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66-622: The cognate Dari(o) ("agitation, tumult, rage") is a form widely attested in the Gaulish language , especially in personal names, and exists in the Welsh language as cynddaredd ("rage"). Thus the Darini may have been considered a people "of great violence" and descendants of a so-called "red god". Over time, however, the Irish personal name Dáire would develop the meaning of "rutty" or "violent" apparently following

132-673: A "ten-night festival of ( Apollo ) Grannus ", decamnoctiacis Granni , is mentioned in a Latin inscription from Limoges . A similar formation is to be found in the Coligny calendar, in which mention is made of a trinox[...] Samoni "three-night (festival?) of (the month of) Samonios". As is to be expected, the ancient Gaulish language was more similar to Latin than modern Celtic languages are to modern Romance languages. The ordinal numerals in Latin are prīmus / prior , secundus / alter (the first form when more than two objects are counted,

198-739: A composite model, in which the Continental and Insular varieties are seen as part of a dialect continuum , with genealogical splits and areal innovations intersecting. Though Gaulish personal names written by Gauls in Greek script are attested from the region surrounding Massalia by the 3rd century BC, the first true inscriptions in Gaulish appeared in the 2nd century BC. At least 13 references to Gaulish speech and Gaulish writing can be found in Greek and Latin writers of antiquity. The word "Gaulish" ( gallicum ) as

264-567: A group of women (often thought to be a rival group of witches), but the exact meaning of the text remains unclear. The Coligny calendar was found in 1897 in Coligny , France, with a statue identified as Mars . The calendar contains Gaulish words but Roman numerals, permitting translations such as lat evidently meaning days, and mid month. Months of 30 days were marked matus , "lucky", months of 29 days anmatus , "unlucky", based on comparison with Middle Welsh mad and anfad , but

330-554: A language term is first explicitly used in the Appendix Vergiliana in a poem referring to Gaulish letters of the alphabet. Julius Caesar says in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico of 58 BC that the Celts/Gauls and their language are separated from the neighboring Aquitani and Belgae by the rivers Garonne and Seine / Marne , respectively. Caesar relates that census accounts written in Greek script were found among

396-633: A late survival in Armorica and language contact of some form with the ascendant Breton language ; however, it has been noted that there is little uncontroversial evidence supporting a relatively late survival specifically in Brittany whereas there is uncontroversial evidence that supports the relatively late survival of Gaulish in the Swiss Alps and in regions in Central Gaul. Drawing from these data, which include

462-558: A legal or magical-religious nature, the three longest being the Larzac tablet , the Chamalières tablet and the Lezoux dish . The most famous Gaulish record is the Coligny calendar , a fragmented bronze tablet dating from the 2nd century AD and providing the names of Celtic months over a five-year span; it is a lunisolar calendar trying to synchronize the solar year and the lunar month by inserting

528-639: A meaning of "bestial rage". Dáirine can sometimes refer to the so-called Érainn dynasties altogether and not only to the Corcu Loídge and their corelatives in Munster. Cú Roí mac Dáire is a king from Munster who appears frequently in the Ulster Cycle possibly reflecting memories of the prehistoric Darini when their power was great in Ireland. The Dál Fiatach of Ulster later claimed descent from his semi-divine clan,

594-447: A name for the target, suggesting they were prepared in advance, and that the desired target's name would be added on behalf of the customer. The element of mystique was given through many ways along with voces mysticae. Professionals and laypeople alike would utilize palindromes as well as boustrophedon . Pictures and charakteres gave further allure to the tablets, and occasionally specific formulae would be used and reused to relay

660-484: A person of romantic interest. When research first began on the topic of curse tablets, there was serious doubt that these types of artifacts truly came from ancient Greek society. E. R. Dodds , a professor of Greek at Oxford , was one of the first scholars to begin studying the topic of magic or superstition in ancient Greece, and others such as Peter Green have also studied this aspect of ancient Greek society. The use of erotic curses became especially popular during

