Origins of the Insular Celtic people.

[Osweo]

If one is trading tin on a regular basis wouldn't that be constant contact?

No. It might only involve occasional interactions of a handful of professionals at a quayside. It would not change how they spoke to their wife, kids, parents and dog.

Even if military might is necessary for establishing the foot stones of a languages rise to dominance why would that military domination be necessary and later need for language to be developed or adopted anyways? For economic reasons, if one wants cheaper tin invade the supplier, if one wants to continue to trade their tin they need to be able to speak to their customers this was all before the days of slapping an invoice into Google translate.

I have lived a multilingual existence. I spoke Russian to function in the outside world. When I retreated now and then into the circle of expats, we might use the odd word of Russian to refer to something we had no specific word for, chiefly foodstuffs, but our professional lives did not affect our native speech.

You are putting modern economics into a past that was alien to such considerations, by the way. I suggest you look up things like the Kula Ring to give your analogies a bit more anthropological breadth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kula_ring

[Barreldriver]

No. It might only involve occasional interactions of a handful of professionals at a quayside. It would not change how they spoke to their wife, kids, parents and dog.

Maybe so, but what if the invading army wants to be able to access certain resources without having to always kill for it? Wouldn't it be mutually beneficial for invader and he who was invaded to speak a mutual language if they are to interact?

I have lived a multilingual existence. I spoke Russian to function in the outside world. When I retreated now and then into the circle of expats, we might use the odd word of Russian to refer to something we had no specific word for, chiefly foodstuffs, but our professional lives did not affect our native speech.

Look at the United States for an instance, there's a number of people here of Colonial German descent that do not speak a word of German but speak fluent English despite not being English in origin. Why is that?

You are putting modern economics into a past that was alien to such considerations, by the way.

How so? I merely stated that in order to gain more convenient access to a resource a people invades another and certain cultural exchanges (language included in culture) are apt to happen, how many times in old mythological cycles are battles fought over gold and how many times did folks need to speak with those they were wanting to take gold from?

The thing about history is that it repeats itself, our modern ways of invading nations in order to exploit a resource is nothing new, and that at times involves the adoption of not just language in order to facilitate exchange of that resource but other cultural trends as well.

Look at Sierra Leone adopting non-native cultural trends (football/soccer, cricket, basketball, their music which is a mixture of native, French and British, religion's of Islam and Christianity, English language radio broadcasts, pioneering "Western style" education systems in Subsaharan Africa) how else would that have been possible without non-native nations needing to communicate with the people of Sierra Leon in order to obtain certain resources?

I suggest you look up things like the Kula Ring to give your analogies a bit more anthropological breadth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kula_ring

I'll give it a look, always interested in learnin', however I was not previously aware that my anthropological view was despairingly narrow (knew I wasn't no genius or nothin' but heck I've been around some blocks).

[Curtis24]

Maybe so, but what if the invading army wants to be able to access certain resources without having to always kill for it? Wouldn't it be mutually beneficial for invader and he who was invaded to speak a mutual language if they are to interact?

Yes, but this is what we have been arguing all along. That Celtic languages spread through military conquest - not necessarily that the Celts slaughtered everyone, but that they conquered people, and then forced those people to speak their language. Or created an environment - through military regime - where speaking the conquerers' language was extremely advantageous.

Look at the United States for an instance, there's a number of people here of Colonial German descent that do not speak a word of German but speak fluent English despite not being English in origin. Why is that?

But this is not the same thing as an independent, politically autonomous nation choosing to adopt a different language. Which is what your original theory is arguing - that non-Celtic peoples, maintaining their political and military autonomy, chose to adopt Celtic languages through trade. The only real example I can think of something like this happening is the Israelis and the Hebrew language, and that wasn't because of continuous interaction, but for cultural reasons.

[Barreldriver]

But this is not the same thing as an independent, politically autonomous nation choosing to adopt a different language. Which is what your original theory is arguing - that non-Celtic peoples, maintaining their political and military autonomy, chose to adopt Celtic languages through trade. The only real example I can think of something like this happening is the Israelis and the Hebrew language, and that wasn't because of continuous interaction, but for cultural reasons.

As for certain ethnic groups completely dropping their own language in favor of another look at the descendants of Colonial Germans in the United States, how many of them do not speak a word of German outside of the Deitsch minority group? No a whole lot, most speak only English even though they don't necessarily have a drop of English blood, why would that be? Because they would have needed to trade with another influential settling group, the Brits.

Same for all those English speaking Cajuns, whole ethnic groups on their own not speaking "their language". In the German/English example English took near complete dominance, with the Cajun/English example the process is snowballing and there wasn't a military conquest between these groups on the North American Continent like there was with the contrasting situation of European vs Amerindian. There was however economic exchanges and the need to communicate for trade and or sale, we're not all that unique most things tend to be nowt more than reciprocation.

In all fairness though I am not denying the possibility of military conquest, I am however in a position where I find it interesting to defend a position that I wrote on 2 years ago *wink wink and to demonstrate how history tends to repeat itself our current ideas and flaws were not much different than those of the 18th Century Pioneer or those of the 13th Century warrior or those of the Iron Age wanderer, or those of the Bronze Age hero.

[Osweo]

Sorry, BD, I'm afraid any analogy involving post-colonial situations, or anything since the consolidation of the European idea of statehood, is null and void!

Literacy, mass media, participant democracy and the end of local subsistence economies make our modern world qualitatively different a place from the Iron Age in Britain and Gaul.

Best I can do here is just recommend you read Early Irish Kings and Kingship by Byrne, to get an idea of the political structures that were in operation in traditional Celtic society. :