According to the Wikipedia article on Primitive Irish:

quote:

Before Gaelic dialects evolved in Ireland, some allege that the inhabitants spoke Ivernic, particularly in Munster. It receives its name from a Gallo-Belgic group known as the Iverni (later Érainn), attested in Ptolemy's 2nd century Geography. This hypothesis may be supported by what seems to be a brief mention of such a language in the 9th-century dictionary Sanas Cormaic, under the names Iarnnbélrae, Iarnbélrae, and Iarmbérla, which, if treated as Old Irish, means "Iron-speech". However, most linguists now explain these Brythonic loanwords as borrowings directly from Welsh, noting that Ogham inscriptions attest to an early Irish presence in Wales. The early 20th century Gaelic scholar T. F. O'Rahilly thus proposed their language, which he called Ivernic, as the source for these loanwords.

Advocates of this hypothesis believe that Ivernic first diverged from Gaulish around 500 BC and survived a proposed Goidelic-speaking invasion of Ireland (sometime between 500 and 100 BC). It was said to be still spoken by a minority in Munster at the time of Bede in about AD 700. However its speakers were eventually absorbed into the Goidelic-speaking population, and by the time the Vikings had established Limerick in about 850, the Ivernic and Goidelic languages had merged into Irish.

Cormac mac Cuilennáin, king and bishop of Cashel in Munster in Ireland, born 836, died 908, wrote a large Glossary which said that the "Iron-speech" was "dense and difficult" and had recently died out and that two words of it were remembered: ond = "stone" and fern = "anything good". It is difficult to argue from two words, but it could be that Ivernic was language which was spoken in Ireland before any Indo-European languages arrived.[citation needed]

Interesting. All but two words remain of this iron speech. The rest is lost to history.

What exactly does "dense" mean when describing a language?

I don't see why it couldn't have been the language spoken. If so, did it just meld with the Celtic language to form Old Irish, I mean how much did the original language spoken there influence Irish.

Beir bua agus beannacht

Riona, the Gaels were not the original people in Ireland; they are not even the major contributor to Irish people's DNA. DNA tests show that the Irish are closely related to the Basques of Spain - a Palaeolithic population. These were in fact the original Europeans, and during the ice ages the British Isles were depopulated and the European people reduced to a few refugia such as the Basque region of Spain and subsequently expanded therefrom.

It used to be thought that the people of the British Isles were mainly Anglo-Saxon and Celtic in their make-up. Now the theory is that these invaders were relatively few in number, and did not greatly disturb the genetic make-up of the pre-existing Palaeolithic population. All Indo-European languages contain a large number of words that appear to have no connection to the Proto-Indo-European and may reflect the linguistic substrata of the various lands the Indo-Europeans subsequently occupied.

It is not really in doubt that there was a pre-Celtic population in Ireland that contributes the bulk of Ireland's ancestry. What is surprising is how late their language survived, according to the Bishop of Cashel here quoted.

I already know that there were people there long before the Gaels/celts. My question was only pertaining to the linguistic element, which you touched on. I know that most people descend from those original folk.

Beir bua agus beannacht

David, regarding your Anglo-Saxon comment, I think the debate is still out:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9575-apartheid-slashed-celtic-genes-in-ear ly-england.html

No, Oraid. The latest study is only of one area of England - what is central England??? - and only of the Y chromosome, which is a very tiny part of the genome. Divergences in the origin of the Y chrosomome - inherited in the male line - and the mitochondrial DNA - inherited in the female line - are found in many population groups. You need to look at the genome as a whole, not just these two anyway. Many, many studies have found that England as a whole is broadly Palaeolithic in its genetic composition apart from areas with strong Viking influence such as Yorkshire.

This study does not examine the genome as a whole, and does not comment on the make up of the mitochondrial DNA, and is basically being used as a vehicle to slag off the English by a jumped-up multiculturalist.

Maybe this is why some Irish say that the Irish people are so ugly. Inbreeding? Or rather... long-term interbreeding in an isolated population. The latter is anyhow the reason why you can see on a person if he/she is Irish. At least sometimes.