726-431: A special purpose, such as an imperative, emphasis, contrast, and so on. Also, the verb may contain or be next to an enclitic pronoun or with "and", "but", etc. According to J. F. Eska, Gaulish was certainly not a verb-second language, as the following shows: Whenever there is a pronoun object element, it is next to the verb, as per Vendryes' Restriction . The general Celtic grammar shows Wackernagel's rule , so putting

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792-721: A specifically intended tone. There were also frequent invocations of Egyptian gods and goddesses, archangels, and other biblical figures as a result of the syncretism that occurred over time throughout the Mediterranean. The Greco-Roman society believed in using magic to control the natural world. This practice was common among all members of society, irrespective of their economic or social status. Approximately 1,600 curse tablets have been discovered, most of which are inscribed in Greek. Notably, 220 of these tablets were found in Attica . The first set of curse tablets to be discovered came from

858-614: A stop + s became ss , and a nasal + velar became ŋ + velar. The lenis plosives seem to have been voiceless, unlike in Latin, which distinguished lenis occlusives with a voiced realization from fortis occlusives with a voiceless realization, which caused confusions like Glanum for Clanum , vergobretos for vercobreto , Britannia for Pritannia . The alphabet of Lugano used in Cisalpine Gaul for Lepontic: The alphabet of Lugano does not distinguish voicing in stops: P represents /b/ or /p/ , T

924-676: A thirteenth month every two and a half years. There is also a longish (11 lines) inscribed tile from Châteaubleau that has been interpreted as a curse or alternatively as a sort of wedding proposal. Many inscriptions are only a few words (often names) in rote phrases, and many are fragmentary. It is clear from the subject matter of the records that the language was in use at all levels of society. Other sources contribute to knowledge of Gaulish: Greek and Latin authors mention Gaulish words, personal and tribal names, and toponyms . A short Gaulish-Latin vocabulary (about 20 entries headed De nominib[us] Gallicis ) called " Endlicher's Glossary "

990-419: Is evidently an account or a calculation and contains quite different ordinals: Other Gaulish numerals attested in Latin inscriptions include * petrudecametos "fourteenth" (rendered as petrudecameto , with Latinized dative-ablative singular ending) and * triconts "thirty" (rendered as tricontis , with a Latinized ablative plural ending; compare Irish tríocha ). A Latinized phrase for

1056-559: Is for /d/ or /t/ , K for /g/ or /k/ . Z is probably for /t / . U /u/ and V /w/ are distinguished in only one early inscription. Θ is probably for /t/ and X for /g/ (Lejeune 1971, Solinas 1985). The Eastern Greek alphabet used in southern Gallia Narbonensis . Latin alphabet (monumental and cursive) in use in Roman Gaul : G and K are sometimes used interchangeably (especially after R). Ꟈ / ꟈ , ds and s may represent /ts/ and/or /dz/ . X, x

1122-412: Is for [x] or /ks/ . Q is only used rarely ( Sequanni, Equos ) and may represent an archaism (a retained *k ), borrowings from Latin, or, as in Latin, an alternate spelling of -cu- (for original /kuu/ , /kou/ , or /kom-u/ ). Ꟈ is the letter tau gallicum , the Gaulish affricate. The letter ꟉꟉ / ꟊꟊ occurs in some inscriptions. Gaulish had some areal (and genetic, see Indo-European and

1188-471: Is not a verb-final language, it is not surprising to find other "head-initial" features: Curse tablet A curse tablet ( Latin : tabella defixionis, defixio ; Greek : κατάδεσμος , romanized :  katadesmos ) is a small tablet with a curse written on it from the Greco-Roman world . Its name originated from the Greek and Latin words for "pierce" and "bind". The tablets were used to ask

