Celts

[alanarchae]

when it comes to italic/celtic it has to be noted that it is not a given or even a strong concept (cf p.189); it does not get less complex when Venetic or even Messapic have to be added; in the end a concept of a common proto stage of italic and celtic or even alone of italic seems actually difficult to reconstruct and this complexity is known from the non-illiterate languages thus assuming it was less complex in the illiterate zones is assuming alot; in the end the common stage of languages under the umbrella "celtic" or "italic" might actually just be PIE incl Venetic, Messapic, Lepontic and Lusitanian

That book is is from 2002!

This one from 2022. Seems italo-celtic, Celtic and Itallic are  being tolerated by the community

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/ind...050F112A52

Messapic is an illyrian ("Illyric", west balkans) language. Nothing to do with italo-celtic iirc

yes the most up to date stuff i’ve read concluded Italo-Celtic is a real node but a fairly brief one that split apart early. Most likely caused by the expansion of beaker to geographical breaking point around 2200BC with pre proto Celtic then isolating from pre proto Italic and spending a still-early period in closer contact with elements that led to pre proto Germanic. My own increasing belief is pre Germanic includes remnants of collapsed Unetice dialect and that some of the Celto-Germanic isoglosses likely owe something to both being within (periphery of) the influence zone of Unetice. Those isoglosses might be a remnant of Unetice influence on its northern and western margins.

 Though this theory doesn’t help pin either pre Germanic or pre proto Celtic down geographically in detail as Unetice influence was incredibly widespread running north to Denmark etc, east into a zone of likely unrecorded languages, west to the Rhineland, as far south as north Italy and as far NW as Brittany and Wessex.

[alanarchae]

I'm thinking Proto-Italic existed in the Beaker period and could have been spoken by (at least some) Bell Beaker peoples in Iberia. Well... maybe a bit more complicated than that.

You said yourself that you believe italic might have come from Maritime Beakers so i guess its possible that south of france and eastern/southern iberia  received an influx too if the table of iberian/italic shared toponomy I posted has any value

But I'd cool it using the term "proto-italic" . Proto italic imo can only be definitely placed before the EIA and/or BR-BF. It seems more appropriate to see it as a, EBA-MBA phase without knowing how far back it goes. Dont forget about "pre Italic", "pre proto italic", "para italic" etc Any french/iberian offshoots (lost forever?) could be sisters/aunts of proto italic rather than descandants

Alanarchae made a point about Proto-Celtic being something of an "oddball" dialect within Italo-Celtic due to more extensive contacts, borrowings, shared innovations etc... with other IE dialects, mainly Proto-Germanic. I hope I'm not butchering too much what he said. 

Those more knowledgeable than us about germanic on the proto germanic thread have offered enough evidence and opinion that destroys the idea of "close" or "extensive" contacts between pre, pre proto, proto celtic and pre, pre proto, proto germanic. The very little trickle of contacts only allows us to say that celtic was "more north" than italic, but we already knew that anyway

I don’t agree with a lot of the angles ;0) pushed on the proto Germanic thread. There is a linguistic consensus that at a v early phase when both languages were still v similar, Celtic and Germanic uniquely shared (kind of appearing as isoglosses) an extensive vocabulary relating to power, war, ritual? religion and social structure. A plausible explanation is this vocab might have originated in a third source like Unetice c 2200BC onwards. Unetice mostly arose out of beaker and late CW groups (beaker itself being s CW derivative) so it’s likely if there was such a thing as a Unetice dialect that it was also not greatly different from the beaker/single grave dialects c.2200BC. So the shared vocab appears like isoglosses rather than borrowings. The core unetice dialect likely died after its collapse but the influence on dialects around its periphery may have preserved some of its vocab in Germanic and Celtic. I avoid the proto Germanic thread as it’s largely dealing with the iron age rather than the much earlier pre proto phase I find interesting

[PopGenist82]

Those more knowledgeable than us about germanic on the proto germanic thread have offered enough evidence and opinion that destroys the idea of "close" or "extensive" contacts between pre, pre proto, proto celtic and pre, pre proto, proto germanic. The very little trickle of contacts only allows us to say that celtic was "more north" than italic, but we already knew that anyway

In reality, some claims in the proto-Germanic thread & the “linguistic experts” there are a bit of joke .
Those espousing a sober & credible evaluation of that & other languages shouldn’t be impeded by it

