the venetic language in ancient britain

THE VENETIC LANGUAGE IN
ANCIENT BRITAIN
Translation of the Non-Latin Text on a Metal Pendant at Aquae
Sulis in Roman Britain showing that it was in Venetic
Andres P ä ä b o
This paper translates, using Adriatic Venetic, a sentence among Roman British texts at
Aquae Sulis that is not in Latin. Aquae Sulis was the name of the location, today at Bath,
England, where the Romans developed Roman baths and a temple around natural hot springs
there. Archeology has found located there, 130 writings on small sheets of lead written in Roman
British Latin and containing requests from the goddess of the hot springs to bring bad luck upon
people who had wronged the writer of the message –such as an unknown thief of a possession.
But there is ONE inscription not on a sheet of lead, and written in another language onto a
pe
ndant
,andwhi
c
hs
c
hol
ar
sbe
l
i
e
v
ei
si
n“Br
ittonic Ce
l
t
i
c
”.Be
c
aus
eIs
pe
nty
e
ar
si
nt
e
r
pr
e
t
i
ng
the Venetic inscriptions of ancient northern Italy, and saw patterns used in writing on thin
bronze sheets at shrines to goddess Rhea, I was quickly able to decipher this text and found it
NOT to be Brittonic Celtic, but quite Venetic-like, which my earlier deciphering of Adriatic
Venetic revealed to be Finnic in nature. This paper translates the mystery text and finds that the
visitor to the baths appears to have given the pendant as an offering to the goddess in exchange
for a long life to the Veneti king. We conclude by exploring the possibility that the Venetic
language in its original Finnic form as determined in the Adriatic inscriptions was established
in Britain in the centuries before the Romans.
______________________
1.1 Introduction
Aquae Sulis was the name of a small town in Roman Britain, which is today the city of Bath,
Somerset, England.
Before the Roman conquest of Britain there was a large natural hot spring at that location
which appears to have been celebrated by the native British and where apparently a goddess was
worshipped that Romans say was called Sulis.
The Romans were attracted to these natural springs, the only one with hot water, not long
after their arrival in Britain in 43AD. According to archeologists, the Roman military road, Fosse
Way, crossed the river Avon near the site. The Romans, with their institution of Roman baths,
took the liberty of developing the location for that purpose, preserving the original celebration of
the goddess Sulis there, but viewing her also in the form of the Roman goddess Minerva. A
temple was also developed around the baths. It is easy to imagine that Roman Britons –officials
and military –dominated attendance at the baths, and that native British who went there had to
adapt to the Roman Baths practices.
1
The town that developed around the site is believed to have been a religious settlement. Were
the buildings private dwellings or intended to accommodate pilgrims to the temple and baths?
That has been debated.
The Roman development of the area continued until the Romans departed from Britain about
410AD, after which it appears violence erupted and the Roman developments fell into disrepair.
The site was rediscovered by archeologists since the 18th c
e
nt
ur
ya
ndi
ti
snowoneofBa
t
h’
s
major attractions. There is a Roman Baths Museum there now, which include artifacts like stone
sculptures, excavated remains of the main temple courtyard, and the Roman Baths themselves
including the original Roman Great Bath fed by the hot spring through lead pipes.
Proof that Latin-speaking Roman British dominated the use of the site through the several
centuries of Roman rule, can be found in the 130 lead tablets that has been found with a Roman
writing on them. The writing is in vulgar British Latin. Since scholars know Latin, they have
been able to decipher the writings and found them to be in the not uncommon Roman practice of
asking deities to curse people who have wronged the writer.
The lead tablets are small and rectangular and actually made of lead alloyed with tin. Some
were cast under pressure into thin flexible sheets with a smooth paper-like finish. Others were
hammered thin from a molten lump. Being thin, the texts, in Roman capitals or cursive script
could be inscribed by pressure from a stylus.
As I said, the messages at Bath invite the deity to curse people who had wronged the
worshipper. They generally express distain towards some known or unknown person who has
wronged the writer. Often a regular visitor to the baths might have some possession stolen while
in the baths. And example of a request to Minerva/Sulis to curse a culprit is “Mayhewho
carried off Vilbia from me become liquid as the water. May she who so obscenely devoured her
become dumb”Al
l130i
ns
c
r
i
pt
i
onsont
hes
ma
l
lt
hi
nl
e
a
ds
he
e
t
sa
r
es
uc
hc
ur
s
e
s
.
However there is ONE piece of writing that is not in Latin, and is not even written on a lead
t
a
bl
e
t
.I
th
a
sbe
e
na
s
s
ume
dt
hewr
i
t
i
ngi
si
n“
Br
ittonic Celtic”
.It is written on a metal pendant
and probably had to be inscribed ahead of time. In spite of it being so out of character with the
130 thin lead tablets, scholars have assumed the writing on this pendant is a curse too and have
attempted to decipher it as such, using Celtic. The sentence reads:
ADIXOUI DEUINA DEIEDA ANDGIN UINDIORIX CUAMENAI
Translations of it include the following: May I, Windiorix for/at Cuamena defeat the
worthless woman, o divine Deieda
This translation is based on Celtic interpretations as follows: Windiorix –nominative
masculine subject (literally windo ‘
f
a
i
r
-he
a
de
d’ rix ‘
ki
ng
’
) Dewina Deieda –
nominative/vocative feminine (deiada ‘
g
odde
s
s
’
)
;Andagin –ac
c
us
a
t
i
vef
e
mi
ni
ne‘
woma
n’
;
Cuamenai –locative/dative feminine of Cuamena.
Modern linguists will say that the mere ability to find word matches has little value, since
human languages have a limited number of vocal sounds and every language, with manipulation
can get results. What counts is the result. The truth is assessed by the meaningfulness of the
result and the absence of manipulations to make the sentence work. False interpretations will
tend towards inappropriate or absurd sentences which need to be poetically manipulated to even
make sense. So the resulting interpretation is what we have to assess. Is it probable that a
pendant would have on it May I, Windiorix for/at Cuamena defeat the worthless woman, o divine
Deieda? Compare it with the result I will arrive at Let us give, to add to, to You Divine-one (ie
2
Sulis), for the Veneti-king to live long which I will argue is more natural for an object that does
not follow the Roman practice in any way, when we consider similar prayers to a goddess in the
Adriatic Venetic world.
Before we attempt to analyze the Aquae Sulis pendant inscription from the point of view of it
being in Venetic of the time, we first have to elaborate on the nature of the ancient Venetic
language, particularly in Brittany and Britain.
1.2 Background: The Nature of Ancient Venetic
’
I have already spent years deciphering the Venetic inscriptions found in northern Italy and
dating to before the Roman Empire, and which I published in VENETIC LANGUAGE An
Ancient Language from a New Perspective: FINAL.1. In my deciphering of the Adriatic
inscriptions, I managed to approach it with direct analysis and found Venetic was Finnic. This is
not strange given the Adriatic Veneti were agents of Baltic amber and there was a long history of
carrying on amber trade from the Finnic speaking Baltic coast, to the southeast European
civilizations.
The major difficulty with ancient Venetic, is that the Veneti name occurs in the historical
record in many places and forms–in ancient Greek Eneti or Henetoi, in more recent history in
forms like Wendi, Venta, Vindo, etc. Traditionally academics have explained it in terms of
migrations of an Indo-European language farming people. But with such distance and time
between the various colonies, the various manifestation would diverge quickly from lack of
contact. This problem of divergence is solved if we regard the ancient Veneti as long distance
traders regularly in contact with one another over long distances. They would be descended from
the aboriginal boat peoples who emerged in prehistoric times in northern Europe out of the
a
r
c
he
ol
og
i
c
a
l’
“
Ma
g
l
e
mos
e
“c
ul
t
ur
e
.Not
a
bl
yt
heVeneti/Eneti probably first emerged as traders
travelling to Asia Minor with mainly furs and Baltic amber, since archeologists have found
Baltic amber dating to before 3000BC in tombs in Babylon and in Mycenean Greece since
before 2000BC. Since the prehistoric peoples in the north can be associated with Finnic language
and a nomadic boat-culture (dugouts originally) it is not difficult to connect the language of the
Venetic language to Finnic, especially since in Finnic Estonian the word vene means boats, and
the plural genitive is venede,a
ndc
a
nbeus
e
da
s‘
(
pe
opl
e
)oft
heboa
t
s
’
.TheFi
nni
cLi
v
oni
a
ns
only some centuries ago used the term Venede f
ort
hos
e“
We
nds
”l
oc
a
t
e
df
i
r
s
twhe
r
eVe
nt
a
River is today, and later where Cesis is today. They used the word also for Votes (shippers
carrying wares along the Russian rivers down to the Black Sea whose Estonian name Vadja
sounds like vedaja ‘
a
g
e
nt
soft
r
a
ns
por
t
i
ng
’
)
Being of Estonian descent and having been raised in Estonian, the amber trade story along
with archaeological finds of two amber routes in pre-Roman times descending from the Baltic to
the Adriatic Veneti, suggested to me that there was a pretty good chance that if I were to tackle
trying to decipher the Adriatic Venetic inscriptions, that it would look quite Finnic in nature. But
to avoid forcing Finnic onto the inscriptions, I tried a new methodology –trying first to interpret
some of the simplest inscriptions directly from the archaeological contexts in which they were
found, starting with an inscription accompanying a picture of a peasant or hunter handing a
distinguished looking man a duck. If you read my summary of it in VENETIC LANGUAGE
1
A very controversial study because it achieved much more extensive results, hence undermining traditional
attempts to interpret the Adriatic inscriptions by forcing Latin or Slovernian onto it, which is the wrong approach in
a
n
c
i
e
ntwr
i
t
i
n
gde
c
i
ph
e
r
i
n
g
.Th
ebookc
a
nbev
i
e
we
da
ta
c
a
de
mi
a
.
e
duort
h
ea
u
t
h
or
’
swe
bpa
g
ea
twww.
pa
a
bo.
c
a
3
you wi
l
ls
e
ehowIdi
r
e
c
t
l
yde
t
e
r
mi
ne
dt
hei
ns
c
r
i
pt
i
one
s
s
e
nt
i
a
l
l
ys
a
i
d‘
Le
tr
e
ma
i
nt
ot
he‘
Pa
pa
’a
duc
k’Byd
i
r
e
c
t
l
yt
r
a
ns
l
a
t
i
ngs
e
ve
r
a
ls
uc
hne
a
r
l
yobvi
ousi
ns
c
r
i
pt
i
ons
,Iwa
sa
bl
et
oge
tl
e
v
e
r
a
g
e
to decipher more –using the technique that if we can translate all words in a sentence except
one, the context of the known words will reveal the unknown. Again and again the results
produced Finnic patterns in word stems and grammar, so that near the end of the project I was
able to even do a comparison of Venetic, Finnish and Estonian grammar.
I leave it to the reader to evaluate the work yourself, since the academic literature wants to
ignore this departure from deeply entrenched views that Venetic was Indo-European.2
In my analysis in VENETIC LANGUAGE one group of inscriptions were done on bronze
sheets and objects left at a sanctuary to the Venetic goddess. This is the reason I bring the
Adriatic Venetic inscriptions into this analysis of the unusual Aquae Sulis inscription on the
pendant. There are remarkable similarities.
After completing my interpretation of the Adriatic Venetic inscriptions, I needed to determine
if the language of the Brittany Veneti was the same, and I began scanning archeological papers
for grave markers dating to the Roman era or earlier, to see if they contained Venetic. But before
we look at my results, let us review one of the ancient Adriatic Venetic inscriptions that was
written for a goddess. We will find that the Aquae Sulis pendant inscription has many
similarities, especially the way it addresses a goddess.
1.3 Adriatic Venetic inscriptions to their goddess Rhea, as a forerunner for the
non-Roman inscription at Aquae Sulis.
The writing of messages to a goddess on thin metal sheets already existed before the rise of
the Romans among the Veneti, and it is likely the Romans inherited it from Veneti or maybe
Etruscans who were their neighbours in centuries BC. It is possible that the Romans converted
the hopeful prayers to curses as a reaction to the earlier traditions among a different people?
The inscribed objects found in northern Italy and attributed to the ancient Adriatic Veneti
before the rise of the Romans, involved the writing of hopeful messages to a goddess on thin
sheets of metal. The Adriatic Veneti wrote to the goddess Rhea, using thin bronze sheets and the
Venetic language and alphabet. The Adriatic Venetic inscriptions on thin bronze sheets came
from the sanctuary archeology uncovered at Baratela near Este. The bronze sheets were about
15x10 to 20x15cm in size, and writing was pressed into them with a stylus.