1254-562: Is preserved in a 9th-century manuscript (Öst. Nationalbibliothek, MS 89 fol. 189v). French now has about 150 to 180 known words of Gaulish origin , most of which concern pastoral or daily activity. If dialectal and derived words are included, the total is about 400 words. This is the highest number among the Romance languages . Gaulish inscriptions are edited in the Recueil des inscriptions gauloises (RIG), in four volumes, comprising text (in

1320-598: The Balkans and Anatolia . Their precise linguistic relationships are uncertain due to fragmentary evidence. The Gaulish varieties of central and eastern Europe and of Anatolia (called Noric and Galatian , respectively) are barely attested, but from what little is known of them it appears that they were quite similar to those of Gaul and can be considered dialects of a single language. Among those regions where substantial inscriptional evidence exists, three varieties are usually distinguished. The relationship between Gaulish and

1386-585: The Clanna Dedad , further associating the two provinces—although seemingly in contradiction to their descent from the Ulaid or Voluntii proper, until it is remembered that the Darini and Voluntii lived adjacent to one another in Ptolemy's Ireland and were no doubt ancient kin. Cú Roí's father was Dáire mac Dedad . The Clanna Dedad take their name from his grandfather, Deda mac Sin . The legendary Conaire Mór , ancestor of

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1452-599: The English language , through the influence of Old French . It is estimated that during the Bronze Age , Proto-Celtic started splitting into distinct languages, including Celtiberian and Gaulish. Due to the expansion of Celtic tribes in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, closely related forms of Celtic came to be spoken in a vast arc extending from Britain and France through the Alpine region and Pannonia in central Europe, and into parts of

1518-632: The Helvetii . He also notes that as of 53 BC the Gaulish druids used the Greek alphabet for private and public transactions, with the important exception of druidic doctrines, which could only be memorised and were not allowed to be written down. According to the Recueil des inscriptions gauloises nearly three quarters of Gaulish inscriptions (disregarding coins) are in the Greek alphabet. Later inscriptions dating to Roman Gaul are mostly in Latin alphabet and have been found principally in central France. Latin

1584-606: The Iberian Peninsula , Gaulish is a member of the geographic group of Continental Celtic languages . The precise linguistic relationships among them, as well as between them and the modern Insular Celtic languages , are uncertain and a matter of ongoing debate because of their sparse attestation . Gaulish is found in some 800 (often fragmentary) inscriptions including calendars, pottery accounts, funeral monuments, short dedications to gods, coin inscriptions, statements of ownership, and other texts, possibly curse tablets . Gaulish

1650-616: The La Tène period, was found in Port , near Biel/Bienne , with its blade inscribed with ΚΟΡΙϹΙΟϹ ( Korisios ), probably the name of the smith. The diphthongs all transformed over the historical period. Ai and oi changed into long ī and eu merged with ou , both becoming long ō . Ei became long ē . In general, long diphthongs became short diphthongs and then long vowels. Long vowels shortened before nasals in coda . Other transformations include unstressed i became e , ln became ll ,

1716-647: The Latin , Greek , and Etruscan alphabets ) written on public monuments, private instrumentum , two calendars, and coins. The longest known Gaulish text is the Larzac tablet , found in 1983 in l'Hospitalet-du-Larzac , France. It is inscribed in Roman cursive on both sides of two small sheets of lead. Probably a curse tablet ( defixio ), it clearly mentions relationships between female names, for example aia duxtir adiegias [...] adiega matir aiias (Aia, daughter of Adiega... Adiega, mother of Aia) and seems to contain incantations regarding one Severa Tertionicna and

1782-562: The O'Driscoll and O'Leary of Corcu Loígde. Gaulish language Gaulish is an extinct Celtic language spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire . In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language of the Celts of Gaul (now France, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Switzerland, Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on