[Strabo]

I don’t agree with a lot of the angles ;0) pushed on the proto Germanic thread. There is a linguistic consensus that at a v early phase when both languages were still v similar, Celtic and Germanic uniquely shared (kind of appearing as isoglosses) an extensive vocabulary relating to power, war, ritual? religion and social structure. A plausible explanation is this vocab might have originated in a third source like Unetice c 2200BC onwards. Unetice mostly arose out of beaker and late CW groups (beaker itself being s CW derivative) so it’s likely if there was such a thing as a Unetice dialect that it was also not greatly different from the beaker/single grave dialects c.2200BC. So the shared vocab appears like isoglosses rather than borrowings. The core unetice dialect likely died after its collapse but the influence on dialects around its periphery may have preserved some of its vocab in Germanic and Celtic. I avoid the proto Germanic thread as it’s largely dealing with the iron age rather than the much earlier pre proto phase I find interesting

You'd need to put your evidence before those who are the most wise and knowledgeable vis a vis germanic and see if your theories hold weight.

[Strabo]

I am thinking of a more restricted area for proto celtic, maybe lasting until the end of MBA/Bronze Recent in a smallish area of east france/west germany along the rhine. Im not sure it expanded before LBA into britain, spain, southernmost france and perhaps even italy.

In addition to east france-rhineland, I think it was in extreme western parts of germany east of the rhine like Baden, lower main region etc. How far east, i dont know, but probably not further than west franconia and not in bavaria (more linked to central europe). Its possible it could of spread within east/central France though, such as to the to center west, possibly in the MBA already, possibly having a role in the Duffaits style, as that area seems to look, according to Soto, more towards the east and the continent, rather than the atlantic BA. And perhaps tentatively the rhone/saone axis area could be included as well but i am not sure, nor about Switzerland (at least until cannelures/RSFO for western Switzerland).

Most of this eastern france/west german zone was either part of or influenced by Tumulus culture, and would also later be core zones of east french urnfield that is roughly associated with cannelures pottery groups and the later RSFO.

Its also possible that celtic spread in the urnfield era not only with the RSFO package, but even before with the spread of channeled pottery (" cannelures" (various styles). The spread of cannelures is also known in the NE spain ( cerámica acanalada ) in the same era though idk the exact dating. It also spread, or co existed in the south france with other styles (méplats). And then the RSFO influence on top of that. The center west of france would also have to be considered as included in this net.  

I dont think northern france and britain, outside of the northern cannelures zone was celtic at all. I could be wrong, but that's my current hunch. Them being probably L21 dominated "atlantic cultural regions" that were later penetrated by celtic speaking groups of moderate size in the urnfield times and IA. Nor can I say for sure if belgium, NE france was part of that atlantic "block" either after the MBA, as Nordez 2019 ( https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/231948337.pdf ) could not find reason to include the areas in the atlantic block at least for the MBA metal ornaments, despite the area supposedly being part of iirc the manche mer du nord (MMN)  and deverel rimbury and post deverel rimbury area. If proto celtic has no maritime/ocean vocabulary than surely any proto celtic expansion into north france/britain has to be ruled out for the proto celtic unitary phase.

I dont currently have any ideas about how celtic reached Armorica. But a study of ancient french (and british?) place and personal names would be fascinating if it could reveal traces of non celtic languages 

Another interesting thing is evidence that south france (languedoc?, provence, rhone valley?) was in MBA seemingly in the cultural/material orbit of italy and that a reorientation towards the north happened in the RSFO period or a little before or after, gradually reducing italian influence to the  western Alps/eastern Provence. Perhaps this may explain the "celto-ligures" described in early accounts of provence as mix of italioide and celtic mixed peoples, as in the archaeology southern france is usually said to have maintained or exhibited a local character (with northern and/or italian influences) and maybe could explain the supposed "ligurian" presence so far west. Its interesting to think that italic or para italic speakers could have survived (or expanded into) in the south of france until the LBA/IA reorientation of the region towards the north, perhaps even lingering on in IA times in the very south, such as on the coastal lagoons where iirc read an article proposing a possible origin for the word Ligurian may be related to "lagoons". So an italic like, or celto-italic (celto-ligure) population surviving in the south france into the IA???