Because of the similarity to the writing to Sulis/Minerva on thin metal at Aquae Sulis, it is
worth my reviewing in more detail here what I discovered in regards to the similar Adriatic
Venetic practices of writing messages to Rhea. Objects with inscriptions already written on
them could be left as well, thus. Leaving an object like a pendant, with inscription pre-written,
would be acceptable too. (But I believe that most objects left at such sites, having practical value,
were stolen or scavenged and there is little for archeologists to find.) It looks like the person
who left the pendant of Aquae Sulis was well versed in the Venetic tradition, and by the
inscription being NOT in coarse Latin, that visitor was defying Roman practices of making it a
curse and writing it in Latin. I wonder if the pendant was actually hidden, not found among the
coarse Roman curses on lead. The following is a good example of the Adriatic Venetic hopeful
prayer on a bronze sheet left near Este from my analysis in VENETIC LANGUAGE
2
Finnic is NON-Indo-European, part of the Uralic language family, and completely different from IndoEuropean, so this is not a case of using anything previously done from the Indo-European point of view.
4
NORTHERN ITALY CENTURIES BC.
EXAMPLE VENETIC INSCRIPTION ON BRONZE SHEET IN PRE-ROMAN TIMES
6.D)[vda.]n[.]vo.l.t[iio.n.]mno.s.[do]na.s.tokela.g.[s.]to$a.i.nate.i.re.i.tiia.i.
LLV-Es27]
o.p[vo].l.tiiolen[o] -
[MLV-12A,
The text above represents the Venetic alphabet, transformed into small case Roman alphabet including the dots within the
Venetic. The [] represent reconstructions of faded or missing pieces based on similar texts in other inscriptions , and | represents
ac
h
a
n
g
ei
nd
i
r
e
c
t
i
o
n
.Th
e$i
nmya
n
a
l
y
s
i
sr
e
p
r
e
s
e
n
t
sal
o
n
gSa
si
nEn
g
l
i
s
h“
h
i
s
s
”
.
Th
et
e
x
t
i
sc
o
n
t
i
n
u
o
u
sb
u
t
c
o
mp
a
r
i
s
o
nwi
t
h
the body of inscriptions allows us to introduce word spaces and the results would be
vda.n vo.l.tiio.n.mno.s. dona.s.to ke la.g.s.to $a.i.nate.i. re.i.tiia.i. o.p vo.l.tiio leno
These tablets/sheets were inscribed at a shrine to the goddess Rhea, probably accompanying a burnt offering. All the texts
indicate that something is being conveyed up into the sky to join the goddess Rhea there. The Veneti appear to have believed
that the spirit or essence of something was conveyed to the heavens via smoke.
In my study, which deciphered the inscriptions from first principles and found it was in a Finnic language, yielded meaningful
results for most of the complete sentence inscriptions, and we found solid results for this inscription.
‘
I convey into the heavens-going the bringing (ie offering I bring) also gift to join you divine Rhea --- up to the heavens fly!’
(See my document THE VENETIC LANGUAGE for detailed description of the analysis)
The sanctuaries of the Adriatic Veneti would be physically defined by fencings or walls to set
them apart from the regular urban environment. Inside the sanctuary space one would find the
facilities –including pillars, statues, pedestals, etc - for practicing the religion whether it be
processions, rituals, prayers, offerings. Gifts and offerings, including sacrifices, accumulated in
such places. Permanent temple structures were only built at more important sanctuaries in the
larger cities. Religious rituals carried out at the sanctuaries included purification rituals involving
liquids, and sacrifices of animals to deities.
Thus the Adriatic Venetic practices have similarities to practices at the Aquae Sulis site. Both
have communicating with the goddess by writing onto thin metal sheets, and perhaps also by
leaving gifts. The main difference is that the messages to the goddess Rhea were very reverent
and basically made offerings (usually burnt) to the goddess in the infinite realm high up and far
away, without asking for anything in exchange, the Roman-British inscriptions are less reverent,
and quite selfish and presumptuous in asking for the goddess to curse someone who had wronged
5
them. But it could merely reflect the secular attitude of visitors who came only to bathe, as well
as the Romans turning a widely used foreign practice backwards. If a shrine was situated within
a Roman Bath, the religiousness would deteriorate from the context of visiting for bathing. Still,
there could have been some Venetic visitors who defiantly left reverent prayers like in earlier
centuries at Baratela.
At the Adriatic site at Baratela, there were both bronze sheets onto which visitors to the shrine
would actively write a message, and there were objects with appropriate messages of prayer
already on them that appear to have been left there. I discovered that the sentences to a deity
followed a formula that can be described with mego dona.s.to...$a.i.nate.i. re.i.tiia.i. ‘
our
of
f
e
r
i
ng.
.
.
.
t
odi
vi
neRhe
a
’Someoft
hewor
dsc
oul
dbel
e
f
touta
ndbea
s
s
ume
d,butt
hes
t
r
uc
t
ur
e
was the same
(I used “$”to represent the Venetic alphabet character that sounds like a long SS, as in
“hi
s
s
”,bu
twhi
c
hIbe
l
i
e
v
es
ounde
ds
ome
t
hi
ngmor
el
i
k
e“y
SS”.Andt
hedot
sf
oundi
nt
he
Venetic writing, I determined marked mostly palatalizations, and only affect how the language
sounded. When Venetic was written with the Roman alphabet, the dots vanished.)
Let me review how I broke down the words $a.i.nate.i. re.i.tiia.i.
$a.i.nate.i.
$a ‘
l
or
d,g
od’(
e
qui
va
l
e
ntt
oEt
r
us
c
a
nais, Estonian issa - ‘
g
od’
)
.i. i
sbe
s
ts
e
e
na
sFi
nni
cma
r
ke
rf
ort
hepl
ur
a
ls
t
e
m(
g
i
vi
ng‘
g
ods
’
)
.
na which could be theEs
s
i
vec
a
s
e‘
a
s
’s
i
nc
et
he-na Essive exists in both Estonian and
Finnish and is therefore very old. Etruscan -na has been interpreted as producing an adjective –
for example eis > eisna =‘
g
odl
y
’
.
(This gives $a.i.na ‘
a
st
heg
ods
’
,‘
i
nt
hef
or
m oft
heg
ods
’
,‘
g
odl
y
’
,ors
i
mpl
y‘
di
vi
ne
’
)
te.i. wevi
e
wa
saf
or
ma
l‘
y
ou’i
nt
hePa
r
t
i
t
i
ve
.Whe
nt
hec
ont
e
xtoft
hes
e
nt
e
nc
ede
s
c
r
i
be
s
movement, the Parti
t
i
vea
dds‘
t
o’a
si
n‘
t
oYou’Butt
hi
si
snotaDa
t
i
veb
utady
na
mi
cPa
r
t
i
t
i
ve
me
a
ni
ngs
ome
t
hi
nga
ki
nt
o‘
uni
t
ewi
t
hg
od’
,or‘
be
c
omeonewi
t
hg
od’
(This gives $a.i.na te.i. ‘
t
ounite with You,oft
hec
ha
r
a
c
t
e
rofg
ods
’
,‘
t
oYou,Di
vi
ne
.
.
.
’)
re.i.tiia.i.
re wa
sge
ne
r
a
l
l
yt
het
e
r
mf
or‘
pa
t
h,wa
y
’ofpr
e
-Indo-European Europe. It is the first part of
the Estonian rada ‘
pa
t
h
’
,a
ndt
hea
nc
i
e
ntpe
opl
ec
a
l
l
e
dRa
e
t
i
a
ns(
whoc
a
r
r
i
e
dg
ood
sove
r
mount
a
i
nt
r
a
i
l
s
)
,a
nde
ve
ne
ndur
e
swi
t
h
i
nGe
r
ma
ni
cwor
dsf
or‘
r
oa
d’
.
.i. i
sbe
s
ts
e
e
nt
opl
ur
a
l
i
z
e
,g
i
vi
ng‘
r
out
e
s
’
t probably introduced to break up the vowels and has no meaning (Finnish will do this. For
example if an ending beginning with a vowel is to be added to maa, a T is first added to break up
a long string of vowels. as in maata ‘
api
e
c
eofl
a
nd’
)
iia Indicating directed action like Illative, Allative, etc. We calli
tt
he“
I
i
a
t
i
ve
”be
c
a
us
eof
uni
quef
e
a
t
ur
e
s
.Me
a
ni
ng ‘
e
xt
e
ndi
nge
t
e
r
na
l
l
y
(
t
o)
’orpe
r
ha
pss
i
mpl
y‘
t
oe
ve
r
l
a
s
t
i
ng’
.(Hence
re.i.tiia ‘
to everlasting REIA/ Routes-One
’
)
a.i is the dynamic Partitive ending, attached to the Iiative.
$a.i.nate.i. re.i.tiia.i.
‘
t
oYou, of-the-gods, t
oe
ve
r
l
a
s
t
i
ngREI
A’
,
I
nbe
t
t
e
rEng
l
i
s
h:‘
t
ouni
t
e(
t
heg
i
f
t
)wi
t
hYou,Di
vi
neRhe
a
’
This interpretation of will become important in our interpretation of the Aquae Sulis pendant
inscription. But first, let us review my investigation in VENETIC LANGUAGE of my finds of
Venetic in Brittany and Wales in Roman times or shortly after. This will help us find it
6
believable that Venetic speakers were found in southwest Britain at least, during the Roman age.
(My investigation summarized below was not exhaustive and I would be happy to find more
inscriptions not in Latin from the Roman period or earlier to analyze for Venetic.)
1.4 Parallels between Adriatic Venetic and several Inscriptions found on
gravestones in Brittany and southwest Britain in the Roman period or shortly
thereafter
In my investigation of writings on gravestones in Brittany, Cornwall and Wales, I discovered
that there was a tendency –as there was for Adriatic inscriptions –for academics to assume that
when there was a single word on a gravestone, that it was simply the name of the deceased. In
my view this is cheating. It is more logical that as in recent history, the most common single
wor
dr
e
pe
a
t
e
dont
ombs
t
one
swi
l
le
xpe
r
e
s
st
hes
e
nt
i
me
ntofe
i
t
he
r’
r
e
s
t(
i
npe
a
c
e
)
’which views
the deceased to be sleeping or a sentiment of being remembered by the living, as in Latin in
memorium.
Thus I looked first at the word that appeared repeatedly on Adriatic Venetic obelisques tha
marked the location of tombs, which was .e.go3 which I directly interpreted as something similar
t
o’
r
e
s
t(
i
npe
a
c
e
)
’butwhi
c
hIc
oul
dt
he
nc
ompa
r
et
ot
heFinnic Estonian word jäägu (
‘
l
e
tr
e
s
t
,
r
e
ma
i
n’
)
.Remarkable parallels with Estonian was what revealed Venetic to be Finnic.
So I searched papers posted on the internet showing tombstones from around the Roman
period which might have a word similar to Adriatic Venetic .e.go or Estonian jäägu
The following was exactly what I was looking for:
10c-2.B) JAGU: - ‘
REST,
REMAI
N’
[image after Davies, W. et al. (2000)The Inscriptions of Early Medieval Brittany.
Les inscriptions de la Bretagne du Haut Moyen Âge Andover and Aberystwyth:Celtic Studies
Publications. DeanDavids/1892, Fig. M7.3]
Grave marker found in Brittany. The stone located near the chapel of Sainte-Brigitte on the Le Plec
p
e
n
i
n
s
u
l
ao
f
Mo
r
b
i
h
a
n
.Th
r
e
ei
n
c
i
s
e
d‘
c
u
p
-ma
r
k
s
’
a
r
ec
l
e
a
r
l
yv
i
s
i
b
l
eo
nt
h
en
o
r
t
hf
a
c
eo
f
t
h
es
t
o
n
e
below the inscription. Such cup-marks are incised singly or in groups of up to twenty, or more, on
Neolithic and Iron-Age monuments, and on natural rocks, throughout Brittany. Such cup marks on stone
are quite widespread. On this stone is only one word, and the only issue among scholars is the first
letter. It has been interpreted by academics as IAGU, JAGU and LAGU. We choose IAGU or JAGU
for the following reason:
The same argument applies here as with the Venetic tomb-markers –that the most probable meaning for the first, repeated,
or in this case only word is either to do with resting eternally,. or to be remembered. We discussed this in detail in our
determining that Venetic .e.go was paralleled by Estonian jäägu ’
l
e
t
r
e
ma
i
n
’
Scholars have traditionally assumed that the word was simply the name of the deceased.
