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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] WELSH AND HEBREW

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  • From: "Kevin Riley" <klriley AT alphalink.com.au>
  • To: "B Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] WELSH AND HEBREW
  • Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:05:01 +1100 (AUS Eastern Daylight Time)

Many of these studies suffer from the same deficiency: poor methodology. If
Hebrew and Welsh (or any Celtic language) are 'genetically' related, the
similarities should increase the further back you trace each language. To
compare modern Welsh and classical Hebrew is not good practice. You need to
compare the two languages as near as possible to the same time. The further
back you trace Welsh, the more it becomes a standard Indo-European language.
The same is also true of Gaelic. If the similarity is due to substrate
influence - which can neither be proven nor disproven without some knowledge
of the substrate language - it is somewhat odd that the influence seems to
increase after the substrate language is long dead. With the possible
exception of Pictish, there is no evidence of non-Celtic languages being
spoken in Britain within the historical period. If there had been even a
small group of people speaking a language similar to that in north Africa
(or the middle east), it is somewhat odd that no Roman or Celtic author
mentions the fact.

Kevin Riley




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