In cerdenya I read that there does not seem to be much upheaval and a steady development of "iberian" people from LBA all the way to LIA, so makes me think a coastal catalan route and the the river valleys, especially the ebro as the main route into spain,

But why did celtiberian (and/or other hispano celtic languages?) not survive in Catalunya? I suppose its possible that the immigrants numbers were too low and were absorbed by the local iberians over time, or maybe they did introduce their language(s) but the region was later "iberianized". Well that iberianization had to be fully finished on the coasts by at least 400bc if not 500bc going by the earliest iberian language inscriptions. So between 900 (rough end date of unfield introduction) and 500-400 bc that leaves only 400-500  years for a "catalan celtic" period. Idk, i think given the variance of northern ancestry in different regions, maybe a core migrant group wandered over time before definitely settling in the eastern meseta/middle ebro. That way, despite impacting the north iberians, the presence of a main group in catalonia would of been temporal and transitory. But that's not to to deny other celtiberian or hispano celtic splinter groups settling in parts of catalonia/valencia and being later absorbed by the local iberians.

If western languedoc was already iberian speaking, then such a migrant group would have to come from the Rhone valley (south cannelures group(s)/RSFO groups)? or the center west of france, spreading themselves over a vast area but having moderate impact in the long run. Well, i am not sure about languedoc, whether it was a source/staging area or a passing through area. IIRC the whole area was part of a "mailacien I" facies along the entire coast. Remains to be seen if elements from Mailacien I can be linked to Catalonia (iirc it is) and the wider spanish urnfield phenomena, as from that point on (LBA) "iberian" catalonia and languedoc, at least the western part, seems to be linked together until the Roman era, and throughout IA their cultural package, at least in metal ornaments, at times seems to spread quite far inland. Would be odd why they would not be celtic speaking, but obviously they (at least near the coasts) were not.

A deep study of catalan names, province by province, would be helpful to discern any pre roman, pre gaulish and pre iberian IE layers (if there were any) in catalonia.

[PopGenist82]

There's more aDNA for Bronze Age Italy & western Europe coming soon. These will probably put forth novel models for the development of IE and non-IE groups in Europe, but will not be a major shock for the credible commentators on this particular thread.

[Strabo]

Those more knowledgeable than us about germanic on the proto germanic thread have offered enough evidence and opinion that destroys the idea of "close" or "extensive" contacts between pre, pre proto, proto celtic and pre, pre proto, proto germanic. The very little trickle of contacts only allows us to say that celtic was "more north" than italic, but we already knew that anyway

In reality, some claims in the proto-Germanic thread & the “linguistic experts” there are a bit of joke .
Those espousing a sober & credible evaluation of that & other languages shouldn’t be impeded by it

Maybe, maybe not. We'll see how it goes

[Pylsteen]

There's more aDNA for Bronze Age Italy & western Europe coming soon. These will probably put forth novel models for the development of IE and non-IE groups in Europe, but will not be a major shock for the credible commentators on this particular thread.

Interesting, do you know more about these studies or will we have to wait for abstracts?

[PopGenist82]

There's more aDNA for Bronze Age Italy & western Europe coming soon. These will probably put forth novel models for the development of IE and non-IE groups in Europe, but will not be a major shock for the credible commentators on this particular thread.

Interesting, do you know more about these studies or will we have to wait for abstracts?

Not yet but it will have a broad coverage from Atlantic to Aegean. Well underway but not yet imminent

[alanarchae]

I think dialect shift (as opposed to complete change in language family) can happen very easily with almost no genetic trace. I’ll give you a few examples where we know dialect shift or converge happened across hundreds of miles despite no permanent migration happening. The mechanism involved seems to have been expectation across elites of many tribes to speak a certain prestige dialect

1. Around 500AD a completely new form of Irish Gaelic called ‘old irish’ became the accepted new across dozens of tribes including many who were enemies. Prior to this they had spoken archaic/primitive Irish which was much closer to iron age Celtic. This spread uniformly through Ireland despite no political power that could explain it, migration etc.

2. The changes that turned iron age British into the very different early forms of Welsh also saw a new dialect apparently accepted across a very wide area from Wales to the central belt of Scotland despite political fragmention with no central power and no migration to explain it.

3. From the SW tip of Ireland to the NW tip of scotland (500 miles) the parallel development of dialect used that remained very similar for 1000 years.

