Gaelic VS latin (languages)

ok so me and my Italy Freind were talking about the Hisorty of the Celts and the Romans last night, and you know yourslef putting an Irish man and an italian woman in a room togeter your going to end up with, whos got the greater culture.
and from that we got into a dead lock with which language, sounds,looks nicer on paper,had the greater History and just is greater then the other.
so watch as many of these Videos as you went and comment on which is the nicer languge

Gaelic

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This one is funny
and this is what it look like put down D'fhéach mé ar aici i oll-arda, ach ní raibh mé in ann a fheiceáil. mar a shiúil mé ar shiúl Bhraith mé go raibh mé in ann a dhéanamh níos mó a stopadh an méid a bhí ar siúl.

latin

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I don't know much latin

Yeah Italian chicks are pretty hot.

Well, obviously no language is "better" than the other but if you insist on fighting about it my money is on Latin. I do not see how the barely extant Gaelic languages compare to the language that has created a language family that accounts for hundreds of millions of people.

HEY! am still winning do

What?

hey we did give the re-birth to language.
with the book Book Of The Kells being one of them.

And you thought I wouldn't point out the Book of Kells is written in Latin. And the re-birth of language? lol what?

Originally Posted by Ferrets54

And you thought I wouldn't point out the Book of Kells is written in Latin. And the re-birth of language? lol what?

ya sure the Irish were writing things back down again. aka the re-birth of language and the golden age of ireland

I'm hoping you can't be serious because literature, let alone language, had not ceased outside of Ireland. The earliest work of English is about 200 years earlier than the Book of Kells, for example. I think you are confusing things with specifically written literature.

well am not doing History untill am finish my Theatre studies.
but my understanding of the british isles, is.
peolpe that write: Romes and not the Picts and the Gaelic.

after some time, the Saxons move over and takes England.
The Gaelic and the Romes mixed to make up the Welsh
and the Gaelic take over Scotland.

the Gaelic ally with the Romes to take up Rome writing and the Saxons and the Picts leave this part of England in the dark age.

Originally Posted by philipOhayda

well am not doing History untill am finish my Theatre studies.
but my understanding of the british isles, is.
peolpe that write: Romes and not the Picts and the Gaelic.

after some time, the Saxons move over and take England.
The Gaelic and the Romes mixed to make up the Welsh
and the Gaelic take over Scotland.

Not... really. The earliest Irish, Pictish and Brythonic script is Ogham. It's not well understood - there are only about 400 inscriptions known across the entire British Isles and they're mostly personal names. They're used mostly 4th-6th centuries... about the same time the Anglo Saxons are pushing into England. The Anglo-Saxons used Futhorc, runes to you and I, at the same time.

So contrary to your idea of the Irish being the sole guardians of literature at this point all the peoples of the British Isles in fact have writing in the Dark Age, its just none of them were using the Latin alphabet in day to day affairs.

With regards to history... I am afraid you know the national myth version more than history.

Very, very briefly:

When the Romans withdrew from Britain it is possible the Saxons or Germanic speaking peaking people were already present in South Eastern and Eastern England. There is conflict over precisely what the "Saxon Shore" refers to in Latin documents, there no Celtic inscriptions from that area after the Romans leave and Old English contains barely any Celtic loan-words, which is odd if you believe the invasion theory.

Anyway, the Romans and British had coexisted for about 400 years by this point so we understand the culture as Romano-British. They broke into various factions, and in some way or another the Angles, Jutes and Saxons (all quite distinctive people) founded their own Kingdoms and pushed North and West.

Meanwhile the Irish also migrated across the Irish Sea and established Gaelic Kingdoms in the Hebridies. They're also present in Wales. The Picts pretty much carry on.

Eventually the Saxons westward enough to compel the British petty Kingdoms around Gloucester, Bath and Cirencester to unite, but are defeated and their cities occupied. This divided the Romano-British into Welsh and Cornish pockets, leading to the development of the Welsh and Cornish languages.

Under this pressure Romano-British flee the British Isles and found colonies in the devestated provinces of the Roman Empire: Brittany in France and Britonia in Northern Spain.

