Asturian-American Migration Forum

English, Irish, Scots: They're All One, Genes Suggest
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/scien ... ref=slogin

by Nicholas Wade, New York Times, March 5, 2007.

Britain and Ireland are so thoroughly divided in their histories that
there is no single word to refer to the inhabitants of both islands.
Historians teach that they are mostly descended from different
peoples: the Irish from the Celts, and the English from the Anglo-
Saxons who invaded from northern Europe and drove the Celts to the
country's western and northern fringes.

But geneticists who have tested DNA throughout the British Isles are
edging toward a different conclusion. Many are struck by the overall
genetic similarities, leading some to claim that both Britain and
Ireland have been inhabited for thousands of years by a single people
that have remained in the majority, with only minor additions from
later invaders like Celts, Romans, Angles , Saxons, Vikings and
Normans.

The implication that the Irish, English, Scottish and Welsh have a
great deal in common with each other, at least from the geneticist's
point of view, seems likely to please no one.

The genetic evidence is still under development, however, and because
only very rough dates can be derived from it, it is hard to weave
evidence from DNA, archaeology, history and linguistics into a
coherent picture of British and Irish origins.

That has not stopped the attempt. Stephen Oppenheimer, a medical
geneticist at the University of Oxford, says the historians' account
is wrong in almost every detail. In Dr. Oppenheimer's reconstruction
of events, the principal ancestors of today's British and Irish
populations arrived from Spain about 16,000 years ago, speaking a
language related to Basque.

The British Isles were unpopulated then, wiped clean of people by
glaciers that had smothered northern Europe for about 4,000 years and
forced the former inhabitants into southern refuges in Spain and
Italy. When the climate warmed and the glaciers retreated, people
moved back north.

The new arrivals in the British Isles would have found an empty
territory, which they could have reached just by walking along the
Atlantic coastline, since there were still land bridges then across
what are now English Channel and the Irish Sea.

This new population, who lived by hunting and gathering, survived a
sharp cold spell called the Younger Dryas that lasted from 12,300 to
11,000 years ago. Much later, some 6,000 years ago, agriculture
finally reached the British Isles from its birthplace in the Near
East.

Agriculture may have been introduced by people speaking Celtic, in
Dr. Oppenheimer's view. Although the Celtic immigrants may have been
few in number, they spread their farming techniques and their
language throughout Ireland and the western coast of Britain. Later
immigrants arrived from northern Europe had more influence on the
eastern and southern coasts. They too spread their language, a branch
of German, but these invaders' numbers were also small compared with
the local population.

In all, about three-quarters of the ancestors of today's British and
Irish populations arrived between 15,000 and 7,500 years ago, when
rising sea levels finally divided Britain and Ireland from the
Continent and from one another, Dr. Oppenheimer calculates in a new
book, "The Origins of the British: A Genetic Detective Story"
(Carroll & Graf, 2006).

As for subsequent invaders, Ireland received the fewest; the
invaders' DNA makes up about 12 percent of the Irish gene pool, Dr.
Oppenheimer estimates, but it accounts for 20 percent of the gene
pool in Wales, 30 percent in Scotland, and about one-third in eastern
and southern England.

Still, no single group of invaders is responsible for more than 5
percent of the current gene pool, Dr. Oppenheimer says on the basis
of genetic data.

He cites figures from the archaeologist Heinrich Haerke that the
Anglo-Saxon invasions that began in the fourth century A.D. added
about 250,000 people to a British population of one to two million,
an estimate Dr. Oppenheimer notes is larger than his but considerably
less than the substantial replacement of the English population
assumed by others. The Norman invasion of 1066 A.D. brought not many
more than 10,000 people, according to Dr. Haerke.

Other geneticists say Dr. Oppenheimer's reconstruction is plausible,
though some disagree with details. Several said that genetic methods
did not give precise enough dates to be confident of certain aspects,
like when the first settlers arrived.

"Once you have an established population, it is quite difficult to
change it very radically," said Daniel G. Bradley, a geneticist at
Trinity College, Dublin. But he said he was "quite agnostic" as to
whether the original population became established in Britain and
Ireland immediately after the glaciers retreated 16,000 years ago, as
Dr. Oppenheimer argues, or more recently, in the Neolithic Age, which
began 10,000 years ago.

Bryan Sykes, another Oxford geneticist, said he agreed with Dr.
Oppenheimer that the ancestors of "by far the majority of people"
were present in the British Isles before the Roman conquest of A.D.
43. "The Saxons, Vikings and Normans had a minor effect, and much
less than some of the medieval historical texts would indicate," he
said.

His conclusions, based on his own genetic survey and information in
his genealogical testing service, Oxford Ancestors, are reported in
his new book, "Saxons, Vikings and Celts: The Genetic Roots of
Britain and Ireland."

A different view of the Anglo-Saxon invasions has been developed by
Mark Thomas of University College, London. Dr. Thomas and colleagues
say the invaders wiped out substantial numbers of the indigenous
population, replacing 50 percent to 100 percent of those in central
England.

Their argument is that the Y chromosomes of English men seem
identical to those of people in Norway and the Friesland area of the
Netherlands, two regions from which the invaders may have originated.

Dr. Oppenheimer disputes this, saying the similarity between the
English and northern European Y chromosomes arises because both
regions were repopulated by people from the Iberian refuges after the
glaciers retreated.