1848-626: The Síl Conairi , or Dál Riata, Múscraige , Corco Duibne , and Corca Baiscinn , was said to descend from Íar mac Dedad , brother of Dáire. This is simply another variant of the root present in Iverni/Érainn. Finally, the name Íth , given in the genealogies as the ultimate ancestor of the Corcu Loígde (Dáirine) and offering some confusion about their parentage and relation to the Iverni, in fact preserves

1914-561: The Celtic god of metalwork . Furthermore, there is a statue of a seated goddess with a bear , Artio , found in Muri bei Bern , with a Latin inscription DEAE ARTIONI LIVINIA SABILLINA , suggesting a Gaulish Artiū "Bear (goddess)". Some coins with Gaulish inscriptions in the Greek alphabet have also been found in Switzerland, e.g. RIG IV Nos. 92 ( Lingones ) and 267 ( Leuci ). A sword, dating to

1980-617: The Gaulish language. Spindle whorls were apparently given to girls by their suitors and bear such inscriptions as: A gold ring found in Thiaucourt seems to express the wearers undying loyalty to her lover: Inscriptions found in Switzerland are rare. The most notable inscription found in Helvetic parts is the Bern zinc tablet , inscribed ΔΟΒΝΟΡΗΔΟ ΓΟΒΑΝΟ ΒΡΕΝΟΔΩΡ ΝΑΝΤΑΡΩΡ ( Dobnorēdo gobano brenodōr nantarōr ) and apparently dedicated to Gobannus ,

2046-484: The Gaulish t-preterit, formed by merging an old third-person singular imperfect ending -t - to a third-person singular perfect ending -u or -e and subsequent affixation to all forms of the t-preterit tense. Similarly, the s-preterit is formed from the extension of -ss (originally from the third person singular) and the affixation of -it to the third-person singular (to distinguish it as such). Third-person plurals are also marked by addition of -s in

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2112-459: The Hellenistic period of Mediterranean history. Scholars have debated the possible motivations for using erotic magic , including unrequited love, sexual control of the intended target, financial gain, and social advancement. The love spells used were similar in design around the Mediterranean world, and could be adjusted to different situations, users and intended victims. One notable type of curse

2178-401: The authors meant by those terms), though at first these only concerned the upper classes. For Galatia (Anatolia), there is no source explicitly indicating a 5th-century language replacement: Despite considerable Romanization of the local material culture, the Gaulish language is held to have survived and coexisted with spoken Latin during the centuries of Roman rule of Gaul. The exact time of

2244-504: The city of Selinus in Sicily . A total of twenty-two tablets were found, mostly coming from the early fifth century, and directed toward someone that the user was suing. While the ancient Greeks may have feared the power of these tablets, some historians have compared the tablets to modern swearing , arguing that they were produced in a fit of anger, in envy towards a business competitor or athletic opponent, or in an unhealthy obsession toward

2310-658: The controversial Italo-Celtic hypothesis) similarity to Latin grammar, and the French historian Ferdinand Lot argued that this helped the rapid adoption of Vulgar Latin in Roman Gaul. Gaulish had seven cases : the nominative , vocative , accusative , genitive , dative , instrumental and the locative case . Greater epigraphical evidence attests common cases (nominative and accusative) and common stems (-o- and -a- stems) than for cases less frequently used in inscriptions or rarer -i-, -n- and -r- stems. The following table summarises

2376-399: The dead. Those at whose grave sites these were placed had usually died at a very young age or in a violent manner, and the tablet was supposed to help lay their souls to rest in spite of their untimely deaths. The language of those texts that do give context is often concerned with justice, either listing the target's crimes in great detail, handing over responsibility for their punishment to

2442-450: The difference between -n and -m relies on the length of the preceding vowel, with longer vowels taking -m over -n (in the case of -anom this is a result of its innovation from -a-om ). Gaulish verbs have present, future, perfect, and imperfect tenses; indicative, subjunctive, optative and imperative moods; and active and passive voices. Verbs show a number of innovations as well. The Indo-European s-aorist became