Next the word I looked for were those expressing the idea of remembering. In the Adriatic
Veneti such a word appeared once on a round stone that was placed on the floor of tombs. It
appeared as mu.i.ste which is identical to Finnic muista ‘
r
e
me
mbe
r
’
.Idi
dnotf
i
ndt
ha
t
particular word in the limited inscriptions in Brittany, Wales or Cornwall but I found another
3
(Venetic alphabet writing is represented in small case Roman, including the dots. The dots mostly mark
palatalizations, hence .e.go sounded like JEGO)
7
word. Used every day the Estonian mäleta ‘
t
or
e
me
mbe
r
’must be very old (since the commonly
used words tend to have more weight and change least),
But first I want to present a very good example found in Brittany.
ThusIf
o
undt
woe
xa
mpl
e
soft
heuni
ve
r
s
a
lt
e
r
m of‘
r
e
s
t
’or‘
r
e
me
mbe
r
’i
na
r
c
he
ol
og
i
c
a
l
finds in Brittany.
MELITA:. ‘
REMEMBER’
I
NVENETI
CORFI
NNI
C
[image after Davies, W. et al. (2000)
The Inscriptions of Early Medieval Brittany.
Les inscriptions de la Bretagne du Haut Moyen Âge Andover and Aberystwyth
Celtic Studies Publications. DeanDavids/1892, Fig. I6.5]
Slate cist-graves were discovered in Retiers, a town on the eastern edge of Brittany, 30km south east of Rennes. According
to Davies, W. et al. a year after it was found, a site assessment preliminary to constructing a parking lot revealed four dug graves
and another slate-lined grave. Later, another three dug graves and a further slate-lined grave were revealed. The left-hand panel
of the southernmost of the three graves found in 1994, bore the inscription, which was revealed when the panel was washed.
Did I find any longer
sentences? The following,
almost lost and forgotten in
an old graveyard in
southwest Brittany appears
to follow a practice of
running Roman alphabet
letters
together
and
backwards, something that
also occurred in the early
years of Roman writing in
the ancient Adriatic.
I straightened out the
Roman letters to their
normal Roman form, and
you can see what I believe
the words intend in the text
to the side.
I
translated
the
inscription as ‘
Le
t be
carried towards; to the side
of, turn; also carry; to the
side of the sky realm; in the
8
e
t
e
r
nal
,f
r
e
e
,di
r
e
c
t
i
on’or in better English ‘
Le
tbec
ar
r
i
e
dt
owar
ds
,t
ur
ntowards, also bear, to
t
hes
k
yr
e
al
m,t
owar
dst
hef
r
e
ee
t
e
r
ni
t
y
’
. The great similarity of the words of this sentence to
Adriatic Venetic proves that Venetic was in use there in Brittany in Roman times. Perhaps the
letters were jumbled up so that Roman officials would not be able to read it? This example
suggests that Venetic was still in use into the Roman period, although probably Romans frowned
on it, and its speakers kept their use of it secret.
10c-2.C) A VENETIC MESSAGE IN MAGICAL WRITING:- A DEGENERATED VENETIC (See illustration above)
Gravestone, found at Plumergat in Brittany. Plumergat is in the southern Morbihan, the ancient Veneti area, 22km north of
the coast. First identified in the cemetery there, is now set into the ground outside the parish church of Plumergat, on the east of
the path to the south door. At the time of drawing the first cadastral map (1832) the church and its churchyard were focal to the
settlement; it is reasonable to suppose that there was a church on or near this site in the ea
r
l
yMi
d
d
l
eAg
e
s
,g
i
v
e
nt
h
eb
o
u
r
g
’
s
location at the centre of a plebs (an early medieval poto-parish) and the cluster of religious buildings. One side of the stone has a
newer inscription and cross, from the Middle Ages, since presumably the Church decided to make use of the unused side of the
stone, placing a newer grave on that unused side. The inscription on the front obviously uses Roman letters, but superimposes
them, in the manner we saw with the T and E in OPTERGN in Grouping 1, except here it is done extensively and sometimes
three letters are made into one symbol. That this is the case is obvious. What is not obvious is how to take them apart to reveal
the Venetic words. Interpreting this inscription can only be done after we have determined words from the Adriatic inscriptions,
and then the combined characters can be deconstructed into their original words. The illustration above shows how I deciphered
the words.
If we read the sentence from bottom up –in the direction the spirit flies –we have FOGIA PO BODURNA GA CANATO
VOLTEO BO IIUVANTS VAUBOS
Our deciphering of the north Adriatic inscriptions reveals almost all of this. I made one original determination –that
BODURNA might contain the origins of the English turn, hence BODURNA is interpreteda
s‘
t
u
r
nt
o
wa
r
d
s
’
.
Ad
d
i
n
gi
n
s
i
g
h
t
sf
r
o
m
Estonian we arrive at ‘
L
e
tb
ec
a
r
r
i
e
dt
o
wa
r
d
s
;t
ot
h
es
i
d
eo
f
,t
u
r
n
;a
l
s
oc
a
r
r
y
;t
ot
h
es
i
d
eo
ft
h
es
k
yr
e
a
l
m;i
nt
h
ee
t
e
r
n
a
l
,f
r
e
e
,
d
i
r
e
c
t
i
o
n
’
or in better English ‘
L
e
t
b
ec
a
r
r
i
e
dt
o
wa
r
d
s
,
t
u
r
ntowards, also bear, t
ot
h
es
k
yr
e
a
l
m,
t
o
wa
r
d
st
h
ef
r
e
ee
t
e
r
n
i
t
y
’
It fits so well to the situation that by the laws of probability the chances are very high that this is correct, or close to correct.
This may be unsettling to scholars who have decided the Brittany Veneti spoke a Celtic
language. They point to their proposed interpretations of names with Celtic. But as you will see
later, Finnic language works even better in interpreting names. For example Celtic scholars claim
that the confederation of seagoing nations in the north which Caesar identified as Armoricae,
t
r
a
ns
l
a
t
e
sa
s‘
me
noft
hes
e
a
’
.Butt
hewor
di
nt
e
r
pr
e
t
se
ve
nmor
ede
s
c
r
i
pt
i
ve
l
ya
sac
onf
e
de
r
a
t
i
on
via Finnic armo-riigi ‘
na
t
i
onsmut
ua
l
l
ys
uppor
t
i
veofonea
not
he
r
,s
y
mpa
t
he
t
i
ct
oonea
not
he
r
’
.
(I will propose later that the Brittany Veneti became Celtic-speaking after several centuries of
living under Roman rule, just as the Adriatic Veneti became Latin-speaking and south Baltic
Venedi became Slavic-speaking in the course of history from Roman times and after. One can
actually see the conversion of Adriatic Veneti to Latin in their cremation urn inscriptions!)
The Roman Empire in its 4-5 centuries of existence had a major impact on ancient Europe.
Considering how fast in recent history Europeans have converted North America, a great deal of
change can occur in mere centuries. The Venetic language can disappear during those centuries
if the Roman Empire now promoted Latin and a prior Venetic large scale trade lingua franca lost
its usefulness and disappeared. The idea that Brittany Veneti began with its original Finnic-based
form, and after four centuries had been replaced by Celtic, both in Brittany and in Britain, is a
viable theory.
9
Next in my seeking the Finnic type Venetic, I continued scanning archeologist literature for
gravestones in southwest Britain, as close to Roman times as possible. As with Brittany, I looked
f
ort
her
e
pe
t
i
t
i
onofwor
dst
ha
tc
oul
dme
a
n‘
r
e
s
t(
i
npe
a
c
e
)
’or‘
r
e
me
mbe
r
’
.Note I did not do an
exhaustive search but scanned scholarly papers of books I found on the internet.
WALES GRAVE MARKER MESSAGE - ‘
REMEMBER,
MEMORI
ES’
I
NFI
NNI
C
Since Brittany was closely tied to southwest Britain such as Wales, I scanned the internet to see if I could find an article on
very old grave markers in Wales. I found a particular words stem repeated and this word does not resonate with Latin. In these
cases, the stem MELI- i
sr
e
p
e
a
t
e
di
nas
i
n
g
l
ewo
r
ds
oo
f
t
e
np
e
rf
o
u
n
dg
r
a
v
e
s
t
o
n
e
,
t
h
a
t
i
t
c
a
n
n
o
t
b
eap
e
r
s
o
n
’
sn
a
meb
u
t
mu
s
t
b
e
one of the two words –‘
r
e
s
t
’
o
r‘
r
e
me
mb
e
r
’
a
n
di
nt
h
e
s
ec
a
s
e
si
nmyd
e
c
i
p
h
e
r
i
n
gI
s
a
wt
h
ewo
r
d‘
r
e
me
mb
e
r
’
Besides Estonian mäleta, there are other versions like meeles ’
i
nme
mo
r
y
’
10c-3.A) MELITU: The following example was found at Caernarvonshire (Caernarfon), Wales. It reads MELITU.
[image developed from
The Early Christian Monuments of Wales,
Nash-Williams, V. E. (1950), Cardiff, University of Wales Press, 88, plate II
Drawing inset derived from Macalister 1945 C.I.I.C.]
10c-3.B) MELI- Two seemingly abbreviated versions of the same kind of expression are shown
below. The first one is found in Wales, at St Nicholas, Llandrudian Farm, Pembrokeshire.
[image from Nash-Williams, V. E. (1950)
The Early Christian Monuments of Wales.
Cardiff: University of Wales Press, p217, Fig. 249]
It appears to read MELI-. Gravestones of that period included a dash at the end of an
abbreviation presuming that the reader filled in the blank, that is, to fill it out to MELITU or MELITA
or some alternative similar ending that was common there. Any implication of abbreviation means
the word must be a commonly used word (
a
n
dn
o
t
s
p
e
c
i
f
i
cl
i
k
eap
e
r
s
o
n
’
sn
a
me
)
10c-3.C) MAILIS--
[Figure in Nash-Williams, V. E. (1950)
The Early Christian Monuments of Wales.
Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 55]
All the above results are from early Christian era, which began at the end of the Roman era. In
a
ddi
t
i
ont
ot
hes
e
ve
r
a
li
ns
t
a
nc
e
sofwor
dsr
e
f
l
e
c
t
i
ng‘
r
e
me
mbe
r
’pa
r
a
l
l
e
l
i
ngmeeles ‘
i
nme
mor
y
’
4
or mäleta ‘
t
or
e
me
mbe
r
’
4
I also encountered some instances in the early Christian period in which there was Latin and the words HIC
I
ACI
T‘
h
e
r
el
i
e
s
’we
r
eu
s
e
dong
r
a
v
e
s
t
on
e
s
.I
ACI
Ti
st
h
eLa
t
i
nwor
diaceo ‘
l
i
e
,bes
i
t
u
a
t
e
d,l
i
ede
a
d,
e
t
c
’
.I
tc
ou
l
d
have originated from the Venetic .e.go or some similar Etruscan word –since Latin evolved in the Italic Peninsula
where both the Etruscans and Veneti preceded them. The fact that iaceo occurs alone in the Latin dictionary whereas
10
If the above examples of Mailis, Melitu, Mel- come from the Early Christian period, it
suggests that Finnic language was present in Wales. Perhaps these represent ancient Venetic
colonies along the coast that Venetic traders visited, where the use of Latin had not reached.
In any event I have continued to be attentive towards discovering more examples of nonLatin writing in Roman Britain, to see if the language is actually Venetic or some form of Finnic.
I was elated to learn of the inscription of the pendant at Aquae Sulis, to see if it would translate
with my knowledge of Venetic and Finnic languages.
What do we have before translating the Aquae Sulis pendant? We have evidence that the
Brittany Veneti had the same Venetic language as at the Adriatic, except with dialectic deviations
and borrowings. Therefore finding Venetic at Aquae Sulis will not be unusual. Veneti traders
were probably frequenting the area when they arrived at ports up the Bristol Channel. We have a
practice in the Adriatic Venetic inscriptions that seems like a precedent for activity at Aquae
Sulis and for leaving a pre-inscribed gift, a pendant, to the goddess, with a positive inscription
not a curse. The construction of the sentences addressing a goddess using $a.i.nate.i. resonate
with the text on the pendant at Aquae Sulis, as we see below.
Last but not least, we have established the validity, from the results in VENETIC
LANGUAGE, of also looking towards Finnic Estonian for insights into the meaning of words
that were not used in the Adriatic Venetic inscriptions.
The following passage from Julius Caesar confirms that the Venetic traders of
Brittany/Armorica were constantly frequenting Britain.
These Veneti exercise by far the most extensive authority over all the sea-coast in those
districts, for they have numerous ships, in which it is their custom to sail to Britain, and they
excel the rest in the theory and practice of navigation. As the sea is very boisterous and open,
with but a few harbours here and there which they hold themselves , they have as tributaries
almost all those whose custom it is to sail the sea.