Dr. Sykes said he agreed with Dr. Oppenheimer on this point, but
another geneticist, Christopher Tyler-Smith of the Sanger Centre near
Cambridge, said the jury was still out. "There is not yet a consensus
view among geneticists, so the genetic story may well change," he
said. As to the identity of the first postglacial settlers, Dr. Tyler-
Smith said he "would favor a Neolithic origin for the Y chromosomes,
although the evidence is still quite sketchy."

Dr. Oppenheimer's population history of the British Isles relies not
only on genetic data but also on the dating of language changes by
methods developed by geneticists. These are not generally accepted by
historical linguists, who long ago developed but largely rejected a
dating method known as glottochronology.

Geneticists have recently plunged into the field, arguing that
linguists have been too pessimistic and that advanced statistical
methods developed for dating genes can also be applied to languages.

Dr. Oppenheimer has relied on work by Peter Forster, a geneticist at
Anglia Ruskin University, to argue that Celtic is a much more ancient
language than supposed, and that Celtic speakers could have brought
knowledge of agriculture to Ireland, where it first appeared. He also
adopts Dr. Forster's argument, based on a statistical analysis of
vocabulary, that English is an ancient, fourth branch of the Germanic
language tree, and was spoken in England before the Roman invasion.

English is usually assumed to have developed in England, from the
language of the Angles and Saxons, about 1,500 years ago. But Dr.
Forster argues that the Angles and the Saxons were both really Viking
peoples who began raiding Britain ahead of the accepted historical
schedule. They did not bring their language to England because
English, in his view, was already spoken there, probably introduced
before the arrival of the Romans by tribes such as the Belgae, whom
Julius Caesar describes as being present on both sides of the
Channel.

The Belgae may have introduced some socially transforming technique,
such as iron-working, which would lead to their language supplanting
that of the indigenous inhabitants, but Dr. Forster said he had not
yet identified any specific innovation from the archaeological record.

Germanic is usually assumed to have split into three branches: West
Germanic, which includes German and Dutch; East Germanic, the
language of the Goths and Vandals; and North Germanic, consisting of
the Scandinavian languages. Dr. Forster's analysis shows English is
not an off-shoot of West Germanic, as usually assumed, but is a
branch independent of the other three, which also implies a greater
antiquity. Germanic split into its four branches some 2,000 to 6,000
years ago, Dr. Forster estimates.

Historians have usually assumed that Celtic was spoken throughout
Britain when the Romans arrived. But Dr. Oppenheimer argues that the
absence of Celtic place names in England — words for places are
particularly durable — makes this unlikely.

If the people of the British Isles hold most of their genetic
heritage in common, with their differences consisting only of a
regional flavoring of Celtic in the west and of northern European in
the east, might that perception draw them together? Geneticists see
little prospect that their findings will reduce cultural and
political differences.

The Celtic cultural myth "is very entrenched and has a lot to do with
the Scottish, Welsh and Irish identity; their main identifying
feature is that they are not English," said Dr. Sykes, an Englishman
who has traced his Y chromosome and surname to an ancestor who lived
in the village of Flockton in Yorkshire in 1286.

Dr. Oppenheimer said genes "have no bearing on cultural history."
There is no significant genetic difference between the people of
Northern Ireland, yet they have been fighting with each other for 400
years, he said.

As for his thesis that the British and Irish are genetically much
alike, "It would be wonderful if it improved relations, but I somehow
think it won't."

Thanks to Ana Cris for sending this article.

I wasn't sure how to describe the common genetic origin in what is now Spain. The conclusion of this article/book is that the common ancestors were a people living on the Iberian peninsula who spoke a language related to Basque. That's why I've used the shorthand: "Basque Iberian."

What I find most interesting is that the article illustrates that genes and culture are unrelated. It appears that we use culture to divide ourselves into tribes, but our genes say we're essentially one people.

---------------------------

Agradezco a Ana Cris enviar este artículo.

No estaba seguro cómo describir el origen genético común en la zona que ahora se llama España. La conclusión de este artículo/libro es que los antepasados comunes eran una gente que vivía en la península ibérica quien habló un lenguaje relacionado al vasco. Por eso he utilizado la "taquigrafía": "Ibérico vasco".

Lo que encuentro la más interesante es que el artículo ilustra que los genes y la cultura están sin relación. Parece que utilizamos cultura para dividirnos en tribus, pero nuestros genes dicen que somos esencialmente un puebo.

Hm, interesting. I bought 'The Seven daughters of Eve' last year after running into an article about Bryan Sykes's genetic research in The Independent (see below). After a quick re-read of the article below, I was stumped by the same argument regarding the re-population of the British Isles from 'coastal areas' of Spain. I guess the implication was 'northern' Spain (anywhere from Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria to the Basque Country), but he does not specify.

Does it make sense not to include the coast of Portugal--they have a long sea-faring tradition. If he's talking about proto-Neolithic migrations, before 8,500BCE, then who knows...

