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From: "Carolyn Clark Campbell" <>
Subject: RE: [Gen-Ancient] Georgia & the Caucasus - Garden of Eden? [Was: Edessa, Judea, and Armenia]
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 17:49:04 +0500
In-Reply-To: <20040417115947.64564.qmail@web41703.mail.yahoo.com>


I was responding to the prior message indicating a possible genetic
connection between Basques and Celts. I am not a linguist, but have
been told of theories that the Georgian language is related to either
Basque or Gaelic. Some have argued that it is not an Indo-European
language, while others have argued that it is. I can do nothing more
than report what I have heard and read, since I am no expert.

I am aware of the information about the DNA peculiarities of the
Basques. In one study I read, there was some evidence of a possible DNA
connection between them and people of the North Caucasus.

I don't think that the DNA or linguistic connections between people in
the Caucasus have been studied sufficiently to include or exclude
connections between any of the subgroups of the Caucasus and either the
Basque people or Celts. They wouldn't have to both be true, or both be
false.

At this point, anything is only interesting speculation. Interesting
speculation sometimes leads to discoveries; sometimes it leads to dead
ends. As when Schliemann followed an interesting speculation to look
for Troy, I find it useful to not dismiss such speculations until they
are scientifically excluded. After all, at some point we're all
connected, and if we're looking for ancient genealogy and genetic
connections, we have to follow a lot of speculative paths or not try at
all.

Carolyn

Carolyn Clark Campbell


-----Original Message-----
From: Francisco Antonio Doria
[mailto:]
Sent: Saturday, April 17, 2004 5:00 PM
To: ;
Subject: RE: [Gen-Ancient] Georgia & the Caucasus - Garden of Eden?
[Was: Edessa, Judea, and Armenia]


Dear Carolyn,

I must say I'm having trouble following you. Basque is
an isolated language, perhaps related to another
isolated language in mid-Asia, while the Celtic group
is derived from the indo-european (or indo-hittite)
family.

It is conjectured that the name Iberia was carried
from Eastern Iberia to Spain by the Alans; the name
Galicia to Galiza in Northern Portugal was again
derived from some similar migratory movement.

The Basque people, again, is *very* isolated: one of
their genetic characteristics is the Rh negative blood
group.

