Bell Beakers probably didn't even speak Indo-European.

[Peterski]

Start this thread on Anthrogenica.

[Creoda]

Seriously, in a place like Ireland that is probably majority original BB stock, I would expect some sort of non-IE substrate equivalent to what exists in Germanic, if Bell Beakers weren't IE speakers.

[Token]

Didn't Southern Bell Beakers take local women? So the languages were influenced by the women. Northwestern European had full Bell Beaker and there is no evidence of non-Indo-European so I think it's fairly obvious that in Southern Europe the women influenced the language.

But no evidence of a Bell Beaker language either, and Insular Celtic VSO word order is suspicious.

[Token]

Seriously, in a place like Ireland that is probably majority original BB stock, I would expect some sort of non-IE substrate equivalent to what exists in Germanic, if Bell Beakers weren't IE speakers.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goid...ate_hypothesis

[Grace O'Malley]

But no evidence of a Bell Beaker language either, and Insular Celtic VSO word order is suspicious.

No it isn't.

This is a good post from alan on the subject. I think people on Anthrogenica are far more knowledgeable on the topic.

What people tend to overlook is that there is no evidence that the VSO order in the insular Celtic languages until the Christian era/5th century AD. All the tribal and personal names prior to that noted in Britain and Ireland in classical sources have the more typical Gaulish word order. This is especially clear in Britain and although pre-400AD classical sources are limited for Ireland, it seems that the Gaulish style word order pertained there prior to this. There seems to have been some sort of huge shift in both both the Irish and British Celtic dialects after Rome fell, previously somewhat segregated Celtic and Latin elements in Britain probably blended together and Christianity triumphed. A lot of the old word endings were lost around then and it seems to me that the evidence may point to the VSO order appearing around then too. I dont know why though - its kind of baffling. There is no evidence of a large non-IE substate below a Celtic elite surviving to be belatedly absorbed and influence the language as late as that in the isles. And of course DNA tends to suggest the pre-IE Neolithic genetic contribution was ESPECIALLY small in the isles - quite the opposite of what Victorian writers used to say.

Just look at the dna but anyway there is a whole thread on Anthrogenica if people want to read on the topic.

https://anthrogenica.com/showthread....MexlwTkzZ_U5KA

[Token]

No it isn't.

This is a good post from alan on the subject. I think people on Anthrogenica are far more knowledgeable on the topic.

Just look at the dna but anyway there is a whole thread on Anthrogenica if people want to read on the topic.

https://anthrogenica.com/showthread....MexlwTkzZ_U5KA

Strong assertions by alan, but no demonstration. How can you tell anything about word order by looking at personal and tribal names? Linguistic assertions are ideally accompanied by a elegant Euclidean-style proof, but in this case, i fear there are not enough corpus of Primitive Irish.

[Imperator Biff]

But no evidence of a Bell Beaker language either, and Insular Celtic VSO word order is suspicious.

The VSO word order of Gaelic had nothing to do with some pre IE substrate spoken by neolithics, Irish simply developed this way due to heavy emphasis on poetry which resulted in a VSO word order. There are other IE languages that are VSO.
Btw I sincerely doubt battle axe folk spoke a pre Germanic language, this was probably brought to the region by single grave or perhaps barbed wire beakers.
Also Etruscan isn’t related to vasconic as far as I know.

[Dna8]

Great thread.

[TheOldNorth]

Uh no, it’s pretty firmly thought that the bell beakers represent an older wave of indo-european migration to the west, likely being the ancestor of the ‘para-celtic’ Lusitanian and Ligurian. Not only that but the bell beaker were about 50% steppe in ancestry, and it’s not likely that at least some tribes didn’t speak indo european, although the bell beaker weren’t one people so perhaps some groups didn’t.

[TheOldNorth]

The VSO word order of Gaelic had nothing to do with some pre IE substrate spoken by neolithics, Irish simply developed this way due to heavy emphasis on poetry which resulted in a VSO word order. There are other IE languages that are VSO.
Btw I sincerely doubt battle axe folk spoke a pre Germanic language, this was probably brought to the region by single grave or perhaps barbed wire beakers.
Also Etruscan isn’t related to vasconic as far as I know.

Not sure if it has to do with poetry but it definitely wasn’t present in the more ancient varieties of Celtic, continental and insular, though I subscribe to the p/q division being more genetic