September 20, 2006
The Independent (London)

Celts descended from Spanish fishermen, study finds
By Guy Adams

Don't tell the locals, but the hordes of British holidaymakers who visited Spain this summer were, in fact, returning to their ancestral home.
A team from Oxford University has discovered that the Celts, Britain's indigenous people, are descended from a tribe of Iberian fishermen who crossed the Bay of Biscay 6,000 years ago. DNA analysis reveals they have an almost identical genetic "fingerprint" to the inhabitants of coastal regions of Spain, whose own ancestors migrated north between 4,000 and 5,000BC.
The discovery, by Bryan Sykes, professor of human genetics at Oxford University, will herald a change in scientific understanding of Britishness.
People of Celtic ancestry were thought to have descended from tribes of central Europe. Professor Sykes, who is soon to publish the first DNA map of the British Isles, said: "About 6,000 years ago Iberians developed ocean-going boats that enabled them to push up the Channel. Before they arrived, there were some human inhabitants of Britain but only a few thousand in number. These people were later subsumed into a larger Celtic tribe... The majority of people in the British Isles are actually descended from the Spanish."
Professor Sykes spent five years taking DNA samples from 10,000 volunteers in Britain and Ireland, in an effort to produce a map of our genetic roots.
Research on their "Y" chromosome, which subjects inherit from their fathers, revealed that all but a tiny percentage of the volunteers were originally descended from one of six clans who arrived in the UK in several waves of immigration prior to the Norman conquest.
The most common genetic fingerprint belongs to the Celtic clan, which Professor Sykes has called "Oisin". After that, the next most widespread originally belonged to tribes of Danish and Norse Vikings. Small numbers of today's Britons are also descended from north African, Middle Eastern and Roman clans.
These DNA "fingerprints" have enabled Professor Sykes to create the first genetic maps of the British Isles, which are analysed in Blood of the Isles, a book published this week. The maps show that Celts are most dominant in areas of Ireland, Scotland and Wales. But, contrary to popular myth, the Celtic clan is also strongly represented elsewhere in the British Isles.
"Although Celtic countries have previously thought of themselves as being genetically different from the English, this is emphatically not the case," Professor Sykes said.
"This is significant, because the idea of a separate Celtic race is deeply ingrained in our political structure, and has historically been very divisive. Culturally, the view of a separate race holds water. But from a genetic point of view, Britain is emphatically not a divided nation."
Origins of Britons
Oisin
Descended from Iberian fishermen who migrated to Britain between 4,000 and 5,000BC and now considered the UK's indigenous inhabitants.
Wodan
Second most common clan arrived from Denmark during Viking invasions in the 9th century.
Sigurd
Descended from Viking invaders who settled in the British Isles from AD 793. One of the most common clans in the Shetland Isles, and areas of north and west Scotland.
Eshu
The wave of Oisin immigration was joined by the Eshu clan, which has roots in Africa. Eshu descendants are primarily found in coastal areas.
Re
A second wave of arrivals which came from the Middle East. The Re were farmers who spread westwards across Europe.
Roman
Although the Romans ruled from AD 43 until 410, they left a tiny genetic footprint. For the first 200 years occupying forces were forbidden from marrying locally.

hola..una cosa esta bien clara..los asturianos somos un pueblo celta..igual que otros pueblos españoles..como los gallegos. nuestro grupo sanguineo..nuestras costumbres..y nuestra cultura asi lo demuestra..puxa asturias

una cosa son los genes y otra las costumbres. Los Astures llegaron y se establecieron en lo que hoy se conoce como Asturias y parte de León pero ya habia habitantes en esta región que eran los autóctonos del lugar. es decir
que puede pasar lo mismo en España que en el Reino Unido. Lo que yo no se es que si los vascos llegaron antes o después de los romanos o antes o despues que los astures

No voy a entrar ahora en el tema de los antiguos pobladores de las Islas Británicas, pero sí quería decir algo sobre los de la Cornisa Cantábrica, los dichosos vascos y todo eso.

El mito de la "antiquísima y ancestral" presencia de los vascos en la Península Ibérica remonta al Renacimiento, e incluso a algunos siglos antes. En la Edad Media, todos los pueblos buscaban sus raíces, su "pedigrí", en la Biblia. Así, se decía que los de la Península descendían de Tubal. Otros orígenes similares se establecieron para los godos, los italianos, los irlandeses, etc. De los pueblos principales se decía que provenían de cada una de las doce tribus de Israel que se esparcieron por el mundo. Los pueblos menores o menos conocidos eran subdivisiones posteriores explicadas a base de personajes en su mayor parte legendarios. Todos estos conceptos ya están abandonados desde hace mucho, pero aún quedan muchas secuelas. Por ejemplo, aún se habla de "lenguas camíticas" (las africanas), porque los negros descenderían de la tribu de Cam, como se habla también de los pueblos semíticos, descendientes de Sem.

El caso es que en el Renacimiento, el euskera o lengua vasca era una incógnita, y como aún no se había desarrollado la Filología se buscaban y afirmaban extravagantes parentescos entre esa lengua y, por ejemplo, el hebreo.

Con el tiempo, ese discurso fue depurándose, pero llegó prácticamente hasta nuestros días bajo la forma de una teoría llamada "vasco-iberismo". Hay infinidad de inscripciones en signario ibérico, una especie de alfabeto derivado de los del Próximo Oriente, igual que el griego. Algún investigador llegó a descifrar cómo tenían que sonar esos signos, de los cuales algunos son consonánticos, y otros silábicos. Al final se pudo reconstruir la pronunciación aproximada de las palabras, pero permanece en la oscuridad el significado del 90% de las mismas. Sin embargo, allá por los comienzos del siglo XX, pareció suficiente detectar el parecido de determinadas palabras ibéricas con un aire "vascoide" para intentar traducirlas por la lengua vasca. Así ocurrió por ejemplo con ILIBERRIS, el antiguo nombre de Granada, que se "tradujo" por el euskera ILI = ciudad, BERRI = nueva.