Which leaves us with the British Isles looking something like this at the height of all this migration:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

You're wrong to say the Gaels conquered the Picts so matter in factly. The two people fought with each other, and with the Anglo-Saxons and Britsh Kingdoms back and forth for centuries and we know at one point at least Dal Riata was subject to a Pictish King. Both were defeated by the Vikings, as were the Anglo-Saxons of Northumbria, and from this emerged the Kingdom of Alba which was led by a "King of the Picts". They were not known as the Gaelic term "Scots" for some three hundred years after it. It was a very gradual process and it was not a conquest. And remember, it wasn't entirely successful, either. Lowland Scotland has never spoken much Gaelic, more English dialects.

Originally Posted by deathcab47

Celtic languages are far older than Latin, stemming from the Indo-European branches.

Have you any evidence that the Celtic languages are far older than Latin? You don't because we have evidence of the Latin language far before the Celtic languages - and both are Indo-European.

They didn't right much in native Celtic languages

Don't confuse not writing much with not much surviving. Why does so much Latin survive? Because it had the benefit of being transported to places like Egypt where it could sit in dry garbage dumps until rediscovery or it was just copied again and again and again.

so Latin would win the 'looks like on paper' cause Celt's used Greek letters or Latin lol.

Some Celtic scripts survive. Lepontic uses the Old Italic alphabet - which is not the same as the Latin one.

The Celt's wrote far better literature than their Latin counterparts.

Simply demonstrably incorrect. Latin was spoken by more people over a longer period of time, ergo more literature was produced.

wrote in Saxon which was a Germanic branch of language not Latin.

Beowulf was composed and when it was written it was written in Old English, in a hybrid West Saxon/Anglian dialect, probably for the Royal House of East Anglia.

Latin, 'cause it was DA BOMB.

Veni Vidi Vici

I voted Gaelic because if its poetic rhyming nature, whereas latin is lyrical yes, but quite rigid, not that I'm an expert and I've only studied gaelic but that's my opinion.

Have you any evidence that the Celtic languages are far older than Latin? You don't because we have evidence of the Latin language far before the Celtic languages - and both are Indo-European.

Celtic languages stem from verdic sandskrit as does latin, but Latin was beign spoken in the 500's bc whislt celtic had been going since at least 1000's bc.

Don't confuse not writing much with not much surviving. Why does so much Latin survive? Because it had the benefit of being transported to places like Egypt where it could sit in dry garbage dumps until rediscovery or it was just copied again and again and again.

Its a well known fact that Celt's didn't write much down due to religious prohibitation, druids committed everything to memory and all Celt's were expected to do so. I would say read any of Peter Berresford Ellis books on the Celt's for a better explanation.

Some Celtic scripts survive. Lepontic uses the Old Italic alphabet - which is not the same as the Latin one.

Yes the Celtic myths are far older than the Latin translations and lepontic is an alpine language that is not definitely a Celtic one, it is either Celtic or closely related. This depends what scripts and what time frame they are from, with northern Italy upto the Alps being Rome's first target, it would not be surprising to find that these people use italic letters whilst those over the Alps,as yet unconquered, did not.

Simply demonstrably incorrect. Latin was spoken by more people over a longer period of time, ergo more literature was produced.

The only reasons Latin was spoken more was because its key nation, i.e Rome, conquered most the known world at that time. Had the Celt's been the conquers it would not have been so, also after charlamagne in the so called dark ages, few that weren't in the priesthood or nobility could read or write and as the priest's wrote in Latin and did their mass in Latin it was obviously going to be spoken more than Celtic.

The Gaulish dialect of Celtic died out due to Roman conquest. Many Gaulish Celt's mainly the nobles chose to learn Latin more as a nobility trend to get ahead with the Romans and with alot of Romans populating Gaul they only made Latin stronger in that area, but in modern day central turkey Celtic was spoken from the 3rd century BC to the 4th AD. Galatian warriors were hired by all the successor states mainly the ptolemaics (sp?), meaning that Celtic was spread to various other parts of the middle east, many Celt's left inscriptions which in all fairness were little more than graffiti.

