Talk:Boii

Pronunciation?

Anybody know how its meant to be pronounced? The most likely one seems to be bo-ee-eye but i suppose it could just as easily be boy-eye-ross616- (talk) 15:32, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

The Latin pronunciation would have been /ˈboj.iː/. Not sure how modern English or American would go about it, though. They like their eyes. Trigaranus (talk) 17:21, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Nomenclature rulers

Gotta watch the nomenclature for rulers. See the Roman Emperors list for pointers.

Language consistency

ok -- I'm a relative newbie, but could we please have some consistency here?

1. In the English Language version of the Wikipedia, could the entries be in English (e.g., Bohemia and Bohemians) rather than German -- with the exception of Latin terms, of course, since all of us historians know the correct term in Latin, or should.
2. Is there a naming protocol for Romans? I think we should use the most complete name possible, except where there is no question, or where there is a more conventional name, like Livy for Titus Livius.
3. If you are going to contribute entire articles that consist entirely of information that opens up huge cans of worms, would you please log in, so that people can discuss WHY you've chosen to write what you have (this would make me feel a lot better before editing) -- I will even discuss questions in German, if I have to!

Thanks -- just trying to get a grip on the "rules" here!

JHK

On nomenclature. Larry will tell you that we use the MOST COMMON form. See Rudy Giuliani. That isn't always easy to determine. The Saint entries are swinging back and forth - should 'Saint' be part of the entry title or not? On Popes, we settled on Pope Name Number as the official nomenclature. You'll notice that most monarchs have their country: Henry I of England. It's not entirely consistent, consistent with the nature of wikipedia, and yes, it drives us all nuts. --MichaelTinkler

Like the "despite the..." edit -- thanks! --JHK

I think it's helpful to see references to all nomenclature, in part because when researching various sources it sometimes allows one to see the links (i.e. here the links between German, Slav, Latin, etc.) This becomes apparent in my suggested addition or line of thought below. CelticRogue (talk) 20:16, 13 September 2008 (UTC)CelticRogue

Some content removal

Removed following because it didn't make any sense in the context of he article as written:

In order to better hold on to their already conquered lands in Gallia, Roman emperor Caesar Augustus in 15 BC sent Drusus Claudius and Tiberius Claudius to conquer Bavaria . The Romans set that land up as two Roman provinces. One of these was Rhaetia, whose capital city was Augusta Vindelicorum or modern-day Augsburg;the other was Noricum.

If someone wants to make it work, please feel free to put it back. JHK

To use the term Boii in connection with the 9th (!) century is a complete non-sense! Juro

It is for you

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gergovie

C:\Documents and Settings\Propriétaire\Mes documents\ENVOIS\GORGO TRANSLATES\WIKIPEDIA GORGOBINA in English.pdf

Excuse me. Why are Boii in the 9th century non-sense? (Mother Christmas 06:45, 12 January 2006 (UTC))

While that portion of the article is not totally in context it is helpful from the standpoint of more fully describing the reference to Noricum. Also in Celtic history the Roman interactions are significant. It was around this time (a few decades forward or back) that St. Patrick, son of Roman noble, went to Ireland and also when the Irish/Celtic were propagating colonies in Bohemia, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, France and as far away as Egypt where the link to the Coptic Christians, the Egyptian conversion from the ancient religion occured at about the same time as the Roman. (Again, we are talking about a time frame of decades, perhaps crossing in to centuries, but historically close in time.) CelticRogue (talk) 20:26, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Bohemia term

I believe that the Celts were gone from Czech and Slovak lands well before the 9th Century. Also the word "Buh" (God) which is declined to "Bohem" or "Bohem-" in other contexts seems a more reasonable origin of the term Bohemia. Can someone comment? svacina.com/czechi/czechia.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.102.197.88 (talk • contribs) 05:27, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

