A fascinating academic dispute between @thecelticist (@MaynoothUni @MU_Research) & Dr Lara Cassidy (@tcddublin) in a BBC History blog (@DJMusgrove) about how to interpret the "Newgrange incest story" that broke last week.https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/do-early-medieval-irish-texts-shed-light-prehistoric-incest/ …
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Can there be memory continuity over 4000 years? Is there language continuity in Ireland from the Bronze Age to the High Middle Ages? I am sure I have said this before here, from a comparative linguistic point of view it is inconceivable that the Celtic precursor language...
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...of Irish (basically Proto-Irish or Primitive Irish) arrived in this island much earlier than the last few centuries BC. I do not contend that there may have been waves of Indo-European immigrations into Ireland before this (and genetic studies suggest this very strongly)...
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...but Indo-European does not equal Celtic. This or these lost IE language(s) may or may not have been closely related to Celtic. We just don't know. But we can be sure that they are not the ancestor of the Irish language, but a different, submerged branch of the language family.
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Replying to @ChronHib
Not a linguist but given that the genetic evidence does not support a migration in the Iron Age, but it does show a Neolithic one, is it possible that they adopted the precursor to archaic Irish as a result of cultural change/spread?
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Replying to @AdmiralHip
Yes, sure, some such scenario must have occurred. You don't even have to look back into the very distant past to find a parallel: Ireland is now de facto a Germanic-speaking country, but the population stayed the same to the largest degree. There are sociolinguistic models...
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Replying to @ChronHib @AdmiralHip
...that can give us scenarios where the language shifts without large-scale migration happening. During the colonial period, i.e. in the past half millennium, it has happened all over the world. I don't understand why people don't get their head round this simple fact.
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It’s very true. I do find it frustrating to explain that cultural shifts do not have to be based on migration/displacement. Explaining this in the context of Dal Riata is always difficult. People have a hard time getting around the idea that the sea isn’t a barrier.
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