De este modo llegamos a Asturias, donde una gran cantidad de estudiosos de dentro y de fuera se dedicaron a "rastrear" toda clase de reminiscencias vascoides en nuestro vocabulario y nombres de lugares, montes, o ríos. Así por ejemplo el vasco Barandiarán, que "tradujo" ARRIONDAS por el euskera HARRI = piedra y ONDO = bien, cuando en realidad el nombre asturiano es LES ARRIONDES, y su origen está en el latín ROTUNDAS = LAS "ARREDONDAS". Pero claro está, con este ingrediente mágico no le faltaron seguidores asturianos, desde traducir ASTURCÓN por el vasco ASTORKI = ASNO, a muchos otros ejemplos, incluido el nombre de Asturias.

Hoy en día todo esto está muy superado. Ni siquiera los propios filólogos vascos se atreven ya a afirmar la identidad entre el euskera y el ibérico, aunque se admite cierto "aire de familia" que, dicen, puede deberse a parentescos por vecindad, o bien a un remotísimo e indetectable origen prehistórico común (hablamos de muchos miles de años, tal vez del Paleolítico). El hecho cierto es que no hay ni una sola inscripción ibérica traducible por el euskera.

Por otro lado no falta una legión de "traductores" (véanse las peregrinas teorías de Arnaiz Villena y Alonso) que hacen sus pinitos traduciendo a todo meter lenguas como el ibérico, el etrusco, el minoico y hasta el copto simplemente agarrando un diccionario de euskera. Por supuesto ni son filólogos, ni saben hablar vasco siquiera. Así se explica que no tengan en cuenta que la ACTUAL lengua vasca, que es en base a la que se elaboran los diccionarios, contiene ENTRE UN 50 Y UN 60% DE TÉRMINOS INDOEUROPEOS (celtismos, latinismos romanos, préstamos del francés, español, occitano y aragonés). Eso sí, no son siempre fácilmente reconocibles por el común de la gente, debido a su adaptación a una lengua tan peculiar como el euskera, pero sí por los filólogos. Citemos como ejemplo MENDI (como en el apellido Mendizábal) <-- latín MONS, MONTIS = monte, montaña. O GAZTELU <-- CASTELLUM. O TEGI/DEGI/EGI <-- céltico TEGI = casa, habitación (emparentado con latín TECTUM = techo, TÉGULA = teja, bretón TY = casa). Todos habremos visto una competición de corta de troncos, los famosos aizkolaris. Bien, pues AIZKOLA <-- latín AXEOLA = hachuela. Y sin embargo no faltó quien pusiera esta palabra en relación con el vasco AITZ = piedra. Ya se sabe que los hombres del Paleolítico hablaban vasco y se les daba muy bien eso de fabricar hachas de piedra...

Y mientras en Asturies (y en otros sitios) los propios siguen buscando en el cajón de sastre del vasquismo, el catedrático de Indoeuropeística Francisco Villar demuestra palmariamente que no hay ningún rastro de oronimia, toponimia ni hidronimia antiguas (nombres de montañas, lugares habitados y ríos) en todo el territorio del llamado País Vasco español y Navarra de origen vascoide. Sólo hay dos excepciones:

- La villa de Oiartzun, citada por los geógrafos grecorromanos como Oieasson.

- La ciudad de Pompaelum, la actual Pamplona.

Villar matiza estas dos excepciones. Oiartzun está en la provincia de Guipúzcoa, muy cerca de la frontera con Francia. Como quiera que las inscripciones de Aquitania sí son tenidas con certeza como pertenecientes al proto-vasco, y de hecho, a diferencia del ibérico, sí que se pueden traducir bastantes términos por el euskera, Villar propone que el nombre de este lugar se corresponde a un enclave en la frontera sur de los antiguos aquitanos, no en el norte de los pueblos antiguos que habitaban Vizcaya y Guipúzcoa, que él demuestra ser indoeuropeos.

Por otro lado, Pompaelum no es ni siquiera un nombre enteramente vasco. La primera parte deriva de Pompeius, y sólo sería vasca la segunda parte, -ELUM, del euskera -ELI, -ILI = ciudad. El propio geógrafo griego Estrabón nos dice que ése es el significado del nombre, "la ciudad de Pompeyo". Pero como esta ciudad fue fundada por los romanos, y precisamente en época de Pompeyo, no sirve como ejemplo de toponimia prehistórica, pues no es anterior al propio Pompeyo.

Por si todo esto fuera poco, las supuestas singularidades genéticas vascas no lo son tanto, y encima haciendo análisis de ADN de esqueletos de épocas de la Edad del Hierro y anteriores, ¡oh sorpresa! este ADN de "vascos" antiguos no se corresponde con el de los actuales.

A todos nos gusta sentirnos el ombligo del mundo y hay pueblos a los que eso se les da muy bien. La pena es que nos lo creamos los demás.

Carlos wrote:En la Edad Media, todos los pueblos buscaban sus raíces, su "pedigrí", en la Biblia.

Jejeje. Éste es un ejemplo muy ilustrativo de ganas que superan lo cierto.

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Carlos wrote:In the Middle Ages, all of the towns searched for their roots, their pedigree, in the Bible.

Ha ha. This is an illustrative example of wishes that exceed what is known [the "truth"].