The word you are thinking of would have been "Богъ" at the time (in OCS, with the Genitive and Accusative Sg. form "Бога", Dative Sg. "Богоу" —— where did you take a final "-m" from?). It did not produce forms at that stage with a g→h change. Also, the earliest Slavonic sources do not use a name derived from this form (or otherwise related to our word "Bohemia") for the region, but rather the word "Čechy" (starting from the 10th century), which was also the name of the region's chief tribe after the Slavic settlement (ancestors to our modern-day Czechs). The word "Bohemia" only appears in Latin (and later, in MHG) sources of the Middle Ages and belongs to the western, Latin-Germanic tradition (as opposed to e.g. the word "Silesia", which had never become established in the western tradition and is in its present form a Slavonic descendant of the name of the Germanic Silingi, complete with opening of closed syllables and all).
And yes, the Celts and most of their Toponyms had vanished long before the arrival of the Slavs. The onomastic tradition was held up by speakers of Germanic languages (and via Latinate written texts). The common etymological explanation "Boiohaemum" = "Boii-home" and "Baiovarii" = "Boii-dwellers" has recently been further strengthened by archaeology —— unfortunately, I couldn't give you the name of the archaeologists involved anymore; maybe you will find it via googelisation. In an early Bavarian-Baiovarian graveyard of the 6th c. AD, isotope analysis has confirmed the traditional view that many of the people who identified themselves as "Baiovarii" had, in fact, come to Bavaria from Bohemia. So it is quite safe to assume that along with the people, also the name migrated from the former land of the Boii, which allows us to identify the boi-/bai- morphemes in "Boii", "Baiovarii" and "Boiohaemum" as being one and the same root. (The change o→a is a Germanisation of the Celtic root.)
The name "Boiohaemum" also makes an appearance before 30 AD in Velleius Paterculus' Historiae Romanae, II. 109. This is much too early by far for any distinctly Slavonic presence in that region or anywhere else at all, let alone for one with a g→h change in the word "Богь".
So it all falls neatly into place with the commonly accepted etymology. :-) Hope this answers your question. Trigaranus (talk) 09:33, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Again the Celtic link is in agreement with Trigaranus. Check out the relationship with the Boinne people of Ireland. They were the civilization that built Bru na Boinne in roughly 3200 B.C. In English that is the pre-historic cairn or passage tomb at Newgrange. Older than Stonehenge or some of the Pyramids, the people that settled along the Boyne River in Ireland were unique for the time period given their knowledge of Astronomy and their ritual preference for cremation. These were the Celtic peoples that settled throughout the known world and we are discovering that they were in parts of the world that were thought to be unknown as well. CelticRogue (talk) 20:40, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Also it should be considered that the Celts never really left anywhere totally, before or after the 9th century. (Consider the famous painting, Death of Postumus at the Hands of the Boii, circa 1480.) Mostly the Celtic people blended with the others, but the direct links remain in the cultures and the regions, (See the folks in the north of Spain, parts of France) in much the same way that conquering peoples blended with the indigenous Celts in Ireland, (The Vikings in Dublin, the Normans further north in Ireland.) CelticRogue (talk) 20:50, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Added headers/footnotes

Hello everybody,

I've just added the latest version (17 April 2007) with headings and footnotes. Hope you like it! Tell me if you would like to have something changed or clarified.

Ales gueti, Trigaranus 15:54, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

It's me again, just checking through the article. I'm going to make a minor change again, but I will let a detailed argumentation follow. Trigaranus

New/old claims about the Boii

I have read all these responses. And I want to make amendments: 1. Boii named their ground "Boiohaemum" - native land of boii (native country). 2. Boii really lived in territory of Slovakia and also Transylvania in 9 century AD 3. The word "Bohemia" has not taken place from the German adverbs. 4. Baiovarii were not Germanic people. They were Celtic tribes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by (User talk) 11:01, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I've allowed myself to enter a new header here for readability's sake. Let me just check with you: Which are your sources on numbers 1, 2 and 4? And what to you mean by 3? BTW get yourself signed up as soon as you can, it'll make discussions much easier. All the best, Trigaranus (talk) 17:55, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

References in ancient written sources Sometime between 205 BC and 184 BC, T. Maccius Plautus refers to the Boii in his work, Captivi:

At nunc Siculus non est, Boius est, Boiam terit But now he is not a Sicilian - he is a Boian, he has got a Boian woman. ( There is a play on words: Boia means " woman of the Boii ", also " convicted criminal's restraint collar ".) [1]

First and most importantly of all, I would like to ask you to sign in, as this is more polite than adding anonymous comments. This will give everyone the opportunity to take this discussion off the article page and to directly converse with one another. Otherwise this page here will grow enormous in no time at all.

Secondly, Plautus was a writer of comedies, so you will have to forgive him his plays on words. They are meant to be funny, and actually often are quite witty (rather than "ridiculous"). The word boia (-ae, fem.) means a neck shackle, an iron restraining device, and does not have any connection to the word "Boius/Boia" designating a member of the Boii tribe. The language in question is Latin, which Plautus was more than proficient in. What you mean by your last sentence (about "boi"), I do not fully grasp, but I hope this covers it.