[Caesar, The Gallic Wars, 3, 8]
What Caesar describes had probably been going on for the previous 4 or 5 centuries, given
that mention of tin coming to Greece from Britain (ie Cassiterides at the ends of the earth) was
already established at the time of ancient Greek historian Herodotus in around 420BC. There was
plenty of time for the British Isles to have been shaped by large scale Venetic trade before the
arrival of the Romans or even the immigration of Belgic tribes into southeast Britain. I do not
believe the Belgic tribes were invaders, but rather entreprendeurs who sought to extend Gaul
across the Strait of Dover into southeast Britain. They only sought to conquer the already
existing tin industry and had to adapt to what the Veneti had already established, including the
Brittanic language..
We have learned in recent times how the shaping of Britain by international trade goes back
much further than around 500BC, and we really cannot tell when the traders became specifically
“
Ve
ne
t
i
”
.Archeology has discovered the international character of Britain began perhaps as
early as 2000BC around which time there was large scale mining of copper in northern Wales.
The amount of copper removed was much more than would be needed locally, hence it is
believed to have been intended for markets outside of the British Isles. It is worth noting that
about the same general time –around 2000BC –megalithic constructions were developing
there are many words in Latin based on iacio ‘
t
h
r
ow,c
a
s
t
,hur
l
,e
t
c
’
,s
ugg
e
s
t
siaceo was a borrowed word. But I
have not shown examples of HIC IACIT because it appeared within Latin texts, and not within Venetic-like texts.
11
around the British Isles, often in widely separated locations. Does this suggest large scale traders
were working the British Isles widely long before 500BC? What is the connection between the
e
a
r
l
y“
Me
ga
l
i
t
hi
ct
r
a
de
r
s
”a
ndt
heVeneti? By the time the Romans arrived, the Brittany Veneti
home base was at Vannes, a location that is close to a major megalithic stone alignments at
Carnac, and at a natural harbour was ideal for seagoing ships. It looks like the Veneti continued
an activity that was already very very old. What was the circumstances of the change? It is worth
noting that the megalithic culture came to an end which suggests a new seatrade people who did
not worship megaliths, displaced the original seatraders.
I have described my finding Venetic in Brittany and Wales funerary stones above for two
reasons: first to show that findng more Venetic in southwest Britain will not be unusual, but also
as evidence to argue that the native British language may have been shaped by Venetic
throughout the large scale trade system in which they were involved. Let us now proceed to the
inscription.
1.5 Translating the Aquae Sulis Pendant as Venetic
Having established that Brittany and at least southwest Britain had a pre-Celtic Venetic
language, that was –as I already discovered in the Adriatic inscriptions –Finnic in nature, we
are now equipped to translate the inscription on the Aquae Sulis pendant thought to be in ancient
British.
ADIXOUI DEUINA DEIEDA ANDGIN UINDIORIX CUAMENAI
The key to interpreting this is my earlier interpretation of $a.i.nate.i. re.i.tiia.i. (See earlier
box) First of all there seems to be a parallel in it to $a.i.nate.i. except it used Latin deus. The
parallel words are:
DEUINA DEIEDA
If we replace Venetic $a f
or‘
g
od’wi
t
hDEU we find the exact same structure –the I for the
plural, and –NA for the Essive case.
The second word DEIEDA, is similar to te.i. except that there is an added EDA. But if we
consider Estonian, where the partitive is not the vowel-.i. of Venetic, but a –D, then it works. It
would imply, though, that northwest European Venetic was influenced by Estonian language in
the long distance trade across the north. We can thus decide that we will not find the same
Partitive in the Aqua Sulis inscription, but we still have the option of interpreting vowel-.i. and
a
ni
nf
i
ni
t
i
ve
.I
nt
oda
y
’
sEs
t
oni
a
nt
hepa
r
t
i
t
i
veofteie ‘
You’i
steid. It is possible that an added
E gave it an Allative meaning since in modern Estonian one says teile ‘
t
oYou’a
nds
oi
ti
s
possible in ancient times one could say teide ‘
t
oYou’
In any event, there is a remarkable parallel in DEUINA DEIEDA to $a.i.nate.i. and so we can
determine that DEUINA DEIEDA me
a
nt‘
t
oYou,Di
vi
ne(
Sulis)
’
But that is not all the parallels. We find in two words –ADIXOUI and CUAMENAI –with
the vowel-.i. ending, which in the Adriatic Venetic translations on verbs meant the infinitive.
Furthermore, the word contains MENAI, a word which appears in the Adriatic Venetic
inscriptions, except with palatalization the vowel E or I has been lost. As in mno.i. It would
me
a
n‘
t
og
o
’
.
12
Thus we have one powerful parallel in DEUINA DEIEDA and another in the infinitive ending
a
nda
not
he
ri
nt
hepr
e
s
e
nc
eoft
hewor
df
or‘
t
og
o’
.Butwea
l
s
os
a
w pa
r
a
l
l
e
l
st
oEs
t
oni
a
ni
n
DEIEDA, and there are other parallels with Finnic, in a fashion that resonates with Estonian.
This is the sentence. Let us interpret it with Venetic, Estonian, and a couple of obvious
borrowings from Latin
As I said, this inscription is probably NOT a curse because it is on a pendant and not on the
typical thin lead sheet. Perhaps this inscription was on an object intended as an offering to the
goddess, following the practice of the Rhea sanctuary where objects that were not thin sheets
were left.
It is also not necessary that the message on this pendant would be a curse. A thin lead sheet
was disposable, but a crafted pendant had practical value. I believe that it was a custom to leave
such objects, but that such objects had value and were removed before archeologists found them.
This it is possible the curse messages were a peripheral use of the site, and maybe there were
genuine prayers to goddess Sulis. The Adriatic Venetic texts do not ask the goddess to carry out
revenge. They are more respectful, humble, and careful. It seems to me that if at the Aquae Sulis
site, people asked for someone to be cursed by the goddess, why could a visitor not ask the
goddess to give someone the opposite –good fortune. It would be more consistent with human
nature.
Let us now look at the mystery inscription from the point of view of it being Venetic and
Finnic.
There is all the more reason for looking at it from a Venetic perspective not just because of all
the coincidences I cite above, but the fact that the word UINDIORIX contains VINDO which
was a high version of VENTA which refers to Veneti.
ADIXOUI DEUINA DEIEDA ANDGIN UINDIORIX CUAMENAI
DEUINA DEIEDA as I said reminds me of the Venetic in $a.i.nate.i. We have already
translated it above as ‘
t
oYou,Di
vi
ne(
Sulis)
’
If we allow Estonian to recognize DEU a
s‘
g
od’i
tc
a
ns
a
yDEUina teid(l)e
This gives us the translations in steps –from 1. to 5.
1. ADIXOUI - to You, Divine-one –ANDGIN UINDIORIX CUAMENAI
ANDGIN Next we know in Venetic there is a word indicating giving or offering. I see that in
ANDGIN. From an Estonian perspective it looks like a first person plural imperative of verb
anna ‘
g
i
ve
’andma, anda ‘
t
og
i
ve
’
.Fore
xa
mpl
ei
nEs
t
oni
a
nandgem ‘
l
e
tusg
i
ve
’
. Ot
he
r
possibilities could be conditional mood as in Estonian andaksin ‘
Is
houl
dg
i
ve
’
. Either form will
work.
2. ADIXOUI - to You, Divine-one –let us give (or I should give) – UINDIORIX
CUAMENAI
UINDIORIX Next, I see UINDIORIX as a name, but considering Veneti were still
frequenting southern Britain and fetching tin, etc. it could be t
a
ke
nl
i
t
e
r
a
l
l
ya
ndme
a
n‘
Ve
ne
t
i
ki
ng
’He
r
et
oowes
e
epos
s
i
bl
yabor
r
owi
ngf
r
om La
t
i
n- rex,‘
ki
ng
’
.Iha
vea
l
r
e
a
dypoi
nt
e
dout
that Vindo was in use by Damnoni for the Veneti/Venta. When we consider the context of giving
13
an offering to the goddess, it seems a follower of a king or chief of the Veneti might be motivated
to celebrate the king rather than themself. I think it is in the nominative case.
3. ADIXOUI - to You, Divine-one –let us give (or I should give) – Veneti-king
CUAMENAI
CUAMENAI is quite interesting. The word MENAI immediately reminds me of the Venetic
wor
df
or‘
t
og
o’whi
c
hi
nAdr
i
a
t
i
cVe
ne
t
i
cwoul
dbemno.i. In Adriatic Venetic it was often
combined into a compound word as in the example in the box above Here we again see a
compound word, vo.l.tiio.n.mno.s., but here we are combining CAU and MENAI. While MENAI
is represented in ancient Venetic, the CUA is not but it is a word very common in Estonian as
kaua ‘
l
ong(
i
nt
i
me
)
’
.Cons
i
de
r
i
ngt
h
eAI ending to indicate an infinitive, the resulting meaning
i
sl
i
t
e
r
a
l
l
y‘
l
ong
t
i
me
-t
og
o’I
nt
hec
ont
e
xt
,It
hi
nki
tme
a
ns‘
t
ol
i
vel
ong
’
.Thei
de
ai
sve
r
ymuc
h
l
i
ket
hehi
s
t
or
i
c‘
Longl
i
vet
heKi
ng
!
’He
r
et
hes
e
nt
e
nc
ea
s
kst
heg
odde
s
st
og
r
a
ntt
heki
ngal
ong
life. Replacing it in our sentence we get:
4. ADIXOUI - to You, Divine-one –let us give (or I should give) – Veneti-king –to live
long (literally longtime to go)
ADIXOUI is left. Given that Latin is common in Roman Britain, the initial AD suggests there
is a borrowing from Latin in this word. Scanning a Latin dictionary there are a number of
possibilities. For example there is adicio ‘
t
hr
owt
o,a
ddt
o’
.Le
tusa
s
s
umet
hi
swor
di
sbor
r
owe
d
from this Latin word (ici could become X). We see the ending UI which seems to be a Venetic
infinitive marker. Thus I will assume ADIXOUI i
s‘
t
oa
ddt
o’
Thus we have:
5. To add to - to You, Divine-one –let us give (or I should give) – Veneti-king –to
live long (literally longtime to go)
Looking at it as a whole. The nominative and subject is Veneti-ki
ng
,t
heve
r
bi
s‘
l
e
tusg
i
ve
’
a
nd‘
t
ol
i
vel
ong
’r
e
l
a
t
e
dt
ot
heki
ng
,a
ndt
her
e
s
ti
sahumbl
ea
c
knowl
e
dge
me
ntoft
heg
o
dde
s
s
.
Let us rewrite it to better express the concept. The final result –keeping it close to the original
grammar.
Let us give, to add to, to You Divine-one (ie Sulis), for the Veneti-king to live
long
This interpretation is both in agreement with my deciphering of Venetic and allows for
developments of Venetic in the centuries into the Roman Age, such as replacing original Venetic
words with borrowings from Latin. It is in full agreement of pilgrims to a shrine not just writing
on sheets, but also leaving objects with writing on them. Yet this inscription is also in keeping
with the nature of asking the goddess for something. If some will ask for someone else to be
cursed, then it surely is possible to ask the goddess to grant someone good luck.
It is far more satisfying than the Celtic interpretation given earlier. You can be the judge, the
Celtic interpretation: May I, Windiorix for/at Cuamena defeat the worthless woman, o divine
Deieda versus the Venetic-Finnic interpretation Let us give, to add to, to You Divine-one (ie
14
Sulis), for the Veneti-king to live long In both cases a grammatical rationalization was made. I
have not me
r
e
l
ybe
e
n‘
t
r
y
i
ngt
ohe
a
rt
h
i
ng
s
’a
nnote
ve
nt
r
y
i
ngt
or
a
t
i
ona
l
i
z
eg
r
a
mma
r
.
If the interpretations are done well, including dealing with grammar, the decision falls to the
resulting meaning. I question whether the Celtic interpretation would be what we would expect
on a pendant. The Celtic translation is a curse and better suited to be coarsely scratched out onto
a thin piece of lead rather than a crafted object? By Adriatic Venetic traditions, when an
inscribed object was left as a gift, it was a very religious move, with positive intentions. The
inscription would have been made by a craftsman in advance. Thus it is more natural that the
pendant, a crafted object might have a positive request, thought out and crafted well in advance.
Thus, I believe my Venetic-Finnic interpretation is the correct one.
