Talk:Salassi

No evidence of Celtic affiliation
Pace Richard Keatinge, there is absolutely no evidence the Salassi were Celtic, other than Eporedia, the Latin name of Ivrea. However, Eporedia was founded by the Romans at the margins of the territory of the Salassi, in an area that had obviously come under heavy Cisalpine Gaulish influence. The Salassi left us no inscriptions, other than a couple of coin legends, presumably bearing names of rulers. One such, ULKOS, matches the Illyrian word for 'wolf', for what that's worth. But, obviously, the Salassi's geographic location between Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul is not per se evidence of Celtic affiliation. There were many tribes in the Alps in ancient times, most of which cannot be assigned to any linguistic group for lack of evidence. Several of these may well have spoken pre-Italic, pre-Celtic, or even pre-Indo-European languages.


 * Pasquale, thanks for the correction. I've tried to write a basis for better-informed people to improve upon, not a definitive article. I should point out that I know nothing of the Salassi apart from the result of some very slight internet research, and the Celtic comment came from a source of at least superficial acceptability. Richard Keatinge (talk) 20:46, 22 January 2009 (UTC)


 * My pleasure. No problem at all. I am well aware of the problem: Celticists will assign to Celtic any ancient tribe that was anywhere near the ancient Celtic homeland. But as I was saying, it's not that simple. I might add to what I said above that numerous substratum words in patois valdôtain (the dialect of Aosta Valley) don't seem to point to Celtic at all; e.g. brènva 'larch tree', broillà 'marshy plateau', brussei 'undergrowth', brusson 'blueberry', ruise, rouisa, roesa, rosa 'glacier', etc. Pasquale (talk) 17:23, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Unclear/illegitimate information
The text says "However, some remained; an inscription found near the west gate of Augusta Praetoria Salassorum is a dedication to Augustus dated 23 BCE of a statue (?) by "the Salassi who had joined the colony from its beginning". This segment cannot contain "(?)" because it's not a proper way to document historical evidence. "(?)" should be removed and a source to legitimate the statement should be introduced instead.

ICE77 (talk) 23:59, 30 January 2021 (UTC)