What the medieval history of the Celtic fringe of Britain and Ireland shows is there were mechanism in still-free Celtic speaking areas where the elites were expected to speak the same dialect and if it shifted then all the elites were expected to shift too. No political power, invasion/migration etc was involved. It seems to have been an expectation/status/ honour thing to keep your speech up to whatever the expected prestige dialect was at any given time. And if you add the fact that most of the producing off surviving offspring was done by the superbreeder elite then elite traits quickly get pushed down to the rank and file.

How was it possible for 100s of clans/tribes across a span of 500 miles and petty kingdoms, many enemies of each other, to always be speaking whatever the prestige dialect is at any given moment? Several reasons - the learned/skilled classes of holy men, lawyers, bards, craftsmen etc were mobile. The druids (then later the monastic church) were as powerful as kings The elites married out across tribal borders. But probably the most profoundly important mechanism is the elites constantly fostered each others children from toddler to age 16 before returning to their home tribe.

My view is the natural outcome - 100s of italo-Celtic dialects with each tribe having one of its own and slowly drifting apart over the centuries - was clearly prevented in many places by the kind of mechanisms I outlined above. That such a powerful mechanism of dialect convergence over 1000 years and 500 miles can be shown in the totally rural, tribal, very politically fragmented medieval Gaelic world and with no conquest involved (no DNA change) shows that a similar mechanism could have existed through bronze age Europe. And there is evidence in ancient DNA in bronze age bavaria and elsewhere of fosterlings who died during fosterage several miles from their biological family/tribe

I think of this model as elite driven constant convergence towards a prestige form of dialect. Again, if you partake in this process constantly, any one shift at any given time will likely be small. Though the shifts cumulate over time. I think this is nothing like actual full language change. It’s dialect tweaking and a constant very slow process. My belief is that this pretty well was the norm through the whole bronze age of any tribe with an elite who wanted to partake. This fits the bronze age very well because you can see through much of the bronze age that the elites were constantly mutually emulating in terms of portable material culture,

I’d also warn against making too strong a divide between central Europe and Atlantic system. Virtually all the prototypes of Atlantic metalwork were from urnfield. The divide is not as stark as some seem to think. At elite portable material culture level the Atlantic system was deep into emulation (with an Atlantic spin) of urnfield metalwork. The core Atlantic elites were already cremating so that is one influence that didn’t need to be adopted.

[Cejo]

1.  Around 500AD a completely new form of Irish Gaelic called ‘old irish’ became the accepted new across dozens of tribes including many who were enemies. Prior to this they had spoken archaic/primitive Irish which was much closer to iron age Celtic. This spread uniformly through Ireland despite no political power that could explain it, migration etc.

While I find your basic premise plausible, I'm not sure about this specific example. The spread of Christianity would have roughly coincided with this transformation. Though this wouldn't have been a migratory event that could be detected in genetics, I don't think it's fair to say there was no political power that could explain it. Additionally, since it was accompanied by the spread of writing, I'm not convinced that it's accurate to extrapolate this event as a template for what may have occurred in previous eras. Writing would have been a uniquely efficient medium for this kind of change.

[alanarchae]

1.  Around 500AD a completely new form of Irish Gaelic called ‘old irish’ became the accepted new across dozens of tribes including many who were enemies. Prior to this they had spoken archaic/primitive Irish which was much closer to iron age Celtic. This spread uniformly through Ireland despite no political power that could explain it, migration etc.

While I find your basic premise plausible, I'm not sure about this specific example. The spread of Christianity would have roughly coincided with this transformation. Though this wouldn't have been a migratory event that could be detected in genetics, I don't think it's fair to say there was no political power that could explain it. Additionally, since it was accompanied by the spread of writing, I'm not convinced that it's accurate to extrapolate this event as a template for what may have occurred in previous eras. Writing would have been a uniquely efficient medium for this kind of change.

the level of literacy was likely microscopic and Latin was the language used for many of the oldest texts in the 5th and 6th century was Latin. I don’t believe literacy had much impact on the spread of the ‘new’ dialects and the oldest evidence of writing in Old Irish rather than latin only dates to around 600AD. I don’t know the exact mechanism of how and where it evolved but it must have been prestigious. It might have been considered a necessary to have a lingua franca. The most interesting thing though is it’s ability to spread. And of course the same seemingly easy spread of a new dialect seemed to take place among the Britons too. The key point is it shows that a collection of fragmented rural tribes could all ‘update’ their dialect to a new shared one rapidly. I think the institution of fosterage is in itself evidence that the elites across many tribes were somehow expected to retain a dialect in common. Otherwise they’d be packing of the future princes to be fostered but find them returning home at 16 unable to speak their own biological tribe’s dialect. I actually suspect this weird practice of the elites temporarily swapping children was designed to keep dialect converging and not diverging. 