But saying all that Latin was not even the most common spoken/written language of ancient Rome, Greek was, even the Celt's used the Greek alphabet to write the few bits and pieces they did on the continent.

Also just because more literature was produced does not mean it was better. Yes more latin literature was used but the few Celtic ones we have are far better.

Also look at the world today, Celtic language is still going strong in many areas of the world even outside of the British isle whilst Latin is now a dead language. Meaning various Celtic language will be spoken far longer than Latin.

Beowulf was composed and when it was written it was written in Old English, in a hybrid West Saxon/Anglian dialect, probably for the Royal House of East Anglia.

Yes meaning it would have been Germanic as Saxon's are Germanic. Most of England is Germanic by this time, Saxons in the south and Midlands and Vikings in the north. Any other population would have been Celtic i.e the Scots further north and the welsh in the west.

Originally Posted by deathcab47

Celtic languages stem from sandskript which afaik older than latin. Latin was beign spoken in the 500's bc whislt celtic had been going since at least 1000's bc.

lol, okay, you clearly do not know what you are talking about.

Indo-European is a language family tree. The theory is that once upon a time there were a people who spoke the language Proto-Indo-European - the language from which all Indo-European languages derive from.

I think by "sandskript" you mean Sanskrit, the classical language of India. This is, indeed, an Indo-European language but Celtic languages certainly do not stem from it as it belongs to a different branch of the Indo-European family tree - Indo-Iranian. All the Celtic languages (there is no single "Celtic" language, except for the hypothetical Proto-Celtic) stem from the Celtic Branch. Latin, and the Romance languages, stem from the Italic branch.

So you cannot compare Latin, a single language, with Celtic, and entire family of different languages. Yes, Celtic had been spoken for centuries before the first written evidence of Old Latin - but so had the Italic languages.

Its a well known fact that Celt's didn't write much down due to religious prohibitation, druids committed everything to memory.

By fact you mean stuff you made up? The Celts certainly did write a lot down, but the cultural dominance of Latin has prevented much of it from being preserved.

Yes the Celtic myths are far older than the Latin translations and lepontic is an alpine language that is not definitely a Celtic one, it is either Celtic or closely related. This depends what scripts and what time frame they are from, with northern Italy upto the Alps being Rome's first target, it would not be surprising to find that these people use italic letters whilst those over the Alps,as yet unconquered, did not.

As yet uncoquered? The Gauls who spoke Lepontic were the among the dominant people of this time - this was the time when Rome was sacked by Brennus. You have a complete ignorance of the historical situation.

The only reasons Latin was spoken more was because its key nation, i.e Rome, conquered most the known world at that time. Had the Celt's been the conquers it would not have been so, also after charlamagne in the so called dark ages, few that weren't in the priesthood or nobility could read or write and as the priest's wrote in Latin and did their mass in Latin it was obviously going to be spoken more than Celtic.

None of which changes the fact that Latin literature was produced in vastly more significant quantities than Celtic works.

The Gaulish dialect of Celtic died out due to Roman conquest. Many Gaulish Celt's mainly the nobles chose to learn Latin more as a nobility trend to get ahead with the Romans and with alot of Romans populating Gaul they only made Latin stronger in that area, but in modern day central turkey Celtic was spoken from the 3rd century BC to the 4th AD. Galatian warriors were hired by all the successor states mainly the ptolemaics (sp?), meaning that Celtic was spread to various other parts of the middle east, many Celt's left inscriptions which in all fairness were little more than graffiti.

Gaulish did not die out after the Roman conquest. It did not die out until after the fall of the Western Empire, in fact, and contributed to the development of Vulgar Latin, which was the father to the Romance languages just as Proto-Indo-European was father to the Celtic, Indo-Iranian and Italic languages. Yes, the nobles would have embraced Latin (even if in practice they were bilingual) but why would a Gaulish farmer on the western coastline learn it? He wouldn't, and they didn't, and Gaulish was spoken throughout Roman rule.

Galacia was the only place in Asia where the Gaulish language was spoken by a resident population.

But saying all that Latin was not even the most common spoken/written language of ancient Rome, Greek was,

Plain wrong. Latin was dominant in the West, Greek only in the East. Even in the East, governance would still be bilingually Latin.