David, the connection between Basques and Celts isn't new to me. But there are great differences between Celtic languages and Basque. In three years I'll be able to back up that claim properly. ;-) But where have you read about this?

The Irish people are NOT ugly! All populations are inbred in fact. England has a large population, but in most agricultural communities until modern times, people just married their neighbours - same for all countries. Norwegiandame, no one is saying that Celtic is related to Basque. I think you have misunderstood.

Celtic has SOME connections with Basque. But nothing profound and obvious. If the Irish were inbred, they would be dead by now. ;-) And they're not ugly.

"...And they're not ugly..."

Oh, I don't know. I looked in the mirror this morning... Not a pretty sight! In fact, quite a narrow shave. Must head off to the mirror shop now, if I can face up to it. :)

Ugly, not ugly - very subjective indeed. To me Irish people are no more ugly than are Scandinavians (compliments to Norwegiandame).

The other thing is inbreeding in Ireland has spawned high frequency of some, usually rare genetically transmitted diseases. The other day I watched a documentary that the Irish suffer most in the world from some ferrogemo-smth, basically when blood starts accumulating toxic quantities of chemically active iron. (mind all those nice-looking red hair!) This disease is wide spread in Ireland, as well as parts of USA and Australia where Irish immigrants settled. Having caught the disease person goes for dialysis (or whatever the name) to clean the blood and then sits on pills for the rest of the life.

This is scary. And the look - in the end, who cares about? We all get constantly older so beauty will pass anyway.

Róman,

The Finnish population is inbred too, especially the Swedish speakers. Did you know there are some genetic diseases that only affect Swedish speaking Finns?

I didn't know that, but it must be probable.

There are probably genetic conditions aflicting many people groups because a lack of new genetic material. It is probably true of most any group that didn't have much outside input genetically.That's just the way genetics is.

Beir bua agus beannacht

Riona, which means that we should all be less mentally capable and very short-lived. But we aren't. Oh well, because some of us eat more than we should and are les active, we get overweight and that has of course grave consequences. But other than that, our genes are - in my opinion - in a quite good condition. :-)

Róman, you mustn't misunderstand me. I'm not slandering the Irish. I know many healthy and beautiful Irish people. There are many ugly Scandinavians too, but ugly/not ugly is very subjective indeed. :-) And Róman, I'm sure you are very handsome yourself. But no-no-no, you're probably married 'n all that --- I'm NOT insinuating anything!! :-D

Norwegiandame,

Nílim posta fós, so I am up for grabs ;)))

Very funny, even for myself now

Beir bó

I think we'll soon be needing another "Lonely Hearts" thread.

so since the American gene pool is varied
they are better( more insulated from disease and ugly), right.... Finally a good thing about us Americans on this board .....was not said but was there....
alas ugly can also be a condition of mind and not
an exterior view. but some of the most pretty people can
be mean and horrible because they are considered
"good looking" good looking people make more money get better jobs and are generally better off than their less
good looking counter parts, So are non ugly people smarter, do they have agreater capacity for language?
hmmmmm i wonder....
me: smart and good looking (my partner says so)
so yes it is true god i love Genetics!!!!!

Dan - varied yes, but not for all Americans. Look at all those self-fancied "patricians" from the eastern coast who sit in your Congress and invariably occupy the White House. The consequences of inbreeding are pretty obvious as Tourret's and Down's syndromes get disproportionally more frequent in inbreeding clans :grin:

(Message edited by Róman on July 21, 2006)

but alas a Roman you missed that i was being facetious
no one group of people are any better than another
we all have faults and follies, when we start thinking "I am better than you" it aint good!! btw leave tha ploitical comments for another board your comments are off base and wrong. as far as I know Touretts is a neurological disorder that is not heriditary ie a brain dysfunction not a genetic anomaly.

Dan, it was a joke, sorry if I offended someone ;)))

Roman, sorry to Caitronise
meaning: to read what is not
specifically written!! LOL

Hey!