britain, then he would have specified which part. Vennemann's opinion of when the High German consonant shift took place is not the mainstream view, if the Wikipedia article is anything to go by, and neither Oppenheimer (a geneticist) or Pryor (an archaeologist) have any expertise about languages.

I've never heard the phrase "Anglo-Saxon wipeout" before, but I assume it's referring to the old model of the Anglo-Saxon invasions as being similar to the European conquests of North America or Australia, where the newcomers arrived in large numbers and killed and replaced the natives. This has indeed been debunked, by archaeology long before DNA, but there are many other ways an invasion can take place and impose a language in a fairly short time without mass population replacement. I should know, I'm Irish, and my first language is English.

Norman French and Old Norse had an enormous impact on the English language. Latin had almost none except through Norman French, but had considerable impact on Welsh. Yet Welsh is spoken where Roman influence was relatively weak, and English is spoken where Britain was most Romanised. The Romans also imposed Christianity on their empire in the fourth century, but while the Welsh were strongly Christian in the post-Roman period, the English were pagan until the end of the 6th century, and a special mission had to be sent to convert them, because the Welsh weren't prepared to do it. Is it likely that the core of the Roman province would have rejected the official religion of the empire, and only the people of the western fringes acquiesced?

It's true that the Britons called all the proto-English groups "Saxons", but it doesn't follow they called all Germanic speakers Saxons. By the end of the Roman period there is no evidence that the Belgae had remained distinct from other Britons, or that those other Britons would have called them "Saxons". Cerdic and Cynric, early kings of the West Saxons, appear to have Celtic names - but "West Saxon" is what they called themselves, not what they were called by others.

Also, the consensus these days seems to be that Pictish, while distinct from Brythonic, was also a Celtic language. Old Irish and Old Welsh speakers would have needed interpreters, but both spoke Celtic languages. --Nicknack009 (talk) 13:02, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Caucasian or Assyrian?

This article is confusing me- was the tribe(s) Belgae Caucasian (either Gaul or German)? Because in the article it says they may've been a descendant of Trebata, who was Assyrian.

[edit] John Raciti's Belgae DNA Modal & Nordic-Celtic Project

John Raciti's - Belgae DNA Modal through my Nordic-Celtic DNA project (1361 members).

http://www.ysearch.org/lastname_view.asp?uid=&letter=&lastname=Belgae&viewuid=AX6GA&p=0

http://www.familytreedna.com/public/Nordic-Celtic

[edit] Geography

Johanthon, you object to the Belgae being placed in "north-east Gaul" and invite us to look at a map. Well, to the left is a map of Gaul, with Belgica marked. That's fairly north-east by my reckoning. To the right, just to be unambiguous, are the points of the compass. --Nicknack009 20:04, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Iblardi, your objection makes no sense. North-western Gaul is Armorica. --Nicknack009 21:13, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, would you describe the Pas de Calais as being on the east coast of France? Iblardi 21:32, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

France doesn't have an east coast. It still has an east. --Nicknack009 22:06, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Funny!!! Nicknack, your map does not correspond with Strabo, or Ptolemy. Just compare it with primary sources. The Sicambri in fact lived much more north. And what is hilarious are the Eburones: they are in fact Germans, living east of the western Menapii, who were Belgic. Just read Gaius Julius Caesar. You present a hoax and want us to believe this is true??? Than tell me why is it that your map does not show the Roman provinces Germania inferior and Germania superior east of Belgica prima and Belgica secunda??? And since when and by whom Brittany/Bretagne is north-western Gaul? Since today? By you? For the France believe this is western France and the eastern part of Bretagne is actual close to central France. How can you possibly defend that the Belgae were from north-eastern Gaul if you yourself say "France doesn't have an east coast", and your own map is showing the Morini correctly at the western coast? In fact around Boulogne were the Romans had a fleet station? johanthon 10:06, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I'm sorry I forgat to say that your map is showing the Belgae in the north, and NOT in the north-east. Just put your compas in the centrum of Gaul, around the Haedui, Senones or at Orleans or Sens. I apologize and I'm really sorry I forgat to say that. It's just I'm so distracted by the humor of this. johanthon 10:14, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