Also just because more literature was produced does not mean it was better. Yes more latin literature was used but the few Celtic ones we have are far better.

Can you provide examples and explain why they are "better"?

Also look at the world today, Celtic language is still going strong in many areas of the world even outside of the British isle whilst Latin is now a dead language. Meaning various Celtic language will be spoken far longer than Latin.

Wrong. Manx and Cornish are extinct in practice, Scottish and Irish Gaelic and Breton only barely hold on to the fringes of their former range, and are mostly in decline. Abroad these languages are only represented by a handful of speakers of Scottish Gaelic in Nova Scotia.

The only substantial Celtic language is Welsh, which has a few thousand speakers in Patagonia.

Compare this to the descendents of Latin - French, Spanish, Portugese, Italian, Romanian. English vocabulary is massively influenced by Romance languages, yet has almost no Celtic words whatsoever. The Romance languages represent hundreds of millions of people. The Celtic languages a few ten thousand.

I'm sorry but this was a stupid suggestion.

Yes meaning it would have been Germanic as Saxon's are Germanic. Most of England is Germanic by this time, Saxons in the south and Midlands and Vikings in the north. Any other population would have been Celtic i.e the Scots further north and the welsh in the west.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Yes, Old English was Germanic, that's what I said. But it was composed hundreds of years before the Age of Vikings in Britain. Picts, I might add, were not necessarily Celtic speakers.

If there is anything else you do not understand then ask and I will be happy to educate you.

Originally Posted by Ferrets54

lol, okay, you clearly do not know what you are talking about.

Indo-European is a language family tree. The theory is that once upon a time there were a people who spoke the language Proto-Indo-European - the language from which all Indo-European languages derive from.

I think by "sandskript" you mean Sanskrit, the classical language of India. This is, indeed, an Indo-European language but Celtic languages certainly do not stem from it as it belongs to a different branch of the Indo-European family tree - Indo-Iranian. All the Celtic languages (there is no single "Celtic" language, except for the hypothetical Proto-Celtic) stem from the Celtic Branch. Latin, and the Romance languages, stem from the Italic branch.

So you cannot compare Latin, a single language, with Celtic, and entire family of different languages. Yes, Celtic had been spoken for centuries before the first written evidence of Old Latin - but so had the Italic languages.

If you bothered to look at my edited and corrected version of this qutoe which was before your reply and again i based the assumption as i'll admit it was, from what i read fro

By fact you mean stuff you made up? The Celts certainly did write a lot down, but the cultural dominance of Latin has prevented much of it from being preserved.

No go read somthing by peter berresford ellis as suggested and you might be enlightened, i dare say he knows more than you on the matter.

As yet uncoquered? The Gauls who spoke Lepontic were the among the dominant people of this time - this was the time when Rome was sacked by Brennus. You have a complete ignorance of the historical situation.

No, i was ignorance of the time period your referring too, had you said when Brennus sacked Rome then i would have known what you were rambling on about.

It would hardlies be surprising to see a northern Italy Celtic, or not as it may be, tribe using the italic alphabet especially when so close to Etruscan influence and especially as the Leopontii have been described as Ligurian and Raetians the latter believed to be of Etruscan origin as well as Celt's and Germans. Also the Leopontic language has never been settled as either Celtic or none Celtic many believe it is a "para-Celtic" language , akin but not part of Celtic.

The area to the South, including what was to become the Insubrian capital Mediolanum, was Etruscan around 600-500 BC, when the Lepontii began writing tombstone inscriptions in their alphabet which is one of several Etruscan-derived alphabets in the Rhaetian territory.

None of which changes the fact that Latin literature was produced in vastly more significant quantities than Celtic works.

Gaulish did not die out after the Roman conquest. It did not die out until after the fall of the Western Empire, in fact, and contributed to the development of Vulgar Latin, which was the father to the Romance languages just as Proto-Indo-European was father to the Celtic, Indo-Iranian and Italic languages. Yes, the nobles would have embraced Latin (even if in practice they were bilingual) but why would a Gaulish farmer on the western coastline learn it? He wouldn't, and they didn't, and Gaulish was spoken throughout Roman rule.