fa


--- Carolyn Clark Campbell <>
escreveu: > This potential Basque-Celtic connection is
very
> interesting indeed.
> When my husband and I first came to Georgia a few
> years ago, we were
> told that the only hypothetical connections between
> the Georgian
> language group (which includes Georgian, Mingrelian,
> Svan and Tsan, and
> Georgian-Jewish [a dialect of Georgian as Yiddish is
> of German and
> Ladino of Spanish] -- all languages restricted to
> the Caucasus region)
> are Basque and Gaelic. Since then, we have heard
> that some linguists
> have pooh-poohed the potential Gaelic and/or Basque
> connections with
> Georgian -- now if they are connected with each
> other that adds to the
> sense that there could be possible connections of
> Georgian with both.
>
> The potential Basque connection with the Georgians
> is intriguing ...
> we've always been puzzled as to why ancient East
> Georgia (which is where
> the Udi live) was called Iberia, a term now used for
> Spain, although one
> theory was that the Romans simply used the term for
> "a far-away place,"
> which, of course, both Georgia and Spain were
> vis-à-vis ancient Rome. It
> would make sense that people from the Caucasus might
> want to settle in
> the Pyrenees, just as my Scottish ancestors were
> attracted to the
> mountains of North Carolina (many places in Georgia
> remind me of both
> Scotland and North Carolina).
>
> My friend who's been working with the Udi people
> here actually started
> with Irish voyage origin legends and worked his way
> back through 10
> locations in the early ballads to the Caucasus. It
> will make an
> interesting study when he finally gets a chance to
> write it.
>
> At present, all we have is interesting speculation,
> so it would be
> exciting to get some kind of scientific studies (DNA
> & linguistic) of
> the people here. Of course, because of all the
> foreign invasions the
> genetics of the people here are undoubtedly a vast
> hodge-podge. I'm told
> a significant number of newborns here in Georgia
> carry the "Mongol spot"
> -- which is common among Hungarians as well -- a
> large blue bruise-like
> birthmark in the "small" of the backside below the
> waist -- an
> indication of Asian genetic heritage -- I've noticed
> most Korean babies
> have the same marking, which disappears when they
> get older. The Mongol
> invasion of Georgia was so devastating that
> something like 90% of the
> people were killed during that period, and the
> population has never
> fully recovered in numbers.
>
> My husband, who is of Jewish descent (except through
> the
> paternal-paternal-paternal line, which is Prussian
> -- hence no Y DNA
> connection with early Jews, though one culturally
> inherits "being
> Jewish" through one's mother), and I, who am largely
> of Celtic descent
> (both the Clarks and the Campbells came from
> Scotland), though lots of
> my lineage is English, both feel absolutely "at
> home" in this culture --
> an odd experience in a land with such an alien
> language. We've traveled
> to many countries where we've loved the people and
> their culture, but
> never before had the "feeling" of almost having
> re-discovered "home". I
> keep eerily running into men who look remarkably
> like they could be my
> father's brothers, while my husband finds it an
> extraordinary experience
> to be warmly welcomed for his Jewish heritage by
> people who consider
> "their" Jews to be an important and treasured part
> of their own culture
> and history.
>
> Europeans who come here immediately identify Georgia
> as obviously
> European -- the appearance, the demeanor, the
> intellectual history is so
> evidently European. Italians write about how
> Italian the culture seems,
> but French see how closely it is allied to French
> culture, and the
> Germans and Dutch and Scandinavians feel a warm
> sense of brotherhood
> with the people. Yet having lived as a part of an
> Asian family in my
> early years (my first husband was Korean) I see so
> many parallels with
> Asian culture -- a Korean would feel very much at
> home in Georgian
> family life ... What is it about this place that we
> all feel such an
> affinity?
>
> (Undoubtedly totally irrelevant: a Malagasque friend
> of mine who spent
> some time with the Basques, upon seeing photos of my
> grandchildren who
> are 1/2 Irish, through their father, and 1/4 Korean,
> through my
> daughter, exclaimed -- oh, my! They look exactly
> like Basque children!)
>
> Carolyn Clark Campbell
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Phil Moody [mailto:]
> Sent: Saturday, April 17, 2004 7:31 AM
> To:
> Subject: Re: [Gen-Ancient] Georgia & the Caucasus -
> Garden of Eden?
> [Was: Edessa, Judea, and Armenia]
>
> "Carolyn Clark Campbell" wrote:
>
> the Ossetians (now trying to be independent of
> Georgia in the
> > south and Russia in the north), are more credibly
> claimed to be the
> > descendants of the Scythians, who moved across
> Europe as the Goths;
> and
> > years ago I remember reading in the National
> Geographic that the Celts
> > also originated here and spread across Europe
> during the last
> millennium
> > B.C. One linguist is trying to document a
> connection between Gaelic
> and
> > the language of the remaining Udi people (less
> than 1,000 left) who
> were
> > expelled by Stalin but have returned to their
> original homeland in
> East
> > Georgia, where the Romans originally called them
> Albanians (no
> relation
> > to current Albania) and they had a major
> civilization with its own
> > writing system.
>
> PLM: Perhaps, it would behoove this linguist to
> substantiate his
> research with
> some Y DNA testing of the Udi male population. Here
> is an interesting
> study
> online "Genetic evidence for different male and
> female roles during
> cultural
> transitions in the British Isles", at:
> http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/98/9/5078
>
> A few quotes to peak your interest:-)
>
> "Basque Population History. To investigate the
> degree of paternal
> genetic
> continuity in the British Isles through the
> Neolithic and the
> development of
> Iron Age cultures, we compared the Welsh and Irish
> samples with 50
> Basques
> (28, 29). The Basques are widely believed to be
> descended from the
> Paleolithic
> inhabitants of Europe for reasons including the
> following: ***(i) Basque
> is a
> non-Indo-European language with some features
> suggesting a distant
>
=== message truncated ===

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