How did Caesar communicate with british diplomats when he first landed...

Not him, but totally. You have contact with Britain going all the way back to when Phonecia was an independent political entity. (Tin was apparently traded for there). The idea that they wouldn't' know any other languages, especially the trade languages of the region, is pretty hard to support.

This. Even if there was no direct contact with the Latin world, I'd assume there was contact with the Gallic tribes across the channel, and people who spoke both island and mainland Celtic dialects. There were probably multiple steps of translation from Latin to "British", but so what?

A much more interesting question is how Cortes and the conquistadors went about it in the new world, because there there was no continuum of intelligible languages to work through between mutually unknown ones.

The british traded with continental Europe since the bronze age. They would at the very least have had people that spoke some type of gaulish and Caesar had a wgole lot of gaulic auxiliaries and servants, so gaulish to latin translation was not a problem.

yet at the same time britain was even believed to be a fictional land by many romans, all while briton traders conducted trade in gaul and knew latin. fascinating
Caesar's experience really brought this to my attention as he had a diplomatic deal signed the very first day of his arrival on the island. Now I have no idea about the details of the conquistadors' coming to the new world but theoretically they had all the time to have linguists and intellectuals bridge communications

>this is quite amazing to me honestly, really?

Tin Trade. Greek and Punic traders had been going to Briton since 500 BC or so.

>trade languages of the region
Celtic was the trade language of the region.

>Greek and Punic traders had been going to Briton since 500 BC
Pretty sure trading was short haul with the network eventually reaching the Mediterranean not trading directly between the two.

Civilisations didn't spawn in the middle of fog of war like in Civ.

There's evidence of continuous cultural contact and trade between Britain and continental Europe for more than a thousand years before the city of Rome was even founded.

Who /historia civilis/ here

So modern day british are not descended from Britons right? But rather Anglo-Saxon invaders that came later? Or is that wrong

I actually just watched a lecture about this.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=G8FM9nMFbfI

Stop watching cartoons.

>yet at the same time britain was even believed to be a fictional land by many romans, all while briton traders conducted trade in gaul and knew latin. fascinating

>>pic related

yeah I get that but even so, the fact that britons traded with nearby gauls and were subject to trade from trading powerhouses such as the phoenicians, doesn't imply any of them would know latin, a language that by the time of Caesar was colloquialy spoken only below the Alps' latitude
yes I made this thread after watching the video
As far as I know it is mostly Anglo-Saxons, but it's not like the native britons were genocided, rather assimilated. It's not black/white, one/the other
not sure I get it

Are you not reading the thread?

maybe, but the Greeks and Puns recorded sailing their. for something like tin sailing would have made the most sense.

Genocide by dick still counts

I've read every single post. While I do see what is being posted, I'm defending the notion that it's incredible to me, still I do believe what has been told me

modern day British are a mix of ancient Britons, Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Danes, Flemish and French/Normans.

A few instances of exploration makes more sense

Then we're mostly all Belgians really.

Modern English and lowland Scottish are, like, 65% Celt, 30% Germanic(Angles, Saxons, and Jutes), 2% Roman, and 3% Norman.
I read something like that a while ago, but can't place where, so that's just my guess.
English language and culture, though, is mainly Germanic.

When does he upload new videos? GOAT channel.

He captured a bird, and made it sing, pretty much the British loved birds, they knew perfectly well hkw to communicate with them, ceaser learnt this through his emporer who taught him almost everything he knew, so he captured a British bird and forced it to teach him to talk to the English in the bird language they understood, this failed, so he killed them all until they offered slaves as hostages as ritual in getting rekt in ancient times, one of these hostages even sucked his nob in his mates tent without his mate even knowing.

Puns were probably making regular voyages from Cadiz...wouldn't have been hard for them.

Always by 50 BC or so the Britons would have been trading with Greek speaking peoples from Southern Gaul.

Also many Druids would have spoken Greek.

>that it's incredible to me
What the fuck is incredible about it?

Gaul was fractured and Caesar had tons of gaul allies in this wars through gaul.

He also had a lot of slaves

Some of them speaking Latin is not incredible

The britons traded with gaul since the bronze age

Some of them speaking gaulish is not incredible

Do you get it yet?

No

The Venti had much better ship designs for the Atlantic than the Romans in the 50's bc. If anything its more likely they made longer trips. I'm not certain what you're basing these affirmations on.

The latin -> gaulish -> briton explanation isn't really what leaves me in amazement, in fact I had thought about it myself, but to think some britons may have learnt latin merely through trade is what strucks me

They probably didn't though.

The Britons were still Celts just like the Gauls and other such people. While the languages aren't identical, a person fluent in Gaulish would probably be able to understand a good deal of Briton. Also the Gauls themselves did have regular contact with the Britons.

>romans = punic spanish

>At a time when geographical knowledge of the West was still scanty, and when the secrets of the tin trade were still successfully guarded by the seamen of Gades (modern Cadiz) and others who dealt in the metal...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassiterides

no doubt the Britons were also making trade voyages and that trade was also coming overland through Gaul via Massilan Greek trade networks.

yes

why do you say that?

There's plenty of doubt for both.

Because they had really crappy technology and the north Atlantic sucked. Its a lot more likely they hopped the channel and hopped back.

>Also many Druids would have spoken Greek.
Why/how?

Because that's his headcanon

the plants and animals taught them

because they were the educated class, pretty well traveled and Druids in Gaul spoke it.

>Massalia was not a trading hub
>Gauls didn't have a merchant class
>oceans are barriers not highways
>Europe is not geographically pretty small

no doubt.

>A much more interesting question is how Cortes and the conquistadors went about it in the new world
Look up the story of La Malinche, who was Cortes's translator. She was basically a slave who spoke a number of completely different language because she'd been passed around so much; part of her willingness to help Cortes was based around her resentment of her previous life.

But in general, a lot of the Americas had societies build around trading and expansion, so it wasn't uncommon at all to find people who could act as translators for different groups. There was as much cross-cultural contact happening in the Americas as anywhere else on the planet.

No I totally get that, there were large trade networks and the job of translator was well established. I just meant that at some point you did have a first contact with 2 parties with completely unintelligible languages and no workable "if we translate this through 7 languages then we can get what each over means". La Malinche was pretty cool, but at some point she had to learn Spanish from absolutely scratch, with nobody who already spoke a language she knew and also spoke Spanish.

The Britons had shitty little boats. They didn't make huge trade voyages. Its more likely the greeks went over there the problem is there were closer alternatives, both ways.

This, the hollywood meme that British Celts were forest dwelling troglodytes has to die. They were constantly trading with mainland Europeans and would have definitely been able to communicate with any visitors. Hell, there were even Britons at the Battle of Alesia.

he took out his 9mm and made them suck his dick

>but theoretically they had all the time to have linguists and intellectuals bridge communications
they were actually able to use a spanish castaway who assimilated into mayan society. this guy would communicate in mayan with cortes' fuckbuddy malinche, who spoke mayan and nahua (aztec). and so the spaniards communicated