To conclude our investigation of the pendant of Aquae Sulis, let us interpret the word Sulis, if
that was the name of the goddess of the springs. The fact that the goddess Sulis was used by the
natives before the Romans developed the area, suggests that the word Sulis must be meaningful
in the native language and if the native language was Venetic-like, then we should be able to
translate it as such. A possibility interpretation based on Finnic is that the name was
SUO/
LA/
SE‘
(
g
odde
s
s
)oft
hes
pr
i
ng(
we
t
)pl
a
c
e
’
.I
nFi
nni
ct
hewor
dssuo or soo are common
words. They refer to wet places. Indeed the Finnish word for Finland is Suomi, which derives
f
r
om‘
we
t
-c
ount
r
y
’
.Fur
t
he
r
mor
et
he
r
ei
st
hewor
df
or‘
mout
h’a
si
nEs
t
oni
a
nsuu. Add to this the
–la e
ndi
ngme
a
ni
ng‘
pl
a
c
eof
’wec
a
ne
a
s
i
l
yde
t
e
r
mi
net
ha
tt
hehots
pr
i
ng
swe
r
eSUO-LA ‘
we
t
pr
oduc
i
ngpl
a
c
e
’
,orSUU-LA if the spring was seen as a mouth. The additional –SE is a naming
suffix commonly used in Finnic. The goddess was a personification of the place. It was common
in ancient and prehistoric times to personify nature.
1.6 Was Britain more widely a Finnic Venetic language and was the Aquae
Sulis inscription of the middle Roman period a remnant of a wider original FInnic
Britannic?
Having found some evidence of Venetic in Brittany, Wales and now at ancient Aquae Sulis
(today Bath, England), do we dare wonder if the Venetic language was more widespread?
This question leads to a more controversial territory with the suggestion that the original
Br
i
t
i
s
hl
a
ng
ua
gewa
snot“
Ce
l
t
i
c
”a
sha
sbe
e
nt
r
a
di
t
i
ona
l
l
ya
s
s
ume
d,butVe
ne
t
i
ci
nt
heFi
nni
c
manner, perhaps in an Estonian-like manner.
The newest evidence being considered comes from archeologists analysis of prehistoric
copper mining in northern Wales. It is clear to archeological scholars that more copper was
mined than could be used by peoples local to the mines. That meant the copper was taken away
by traders, and by sea. This is understandable considering that copper was the first valued metal.
Bronze which followed was basically copper too –with tin added. Thus throughout civilized
Europe there was a great demand for copper, and then also tin. While the writings of ancient
Greek historian Herodotus date to about the 5th century BC, his statement that tin came to Greece
f
r
om t
he“
Cassiterides”a
tt
hee
ndsoft
hee
a
r
t
h,t
e
ndst
oc
onf
i
r
mt
he
r
ewe
r
el
ongdi
s
t
a
nc
et
r
a
de
r
s
who procured tin from Britain before t
hec
ur
r
e
nt
l
yi
ma
g
i
ne
ds
pr
e
a
dof“
Ce
l
t
s
”f
r
om t
hema
i
nl
a
nd
t
ot
heBr
i
t
i
s
hI
s
l
e
s
.I
fHe
r
odot
uskne
wa
boutt
i
nc
omi
ngf
r
om ‘
t
hee
ndsoft
hee
a
r
t
h’i
nt
he5th
century BC, that means it was already established enough for Herodotus to know it. It follows
that it is feasible, even probable, that long distance traders harvesting Britain for resources in
great demand in more civilized parts of Europe, were already established, perhaps already in the
15
age of copper –before the discovery that adding tin produced the harder metal of bronze. If so,
then we have to wonder who these long distant traders were. The best candidates are the peoples
who created the megalithic constructions –stone circles and hill-tombs –found in many
locations along the Atlantic coast from the Iberian Peninsula to Brittany, and then on the coasts
of the Irish Sea, then in the vicinity of the Shetland Islands and maybe across the North Sea to
southern Norway and the Jutland Peninsula. It is interesting to note that in the early Roman
Empire, there were people with a long-established culture at the north end of the Jutland
Pe
ni
ns
ul
at
ha
tRoma
nskne
wa
st
he“
Cimbri”which is interesting considering that today the
We
l
s
hc
a
l
lt
he
ms
e
l
ve
s“
Cy
mmr
u”
.Thi
ss
ugg
e
s
tt
he
s
el
ongdi
s
t
a
nc
et
r
a
de
r
smay have had that
name. Historically speaking, according to Julius Caesar, the people who dominated the seas of
northwest Europe were the Veneti, and they sailed regularly to Britain (obviously to fetch trade
g
oodsl
i
ket
i
n)
.TheVe
ne
t
iwe
r
eba
s
e
di
nBr
i
t
t
a
nya
tt
oda
y
’
sVa
nne
s
.Thi
sl
oc
a
t
i
onwa
sa
ni
de
a
l
natural harbour and not far from megalithic stone alignments at Carnac. It suggests that the
Veneti were either descended from the original Atlantic traders, or displaced them. Or they could
have merged with the earlier traders. It is important to consider that in Herodotus text about tin
c
omi
ngf
r
om t
he‘
e
ndsoft
hee
a
r
t
h’
,hea
l
s
os
pokeofa
mbe
rt
ooc
omi
ngt
oGr
e
e
c
ef
r
om t
hee
nds
of the earth. Ancient trade amber originated largely from southeast Baltic, from the Samland
Peninsula, which was originally an island when the lowlands behind them were under water, and
according to Pytheas, the Greek traveller from Marseilles, it was called Abalus. That location
had a people of a similar name –Venedi –which to anyone who knows the Finnic language of
Estoni
a
nwi
l
lr
e
c
og
ni
z
ea
s‘
pe
opl
eoft
heboa
t
s
’(
a
ndhi
s
t
or
i
c
a
lr
e
c
or
dsa
c
t
ua
l
l
ys
howLi
voni
a
ns
5
us
i
ngt
het
e
r
m‘
Venede’–plural genitive of vene ‘
boa
t
’
.
) Sometimes there has been a debate as
to whether the Venedi at the southeast Baltic associated with the amber trade, and the Veneti at
Brittany associated with trading with ancient Britain, and the Veneti in what is now northern
I
t
a
l
y
,we
r
ec
onne
c
t
e
d.I
fwer
e
g
a
r
dt
he
ma
sl
ongdi
s
t
a
nc
et
r
a
de
r
s
,t
hea
ns
we
ri
sa
nobvi
ous‘
y
e
s
’
and that these people defined the large scale language of trade in pre-Roman times.
But, the Veneti-Venedi appeared in western Europe only since around 1000 BC. The copper
mines in northern Wales date to before that. It is therefore possible that the Veneti-Venedi
displaced an original people identifiable with Cymmru and Cimbri, or simply the same people
came to be known by a new name. Bear in mind that ancient peoples were known by descriptive
words, and the same people could have more than one name (like toda
y‘
Dut
c
h’c
a
na
l
s
obe
c
a
l
l
e
d‘
Ho
l
l
a
nde
r
s
’
)
.I
ft
hewor
d“
Veneti”was in a Finnic large scale lingua franca, and meant
‘
boa
tpe
op
l
e
’
,c
a
nwef
i
nda
nyFi
nni
cmeaning in the word Cymmru or Cimbri?
We note that the Greek historian Herodotus, wrote about how he believed the north side of the
Bl
a
c
kSe
a
,i
nhi
st
i
med
omi
na
t
e
dby“
Sc
y
t
hs
”(
pr
oba
bl
ya
nc
e
s
t
r
a
lt
oSl
a
vs
)
,mus
tha
vee
a
r
l
i
e
r
be
e
ni
nt
heha
ndsofape
opl
ec
a
l
l
e
d“
Cimmeri”be
c
a
us
et
he
r
ewe
r
eg
e
ogr
a
phi
c
a
lf
e
a
t
ur
e
st
he
r
e
wi
t
ht
he“
Cimmeri”na
me
. Some of the names mentioned by Herodotus for geographical features
on the north side of the Black Sea are clearly Finnic. For example the Crimean Peninsula was
called Maeotis,whi
c
hs
oundsl
i
ket
oda
y
’
sEs
t
oni
a
nmaa-ots ‘
l
a
nd’
se
nd’
.Toda
ythe north side of
the Black Sea and Sea of Azov is dominated by Russian names (or Russianized earlier names),
but there are some names still recognizably Finnic, such as the Gulf of Taganrog. which
5
(Note vene referred to the same boat that had the name rus, and as a result nations that were created by the
l
on
gdi
s
t
a
n
c
et
r
a
de
r
swe
r
ee
i
t
he
rn
a
me
dv
i
a“
vene”or“
rus”e
v
e
ni
ft
h
en
a
mewa
si
nh
e
r
i
t
e
dbyot
h
e
rpe
opl
e
s
.For
example the nationi
n
h
e
r
i
t
e
dbySl
a
v
i
cpe
a
s
a
nt
sc
a
l
l
e
d“
Ru
s
s
i
a
”i
sc
a
l
l
e
d“
Ve
n
e
ma
a
”i
nEstonian, both identifying
the land as the land of the boat-people (ie the professional traders who travelled up and down the trade rivers
between the Baltic and the Black Seas, and beyond. But this mainly occured in the Viking Age.)
16
translates ‘
(sea) beyond t
her
e
e
ds
’
. Thus, given that trade up and down the Dneiper and Volga
wa
swe
l
le
s
t
a
bl
i
s
he
di
na
nc
i
e
ntt
i
me
s
,i
ti
spos
s
i
bl
et
hewor
d“
Cimmeri”a
ppl
i
e
dt
ol
ongdi
s
t
a
nc
e
traders of those rivers, probably mainly the Volga. The Volga River system reaches up close to
Lake Onega, and that may explain why in the Odyssey the Cimmeri were described as living in a
land of darkness –suggesting the absence of daylight found in the arctic. Today there are two
Volgic Finno-Ugric peoples still identifiable – the Mari and Mordvins – but historical
information reveals that there was a Meri people in the upper Volga. Are the words Meri or
Mari, abbreviations of “
Cimmeri”through the passing of thousands of years? Today the word
meri me
a
ns‘
s
e
a
’i
nEs
t
oni
a
n,buti
tc
oul
dha
veor
i
g
i
na
t
e
di
nawor
dl
i
ke‘
IMERI. The initial
stress on the first vowel syllable would have promoted foreigners to introduce a consonant. and it
be
c
a
me“
HI
ME-RI
’a
ndf
r
om t
he
r
eCimmeri. The word IMERI has no recognizable meaning
with Estonian, unless we assume the vowe
l
sa
r
e‘
r
a
i
s
e
d’(
pus
he
df
or
wa
r
d,pa
l
a
t
a
l
i
z
e
d)
.Lowe
r
i
ng
the vowels that gives us EMA –RE.Cons
i
de
r
i
ngt
hena
mef
ort
heVol
g
awa
s“
Rha”a
c
c
or
di
ng
t
oPt
ol
e
my
,wec
a
na
s
s
umet
ha
t“
RE”i
si
de
nt
i
f
i
a
bl
ewi
t
h“
Rha”
.(
TheGr
e
e
kRH i
ndi
c
a
t
e
da
trilled R). In a
nc
i
e
ntEur
ope
,RAme
a
n
t‘
r
out
e
,wa
y
’a
nda
l
s
oa
ppe
a
r
si
nt
hena
me
dofr
i
ve
r
ss
uc
h
as (using Roman versions of the originals) Rhodanus, Rhennus, Ligera, Vesera, Otra, Nistra, etc.
EMA-RA now looks like Estonian ema –ra(da) ‘
t
hemot
he
rr
out
e
’a
ndag
e
nitive of it would
me
a
n‘
(
pe
o
p
l
e
)oft
hemot
he
rr
out
e
’
.
It is worth noting that in my deciphering of the north Adriatic Venetic inscriptions and Suebic
at the Baltic too (see A Paabo, VENETIC LANGUAGE An Ancient Language from a New
Perspective: FINAL) I found that these languages were palatalized and with the raised vowels
ma
nne
rofs
pe
a
ki
ng(
a
na
l
og
oust
oape
r
s
ont
oda
ys
a
y
i
ng“
HI
PPIDI
”f
or“
ha
ppyda
y
”ac
ommon
upward dialectic shift from speakers getting a lazy mouth –not properly forming round vowels.
If this is true, then it is believable that the Cimmeri were the original European long distance
traders, possibly circumnavigating Europe –Black Sea to the Baltic and Lake Onega, from the
Baltic westward to the British Isles (or over top of Norway and down the coast), crossing the
North Sea from southern Norway to the vicinity of Aberdeen, Scotland, then entering the Irish
Sea, travelling south, and possibly down the Atlantic coast to the Strait of Gibraltar, and then
east in the Mediterranean back to the Black Sea.