Another effect of fosterage of elites is cultural uniformity. Ireland was split across many often hostile tribes in the era 500-1000AD but there is astonishing uniformly of material culture, both monuments and portable objects which cuts across all the political and tribal divides. That shows that fosterage and likely the influence of mobile learned/skilled class promoted unity in tastes and standards. I think of you step back from mundane domestic stuff and look at the high end material cultures through the bronze age, what you really see is the elites were outward looking and tended to look for and emulate whatever the next fancy bling was. They were almost likely an internationalist strata.

[Webb]

Blanca Maria Prosper has a newish paper from 2021 which analyzes a Lusitanian inscription that was recently found.  She writes that it is more evidence that Lusitanian should be considered a form of Italic.  I’ll post the link to the paper and some highlights tomorrow.

It's virtually impossible, archaeology is essentially incompatible with such an hypothesis. The only way it's possible is if somehow Proto-Italic existed somewhen during the Beaker period, because there's very little connecting western Iberia and Italy between the BB and Roman periods. Lusitanian anthroponymy, theonymy, hydronymy and toponymy doesn't seem to exist elsewhere outside western Iberia either, if it were an early branch of Italic you'd likely expect some parallels in Italy. Hapolgroups are distinct too.

I know a lot of people around here would love that idea though, since Portuguese is also an Italic language, even professor Alarcão admitted that in one of his works because it'd mean people around here would have been Italic-speaking for over 4000 years, and that the change to Latin would be a mere matter of dialect change. I pretty much disagree with that possibility, as cool as it would be.

The number one piece of evidence that supports the Prosper Italic camp is the retention of PIE "P" in the Lusitanian inscriptions.  That has been a long standing rule to the identification of Celtic, the loss of PIE "P".  However, the majority of the theonym inscriptions are Celtic, which supports the Koch Celtic camp.  Obviously there is quite a bit more to the issue of how to classify the inscription than that, but to most of us who are not linguists, the biggest issue is the retention of P.  I will say, though, that I have found that Cornish retains PIE "P" on occasion.  Porghel as an example, compared to the Gaelic orc/arc, Lusitanian porgom/porcom, Latin porcus.  The other issue that I noticed is the lack or loss of a suffix with Insular Celtic.  Compare Gaulish epos to Old Welsh eb, Celtiberian ekua, Latin equus.  I actually like the third camp, which believes Lusitanian is a distinct language lying between Celtic and Italic, and should be classified as separate.  I found a site that breaks down the Lusitanian inscriptions into a pie chart based on word to language classification:

Pre-Indo-European (3 toponyms = 2% of total)

Indo-European, undifferentiated (56 toponyms = 33.5%)
Celtic (50 toponyms = 30%)
Iberian (Non/Pre-Indo-European) (2 toponyms = 1%)
Latin (30 toponyms = 18%)
Uncertain (26 toponyms = 15.5%)

[Strabo]

I think dialect shift (as opposed to complete change in language family) can happen very easily with almost no genetic trace. I’ll give you a few examples where we know dialect shift or converge happened across hundreds of miles despite no permanent migration happening. The mechanism involved seems to have been expectation across elites of many tribes to speak a certain prestige dialect

1.  Around 500AD a completely new form of Irish Gaelic called ‘old irish’ became the accepted new across dozens of tribes including many who were enemies. Prior to this they had spoken archaic/primitive Irish which was much closer to iron age Celtic. This spread uniformly through Ireland despite no political power that could explain it, migration etc.

2. The changes that turned iron age British into the very different early forms of Welsh also saw a new dialect apparently accepted across a very wide area from Wales to the central belt of Scotland despite political fragmention with no central power and no migration to explain it.

3. From the SW tip of Ireland to the NW tip of scotland  (500 miles) the parallel development of dialect used that remained very similar for 1000 years.