I suspected as much since I was a child and noticed that Churchill looked like my grandpa, George Harrison like my cousin Eugenio, the Queen Mum like our neighbour Belarmina, etc. When living in Germany my suspicions were confirmed as I realized that no German ever reminded me of anybody back home, but that Elton John could by mistaken for our neighbour José Luis "El Chato", John Lennon for my friend Teo and most British (meaning English, Welsh, Scotch and Irish) could be easily transplanted to any Asturian village and no stranger would ever know the difference.
I'm also convinced that as DNA mapping proceeds, it will be proven in time and in no uncertain terms, that they are ALL DESCENDING FROM ASTURIANS!
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Ya lo sospechaba desde que era pequeña, cuando me dí cuenta de que Churchill se parecía a mi abuelo, George Harrison a mi primo Eugenio, la reina Madre a mi vecina Belarmina, etc. Cuando vivíamos en Alemania nunca ví a nadie que me recordara a un asturiano, pero Elton John se podría confundir con mi vecino José Luis El Chato, John Lennon con mi amigo Teo y la mayoría del paisanaje británico (quiero decir inglés, galés, escocés e irlandés) se podría transplantar facilmente a cualquier pueblo de Asturias sin que uno "de la parte fuera" pudiera distinguirlo.
Estoy además convencida, que a medida que avanza la confección de mapas de ADN, quedará demostrado a tiempo y sin ningún género de dudas, que todos ellos DESCIENDEN DE ASTURIANOS!

As much as I would like to think that Asturias is the genetic source of Britons and the entire arco atlantico, it has been known for some time (original paper by Cavalli Sforza) that there were several waves of migration into Spain. He analysis (don't bother reading it if your don't know what and eigenvalue is) and those of others suggest that the people of the arco atlantico (essentially the seacoast from Galicia to the British isles) share a common genetic heritage and were pushed to coastal regions by later immigrants. Whatever migrations took place within the arco atlantico is an open question in my mind.

I haven't had a chance to read the latest book, so I can't yet comment on it intelligently.

Bob, yo sí leí Genes, Pueblos y Lenguas, de Cavalli-Sforza. La verdad es que propone unas hipótesis muy sugerentes, pero no le faltan detractores. Por ejemplo, lo que este genetista hace es poner de manifiesto unas gradaciones en las frecuencias de determinados genes a lo largo de toda Europa. Se agarra a las tesis del arqueólogo británico Collin Renfrew, que en buena medida casan con las suyas. Pero todo el edificio teórico que construyen cada uno por su lado tiene sus agujeros.

Por ejemplo, la gradación de Cavalli es segura, pero no nos indica en qué dirección se produjeron los corrimientos de pueblos. ¿De este a oeste, o al contrario? ¿De norte a sur o al revés? Él propone una dirección determinada, pero en absoluto puede demostrarlo. Para eso le vienen bien las explicaciones propuestas por Renfrew, pero las dificultades de éste no son menores.

Éste último propone la expansión de los indoeuropeos con ocasión de la llamada "Revolución Neolítica". Es decir, nada de gloriosas "cabalgatas de las walkirias" para conquistar tierras a sangre y fuego, sino pacífica colonización gradual de una población en expansión demográfica gracias a la agricultura.

Desde luego, Renfrew, a todo lo largo de su obra Arqueología y Lenguaje. La Cuestión de los Orígenes Indoeuropeos pone el dedo en la llaga de las numerosas lagunas existentes en las tesis aceptadas hasta el momento de exponer sus ideas, pero de momento no puede rellenar esas lagunas con otras tesis incontestables. Por ejemplo, ¿por qué no podemos apreciar una continuidad cultural en la arqueología del Neolítico europeo? Si todos estos pueblos proceden de la expansión del mismo original, su cultura material debería presentar, con todos los cambios, modificaciones y evoluciones que se quiera, una continuidad que no existe.

Y aunque el propio Renfrew apunta muy tímidamente esta otra hipótesis, son un grupo de estudiosos de varios países, encabezados por el italiano Mario Alinei los que pretenden salvar estas dificultades dando un salto hacia adelante, o mejor dicho, hacia atrás en el tiempo. Proponen que los Indoeuropeos no "llegaron" de ninguna parte, por la sencilla razón de que no llegaron: sencillamente estuvieron en Europa desde siempre. Se preguntan el motivo de que, si nadie se cuestiona que los negros estuvieron desde siempre en África o los asiáticos en Asia, por qué los europeos prehistóricos tendrían que ser diferentes.

Es decir, sí que llegaron los primeros Homo Sapiens, claro está, pero estos seres que desarrollaron el Paleolítico europeo ya serían indoeuropeos, o lo que es lo mismo, hablaban una lengua de la que posteriormente saldría lo que los filólogos reconstruyeron. Posteriormente comenzaría su evolución, con una primera etapa a la que el lingüista alemán Krahe llamó Antiguo Europeo, y más tarde el Indoeuropeo reconstruido.

La consecuencia de todo esto, si es que con el tiempo llega a esclarecerse, es que incluso los hombres prehistóricos que pintaban bisontes en las cuevas ya podrían ser hablantes de la lengua o el antecedente de la lengua indoeuropea.

El desarrollo de lo que más tarde serían las lenguas célticas no sería más que un proceso de divergencia, y al mismo tiempo de convergencia, en lo que Martín Almagro y otros llaman "Celticidad Acumulativa", o proceso de formación de los celtas y su lengua, mediante la nivelación de lenguajes emparentados y muy próximos.