Today the word meri, mare, mor, etc means ‘
s
e
a
’
,pos
s
i
bl
ys
ugg
e
s
t
i
nga
na
bbr
e
vi
a
t
i
onofa
n
original Cimmeri i
nt
heme
a
ni
ng‘
mot
he
r
-wa
y
’(
ba
c
kt
he
nt
hemot
he
re
a
r
t
hwa
ss
e
e
nt
obe
actually a sea –mother sea –with lands being islands in it). If we apply the abbreviation to the
f
i
r
s
tpor
t
i
onweha
ve“
CI
”a
ndt
ha
tma
ye
xpl
a
i
nt
hewor
d“
sea”
.
Therefore, it is possible that large scale traders originated from the aboriginal traditions of
long distance boat use, and that these were Finnic speaking. By being the first to carry on long
distance trade, a Finnic lingua franca would have been established throughout their trade routes,
both by sea and large waterways. I will generally call this large scale language along the
t
r
a
de
wa
y
sofEur
opea
s“
Ve
ne
t
i
c
”e
ve
nt
houg
ht
he
r
ewa
spr
oba
bl
yc
ons
i
de
r
a
bl
edi
a
l
e
c
t
i
c
variation according to regional subdivisions of the trading activity.
Archeologists have, without needing the additional information I give above, decided from
the finds of copper mines in northern Wales, that the long-standing belief that the British Isles
6
we
r
ei
nva
d
e
dbyors
e
t
t
l
e
dby“
Ce
l
t
s
”a
r
ound500BCi
se
r
r
one
ous
, and that the British Isles may
actually have been influenced in language and culture already over a thousand years earlier by its
involvement with the international traders. If the Welsh peoples were influenced towards the
6
This can be found via internet search. Detailed investigation of the archeological work and analysis in this
regard is beyond the scope of this paper.
17
Cimmerian language and culture, and identified themselves as Cimmerians, they could have
maintained that identity, continued to call themselves by that name, even if over time they
adopted other languages. Their Celtic language, in other words, may have been a recent
development since Roman times. Since in those times there was no knowledge of linguistics or
any nationalism that associated language with nationality, people could certainly changed
language according to practical needs and yet continue to hold on to the Cimmerian identity,
Myt
he
or
y
,t
he
ni
st
ha
tt
heBr
i
t
i
s
hI
s
l
e
sbe
c
a
me“
Ve
ne
t
i
c
”(
or“
Ci
mme
r
i
a
n”
)a
sar
e
s
ul
toft
he
‘
i
nva
s
i
on’ofl
a
r
g
es
c
a
l
et
r
a
de
r
swho set up trading posts and promoted resource industries. It is
t
r
uet
ha
tt
h
e
r
ea
r
et
hos
e who c
on
s
i
de
rt
heVe
ne
t
i
cl
a
ng
ua
g
et
o ha
ve be
e
n“
Ce
l
t
i
c
”
,my
information, some of which is given earlier, suggests Venetic was Finnic in nature, not Celtic. I
believe Celtic displaced Venetic during and after the Roman period in Britain. This idea that
native British was originally of a Finnic nature is also supported from another source –the
Roman historian Tacitus, which I will mention next.
There exists a passage by Roman historian Tacitus about the Aestii nations of the southeast
Baltic comparing the language there with the large scale Britannic language.
..ergo iam dextro Suebici litore Aestiorum gentes adluuntur, quibus ritus habitusque
Sueborum, lingua Britannicae proprior.
t
r
a
ns
l
a
t
i
on:“..however, to the right shore of the Suebian sea, we find it washing the Aestii
nations who have (ritus) religious observance and (habitus) demeanour of the Suebi, but a
language (propior, ius, orism a. nearer; more like; closer) more like to that of Britain
. [Tacitus, Germania, 45, 98 A.D.
If the Aestii language (as much evidence suggests) was ancestral to Finnic Estonian (Eesti),
t
he
nwha
tTa
c
i
t
us
’s
t
a
t
e
me
nts
ugg
e
s
t
si
st
ha
tAe
s
t
i
c
,Sue
bi
c
,a
ndBr
i
t
a
nni
cwe
r
ea
l
lFinnic
languages but that the Aestic and Britannic language were closer to each other than either to
Suebic.
Ove
rt
hec
e
nt
ur
i
e
s
,s
c
hol
a
r
sha
vet
r
i
e
dt
oe
xpl
a
i
nTa
c
i
t
us
’obs
e
r
va
t
i
ona
wa
ybyc
l
a
i
mi
ngt
he
Aestii spoke a Celtic language. This has always been a problem. The Aestii has also been
c
l
a
i
me
dt
oha
vebe
e
n“
Ba
l
t
”(
al
a
ng
ua
gef
a
mi
l
yt
ha
tonl
yi
nc
l
ude
sLa
t
vi
a
na
ndLi
t
hua
ni
a
na
ndi
s
c
l
os
et
oSl
a
vi
c
)
,Ge
r
ma
ni
cbe
c
a
us
et
heRoma
nsus
e
dt
hena
me“
Ge
r
ma
ni
a
”
,a
ndnow Sl
a
vi
c
because the Venedi in the same area have been assumed to have been Slavic.
But in reality, there are extraordinary coincidences between the Aestii and the Estonians today
further north. The Estonians have always known themselves as Eesti. The option of the Aestii
being ancient Estonians has always been a possibility, but scholars have not pursued it much
because they Estonian and Finnish scholars are a minority but that angle has been ignored in the
academic world, perhaps because to see it you have to know a Finnic language, notably
Estonian.Not being an Indo-European language it is difficult to learn by speakers of most
European languages..
It is interesting to note that five centuries after Tacitus,. the Anglo-Saxon monk Bede wrote
in his history of Britain, that the Picts had come “
from Scythia in l
ong
boa
t
s
”
.Si
nc
ei
nhi
st
i
me
there still existed Picts in the north, this idea would have come from direct observation, not
opinion. If Irish monks saw the Picts recieving traders from the east Baltic (The Romans had
defined Scythia beginning at the east Baltic coast), and speaking the same language. Since
ancient people imagined everyone in a location originated from elsewhere, it was easy for the
monks to believe the Picts originated from the same place as the traders in longboats who came
18
from the Scythian coast. Considering that the Romans did not conquer all of the British Isles, but
ha
ds
us
t
a
i
ne
doppos
i
t
i
oni
nt
henor
t
h,wec
a
ne
a
s
i
l
ys
e
ehow Br
i
t
a
i
ns
out
hofHa
dr
i
a
n’
swa
l
l
became Romanized, and later Anglo-Saxonized, while towards the north the original Finnic type
language endured. From this perspective, Bede (repeating beliefs from Irish monks) and Tacitus
were making essentially the same observation –that the Aestic language of the east Baltic coast,
was similar to the dominant lingua-franca of Britain. We also note the fact that Tacitus, in his
biography of Agricola, clearly identified the Gallic peoples in southern Britain as immigrant
peoples, even though they dominated the centers of commerce and industry. We are reminded of
other historic examples of a powerful immigrant minority in a nation –for example the British in
French Canada dominating the Canadian French, even though the dominant language of French
Canada was French. Another example is Finnish being dominated by a Swedish minority before
Finland became independent of Sweden. From this point of view, Julius Caesar, in his invasion
of southeast Britain, did not deal with native British, but with the immigrants from Gaul (ie the
Belgae). Thus it has always been a mistake to take characteristics of these Belgae described by
Caesar, and apply them to native British. Tacitus and other Romans writers observing Britain
clearly distinguish between the immigrants from Gaul and the rural native British outside the
wealthy commercial centers of the south.
Historically, the Picts seen by Bede, were eventually assimilated by the Scots. The reason is
easy to understand –the Picts were seagoing peoples, while the Scots were land-based. The
Scots therefore filled up the interior and became the majority into which the Picts assimilated. To
my ears, the Gaelic language has a Finnish-like melody to it, and it is worth noting that the word
“
Ga
e
l
i
c
”r
e
s
e
mbl
e
st
heFi
nni
cwor
df
or‘
t
ong
ue
,l
a
ng
ua
g
e
’whi
c
hi
skieli. I
st
hewor
d“
Ga
e
l
i
c
”
how the Picts who assimilated into the Scots referred to their language –g
e
ne
r
i
c
a
l
l
ya
s‘
t
he
l
a
ng
ua
g
e
’
,butt
ha
twhe
nus
e
din non-Finnic languages it lost its descriptive meaning?
Ce
l
t
i
cs
c
hol
a
r
swhoha
vee
mbr
a
c
e
dt
hemy
t
ht
ha
ta
l
loft
heBr
i
t
i
s
hI
s
l
e
swe
r
e“
Ce
l
t
i
c
”be
f
or
e
the Romans, and who have assumed Pictish was Celtic, have tried hard to find Celtic words in
names in Scotland, as well as elsewhere in Britain. But the results have been dismal. However, if
we assume Pictish and original British spoke a Finnic langauge, as we can easily infer from
Tacitus and Bede, it follows that we should find considerably more success.
Inspired by Tacitus and Bede, I began to study the place names in Britain and Ireland in
Roman times as recorded by the geographer of that time, Ptolemy. I believe I had surprising
success.
I have been preparing results of my investigation in a separate paper. But I will highlight, as a
postscript, some of what I saw when looking at the British Isles from the point of view of long
distance traders approaching by sea from elsewhere.
1.7 Postscript: Some Examples from my study of place names of southwest
Britain, that may be in an original Finnic (not Celtic) British language.
In my investigation of place names in Britain and Ireland as recorded by Ptolemy in his
g
e
ogr
a
phi
e
sof“
Albion”(
Br
i
t
a
i
n)a
nd“
Hibernia”(
I
r
e
l
a
nd)I f
i
r
s
tt
r
i
e
dt
oe
nvi
s
i
ont
heBr
i
t
i
s
h
Isles as it would appear to long distance traders –traders who cover great amounts of water and
therefore have a large scale view of the landscape and seascape, compared to settled land people
in the interior who might be aware of not much more than the world at only 50 km radius. Landbased people might recieve traders from the larger scale of activity and even adopt language
from the larger scale, but not have influence over the large scale. This is clear from how in more
19
recent history, Britain developed numerous internal dialects. In order for there to be a similar
language over a wide area, starting from a similarity even with the Aestic language of the
southeast Baltic coast, we need to have a single people covering large distances and having
interreactions everywhere they go, as would be the case with professional long distance traders..
It is interesting to note, since humans are naturally curious consumers, if the British Isles were
‘
i
nva
de
d’byal
a
r
ges
c
a
l
et
r
a
de
rpe
opl
e
,t
he
ywoul
dnots
e
e
mt
obei
nva
de
d,butha
ppi
l
y
welcome these peoples who would give them exotic things from afar in return for goods that to
them were common. Throughout history, traders have been welcomed with open arms. For
example in recent North America, the Natives had easy access to animal furs, while French,
Dutch and English had European manufactured goods like iron pots. Trade is based on an
exchange between what each had plenty for what each lacked. It was satisfying, and it is easy to
see how unopposed traders would have been if they arrived from afar to trade. In fact traders
who travelled very far would be most welcomed because they brought the most fabulous goods
from distant civilizatios. Unlike Romans having to battle their way into Britain, traders could
simply arrive, not even be organized on the large scale, and natives would happily welcome their
setting up markets. Imagine if this went on for a thousand years –the consequence would be that
the long distance traders would unwittingly promote the development of native peoples who
developed industries around the goods the traders wanters, turned improvised markets into
significant trade centers, developed interior shipping routes by which interior resources were
brought to the international ports, and so on.
As we look at the names given by Ptolemy, we have to bear in mind that while an invasion by
a land-based people like Celts and later Romans, must be a conquest through a campaign of war,
carried out within decades,a
n‘
i
nva
s
i
on’byl
a
r
g
es
c
a
l
et
r
a
de
r
sc
a
nbea
c
hi
e
ve
dbyrepeated visits
by all kinds of groups of traders over a thousand years or more. A large scale lingua franca,
will be promoted by the strongest traders and then all lesser trading groups will converge
towards this lingua franca. If land-based peoples are heavily involved with the traders, they too
acquire the lingua franca. Bear in mind we are dealing with a slow process covering a millenium
or more, not with an invasion by an army trying to achieve conquest within a few years. Army
invasions naturally result in instant opposition. Traders arriving with exotic vases from afar are
welcomed with open arm. Traders conquer a people without their even knowing it. That, in my
opinion, is how the British Isles acquired a language that, according to Tacitus, was similar to
that of the east Baltic, the location of amber. We can follow long distance traders from the east
Baltic to the east side of Britiain and find Finnic-like words along the way, including the word
askala me
a
ni
ng‘
bus
i
ne
s
spl
a
c
e
’(according to Finnish meanings of ASKA words) becoming
“
Scandia”
,“
Scala”
, and even the Scheria in the Odyssey7
Further support for a theory that in early Europe the large scale trade was in the hands of
descendants of the Finnic aboriginal boat peoples across the northern waters, can be found on the
even larger scale, if we follow the probable trade routes. For example the name of the Loire
river, which Romans called Liger or Ligera is the same as the name of the Ligurians, who were
found as far south as the mouth of the Rhone at Marseilles. We can determine from a map that
river traders could follow the Loire up to near Lyon, where the shipping goods could transfer to
the Rhone. The Ligurians clearly had another name –Veneti. Even today we can find towns
reflecting this near Lyon –Venissieux and Vienne. In ancient times people were named with
7
See my paper at academia.edu called THE ODYSSEY’
SNORTHERNORI
GI
NSANDA
DIFFERENT AUTHOR THAN HOMER for a theory linking the Odyssey tales to legends pertaining to
southern Scandinavia in Greek times.