What the medieval history of the Celtic fringe of Britain and Ireland shows is there were mechanism in still-free Celtic speaking areas where the elites were expected to speak the same dialect and if it shifted then all the elites were expected to shift too. No political power, invasion/migration etc was involved. It seems to have been an expectation/status/ honour thing to keep your speech up to whatever the expected prestige dialect was at any given time. And if you add the fact that most of the producing off surviving offspring was done by the superbreeder elite then elite traits quickly get pushed down to the rank and file.

How was it possible for 100s of clans/tribes  across a span of 500 miles  and petty kingdoms, many enemies of each other, to always be speaking whatever the prestige dialect is at any given moment? Several reasons -  the learned/skilled classes of holy men, lawyers, bards, craftsmen etc were mobile. The druids (then later the monastic church) were as powerful as kings The elites married out across tribal borders. But probably the most profoundly important mechanism is the elites constantly fostered each others children from toddler to age 16 before returning to their home tribe.

I think of this model as elite driven constant convergence towards a prestige form of dialect. Again, if you partake in this process constantly, any one shift at any given time will likely be small. Though the shifts  cumulate over time. I think this is nothing like actual full language change. It’s dialect tweaking and a constant very slow process. My belief is that this pretty well was the norm through the whole bronze age of any tribe with an elite who wanted to partake. This fits the bronze age very well because you can see through much of the bronze age that the elites were constantly mutually emulating in terms of portable material culture,

Those regions you mentioned ALREADY SPOKE CELTIC. There is no evidence or necessary reason to believe that proto celtic was spoken outside the proto celtic homeland, at least to the north. There could be para celtic or languages that split very early from pre celtic or pre proto celtic and survived, but it is not known if they were mutually intelligible with proto celtic or even existed at all. Also lets not close the door on the possibility that many other italo-celtic languages survived in their own right, like Lusitanian for example. Would you propose a model of dialect levelling for Celtic AND italic? Celtic and Lusitanian? Not really. 

Presuming that parts of western europe spoke non celtic languages derived from italo-celtic, I find it heard to believe that language replacement did not happen. You have to prove that pre/pre proto celtic (forget about proto celtic) was spoken all over france/britain from nearly beaker/eba times and that all of these "dialects" (if not outright their own languages) "converged". How are you gonna prove that? 

We already know that proto celtic has to be located as far away from the ocean as possible, so that there rules out britain, ireland and coastal france. That means that they did not speak proto celtic in those lands, and therefore there were no "dialects" in existence in those land to "level" or "converge". Such things can only happen after celtic has replaced the previous languages, even if they were para celtic, or other off shoots of pre/pre proto celtic. Bbut how could they be, if proto celtic lacks ocean vocabulary, then logically how could earlier phases of the language (pre/pre proto) have it either?  They could of picked it from a substrat or trade language, but no maritime vocab was sent back down the "celtic dialect network" to reach proto celtic. So are those languages really celtic? No. They would be sibling languages or aunty/uncle languages. And lets not forget about non celtic IE possibly existing too.

I dont think that Languages are "invisible"; their spread can be indirectly detected in the prehistoric era by the movement of material culture from point A to point B. If we hypothesise that point A is also an urheimat, then its "likely" that the material culture influences moving from point A to point B (even with many intermediate local influences) are accompanied by language change IF we know from hindsight that a language change did indeed seem to happen based on the study of the deepest linguistic layers and/or historical accounts and the  leading theories as to where the urheimat most likely is

I’d also warn against making too strong a divide between central Europe and Atlantic system. Virtually all the prototypes of Atlantic metalwork were from urnfield. The divide is not as stark as some seem to think. At elite portable material culture level the Atlantic system was deep into emulation (with an Atlantic spin) of urnfield metalwork. The core Atlantic elites were already cremating so that is one influence that didn’t need to be adopted.

The paper I linked is about the MBA, not the Urnfield era. If there are such Urnfield influences later on as you say, that only adds weight to a possible arrival of the celtic (Gaulish?) language into those areas as before LBA the atlantic zone from Garonne to Somme seems to be its own thing in parallel the "contintental zone" of the french interior.