This is frankly bizarre. I have read your comments over and over, and I still don't understand your objection. Belgica is right up at the top, and right over the the right, of the map of Gaul. That's north-east in anyone's language. Britanny (Armorica as was) is at the top left, which is north-west. Coasts are irrelevant - the state of Idaho is landlocked, but it's still in the north-west of the United States - and so is whether or not the Eburones were German, or whether the Romans had a fleet at Boulogne. The map doesn't show Germania inferior, Germania superior, Belgica Prima or Belgica secunda because it's a map of Gaul in Caesar's time before those provinces were established. --Nicknack009 21:45, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Belgica was the northernmost province of Gaul at the time. It also happens to be in the north, and in the northeast though not the entire northeast (which continues further along the Rhine), but definitely not towards the northwest. Most precisely it is the north-northeast, but as such indications are less common, either north or northeast will do fine as well. And it was not proper of Johanthon to edit the map caption as 'Fake' or even to make it say 'north' instead of 'northeast': it was not his map caption, his comment. I now did a similar and under normal circumstances improper edit to the map caption, including the year that is shown with the map description. The original author of this map caption may feel free to put his original text back in instead. — SomeHuman 02 Jul 2007 22:31 (UTC)

"Belgica is right up at the top, and right over the the right". Really? Is it? You haven't read my comment at all. Again: the Eburones (and also the Aduatuci and Treveri are Germanic. They are NOT Belgae as your map wrongly states. Your map is WRONG. There were NO Beglae at those places, but GERMANS. That is also why most of this area was given to the Roman province Germania Inferior. The REAL Belgica is "right at the top". And "right at the top" is at the North, not at the North-East. johanthon 23:25, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

SomeHuman, Belgica was NOT the Northernmost province of Roman Gaul. The Northernmost province of Roman Gaul is Germania Inferior. That province starts at the mouth of the Rhine and follows the river via Düsseldorff und Köln to around Koblenz were it is bordered by Germania Superior (wich is also NOT at this map). This Germania Inferior may cover the North-East of Gaul, but is not shown on the Hoax-map. If you take a look at the map again, you can see that this map Le Havre and a small part of Normandy (correctly) places in Belgica. Now Think. Do you really want to support someone that places parts of Normandy in the North-East of Gaul? And do you really want to stick to your comment that Le Havre in fact is in North-North-East Gaul? Good Luck! johanthon 23:25, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

First, don't cut stuff out of my comments. Both you and Johanthon have now edited my comments, which makes me severely doubt your good faith. I therefore do not intend to enter into any further discussion with either of you, assuming you are indeed different people, except to say that your momomaniac obsession with Roman provinces which hadn't yet been founded at the time in question has no place in this article. --Nicknack009 23:39, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

"your momomaniac obsession with Roman provinces which hadn't yet been founded at the time in question has no place in this article". So it is prohibeted to relate the people of the Belgae to the Roman provinces that have their name? Since when? By whom? The Belgae are an invention of Caesar. And the last time I checked Caesar was a Roman. There is no history of the Belgae before Caesar. Isn't that why the Roman view is all over the current article? And just because in Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico de people of the Belgae (not the Roman provinces) lived West of the Eastern Germanic tribes as the Eburones, Aduatuci and Treveri in Gaul, your map is wrong. I'm not "monomaniac" about Roman provinces, but about the people you wish to ignore. You do not even try to defend your position that Belgic towns like Le Havre and Rouen are in the North-East of Gaul. johanthon 11:53, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Are both of you, Nicknack and Johanthon, unable to read?

