Talk:Ceutrones

Please rename to: Ceutrones

This article should be renamed: Ceutrones (with a "U"), which is the correct, modern name for this tribe. The existing name of this article: Centrones (with an "N") is a historical name that is now considered obsolete. »» Please note that nearly all of the Wiki articles in other languages on this subject use the modern spelling with a "U", as well. (A redirect from the old article name to the new name is appropriate.) Thank you. Charvex (talk) 08:30, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Celtic affiliation dubious

I propose changing the statement "Celtic tribe" to a more generic "Alpine tribe", because the Celtic affiliation of this particular tribe, as well as of several other Alpine tribes, is at best dubious. There were lots of small tribes in the Alps (see, for example, the list of defeated Alpine tribes in the Trophy of Augustus inscription) and their linguistic affiliation is, in most cases, uncertain. Even assuming that any given pre-Roman Alpine tribe was Indo-European (this is a safe assumption in the Western Alps, but not in the Eastern Alps), there are at least three possible linguistic affiliations: (1) that it was Celtic, i.e. Gaulish, in other word belonging to the latest stratum of Indo-European invaders; (2) that it was Ligurian, belonging to an earlier stratum of Indo-European invaders, akin to but different from Celtic; (3) that it belonged to an even earlier stratum of Indo-European invaders, descended from Old European and related to Illyrian. Some tribes that probably belonged to this latest linguistic group were sometimes labeled Celto-Ligurian, when in fact, or possibly precisely because, they were neither.

Of the tribes mentioned in this article, some were in all likelihood Celtic, i.e. Gaulish, e.g. the Allobroges, Nantuates, and Caturiges; others may have been Ligurian (even if probably under Gaulish cultural influence), e.g. the Medulli and the Segusini as well as others further south, such as the Vocontii, Cavares, Salyes, etc.; others yet probably belonged, or had historically belonged, to the third group, e.g. the Salassi, Taurini, Graioceli, and indeed the Ceutrones.

The place names of the Ceutrones mentioned in this article don't look particularly Celtic, except possibly Mantala, which recalls Proto-Celtic *mantalo- 'road (pounded earth)'. (NOTE: If you look at the map attached to the article, you'll see that the location of Mantala does not seem to match the location given in the article, i.e. Bourg-Evescal, near Bourg-Saint-Maurice!)

The same map also shows a place name Bautae near present-day Annecy. Now Bautae is the (Latin) plural of a local word bauta 'swamp, marsh', also seen in Duria Bautica. This word is the same as Illyrian *balta 'swamp, marsh, white clay', the change of l to u before certain consonants being evidently characteristic of these Northern Italian and Alpine dialects of Old European/Illyrian descent. (The corresponding Ligurian word is *bolā, quite different from *balta or bauta.)

The above considerations provide support for a view that, far from being Celtic, i.e. Gaulish, the Ceutrones, like some of their neighbors on both sides of the Alps, may have belonged to this earliest Indo-European stratum apparently related to Illyrian. Pasquale (talk) 22:44, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

P.S. However, the above considerations should not be included in the article because they represent, at least in part, my own original research. Pasquale (talk) 22:50, 7 September 2009 (UTC)