Y aquí es donde ya la cuestión de los genes no tiene mucho pito que tocar, como lo demuestran los diferentes orígenes étnicos de la población de USA, y sin embargo todos ellos anglosajones por su idioma.

Saludos

Wearin' of the gene

by Will Englund, Baltimore Sun
Originally published March 17, 2007
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinio ... 7987.story

What is it that sets the Irish apart? It must be their Basque heritage. That, and the awful truth that there's barely any difference between them and the English.

All those centuries of fighting and religion and malarkey and stiff upper lips, and now it turns out that there's little that's Anglo-Saxon about the English and even less that's Celtic about the land of St. Patrick. Research on male and female chromosomes by an Oxford geneticist named Stephen Oppenheimer shows, he says, that the dominant ancestral strain on both sides of the Irish Sea has its roots in a migration from northern Spain about 16,000 years ago. None of the waves that have swept the British Isles since then - Celtic, Germanic, Roman, Viking, Norman - has had much more than a minor impact, genetically speaking.

The same, by the way, holds true for the Welsh and the Scots - who to the untrained ear of a wary American walking into a bar on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow today might seem to be still speaking Basque, with the odd wee recognizable word thrown in just to confuse things.

History, though, insists that the Glaswegians were speaking a dialect of English called Scots as long ago as the Middle Ages; Dr. Oppenheimer, in an essay published last fall in Prospect magazine, says genetic research now suggests that English is much older than previously thought, easily predating the Anglo-Saxon invasion of the 5th and 6th centuries. Statistical analysis of languages by geneticists is all the rage, by the way - among geneticists. Linguists haven't been amused.

But that's a side issue. Languages, even old ones, come and go. Some Celts made their way to Ireland, for instance, and something about their language and culture must have been a good fit. They left their stamp; they just didn't leave very many genes behind. Styles of decoration and metal-working came and went, too, in antiquity, but anthropologists now think that had less to do with great migrations of tribes and more to do with the common-sense notion that fashion is fashion, and people have a way of picking up on it.

In a way, this seems like a theory of immobility. What's here is here and it's more stubbornly here than you might suppose. Yet in terms of the world's populations, the English and Irish are newcomers. People had already been living in the Americas for thousands of years by the time the glaciers melted enough to allow a roving bunch of Basques to move northward to what was then a single piece of land separated from France by a river. (And somehow jai alai turned into cricket, or rugby or something, along the way.)

But the story of a people is not the story of a person. Geneticists at England's University of Leicester have been busy, too, and they've discovered chromosomal evidence suggesting that Thomas Jefferson had a Jewish ancestor, most likely a Sephardic Jew from Spain or Portugal. (If only fellow Virginian George Allen had known that when he was botching his Senate re-election campaign last year, he might not have handled the question of his Jewish inheritance quite so clumsily.)

And what is it about Spain, anyway? The Basques, of course, came from there, and apparently the Celts did, too, after an earlier sojourn in the Middle East. Interestingly, the biggest group of people trying to move to what the French still insist is the "Anglo-Saxon" United States are also of Spanish origin, though a bit more recent.

People are wanderers. They mix it up a lot. Whole nations don't transform themselves - or if they do, it's pretty rare - but there's plenty of to-and-fro to make life interesting. And of course there's a lot more of it here than in Europe or Africa or Asia. Ethnicity anywhere is more about culture and identification than bloodlines. St. Patrick's Day is a day to tap into Celtic heritage; it's not a day to be Celtic - because hardly anyone is.

Thanks to modern science, your genes give you away. And if you care to know, you're probably not who you think you are.

By the way, I was probably the only one in this forum who denied our being celts and was roundly abused for it by more than one member. Since time puts everything and everyone in their place, I won't ask for apologies, but I will enjoy my little triumph with a most pedantic "Quod erat demonstrandum!".
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Por cierto, yo fui probablemente la única de este foro que negué que fuéramos celtas y se me llamó de todo por parte de algunos foreros. Comoquiera que el tiempo pone todo y a todos en su sitio, no voy a exigir disculpas, pero voy a disfrutar de este pequeño triunfo con un muy pedante: "Quod erat demonstrandum!"

Terechu mentioned the contentious discussions we've had on this and other issues. I'd like to think with everyone about how a community can benefit from discussing issues about which the individual members don't agree.

It's difficult to discuss any issue in which we are involved emotionally. This (the Celts & Asturias) is one of those issues. It'd be easy for any of us to think "I'm not emotionally involved," but you'd be fooling yourself. Anyone who bothers to respond to this topic is emotionally involved or they'd fall asleep instead of responding.

That's why it's really difficult to maintain an open, thinking stance. But unless we struggle to do that, we won't offer each other anything useful in our messages. The worst thing about personal attacks is that they are usually intellectually empty. We've seen that here occasionally.

I've often thought about Terechu's earlier comments on the Celtic topic. They were helpful because she caused me to reconsider what I had assumed to be true. I don't remember whether she had facts to back up her position but, either way, she was successful in opening my thinking to another possibility. That was good.

That's why I'm grateful to Terechu for speaking her mind even when she expects criticism. We're lucky to have a friend and member with a good "BS detector."

In contrast to Terechu, I sometimes ask questions when I don't agree with something or I'm unsure. (Obviously, at other times I write long messages thinking aloud about topics.)

Some of us -- most notably Carlos, Bob and Is -- offer detailed, well-reasoned explanations to demonstrate their logic. I've learned a lot from them. We're lucky to have them participate, too.