You miss understand what i meant, i didn't mean dies out as in went dead and thats that, i meant died down as in wasn't used as much as it had been and replaced by Latin. Also the ptolemaics had resident population of Galatians in Egypt as they served as mercenaries and were used in various revolts to keep order, they had their own residential area and they would have spoken galatian which means it was spoken outside of Galatia.

Galacia was the only place in Asia where the Gaulish language was spoken by a resident population

Galatia , Galacia is the Spanish Celtic tribes.

Plain wrong. Latin was dominant in the West, Greek only in the East. Even in the East, governance would still be bilingually Latin.

No Greek was spoken alot more in both east and west than Latin, there were plenty Greek colonies in the west long before Rome came to power, Massilia been a fine example of Celtic and Greek mixture before Rome. After Rore took control i doubt Latin just took over, Greek and Celtic would have remained dominate along with many other Greek colonies both in Greece,southern Italy and western Europe.

Can you provide examples and explain why they are "better"?

Its a personal opinion that they were better.

Wrong. Manx and Cornish are extinct in practice, Scottish and Irish Gaelic and Breton only barely hold on to the fringes of their former range, and are mostly in decline. Abroad these languages are only represented by a handful of speakers of Scottish Gaelic in Nova Scotia.

The only substantial Celtic language is Welsh, which has a few thousand speakers in Patagonia.

Compare this to the descendents of Latin - French, Spanish, Portugese, Italian, Romanian. English vocabulary is massively influenced by Romance languages, yet has almost no Celtic words whatsoever. The Romance languages represent hundreds of millions of people. The Celtic languages a few ten thousand.

I'm sorry but this was a stupid suggestion.

No if you bothered to research it Cornish and manx are still spoken and in practice albeit the latter is almost dead with barley 1000 speakers. If you bothered to research the Celtic languages which you clearly haven't then you would see that there are over 2 million people world wide that speak a celtic language out of those 600,000 in ireland,750,000 in wales and 70,000 in scotland, soalive and still more so than dead latin, which is dead because french, Spanish and the others are not direct descendants of pure Latin as they have many other influences mainly native Celtic language that was Gaulish and Germanic from the franks hence France - franks - Germanic tribe that conquered the area which means land of Franks or Frankland.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Yes, Old English was Germanic, that's what I said. But it was composed hundreds of years before the Age of Vikings in Britain. Picts, I might add, were not necessarily Celtic speakers.


If there is anything else you do not understand then ask and I will be happy to educate you.

No if it was composed by Saxons or then it would be old English which is Germanic as you stated if it was composed before the angles and Saxons invade Britain it would still be Germanic, and the Vikings part was right (what you said not me), Picts weren't Celtic in earlier times but once the Celt's conquered or their culture dominated the area,no one is sure whether it was an invasion or just migration and peaceful culture mix, the picts or pict/celt population did speak Gaelic.

If you want some more Celtic education please ask.

Celtic languages are far older than Latin, stemming from the Indo-European branches. They didn't right much in native Celtic languages so Latin would win the 'looks like on paper' cause Celt's used Greek letters or Latin lol. Gaelic sounds nicer to my ears that Latin however, and Latin was only the 're - birth' of languages because it was the priest that kept literature alive and they just happened to only write things in Latin. If priest wrote down in Irish Gaelic then it would be another story but they never.

The Celt's wrote far better literature than their Latin counterparts. Due to culture really, Celtic people like their Germanic cousins had the hero culture, books like the Táin Bó Cúalnge,which were wrote in Gaelic and translated later in Latin by Irish monks, the story of Beowulf is another example, wrote in Saxon which was a Germanic branch of language not Latin. Lots of good literature from various other cultures were ,yes re wrote in Latin, but their originals were not. So that's why the Celt's are getting my vote.

Shouldn't your answer be "I don't know" then?

Originally Posted by Ferrets54

Shouldn't your answer be "I don't know" then?

Lol, you and your relentless logic.
Fine I'll come out and say that I like my own language better than everyone elses.

Gaelic. I like Latin but Celtic languages just sound better to me.