2508-411: The final language death of Gaulish is unknown, but it is estimated to have been about the sixth century AD. The language shift was uneven in its progress and shaped by sociological factors. Although there was a presence of retired veterans in colonies, these did not significantly alter the linguistic composition of Gaul's population, of which 90% was autochthonous; instead, the key Latinizing class

2574-410: The gods, however, but merely list the targets of the curse, the crimes or conditions upon which the curse is valid, and/or the intended ill to befall them. Some tablets are inscribed with nothing more than the names of the targets, leading to the supposition that an oral spell may have accompanied the manufacture of the curse. The texts on the tablets were not always curses; tablets were also used to help

2640-467: The gods, place spirits, or the deceased to perform an action on a person or object, or otherwise compel the subject of the curse. Curse tablets are typically very thin sheets of lead with the text scratched on in tiny letters. They were then often rolled, folded, or pierced with nails, and the tablets were then usually placed beneath the ground: either buried in graves or tombs, thrown into wells or pools, sequestered in underground sanctuaries, or nailed to

2706-695: The gods, using indefinite grammar. Frequently, such curse tablets are also inscribed with additional, otherwise meaningless "curse" words such as Bazagra , Bescu , or Berebescu , seemingly in order to lend them a kind of supernatural efficacy. Many of those discovered at Athens refer to court cases and curse the opposing litigant, asking ("May he...") that he botch his performance in court, forget his words, become dizzy and so forth. Others include erotic binding-spells, and spells ranged against thieves, and business and sporting rivals. Those curse tablets targeted at thieves or other criminals may have been more public, and more acceptable; some scholars even refuse to apply

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2772-409: The idea of men trying to make fair, chaste women become filled with desire for them, while others argue that men were trying to control women whom they thought to be sexually active for their own personal benefit. Christopher A. Faraone considered the spells to fall into two distinct categories; spells used for inducing passion and spells used for encouraging affection. Men, according to Faraone, were

2838-504: The inherited genitive singular -as is attested but was subsequently replaced by -ias as in Insular Celtic. The expected genitive plural -a-om appears innovated as -anom (vs. Celtiberian -aum ). There also appears to be a dialectal equivalence between -n and -m endings in accusative singular endings particularly, with Transalpine Gaulish favouring -n , and Cisalpine favouring -m . In genitive plurals

2904-759: The major centres for finds of Latin defixiones . In Ancient Egypt , so-called " Execration Texts " appear around the time of the 12th Dynasty , listing the names of enemies written on clay figurines or pottery which were then smashed and buried beneath a building under construction (so that they were symbolically "smothered"), or in a cemetery. Voces mysticae are words not immediately recognizable as belonging to any known language, and are commonly associated with curse tablets. Anthropologist Stanley J. Tambiah proposed in 1968 that such words were intended to represent "the language that demons can understand". Scholars from antiquity, like Christian philosopher Clement of Alexandria (ca. 200 CE), believed that human language

2970-714: The mapping of substrate vocabulary as evidence, Kerkhof argues that we may "tentatively" posit a survival of Gaulish speaking communities "at least into the sixth century" in pockets of mountainous regions of the Central Massif , the Jura , and the Swiss Alps . According to Recueil des inscriptions gauloises more than 760 Gaulish inscriptions have been found throughout France, with the notable exception of Aquitaine , and in northern Italy. Inscriptions include short dedications, funerary monuments, proprietary statements, and expressions of human sentiments, but also some longer documents of

3036-495: The meaning could here also be merely descriptive, "complete" and "incomplete". The pottery at La Graufesenque is the most important source for Gaulish numerals. Potters shared furnaces and kept tallies inscribed in Latin cursive on ceramic plates, referring to kiln loads numbered 1 to 10: The lead inscription from Rezé (dated to the 2nd century, at the mouth of the Loire , 450 kilometres (280 mi) northwest of La Graufesenque )

