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Thanks for that. I need to ponder it for a bit.

I was told a while back that the nearest other european language to Basque was Maltese..

Also that the "celtic" link back to central Europe can be traced in place names in northern Italy begining with Tre, as in Treviso.

Mr H

After a while you will agree with me that it leads nowhere. This is the eternal discussion between IE vs non-IE / Basque which has raged on in Iberian circles for centuries. It is similar to the Celtic debate, but this one is even worse as it is spread out over such a vast territory (ie all of Europe).

But it is still fun to see the word 'celtic' overused in Galician brochures (or Irish and welsh brochures for that matter). People who see links like the Galician bagpipes, the wet and green landscape or large numbers of Brig- placenames as evidence of a Celtic uber-nation get too carried away, especially when you think that Celtic *culture* was almost as strong almost everywhere in Iberia, France or Germany, just faded away faster later on.

I have seen this debate for decades and it definitely arises passions and never leads anywhere. But it is great fun sometimes, isn't it?