These are all helpful approaches and I encourage those with any viewpoint to continue posting their views, no matter how different they are.

It would also be helpful if each of us could share our ideas with the expectation that our ideas will change as a result of the discussion. It is only by holding onto our ideas a little less tightly that we can learn more or at least discover the holes in our thinking. This is not weakness; it's the only way we can strengthen our thinking.

The fact is that none of us are going to be right all the time.

Yes, tell me when you think I'm wrong. You're doing me a favor when you force me to take a deeper look.

But let's try to do it in a non-attacking, unemotional manner. After all, we're friends and compatriots, each of us working for the good of Asturias and Asturian culture. So if you can't do this for me or someone else on the forum, do it for Asturias.

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Terechu mencionó las discusiones polémicas que hemos tenido sobre esto y otros temas. Quisiera pensar con todos sobre cómo una comunidad puede beneficiar de discutir cuestiones en que los miembros individuales no convienen.

Es difícil discutir cualquier tema en la cual estemos implicados emocionalmente. Éste (los celtas y Asturies) es una de esas temas. Sería fácil para cualesquiera de nosotros pensar que "no estoy emocionalmente implicado", pero te estarías engañando. Cualquier persona que se toma la molestia de responder a este asunto está emocionalmente implicado o se caería dormido en vez de responder.

Por eso de verdad es difícil mantener una postura abierta y pensativa. Pero a menos que luchemos para hacer eso, no nos ofreceremos cualquier cosa útil en nuestros mensajes. La faceta peor de ataques personales es que generalmente son intelectualmente vacíos. Hemos visto eso aquí de vez y cuando.

He pensado a menudo de los comentarios anteriores de Terechu sobre el asunto céltico. Eran provechosos porque ella me hizo reconsiderar lo que había asumido ser verdad. No recuerdo si ofreció hechos para sostener su posición pero, de cualquier manera, era acertado en abrir mi pensamiento a otra posibilidad. Eso era buenísimo.

Por eso agradezco a Terechu para hablar su mente incluso cuando cuenta con crítica. Somos afortunados tener una amiga y un miembro que tiene un buen "detector de BS" [detector de tonterías].

En contraste con Terechu, hago a veces preguntas cuando no estoy de acuerdo con algo o soy inseguro en mis pensamientos. (Obviamente, en otras veces escribo mensajes largos que piensa en voz alta de asuntos.)

Algunos de nosotros -- lo más notablemente Carlos, Bob y Is – nos ofrecen explicaciones detalladas y bien-razonadas para demostrar su lógica. He aprendido mucho de ellos. Somos afortunados que participen también.

Éstos son todos enfoques provechosos, y animo a todos con cualquier punto de vista que continúen poniendo al foro sus opiniones, no importa si sea diferente o no.

También sería provechoso si cada uno de nosotros podría compartir nuestras ideas con la expectativa que nuestras ideas cambiarán como resultado de la discusión. Está solamente por agarrar nuestras ideas un pequeño menos firmemente que podemos aprender más o por lo menos descubrir los agujeros en nuestro pensamiento. Ésta no es debilidad; es la única manera en que podemos consolidar nuestro pensamiento.

El hecho es que ningunos de nosotros van a tener razón toda la hora.

Sí, dime que cuando piensas que me equivoque. Me estás haciendo un favor cuando me fuerzas tomar una mirada más profunda.

Pero intentemos hacerla en una manera sin ataquea y poco emocional. Después de todo, somos amigos y compatriotas, cada uno de nosotros trabajamos para el bien de la cultura asturiana y de Asturies. Entonces, si no puedes hacer esto para mí o algún otro del foro, hazlo para Asturies.

And now back to the issues!

I don't read those articles as saying that the question is closed, Terechu. The linguistics, archaeologists, and geneticists don't agree yet. Maybe they will one day, but it looks like it'll be a long ways off.

On the other hand, the article does question a number of "sacred cows." The idea that we're all descended from the Celts especially seems dubious, at least in terms of genetics. Wouldn't it be just as valid to claim, "We're descended from the Romans, Suevos, or Visigoths?" It's interesting that no one makes those claims. (I bet we'd all be claiming to be Visigoths if there was a popular style of music we called "Visigothic.")

I was particularly struck by the idea that the genes of original immigrants from Spain to the British Isles still dominate the inhabitants of Britain and that the Celts and other later arriving groups had more influence culturally than genetically.

first message in thread wrote:Agriculture may have been introduced by people speaking Celtic, in Dr. Oppenheimer's view. Although the Celtic immigrants may have been few in number, they spread their farming techniques and their language throughout Ireland and the western coast of Britain.

...

Still, no single group of invaders is responsible for more than 5 percent of the current gene pool, Dr. Oppenheimer says on the basis of genetic data.

What I conclude from the articles is that most of us (me included) have often confused genetics with culture. The cultural contributions of the many waves of peoples into the Atlantic Arc aren't being questioned by these studies. So, culturally Asturias might be able to rightfully claim to be Celtic.

To be honest, though, I'm not sure what it would mean to be "Celtic." The article indicates that the people who migrated to the British Isles had been living on the Iberian Peninsula long before the Celts arrived. Were the Astures Celts? Do we really know the source of the most important elements of our culture (the foods, music, social patterns, etc.)?

Those are serious questions; I'm open to your thoughts and data. Tell us what you think.

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¡Vale, ahora regreso de nuevo a las cuestiones!