3102-405: The names provided by paying customers." The cursing rituals may also have incorporated physical binding gestures and spoken elements. The texts on curse tablets are typically addressed to infernal or liminal gods such as Pluto , Charon , Hecate , and Persephone , sometimes via the mediation of a dead person (probably the corpse in whose grave the tablet was deposited). Some texts do not invoke

3168-490: The other Celtic languages is also debated. Most scholars today agree that Celtiberian was the first to branch off from other Celtic. Gaulish, situated in the centre of the Celtic language area, shares with the neighboring Brittonic languages of Britain, as well as the neighboring Italic Osco-Umbrian languages , the change of the Indo-European labialized voiceless velar stop /kʷ/ > /p/ , while both Celtiberian in

3234-543: The plural instrumental had begun to encroach on the dative plural (dative atrebo and matrebo vs. instrumental gobedbi and suiorebe ), and in the modern Insular Languages , the instrumental form is known to have completely replaced the dative. For o-stems, Gaulish also innovated the pronominal ending for the nominative plural -oi and genitive singular -ī in place of expected -ōs and -os still present in Celtiberian ( -oś, -o ). In a-stems,

3300-639: The prestige language of their urban literate elite. Bonnaud maintains that Latinization occurred earlier in Provence and in major urban centers, while Gaulish persisted longest, possibly as late as the tenth century with evidence for continued use according to Bonnaud continuing into the ninth century, in Langres and the surrounding regions, the regions between Clermont , Argenton and Bordeaux , and in Armorica . Fleuriot, Falc'hun, and Gvozdanovic likewise maintained

3366-424: The preterit. Most Gaulish sentences seem to consist of a subject–verb–object word order: Some, however, have patterns such as verb–subject–object (as in living Insular Celtic languages) or with the verb last. The latter can be seen as a survival from an earlier stage in the language, very much like the more archaic Celtiberian language . Sentences with the verb first can be interpreted, however, as indicating

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3432-598: The reconstructed endings for the words * toṷtā "tribe, people", * mapos "boy, son", * ṷātis "seer", * gutus "voice", and * brātīr "brother". In some cases, a historical evolution is attested; for example, the dative singular of a-stems is -āi in the oldest inscriptions, becoming first * -ăi and finally -ī as in Irish a -stem nouns with attenuated ( slender ) consonants: nom. lámh "hand, arm" (cf. Gaul. lāmā ) and dat. láimh (< * lāmi ; cf. Gaul. lāmāi > * lāmăi > lāmī ). Further,

3498-553: The same Indo-European root *peiH- ("to be fat, swell"), thus in effect completing a basic picture of the Darini/Dáirine and their kindred in later historical Ireland. A number of Scottish clans and families in the provinces of Ulster and Munster, trace their origins either among the Darini/Dáirine proper or peoples closely related to them. These include the McMahon / McKenzie , Haughey / Hoey , McNulty / McKinley of Dál Fiatach, and

3564-406: The second form only when two, alius , like alter means "the other", the former used when more than two and the latter when only two), tertius, quārtus, quīntus, sextus, septimus, octāvus, nōnus , and decimus . An inscription in stone from Alise-Sainte-Reine (first century AD) reads: A number of short inscriptions are found on spindle whorls and are among the most recent finds in

3630-471: The south and Goidelic in Ireland retain /kʷ/ . Taking this as the primary genealogical isogloss , some scholars divide the Celtic languages into a " q-Celtic " group and a " p-Celtic " group, in which the p-Celtic languages Gaulish and Brittonic form a common "Gallo-Brittonic" branch. Other scholars place more emphasis on shared innovations between Brittonic and Goidelic and group these together as an Insular Celtic branch. Sims-Williams (2007) discusses

3696-533: The verb at the beginning of the clause or sentence. As in Old Irish and traditional literary Welsh, the verb can be preceded by a particle with no real meaning by itself but originally used to make the utterance easier. According to Eska's model, Vendryes' Restriction is believed to have played a large role in the development of Insular Celtic verb-subject-object word order. Other authorities such as John T. Koch , dispute that interpretation. Considering that Gaulish

