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ArchivesA Message to Menke ...
I really love your postings as you show that you thoroughly investigate name meanings ...much as I try to (check some of my previous posts) ...though I've been a bit inactive the last few weeks due to business travel.
However, one post gave me pause (I can't remember which ...and don't want to spend time looking as the Red Sox are now on TV …and guess what, I’m Irish-American from Boston). You called the Celts and Basques a related people.
I'm sort of an Irish/European/Paleolithic history buff and I'd like to make a bit more of a distinction than you did. After much reading on this exact subject, I acknowledge that folks in the British Isles certainly have some DNA connection to the Basques. However, most would consider this a remnant of the pre-Indo-European Western Europeans.
The Celts, I maintain, are primarily an Indo-European group …though I believe (as do others) that as they settled in Central Europe they certainly mixed with the indigenous stock already present (those people I previously mentioned who populated the whole of the Western European fringe which included the Basques). In fact, some have suggested that the Irish Spanish Armada Myth (which has the Spanish bringing dark features to Ireland in 1588 due to shipwrecks on the Irish coast as the Armada attempted to battle the English fleet also as a remnant of this history).
Anyway, the Basque and Celtic languages may retain some remnants of this common ancestry but linguistically very little. Most linguists and geneticists agree that the Celts were primarily Indo-European …to what degree the British Isles (or Ireland in particular) are Celtic (DNA-wise rather than culturally) is still debatable. I myself, have very dark curly hair, green-brown eyes, but yet I’m relatively big physically (6’2”, 235 lbs. and still in shape at 43), and yet I am also very ruddy/freckled in complexion – a true mixture of the indigenous Western Europeans, the Celts and likely a bit of the Vikings …go figure.
Just wanted to add my two cents …keep up the great postings!!!
However, one post gave me pause (I can't remember which ...and don't want to spend time looking as the Red Sox are now on TV …and guess what, I’m Irish-American from Boston). You called the Celts and Basques a related people.
I'm sort of an Irish/European/Paleolithic history buff and I'd like to make a bit more of a distinction than you did. After much reading on this exact subject, I acknowledge that folks in the British Isles certainly have some DNA connection to the Basques. However, most would consider this a remnant of the pre-Indo-European Western Europeans.
The Celts, I maintain, are primarily an Indo-European group …though I believe (as do others) that as they settled in Central Europe they certainly mixed with the indigenous stock already present (those people I previously mentioned who populated the whole of the Western European fringe which included the Basques). In fact, some have suggested that the Irish Spanish Armada Myth (which has the Spanish bringing dark features to Ireland in 1588 due to shipwrecks on the Irish coast as the Armada attempted to battle the English fleet also as a remnant of this history).
Anyway, the Basque and Celtic languages may retain some remnants of this common ancestry but linguistically very little. Most linguists and geneticists agree that the Celts were primarily Indo-European …to what degree the British Isles (or Ireland in particular) are Celtic (DNA-wise rather than culturally) is still debatable. I myself, have very dark curly hair, green-brown eyes, but yet I’m relatively big physically (6’2”, 235 lbs. and still in shape at 43), and yet I am also very ruddy/freckled in complexion – a true mixture of the indigenous Western Europeans, the Celts and likely a bit of the Vikings …go figure.
Just wanted to add my two cents …keep up the great postings!!!
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