20
descriptive phrases. The word Ligurian, reflects the Finnic word that is in Estonian liigu ‘
move
’
,
hence the Loire and its traders were called liigu-ra ‘
(
pe
opl
eof
)pa
t
hofmovi
ng
’
.I
nt
e
r
e
s
t
i
ng
l
ythe
same name was applied to tribes on the Oder in Roman times. Goods from Britain were
transferred to the river traders on the Loire, whose mouth was only a short distance down the
coast from the home base of the Brittany seagoing Veneti. We can also follow traders who went
south and crossed into the Mediterranean by crossing the istmus via the Garonne. There we find,
for example the Mediterranean town at the crossing from the upper Garonne to the
Mediterranean called Narbo. This word appears in many locations of Europe far from Narbo,
such as Narvik, Norway, and Narva, Estonian. The meaning from what the locations have in
c
ommoni
st
ha
the
r
et
het
r
a
de
rmove
df
r
om onewa
t
e
r
wa
yi
nt
oa
not
he
r
.Thena
me“
Nor
wa
y
”t
oo
came from it, originally meaning the channel at the Jutland Peninsula whereby traders moved
from the North Sea into the Baltic Sea. This is only one example of many associated with major
water routes, and with meaningful descriptions if translated with Finnic. The word Uxella found
in Britain is another such an example. But discussion of the ancient trade network and evidence
in names is beyond the scope of this paper. Our intention here is purely to show the evidence that
the major place names recorded by Ptolemy, obviously from Roman surveyors and/or seafarers,
translate meaningfully with Finnic,not
a
bl
ywi
t
hEs
t
oni
a
n.Pt
ol
e
my
’
sge
og
r
a
phi
c
a
li
nf
or
ma
t
i
on
comes from early Roman Britain, and for that reason is better than later geographical
information, after the Romans had developed Britain and altered some names to fit Latin better.
ThusPt
ol
e
my
’
sna
me
sc
a
nber
e
g
a
r
de
da
sbe
i
ngi
nt
hena
t
i
veBr
i
t
i
s
hl
a
ngua
ge
,a
nda
l
t
e
r
e
donl
y
bydi
a
l
e
c
t
i
cpe
c
ul
i
a
r
i
t
i
e
si
nt
hes
our
c
e
sa
nd/
ort
heRoma
ns
ur
ve
ypa
r
t
y
’
shearing. There would be
a tendency for some names to be Latinized to sound better to Romans. One of these, I have found
is the loss of initial vowels. For example the word Londinium has probably lost an initial A, since
ALUNDI would be a common Finnic plac
ena
meba
s
i
c
a
l
l
yme
a
ni
ng‘
c
onne
c
t
e
dwi
t
hs
e
t
t
l
i
ng
,
l
a
ndi
ng
’
.
For this short introduction to analyzing British names via FInnic, I will, like a large scale
trader, look at the British Isles as a whole, identifying the major trade routes and towns. The
common view that the British Isles were or
i
g
i
na
l
l
y“
Ce
l
t
i
c
”wa
swr
ong
.Not
e
,t
houg
h,t
ha
tthe
Finnic languages, in spite of Norwegian and Swedish historians speaking for centuries of original
peopl
e
st
he
yc
a
l
l
e
d“
Fi
nns
”
,ha
vebe
e
ne
xc
l
ude
df
r
om t
hehi
s
t
or
yofEur
ope
, treated like
primitives incapable of adapting to civilization. However, archeology reveals that the aboriginal
peoples of northern Europe, south of the reindeer peoples of the arctic, evolved in a swampy land
in the aftermath of the withdrawal of the Ice Age. Any intelligent academic can see that if there
was a development of boat peoples interracting with settled peoples across the north, that it
would arise from the people already accustomed to making and using boats and travelling long
distances in their annual seasonal nomadism. A similar exclusion of the aboriginal component
from history can be seen in more recent times in the way North American history has ignored the
native peoples. A large number of major place names in North America still have their native
names. We know this from historical records, but fast forward centuries into the future –the
native origins of the names will be forgotten.
If we studied a European map today, it is difficult to identify the original names of places. For
example Roman era Massilia has become Marseilles, Ligera has become Loire and so on. But if
we study names from early Roman Britain compiled by Ptolemy, we will see place names that
are two thousand years closer to the origins in early native Finnic/Venetic British.
21
22
The preceding map depicts the British Isles in early Roman times. I have plotted on the map
some of the major place names, notably the ones we can associate with major trading events. My
intention is just to show enough evidence to be convincing to the reader of this paper, that there
is truth to the new belief –pursued now by some archeologists –that the British Isles were
originally speaking a large scale language that was Venetic or close to Venetic, which I
determined is a Finnic language. Since we have a limited knowledge of Venetic, I use Estonian
(a language descended from the east Baltic Aestic language mentioned by Tacitus and Bede), to
interpret the place names I present. Since any language can find any kind of silly meaning to any
name, these interpretations have to be judged by how suitable the meanings are to the place,
compared to the suitability of meanings when interpreted by another language like Celtic.
To be brief we will focus on major points of interest. First of all, when the trader proceeds to
the British Isles from Brittany, they deal with several words with the stem UX. This word
mirrors the Estonian word uks ‘
door
’
.Thee
ndi
ng–la i
nFi
nni
cme
a
ns‘
pl
a
c
eof
’
.Toda
y
,c
a
l
l
i
ng
apl
a
c
ewhe
r
es
hi
psl
a
ndbyat
e
r
m“
por
t
”(
a
ndnot
et
hewor
d“
por
t
”
,a
si
n“
por
t
a
l
”
, itself has the
me
a
ni
ngof‘
door
’
!
)t
e
ndst
os
ug
g
e
s
tt
heUxella me
a
nt‘
pl
a
c
eoft
hepor
t
’a
ndt
ha
twa
sag
ui
det
o
arriving traders coming by sea. The Scilly Islands obviously from their name must have
originally been Uxella Islands. Ptolemy does not mention this though. I include it because it is
obvious. Ptolemy does however mention Uxella Estuary, Note that Uxella exists also at the top
of the Uxella River. Today the name has become Exeter. There is also an Uxellum further north.
The next significant name appearing in many places is Alauna. I added the Alauna on the
mainland side, associated with the tribe Venelli (read Vene-la ‘
l
a
ndoft
heboa
t
s
’
)obvi
ous
l
ypa
r
t
of the Venetic confederation of seatraders (Armorica = Armo-riigi ‘
na
t
i
onss
uppor
t
i
veo
fone
a
not
he
r
’
)On the British side Ptolemy gives Alaunus River. It is logical there was a location at
the mouth of that river called Alauna or Romanized to Alaunus. This word is mirrored by
Estonian alu ‘ba
s
e
,f
ounda
t
i
on’
, or the adverb alla ‘
t
owa
r
dsdown’
.Theobvi
ousi
nt
e
r
pr
e
t
a
t
i
on
vi
at
heEs
t
o
ni
a
ne
a
ri
s‘
pe
r
t
a
i
ni
ngt
ol
a
ndi
ng
, the landing place’Thewor
da
ppe
a
r
sa
l
s
oi
nt
he
north, at the entry to the Firth of Forth and Firth of Clyde. Their Alauna’
sa
r
el
oc
a
ted out from
the bay, suggesting it is the first location where ships will land when arriving. From there, they
will proceed into the Firth. Note that obviously there was a shipping connection through the
waterways between the FIrth of Clyde and Firth of Forth –today canals have been developed for
ships, but in ancient times, ships were not very large (imagine ships somewhat like later Viking
ships) and could be carried over short pieces of land by all its crew.
Now, just as we saw a Venelli at the southern Alauna, here we see Vennicones north of the
Firth of Forth and Vindogara at the Firth of Clyde..Bearing in mind Ptolemy was not dealing
with seafarers speaking in exactly the same way, we have to interpret how these words differ
from the name Veneti. The name Vennicones, to the Estonian ear, sounds like Vene-konna
‘
pe
r
t
a
i
ni
ngt
ot
heboa
t
-c
ommuni
t
y
’
.Vindogara, however, shows the main word as Vindo. This
word was more common in later history and most used in Scandinavia. The high vowel –VIND
instead of VEND comes from its speakers having a palatalized, vowel-raising, dialect. It is the
wor
dt
ha
tl
e
a
dt
ot
hel
a
t
e
rhi
s
t
or
i
cna
me“
We
nds
”
,whobe
c
a
meGe
r
ma
ni
z
e
dorSl
a
vi
c
i
z
e
di
n
later history. But early Roman times is too early to consider the users of Vindogara to have been
Germanic-speaking. They must have been Suebic speaking which had a high dialect. Adriatic
Venetic had a high dialect too. The ending –gara, is mirrored in the name of the Garonne. Is it
possible that there was one trader organization dealing with the west side of the British Isles, and
another that travelled back and forth to and from the Baltic? It was practical perhaps not to carry
your ship across, but to simply hand the shipment off to the shippers most familiar with the other
23
side. However, note that in northern Ireland there was a tribe named Vennicni. To me it is the
same word as Vennicona, mispronounced or miswritten.
The tribe handling the arrivals and departures of the long distance ships is shown between the
Firth of Forth and Firth of Clyde with the name Damnoni. From the Finnic perspective,
considering we see something similar at southeast Britain (tribe called Dumnoni) and elsewhere
similar elements using the harder T, the way this name fits the location and what these people do,
in being the handlers of traders coming in and out, is that it is abbreviated from something like
TOO ‘
br
i
ng’MA ‘
l
a
nd”a
nd–N ‘
of
’
.ThusTOOMAAN >DUMN.La
t
i
nc
oul
dt
he
na
d
dt
he
i
r
ending and arrive a Dumnones or Dumnoni. While the Dumnoni, Damnoni words are abbreviated
and therefore one can question this approach, the fact is that from the Finnic perspective, the
wor
ds
pe
a
ksoft
he‘
l
a
ndofbr
i
ng
i
ng(
wa
r
e
s
)
’
,a
ppl
i
c
a
bl
et
obot
hl
oc
a
t
i
ons
.Butnot
et
he
r
ewa
sa
third trading land. See in the far north the island called Dumna. This island has been, according
to archeological evidence, a major center for trade frequented by the seahunting tribes. The
Veneti could go there to obtain sea products. For example walrus skins were valuable in the
south. They were cut in a spiral to form very tough ship ropes. Walrus ivory went south too. The
name of walrus entered Greek as orca,a
c
qui
r
i
ngt
heme
a
ni
ngof‘
mons
t
e
r
’
.
e
ve
ni
ft
heor
i
g
i
na
l
name was based on its tusks (Via Estonian we could call a walrus with orga and it would mean
‘
s
pi
ke
done
’
)
The fourth significant market-land, was of course southeast Britain, but that area was claimed
byt
r
a
de
r
sCa
e
s
a
ri
de
nt
i
f
i
e
da
s‘
Belgae’
.Ca
e
s
a
rnot
e
dt
ha
tt
he
i
rt
r
i
bena
me
si
ns
out
he
r
nBr
i
t
a
i
n
mirrored names on the mainland side. When you think of it, the tribe on the mainland side
remained associated with that on the British side. They passed trade goods back and forth. Thus,
I believe that originally southeast Britain was under control of the Venetic traders, but then
Belgic tribes pushed into the area and appropriated much of what the Venetic traders had
achieved. Julius Caesar actually wrote that the Belgic tribes were originally to the east of the
Rhine and were pushed west by Germanic tribes. There was a domino effect where the Belgic
tribes were now opposite Britain, and took an interest in it. This did not occur very much before
Ca
e
s
a
r
’
sa
r
r
i
va
l–maybe a couple centuries.
In terms of place names in southeast Briatin, as always newcomers do not change established
place names, so the original Venetic-British place names endured, including the word Canti,
whi
c
hme
a
ns‘
pl
a
c
ea
s
s
oc
i
a
t
e
dwi
t
hc
a
r
r
y
i
ngove
r
l
a
nd’
.(
Es
t
oni
a
nkandma ‘
t
oc
a
r
r
yove
r
l
a
nd’
)
.
