The Paleo-Phoenicians did it...again

 

I already linked to this once before, but here we go again! 

Paul isn´t a particularly "alternative" guy, so it´s interesting that he discusses strange similarities between the Insular Celtic languages and the Semitic ditto, similarities which shouldn´t exist, since the two groups of languages aren´t related, the former being Indo-European, the latter Afroasiatic. He doesn´t claim to have an explanation, but references some hypotheses. Perhaps the Neolithic farmers who entered Europe from Anatolia during, well, the Neolithic, spoke a proto-Afroasiatic language? For some reason, this Neolithic substratum never disappeared on the British Isles, not even when the Indo-European languages were introduced much later. 

Another possibility, not mentioned by Langfocus, is that the Celts weren´t from Iron Age Central Europe (the usual scenario) but from Bronze Age Spain, specifically Tartessos. Later, Tartessos became Phoenician (the Biblical Tarshish). And the Phoenicians, of course, spoke a Semitic language. Perhaps the Insular Celts are the descendants of a migration from a Semito-Celtic Spain? 

A more exciting possibility I´ve encountered just the other day or so, is that the Indo-European and Afroasiatic languages *are* related on a deep level, both being derived from a "Nostratic" language at some point during the Stone Age. There is also a theory that there are two Indo-European Urheimats: the first in Anatolia (corresponding to the Neolithic farmers) and the second at the usual place north of the Black Sea. What if the Insular Celtic languages are strange because they are products of an earlier Indo-European migration than the "official" one? Inquiring minds want to know...