No creo que esos artículos están diciendo que la pregunta es cerrada, Terechu. Los lingüistas, los arqueólogos, y los no convienen todavía. Quizá un día, pero parece que será aún mucho tiempo.

Por otra parte, el artículo ponga en duda un número de "vacas sagradas". La idea que descendemos de los celtas me parece especialmente dudosa, por lo menos en términos de genética. Sería tan válido demandar, "Descendemos de los romanos, de los suevos, o de los visigodos", ¿no? Es interesante que nadie demanda así. (Aposté que todos estaríamos demandando ser visigodos si hubiera un estilo popular de música que se llama "visigodo".)

Los artículos me llamaron la atención particularmente a la idea que los genes de los inmigrantes originales de España a las Islas Británicas todavía dominan a habitantes de Gran Bretaña y que los celtas y otros grupos que llegaban más tarde han tenido más influencia cultural que genético.

primer mensaje en este hilo wrote:La agricultura pudo haber sido introducida por la gente de habla celta, en la opinión del Dr. Oppenheimer. Aunque los inmigrantes célticos pudieron haber sido poco numerosos, desplegaron sus técnicas de agricultura y su lengua a través de Irlanda y de la costa occidental de Gran Bretaña.

…

No obstante, no hay grupo de invasores responsable por más de 5 por ciento de la fonda de genes actual, el Dr. Oppenheimer dice en base de datos genéticos.

Lo que concluyo de los artículos es que la mayor parte de nosotros (yo incluido) a menudo hemos confundido la genética con la cultura. En estos estudios no se duda las contribuciones culturales de las muchas ondas de pueblos en el arco atlántico. Así pues, la cultura asturiana se puede legítimamente demandar ser céltica.

Pero ser honesto, no estoy seguro qué significaría ser "céltico". Los artículos indican que la gente que emigró a las Islas Británicas había estado viviendo en la Península Ibérica muchos siglos antes que llegó los celtas. ¿Eran los astures celtas? ¿Realmente sabemos la fuente de los elementos más importantes de nuestra cultura (los alimentos, la música, los patrones sociales, etc.)?

Ésas son preguntas serias; estoy abierto a tus pensamientos y datos. Dinos que piensas.

This whole thing is getting more and more entangled by the day. Linguists, archeologists and geneticists have only partial data available and they have no option but to rearrange their whole theories every time a new study on language, DNA analysis or Iron Age burial pops out. One day the Britons are the descendants of Saxon sailors coming from the continent, the next day they are the offspring of "Basque" hunter-gatherers. One day the Indo-Europeans came in their war charriots from the steppes in the Black Sea, the next they are Hitite farmers flowing from Anatolia. Theories grow harder and harder to grasp. I guess long-term processes are simply imposible to get properly researched and understood.

Carlos is totally right that the claims about the "Basque-ness" of Prehistoric inmigrants are ridiculours. Seems like if English scholars have acritically bought the tale about those misterious, eons-old Basques. The truth is, we don`t know much about the languages spoken before the Romans arrived into the Iberian Peninsula (euphemism: we really don`t have a clue). Period.

The funny thing is, we laypeople have a biased idea about ancient history. Sure many English would be surprised to find out that Medieval Asturias kept lasting and strong ties with tradesmen and pirates from West Europe. Vikings played a key role in civil wars in Asturias, from the IX to the XI centuries, just as they did in Ireland, and the salt rail, along with pilgrimages and whaling, carried both ideas, fashions and settlers from north to the south and vice-versa.

I have an interesting story on this: I was once in a cafeteria with a friend of mine from Central Europe, and I pointed at the waiter: "You said we Iberians have all southern traits, didn`t you? Then what about him?" The man might pass as a German. "Oh, yeah" was the answer "I just didn`t pay attention to him, you know. He just has a regular face, and only those of you with exotical features strike my attention".
Here you are. It is much easier to focus on the differences.
There is certainly a racial strain in the British Isles that looks very familiar in our Peninsula. Churchill certainly might pass as an Asturian, and so might Tom Jones, Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean), Catherine Zeta-Jones and many other celebs. But you never will hear about that in English literature. They are simply not aware of it. Instead, sure they will be shocked (and many of them, not in a pleasant way) when confronted with their genetic affinity to us.
As to the debate on Asturian Celticness, I feel just like Terechu: I think the facts are proving me quite right. Just as I always thought, an affinity can be proven between all the nations around the Atlantic Brim of Europe. Now that the English know they share common ancestors with us, maybe they will dare check the numberless connections in language, folklore and traditions that we also share.
In a nutshell:
-The Romans placed the Celts (Celtici) in the Iberian Peninsula: they mention Celts, first, in Celtiberia, then in the SW corner of the Peninsula and finally in the NW corner, deriving from succeeding migratory waves.
-Celtic languages have survived to this very day in Brittany and the British Isles, logically making them "modern Celts".
-Genetic research of humans, cattle and crops, as well as archeology and folklore, prove a consistent, lasting and logical affinity between the nations of the Atlantic Arc.
-The deeper the research goes, the wider these affinities spread, finally encompassing most of West Europe, of course in different degrees: The Iberian Peninsula, France, the British Isles, West Germany...

Now please, someone tell me, where were wrong the Asturian Celtic-maniacs? Can we claim Celtic ancestry? Can we claim our closeness to the other nations of the Atlantic Façade of Europe? Is it possible that most of West Europe bears a certain, ancient, Celtic heritage?