In general interpreting southeast Britain is complicated by this Belgic immigration. While we can
find place names translating via Estonian (I already pointed out that Londinium seemed to be
Alundi.) the tribe names and chief names mentioned by Caesar do not translate via Finnic. These
immigrants from Gaul basically took over the trader access to resources in the interior of
southeast Britain. We are reminded that both Caesar and Tacitus, in writing in the developed
southeast, pointed out that the native British were in rural areas. But there is no evidence the
Belgic domination extended to the west British Isles, or north of the Thames valley. Perhaps they
might have expanded their power, had the Romans not arrived and taken over, but as history
unfolded Belgic interests in Britain were thwarted by the Roman conquest.
Therefore, in the early Roman times, geographical names might still carry names created in
the Venetic period and translatable with Finnic, but we will find difficulty with the Belgic tribe
and person names. On the other hand, beyond the Belgic southeast, the name of a person can be
more easily interpreted with Finnic. For example name of the leader of the rebellion in the north,
Calgacus, interprets well with Estonian kalge and his name suitably a
ppe
a
r
st
ome
a
n‘
t
hes
e
ve
r
e
,
ha
r
d,one
’
24
Some other names:(Refer to the map to locate them and view the geographical context)
In the south near Alaunus River, there was a tribe named Durotriges. This name interprets
easily with turude-riigi ‘
na
t
i
onoft
hema
r
ke
t
s
’
.
In the north, the tribe named Otalini, makes me think of Ot(s)ala ‘
pl
a
c
eoft
het
e
r
mi
nus
’
.For
ships crossing from Norway the Firth of Forth would have been a destination a terminus, and so
at
r
i
beha
ndl
i
ngt
hea
r
r
i
va
l
st
he
r
ec
oul
dha
vebe
e
nc
a
l
l
e
d‘
pe
opl
ea
tt
hepl
a
c
eoft
het
e
r
mi
nu
s
’
.
Seteia and Setantiorum Portus, both being harbours, sounds like the modern Estonian word
f
or‘
ha
r
bou
r
’whi
c
hi
ssadam.Thewor
dmi
g
htor
i
g
i
na
t
ef
r
om ‘
a
r
r
i
va
l
’(
saada).
Tribe names Coriondi and Cauci. I believe these tribes created settlements to serve as
stopping or warehousing places because neither maintained a town (market). The word Coriondi
sounds like korjandi ‘
pe
opl
epe
r
t
a
i
ni
ngt
og
a
t
he
r
i
ng(
wa
r
e
s
)
’a
ndCauci sounds like kauge
‘
di
s
t
a
nt
’
.Ta
c
i
t
usi
de
nt
i
f
i
e
saChauci on the coast near the Jutland Peninsula. The Cauci could
have been a colony in their trade activities. Later in history Estonian terminology existed in
which kauge-sõit, literally ’
long-distant journey’meant sailing outside the Baltic. This shows the
word kauge was in use in shipping activity.
Eblani is obviously the origin of the word Dublin, but interestingly via Finnic Eblani mirrors
ABALA,awor
dme
a
ni
ng‘
pl
a
c
eoft
hee
s
t
ua
r
yba
y
’
.I
ti
st
heor
i
g
i
nofAbalus, mentioned by
Pytheas for the amber island at the southeast Baltic. However, Abalus did not name the island
itself (the Samland Peninsula) but its general location at the mouth of the Oder and at the lagoon
created by the sandbar that runs along the shore. Eblani is located in a bay or estuary of the river
leading into the interior of Ireland. There was an important town in the center of Ireland called
Rhaeba, using the RA word that appears often in ancient s
hi
ppi
ngr
out
e
si
nt
heme
a
ni
ng‘
wa
y
,
r
out
e
’
The
r
ei
snoi
ndi
c
a
t
i
oni
nPt
ol
e
my
’
sna
me
swithin Ireland, that there was a non-Venetic
language there. I believe there could have been another people (ie Celts), but that the trade
systems were developed by the Venetic large scale traders, and so they named the market towns
and rivers. Not shown is the fact that Ptolemy named two locations in the interior as Regia,
whi
c
hi
sLa
t
i
nf
or‘
c
a
s
t
l
e
,pa
l
a
c
e
’
.Th
i
ss
ugge
s
t
st
he
r
ema
yha
vebe
e
nt
wos
ma
l
lki
ng
domsup
the Shannon River that ruled native peasantry, but that they were so weak that Romans simply
marched in and took them over,a
ndg
e
ne
r
i
c
a
l
l
yl
a
be
l
l
i
ngt
he
ma
s‘
c
a
s
t
l
e
’
.Scholars have claimed
Romans never touched Ireland. That is a stupid idea considering the Romans tried to conquer
every other part of the British Isles and Ireland had copper and other metals. I think that the
interior of Ireland had only two weak kingdoms that they could subdue probably without even a
battle, and the rest of Ireland lived near the coast and were fishermen or traders. In other words
Romans had no difficulties with “
Hi
be
r
ni
a
”a
nds
odi
dnotne
e
dt
owa
g
ewa
rwi
t
hi
t
.The
yc
oul
d
simply replace a royal family with their own officials.
In my theory of how the Celts developed, I believe that the most obvious solution is that the
Brittany Veneti assimilated into the Celtic language in Brittany, and so when they continued to
deal with Ireland and western Britain, their language changed and that changed the language of
the people they dealt with in Ireland and western Britain. This theory is believable because
everywhere else in post-Roman Europe, the Veneti-named peoples, once their original large
scale trade network was fragmented by the Roman Empire directly and indirectly, assimilated
into the environment surrounding them which they served. Thus at the Adriatic they became
Latin-speaking, along the trader routed between the south Baltic and the Adriatic and Black Seas,
they became Slavic speaking. Along the Rhine and up into Scandinavia they became Germanic
speaking. And so those in Brittany and serving the Loire became Celticized. Thus the conversion
25
of the fragmented original large scale Venetic trade system to smaller scale activity and regional
languages is a clear pattern, and it is easy to see how, during the Roman period, the Brittany
Veneti became Celtic and then over several centuries, their continued activity on the west side of
the British Isles generally changed the language of the marketers and settlers at their destinations
to Celtic as well.
To conclude our brief overview of the Venetic-Finnic British Isles in the early Roman period,
let us consider the tribe called Brigantes. The Brigantes had so many market towns that it seems
it was formed out of three or four tribes. (Generally tribes had only one to three market towns but
the Brigantes had ten.) On the map I have also shown Brigantes in southeast Britain at the
Birgus River (today Barrow). This river name suggests the original unabbreviated name was BIRIGA-ND This now sounds like it might have been in the native British language PIARIIGANDI which via Estonian me
a
nt‘
c
onc
e
r
ni
ngt
hema
i
nna
t
i
on’
.I
ti
sc
l
e
a
rt
heBrigantes,
with ten towns was the main nation of Britain’
st
r
i
ba
lna
t
i
ons
.They also had a collective center
of government in a town called Rigodunum and a meeting place, conference place, called
Camoludunum which resonates with the King Arthur tale of Camelot.
There are two towns in the mountainous interior, the Pennines, that appear to connect trade
crossing the mountains from one side to the other. They are named Calatum and Olicana. The
latter Olicana, sounds like Estonian üle-kanna ‘
ove
r
-c
a
r
r
y
’(
i
epor
t
a
g
e
)
.Theot
he
rt
own
Calatum contai
nst
hewor
df
or‘
c
l
i
f
f
’
,a
ndc
oul
dha
vebe
e
ns
ome
t
hi
ngl
i
keKaljude ‘
(
t
o
wn)of
t
hec
l
i
f
f
s
’
.Thes
t
e
mc
a
na
l
s
obes
e
e
ni
nt
hewor
d Caledonia in the far north (not shown on this
map) which via Kaljude woul
dme
a
n‘
(
pe
opl
e
)oft
hec
l
i
f
f
s
’
.
Another mountainous location can be found further north and a tribe named Selgovae. In
Es
t
oni
a
namount
a
i
nr
a
ng
ewa
sr
e
f
e
r
r
e
dt
oa
sa‘
ba
c
kbone
’orselg. On that basis Selgovae could
t
r
a
ns
l
a
t
ea
s‘
f
or
c
eoft
hemount
a
i
nr
a
nge
’
.
Ptolemy supplied many times more names and most of them can be interpreted in similar
ways with meanings that reflect the nature of the town or location. We have to bear in mind that
at this time all place and tribe names were established purely from constant use by those
involved. Until the Romans, there was no standard language, names, or maps. Therefore the
original names had to be obvious descriptions, and not fanciful names that few could remember.
It is when other attempts to interpret British place names require strange meanings like names of
deities, totems, etc, that we must question the interpretations. In my analysis all the meanings
relate to geographical context or context in trade, like for example the Uxella and Alauna –
simple descriptions naming access to ports or landing places or harbours. Rivers we will find
of
t
e
nha
vet
hewor
dRA me
a
ni
ng‘
wa
y
’or TO,TE.
,TIme
a
ni
ng‘
br
i
ng
i
ng
-wa
y
’(
i
e‘
s
hi
ppi
ng
wa
y
’
)
.TheRAa
ndTOe
l
e
me
nt
sc
a
nbef
oundt
hr
oug
houtt
hea
nc
i
e
ntVe
ne
t
i
ct
r
a
der
out
e
s
.Ot
he
r
repetitions arei
nABA me
a
ni
ng‘
ba
y
,e
s
t
ua
r
y
’butoften referring to a large river since a large
river is like an extension of its estuary. Many Celtic words actually contain loanwords from
Venetic. This is to be expected if the Celtic languages in Britain developed from Venetic
speakers adopting Celtic. Inevitably some Venetic words would be maintained.
Interpretation via Venetic and Estonian is at this time controversial since traditionally
academia preferred to ignore the Finnic aboriginal roots underlying the peoples of northern
Europe. It is clear that in prehistoric times, boat peoples of a Proto-Finnic cultured covered the
entire north from the British Isles to the east Baltic and beyond, because archeology has found
remains of prehistoric dugout canoes also in eastern Britain. This means the British Isles were
originally Finnic, and that made it easy for the large scale traders to find their widely used dialect
to be quickly accepted. The Venetic traders were not converting the natives to a completely new
26
language. The only peoples who may have retained their original dialects would have been those
who remained in the northern isles, harvesting the sea. These people still would have had a
Finnic language since they used skin boats which originated in arctic Scandianvia.
(For the early prehistoric story of European boat peoples refer to my earlier research and
wr
i
t
i
ngund
e
rt
hehe
a
di
ng“
Ui
r
a
l
a
”
.
)
To conclude the pursuit of a theory that native British at the beginning of Roman Britain was
a Finnic language developed from Venetic trade interests over a thousand or more years, is a
viable one, and even makes more sense than the generally arbitrary and fanciful myth of western
Europe and the British Isles having in some magical way become entirely “
Ce
l
t
i
c
”
. If we replace
“
Ce
l
t
i
c
”wi
t
h“
Ve
ne
t
i
c
”t
he
ni
tc
oul
dbet
r
ue
,i
nt
hes
e
ns
et
ha
tl
ongdi
s
t
a
nc
et
r
a
de
r
sc
ul
t
i
va
t
e
da
large scale language. As I said above, before linguistics, people could change their language
without being aware of it and in the process retain their sense of identity and history. If Welsh
ha
dr
oot
si
npr
e
hi
s
t
or
i
ct
i
me
si
n“
Cimmeri”working copper mines, then they have preserved an
identity through many changes in language and culture dating back to some four thousand years.
__________________________________________________________________
References
My several years intepreting the Venetic inscriptions found in northern Italy, are documented
in the work:
A Paabo, VENETIC LANGUAGE An Ancient Language from a New Perspective:
FINAL
This document also contains additional related information about northern Europe in the
Appendix, including analysis of the Suebic language.. For a quick overview read the short
version of the book. It is advisable since the full document is very comprehensive.
Both and more on the ancient Veneti see: https://independent.academia.edu/APaabo or
http://www.paabo.ca
For the origins of the original prehistoric British, see the story of the boat peoples found under
the heading “
Ui
r
a
l
a
”a
twww.paabo.ca/uirala/index/html There is also a paper at general paper
at https://independent.academia.edu/APaabo
For more on Ptolemy and his geographies search via google. There are copies of his
geographies that can be downloaded from the internet
Ot
he
rr
e
f
e
r
e
nc
e
ss
uc
ha
st
oPt
ol
e
my
’
s
,Ta
c
i
t
us
’
,a
ndCa
e
s
a
r
’
swor
k, or the examples of
Venetic in Brittany and Wales are cited when they are presented or in the footnotes
27