hey it's been a loooong time since my last post....I'm sorry I never got any information to you guys about my other languages, I sort of abandoned the project. At least for now. Anyways, I've been working on a hypothesis about a possible linguistic theatre of Europe if certain events didn't occur, like the rise of the Roman Empire and if the Greek civilization had been obliterated by the Persians before its chance at greatness....so I was wondering if I could get some opinions???

Right now the way I see it, Celtic and Paleo-Balkan languages would probably have thrived, but I'm not sure as to what would have happened to the Iberian language. I know that Carthaginians (speakers of the Punic dialect of Phoenician) had settled in much of Spain by Roman times, but would they have done so without Rome to compete with? There's a lot that's open for discussion, and I would be happy to get some ideas from older and more experienced people....

Now on to the "conlang" aspect. I was wondering who in here knows much about the extinct Continental Celtic languages. I speak Scottish Gaelic and Welsh fluently but from what I understand these languages lacked a few significant features of the Insular Branch, like conjugated prepositions and consonant mutation which makes the issue of just how the grammar would be set up significantly different. I want to write what would b ea modern version of Galatian in this sort alternative reality I guess, but because information of the Continental Branch is hard to find I need help, and also the historical aspect would help to draw a clearer picture of which languages would have inluenced a Celtic Language spoken in Anatolia. So, any comments wuld be much appreciated!

Thank you

We don't know that they did. We know these features don't show up in the written sources, but these sources are (a) scanty and (b) generally predate sources for the Insular languages. Mutation isn't indicated in Ogham inscriptions either, but that doesn't mean it wasn't present in contemporary speech.

If you want to see an excellent example of a conlang based on the notion of "modern Continental Celtic", check out Deiniol Jones' Arvorec. Mae e'n siarad Cymraeg Fodern a Galeg yn rhugl.

ok so it's not entirely proven that people didn't use it in vernacular, and thanks for the link, but Arvorec seems to be so close to welsh that the two are almost mutually intelligible. Gaulish is more widely accepted to have had more in common with Latin, thus the easy adoption of Latin by the Gauls....

Last night just after I made the post I found an interesting site when I querried for 'Gaulish Vocabulary'. It's the project of someone who seems to be spanish (one of the documents didn't make the transition into english), he's 'reconstructed' gaulish so to speak...it's really interesting, but I'm not sure as to it's authenticity...

Wow this thread is brilliant. I really hope you get far with hypothesis! Unfortunately I don't think I can help you, but I'll follow this discussion closely
The only thing I may suggest is that, since in the years BC the great majority of people had really low-level culture to no culture at all, mankind wasn't ready to develop small territorial independent societies, so there was the need of a great centralized power. If Roman wouldn't have risen, somebody else would have took over Europe: persians, punics, who knows? But somebody would have imho

It's not possible for a human society to have "no culture at all" (at least according to the usual definition of that term in the social sciences) so I'm not sure what you're attempting to say here. There were "territorial independent societies" in Europe long before the Romans. In fact, the Romans would never have been able to accomplish what they did without borrowing extensively from pre-existing cultures, notably the Greeks and the Etruscans.

I didn't say that societies didn't have a culture. I said PEOPLE didn't have a culture. Like in the sentence: you are an idiot without culture (not a reference to anybody in this thread).
P.S. I know nobody can completely lack culture, it's call hyperbole. Like in you are a complete idiot. Of course anybody isn't a complete idiot under all the points of view, and therefore is a partial idiot.

And I'm not sure what you are doing here, as you never seem to help anybody in anything, but only belittle others who are trying to help, but I don't express my feelings in that regard.

If I can recall well, both Greeks and Etruscans had a particular type of society - they didn't have a centralized power but every city was independent. Now I may be too daring, but I seem to recall that Etruscans were at a certain point united in a League, and in fact, they then tried to fill the lack of a centralized power in Italy becoming the most powerful state and they conquered a vaste territory before being stopped by Romans. Who DID fill the lack of centralized power.
That said, I'm not giving anybody lessons of history. I stated clearly I'm no expert, I'm just reporting what I recall from what I studied years ago in middle school, hoping that may be somewhat useful to people who know more than me. What leaves me astounded is that you can never contribute positively to any topic, but only look for something to deny in other people's posts. Please. Get a life.

I don't see the distinction. How can you have "people" without having "society"?


Oh, grow up.


And I'm not sure what you're doing here, since you treat any and every request for clarification as an attempt to humiliate you. If this is the way you are in real life as well, how do you have conversations? [Disclaimer: This question is not intended to demean you in any way. I am genuinely curious.]


You have to a centralisation of power to have a city in the first place. They don't organise themselves spontaneously.


How soon they forget!

Or perhaps you've confused me with a different poster who hasn't made any positive contributions? I await your clarification.

Await long, I'm not wasting my time with you anymore.
Good way brother

Best of luck getting anyone else to comment on your conlangery.

Mind that I'm not taking into consideration only the posts you directed to me, as I followed you on uniLang and zompist too. You seem such an educated and prepared person, and it's a big loss that you are so critique with everyone. I'm so sorry I can't have you as a friend. If you will ever be to review your way to relate to others, I'd love to speak to you again, if you can bear me. But this topic is not of interest of any other memeber, so let's close here our (my) small digression.