Da http://groups.yahoo.com/group/peoplesofeurope/
From: mittalander
Date: Sun Mar 24, 2002 11:23 am
Subject: 1)Celtic-Romances tongues
This is a global answer to Carol's question (about the history of
the Celtic-Romances tongues), and to mr. Ns post.
Please, take a look at the album Celtic-Romances tongues. I have drawn a linguistical map wich shows the geographical distribution of the Celtic Romance tongues. The second map is not by me: was scanned from Histoire et anthologie de la littérature occitane, by Robert Lafont, vol. I, Montpellier, Les Presses du Languedoc, 1997. In this second map you can see
how the Celtic-Romance influences involve also Catalunya, even if this country was not a Celtic land. This influence is due to an external cultural influence, the Oc poetry from the Middle age.
There is a third map drew by me: the linguistical boundaries of the Pen area, another Celtic-Romance land. (Liguria, as well as Catalunya, has never been a Celtic country: the Celtic-Romance influences are a slight external heritage from the North. The
Ligurians are Mediterraneans).
Basically, France and Italy have a similar racial structure, being "bi-cultural" (at least), countries. The North of France, and the North of Italy, were settled by Celtic populations since the Bronze/Iron ages, while the South of both the countries was/is
mainly Mediterranean.
The Romans (from the Tiber country, Latium, Central Italy),conquered all the Lands on the west of the LIMES (the Rhein/Danube axis, their formidable, and fortified Roman frontiers), therefore also the Celtic continental lands fell under the Romans.
The Romans called their Capital city "the Eternal City", and after that more vigorous and coherent peoples (the Germanics),destroyed the Empire, which was perishing between internal riots, lust and corruption. Therefore,if the Roman Empire fell,
this was ALSO due to internal cancers. Long before the
Germanic invasions of the V century A.D. (410 fell of Rome, 476, fell of the Empire), the corruption of the Senate, the madness,the lust, of the last Emperors, were the scenario in which took place the shameful decadence of the Empire. There was also another cause if the Empire fell: the internal "indigenist reaction"
of the subjugated populations. In the nowaday Northern France (Transalpine Gaul), in the nowaday Switzerland (Helvetia),and in the extreme north-west of Itlay (Cisalpine Gaul), the old Celtic population began (also before the barbarian invasions),to rediscover their ancient and pre-Roman traditions: the cult of the trees, the tribal liens, the country in opposition to the city.This internal reaction had also linguistical consequences.Recent genetic studies (from the Stanford University,USA), states that
the North of France and the "Italian" Pen area, were still Celtic at the beginning at the last century.
The Pen area was the land in which was spoken the
"Continental Celtic", the Lepontic. After the Roman conquest,on this linguistical Celtic substratum, the Latin tongue of the Romans was superimposed. But later, with the "indigenist reaction" in Northern France, and in the Pen area, the linguistical
Celtic substratum reemerged.
With the fall of the Roman Empire, each former Roman country (from Portugal to Italy, through Spain, France and Belgium),developed a local tongue from the common Latin matrix:the so-called "neo-Latin" or "Romances tongues." In Northern France and in the Pen area, these neo-Latin was deeply influenced by the Celtic linguistical substratum.
Therefore, according to Geoffray Hull (from the University of Melbourne, Victoria state Australia), it is not possible to speak ONLY about a "neo-Latin" or "Romance" family. Being this family
divided in two great trunks. The "real" Romance family
(Central-southern Italy; Spain; Portugal), and the
"Celtic-Romance" family. Being the Celtic-Romance tongues a substratum of Celtic with an overlapping of Latin, which evolved in the Celtic-Romance family of languages. (A prop of the Pen area, Hull based his theories also on a Lombard book bubblished in 1853: "Essays on the Celtic-Romance dialects"
(B. Biondell).)
The Celtic-Romance family is composed by the Rhaetian
languages (spoken in: Graübunden, Switzerland; Süd Tirol and Friaul, extreme north-esat of the italian peninsula). And by the Celtic-Romance of the former Transalpine Gaul (France); and by the Celtic-Romance of the former Cisalpine Gaul/Pen area
(Piedmont; Lombardy and western Emilia).
The Celtic-Romance of the Lower Switzerland and of the extreme northern part of the Italian peninsula is going to die. In these last 50 years an ethnic composition which was inaltered since the Iron age, changed drammatically.
A prop of the Pen area, since 1950, this extraordinary
immigration from the South of Italy, destroyed the local Celtic (or Celtic-Romance), heritage. In 1991 (more than ten years ago),the 25% of the population was composed by these Southern immigrants, and now they are even more. This migrationist phenomenon was a tragedy for the both sides (immigrants,and natives), because of this migration many southerns died in tragic and sad circumstances, while the North lost its heritage.
To have a clue of the magnitude of the immigration from the South of Italy, just think that the Lower Switzerland was involved in this phenomenon. And since 1970 the Federation, which was an historical craddle of Protestantism, BECAME A CATHOLIC COUNTRY.
Traduzione veloce:
L'autore dice che a causa della forte immigrazione meridionale,il retaggio etnico celtico del Nord e della Svizzera ticinese,rimasto inalterato per secoli,e' drammaticamente cambiato,tanto che gia' nel 1991,il 25% della popolazione del Nord era composta da immigrati meridionali,e adesso anche di +.Inoltre nel caso della bassa Svizzera (il Ticino),l'immigrazione meridionale e' stata talmente alta,che si e' passati da una fede da sempre protestante in quella zona,ad una cattolica.
Che ne pensate?