• Nicknack, you dare to question my good faith and to suggest me being a sockpuppet of Johanthon. Are you nuts? I accused Johanthon of editing your map caption and openly stated I removed Johanthon's false "Fake"-accusation from your map caption and I added the name from the original map itself and the so important year of the map that you had shown undated, and which depicts Belgica Gallia correctly in Caesar's time, that is 148 years before Johanthon's province of Germania Inferior was created. And I explicitly stated you to have the full right to reinstate your original version, if you would prefer that.
• Johanthon wrote, "SomeHuman, Belgica was NOT the Northernmost province of Roman Gaul", after I had written, "Belgica was the northernmost province of Gaul at the time" — that time was nearly a century-and-a-half before a part of that province became a separate province called Germania Inferior. The map is correct and all the people of the Belgica Gallia as depicted on that map were in Gaius Julius Caesar's time considered Belgae, perhaps apart from tribes that the Romans knew to have been arriving precisely around that time. Whether Belgae were Gaullish or Germanic is another, and still disputed matter: it was not one homogenous group. It appears that Caesar considered them Gauls only because they lived to the West of the Rhine and Caesar appears to have strategically used only rivers as boundaries as he did elsewhere, but Caesar also mentions that these Belgae spoke a Germanic language. Paradoxically, elsewhere Caesar mentions Germanic people living (Latin 'incolare': to live permanently, as agricultural or farming people) on that same west side of the Rhine, to have joined the Belgae. Whether they were an ethnic Germanic people that, before Caesar arrived, had crossed the Rhine and chased out indegenous tribes, or had mingled with them, or they were themselves ethnically Gaullish (Celtic in a more restricted sense because all the Europeans north of the Alps from near the Ural till the Atlantic have been called 'Celts' as well), who had borrowed the language (who knows: perhaps they might have been living East of the Rhine and were dominated by Germanic people, till they crossed the Rhine some time before Caesar arrived)... or a bunch of Gaullish, Germanic, and mixed tribes... all that remains mainly speculation (only of some tribes we have some useful information and it is not always very reliable). Why do modern people tend to think that political events and sociologial evolutions start when recorded history starts? Many peoples' languages today are borrowed from other ethnical peoples, in some cases by force and in other cases voluntarily. I see no reason why this would not have happened in prehistorical times: these peoples were our species with our intelligence and nature. And after adopting a language, placenames may remain in an earlier language of the area or may become renamed in the more recently introduced language, etymology cannot always give an answer either. Further strongly recommended reading on so-called 'Celts' and Belgae, e.g. Witt, Constanze Maria (May 1997). Ethnic and Cultural Identity. Barbarians on the Greek Periphery? — Origins of Celtic Art. Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, University of Virginia. Retrieved on 2007-07-16.

By the way, Johanthon, your 'argument' of those eastern parts of Normandy not possibly being in the northeast of Gaul (where did you see Nicknack write about Normandy? he mentioned Belgica Gallia, which I did not place where you suggest: I said: in the north-northeast of Gaul), is utterly false logic: you take an extremity area to deny the location of the area as a whole. By that 'logic' you would have to deny that Gaul can be said to be located in Northwestern Europe because Massilia (Marseille) is in the South of Europe. One looks at the centrepoints of both areas to state in which direction one lies towards the other; that puts the area where the map places the Nervii about north-northeast of Avaricum.

As your highly demagogical trick of falsely claiming your words to come from Nicknack, only to then use your lies against him; so you did the same against me: I quote you, addressing me: "And do you really want to stick to your comment that Le Havre in fact is in North-North-East Gaul? Good Luck!". Only you mention Le Havre; that city is not mentioned before that very comment of yours. So how could I 'stick' to something that had not even be written at the time of my comment? You are an unworthy adversary, Johanthon, for anyone.

— SomeHuman 16 Jul 2007 20:38–22:14 (UTC)

Cheers. So you do realise that Le Havre, Rouen, Compeigne, Arras, Rijssel, Duinkerken, Boulogne, Doornik, Soissons, Valenciën, Lens, Robeke, Gent, Aardenburg, Asse, Beauvais and many other places in Belgica are not quite in the North-North-East? Than the matter is closed. johanthon 00:27, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

If you must pretend people to agree with you while they don't, the matter had not even been open. — SomeHuman 18 Jul 2007 20:07 (UTC)