A NEW PARADIGM FOR THE ORIGIN OF CELTIC LANGUAGES

One of the ways in which recent archaeological work has changed our thinking about the origin of the Celtic languages is that we can see this long-term continuity in archaeological culture. It would probably imply a long-term continuity or at least possibly in language as well in the Atlantic regions of Western Europe. This goes back into the pre-Roman Iron Age when people were aware that Celtic languages had spread into Western Europe, into Britain, Ireland, Brittany and the western Iberian Peninsula. But it also goes back further into the Bronze Age; we can see this cultural continuity extending right back into the Megalithic period and the period of the great Cromlechs and standing stones that are characteristic of the Atlantic region. So this takes us back to a period where presumably there are non-Indo-European languages already there, coming into contact with the Indo-European language that turned into Celtic. So it amounts to rewriting the history of the contact between Celtic and Basque. We had always known that there was contact between Celtic and Basque, but it looks now as though it’s probably going back earlier, back before 1000 BC, back into the Bronze Age and earlier still. So I think we have a lot to learn from one another in looking at this process of long cultural continuity, in this region, the Atlantic regions of Europe. And I think eventually we will be writing a different kind of prehistory that will affect both the study of the origin of the Celtic language and the Basque region and the Basque language. I’m here from the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies. (Repeated in Welsh). John Koch is my name and I’m here participating in the Atlantiar congress sponsored by Jauzarrea. I am enjoying and benefiting from exchanges with other scholars whose recent research is bearing fruit and has implications for the cultural history at all periods of this Basque region. (2’56”)