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Richard Coates wrote: > I should say I'm currently "in discussion" with people who are > promoting this sort of idea .... It's very distressing. Lowering the tone a bit, perhaps I should point out that not all the blame should be apportioned to errant archaeologists and geneticists. Rogue linguists have also played their part. Perhaps surprisingly, Theo Vennemann is blameless in this regard! But Hildegard Tristram more than makes up for this with her splendidly bonkers theory that English is a Celtic language! (That should go down well with the hard men and women at Aberystwyth!) More damaging perhaps, has been the work of Peter Schrijver. Starting from the not unreasonable suggestion that English (and Frisian) might be what you get if you combine a Germanic language with the Gaulish substrate exposed when the overlying Latin civilisation is completely destroyed by the first wave of Germanic invaders, and that this might have happened in the Low Countries and Lowland Britain (less Vandalistic later invaders in Gaul proper being content to leave a Latin-speaking society and economy untouched), he then spirals off into the mists of Atlantic Celtery. John Briggs