My view is the natural outcome - 100s of italo-Celtic dialects with each tribe having one of its own and slowly drifting apart over the centuries - was clearly prevented in many places by the kind of mechanisms I outlined above. That such a powerful mechanism of dialect convergence over 1000 years and 500 miles can be shown in the totally rural, tribal, very politically fragmented medieval Gaelic world and with no conquest involved (no DNA change) shows that a similar mechanism could have existed through bronze age Europe. And there is evidence in ancient DNA in bronze age bavaria and elsewhere of fosterlings who died during fosterage several miles from their biological family/tribe

Such a model could possibly work within a language, within celtic, or more specifically one of the celtic languages and may be an explanation for the spread of Gaulish or particular dialects of gaulish within a defined area. But again such a "divergence prevention network" did not stop celtic languages splitting off from proto celtic or each from other nor prevent non mutual intelligibility in some cases.

I find comparisons with the semitic languages, especially the origin and spread of arabic (both pre and post Muhammed) to be helpful in understanding how a language and ethnicity can spread without to much change in Adna over areas that spoke related semitic languages and peoples that were genetically already very similar (levant) yet in the past had different cultures and beliefs.And also its spread to further afield and the adaptation of Arabic by non levantine peoples like Arabians, Eygptians, Berbers etc

was clearly prevented in many places by the kind of mechanisms I outlined above

How do you know that though? It was hypothesised  a few years ago that there may be, in addition to Lusitanian, Asturian and Cantabrian languages based on iirc onomastic stuides in spain. Whether they are Lusitanian dialects, or para Lusitanian or just their own languages shows that the situation is not so simple, and can you imagine similar studies in the vastness of gaul and them finding for example a non celtic Armorican langauage? I think that such a possibilty is very likely, but it would require a deep study of french academia as I do not believe that Celtic was the only IE, or even only Italo-Celtic language in Gaul.

[alanarchae]

another thing I feel is that reconstructed proto Celtic does not reflect the expected geographical-chronological outcome of the ‘busy’ eras of Celtic contacts with Greeks, Etruscans, Italics etc. It contains no borrowing that you would expect from the busy times and places like Alpine Hallstatt D etc. That likely indicates proto Celtic predates that era and /or east geographically elsewhere. IMO both. The best explanation imo for the astonishing lack of borrowings from other known IE languages in proto Celtic is that it just didn’t neighbour any other known IE branches closely and that perhaps it emerged deep in a zone of other para Celtic only slightly dialects that did not later survive. Those dead unrecorded dialects would have created a buffer/middle man for contacts with other IE groups. But they later died and the proto Celtic form that emerged had lacked exotic contacts beyond the para Celtic zone. It might be like a ‘slow lane’ dialect that replaced a very similar fast lahr dialect when there was some some sort of collapse of the fast lane group.

Some would say this sounds a bit like the way La Tene emerged from a slow lane area on the west bank of Rhine on the periphery of the old Hallstatt D chiefdom core in a place where the latter ends and the Atlantic zone approaches. However I think you can’t look to such a late date for proto Celtic due to dialects like Lepontic already existing. Hallstatt C is problematic as Millicent has shown that most of it in France is actually Atlantic-insular backflow like an extension of the Atlantic system deeper inland. So that throws us back to Urnfield era. But urnfield is quite clearly very multi ethnic with most of it being urnfield-ised local groups - plus v little ancient DNA!

An idea i’m currently thinking through is proto Celtic emerged in some slow lane place like landlocked north-central France in the middle bronze age. It was probably one of the less prestigious para celtic dialects due to not being in the fast lane of the networks but it suddenly became important when after the expansion of RSFO urnfield it found itself at the communication interface of north-central French urnfield and the Atlantic system. Their dialect could have become an important go between one. The interesting thing is a slightly overlapping boundary between the north-west of RSFO persisted through the entire period of its existence. RSFO has an intesting dustrubtion, occupying the centre of France and therefore the uppper reaches of most French rivers but at the same time never displacing the northern or southern coast tribes who retained the coast and fhe lower party of the rivers. Which on one hand seems to leave the sea routes in the hands of others but it also means they would control the cross-land trade router because they occupied the area of central France where the upper parts of the rivers of France sort of converge. But they do not seem to try to displace the coastal tribes in the north. west or south. Then in Hallstatt C a weird thing happens. The flow reversed and much of the French hallstatt C material is of the British centred insular version and it penetrates deep into central France, even to Switzerland. That material must have streamed in via the northern French rivers upstream to the RSFO area using an established contact route. Why? Presumably because the collapse of urnfield must have cut off supplies from the east.

It seems from all this that the RSFO had friendly relations and no intention of conquering the sea facing tribes of northern France and that continued right up to the collapse of urnfield and rise of Hallstatt C.