3762-454: The walls of temples. Tablets were also used for love spells and when used in this manner they were placed inside the home of the desired target. They are sometimes discovered along with small dolls or figurines (sometimes inaccurately referred to as " Voodoo dolls " ), which may also be pierced by nails. The figurines resembled the target and often had both their feet and hands bound. Curse tablets also included hair or pieces of clothing. This

3828-506: The west bank of the Rhine ). In a wider sense, it also comprises varieties of Celtic that were spoken across much of central Europe (" Noric "), parts of the Balkans , and Anatolia (" Galatian "), which are thought to have been closely related. The more divergent Lepontic of Northern Italy has also sometimes been subsumed under Gaulish. Together with Lepontic and the Celtiberian spoken in

3894-536: The word "curse" to such "positive" texts, preferring expressions such as "judicial prayers". In 1979/1980, the Bath curse tablets were found at the site of Aquae Sulis (now Bath in England). All but one of the 130 tablets concerned the restitution of stolen goods. Over 80 similar tablets have been discovered in and about the remains of a temple to Mercury nearby, at West Hill, Uley , making south-western Britain one of

3960-465: Was a "Diakopai", a separation spell intended to drive away rivals by making them repulsive. Another type of curse was an "Agogai", a spell that was intended to bind its target to oneself. Recent scholarship has shown that women used curse tablets for erotic magic much more than originally thought, although they were still in a minority. There is also debate over the type of women that men were trying to attract with these spells. Some scholars subscribe to

4026-507: Was first written in Greek script in southern France and in a variety of Old Italic script in northern Italy. After the Roman conquest of those regions, writing shifted to Latin script . During his conquest of Gaul, Caesar reported that the Helvetii were in possession of documents in the Greek script, and all Gaulish coins used the Greek script until about 50 BC. Gaulish in Western Europe

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4092-538: Was not appropriate for addressing the gods. Therefore, some of the inscriptions of these curse tablets are not easily translatable, because they were "invocations and secret names" which would only be understood by the spirits themselves. Another possibility is that curse tablets were produced by professionals who wished to lend their art a degree of mystique through the use of an apparently secret language that only they could understand. In support of this theory, at least some tablets appear to have blank spaces instead of

4158-502: Was quickly adopted by the Gaulish aristocracy after Roman conquest to maintain their elite power and influence, trilingualism in southern Gaul being noted as early as the 1st century BC. Early references to Gaulish in Gaul tend to be made in the context of problems with Greek or Latin fluency until around AD 400, whereas after c.  450 , Gaulish begins to be mentioned in contexts where Latin has replaced "Gaulish" or "Celtic" (whatever

4224-490: Was seen as a way to give them strength through inclusion of the central essence (Greek: Ousia ) of the person. This is especially the case in love spells, which calls for "hair from the head of the love target." Some love spells have even been discovered "folded around some hair," probably to bind the spell itself. "Not all tablets included a personal name, but it is clear especially in the Roman period, that tablets were sometimes prepared in advance, with space left for inserting

4290-492: Was supplanted by Vulgar Latin . It is thought to have been a living language well into the 6th century. The legacy of Gaulish may be observed in the modern French language and the Gallo-Romance languages , in which 150–400 words , mainly referring to pastoral and daily activities, are known to be derived from the extinct Continental Celtic language. Following the 1066 Norman Conquest , some of these words have also entered

4356-505: Was the coopted local elite, who sent their children to Roman schools and administered lands for Rome. In the fifth century, at the time of the Western Roman collapse, the vast majority (non-elite and predominantly rural) of the population remained Gaulish speakers, and acquired Latin as their native speech only after the demise of the Empire, as both they and the new Frankish ruling elite adopted

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