As far as your initial statement is concerned ("I'm one from Boii. Is insulting to hear about our disappearance."), no one wished to insult you by any means, and no one wanted to imply that your people have disappeared. However, those "Boii" which you justly number yourself amongst are the modern Boiki of the Carpathians, who indeed live in the countries you enumerated. In my opinion, it is quite possible that the name of the Boiki could have originated from the regional name "Boiki" (i.e. Bohemia) mentioned in De Administrando Imperio as home of the White Serbs. But this does not constitute sufficient grounds for a claim of direct descent of the Boiki from the ancient Boii. The "ancient names, surnames and important customs" which you mention will certainly be very old, but derived from a traditional Slavic background rather than from a late La Tène tribe.

It has always been (take the Aeneid "proving" Trojan/divine ancestry for the Romans), and still is, a common practice for social and cultural groups to look for an ancient ancestor as a means of strengthening one's posititon and one's identity as a group. But the truth is: a similar name in the past does NOT automatically create an ancient ancestor. In order to uphold such a claim, you will have to support it with clear evidence. Some time ago, this article was being edited to include a rather preposterous claim of the Bowyer family to "descent from the Boii". The sources they entered as "proof" of this claim were more than fishy. To do justice to your ethnic group (the Boiki), it would be best to expand their article with each and every hard fact - not fanciful image - about them that you can gather. If indeed there should be first and family names amongst the Boykos that are originally Celtic, anyone with an interest in ancient philology will be fascinated to hear about them.

All the best, Trigaranus (talk) 19:30, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

So, give us an outline of factual evidence for that claim. And please, leave out the emotions. For a start, hit us with a few first and family names that have a clearly Celtic etymology. Trigaranus (talk) 18:41, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

1. Can I ask you once more to sign in instead of leaving anonymous comments. I would really like to take this off the article talk page, as some might see this as an unnecessary discussion.
2. A Celtic etymology is something different from phonological assonance. I was hoping to get a modern form of an old Celtic name. It is quite obvious that both the name of your ethnic group as well as many family names from amongst the same group are partly homophonous to the name of the Boii. So is the German plural for the word "tree". An English bowmaker known as a "bowyer" has nothing to do with the Boii, although in my language, he would sound exactly the same as a member of that tribe. There are many parallel examples for the Boykos/Boii affiliation: Before the firm establishment of empiricism, the "learnèd" elite of the Danish thought themselves to be descended from the Dacians (Dani - Daci), those of the Germans from the Teutons (thuidisc - Teutones, which is at least the same IE root), the citizens of Zürich from the Tigurini (Turicum - Tigurini, who at least lived somewhere in Switzerland at one time, although their name has nothing to do with Zurich), the Hungarians from the Huns (instead of the Onogurs, but Attila was more impressive), the Goths from the Getae (same region, but a few new centuries of added "antiquity"), the people of Schwyz from the Swedes (people will believe anything), and last but not least the British from a man named Brutus of Troy. All of these (apart from the last one, for which a Brutus had to be invented first) were based on nothing else than homophony with an ancient name. And each and every one of them has long been disproven as, historically speaking, nonsensical.
3. How would anyone know the blood type of the ancient Boii?
4. Anthropometry is not the most favourable of means of establishing ancestry (Craniometry is more suitable, but still rather quite dated). Genetic genealogy on the other hand side is a precise scientific method, and I would bet quite a lot of money that the Boii and the modern Bavarians, Czechs, Polish, Hutsuls, Boykos, Slovenians and even the Hungarians all have one thing in common: they are just different names for the people who haved lived in their respective homes for the last 10.000 years since the last Ice Age. Direct genetic continuity (i.e. real descent) between the past inhabitants of Bohemia (the Celtic-speaking Boii) and the modern inhabitants of the same place (the Czechs) has to be assumed as a given to a large degree.
5. Ethnic continuity on the other side requires a socio-cultural core to continue, a common identiy. I am convinced that the Boykos have a long-standing cultural tradition that goes back to the Middle Ages. The easternmost of the Boii, from whom you claim descent, were defeated by Burebista in the 1st c. BC, who probably drove them from their oppidum of Bratislava in retreat to Devín. From there they were later incorporated into the Roman province of Pannonia. Their mint at Bratislava was given up, and there is no more news of the tribe. In fact, their former lands were called ’’deserta Boiorum’’, which means that the land was considered wilderness (i.e. no more organised tribal structures). In other words, we have on one hand evidence of the desintegration of the ethnos outside the Roman Empire; on the other hand, there is not a single piece of news reporting alleged remnants of the tribe to have weathered the upheavals of the following centuries. This complete lack of any sources whatsoever for an AD Boian continuity even as short-lived as to extend into Late Antiquity constitutes not only a problem for serious historians, but also for anybody today who claims to be a "Celtic Boii". You are perfectly free to believe whatever you like about the ethnic group you belong to. But as long as there is no better evidence than a few names vaguely reminiscent of the ancient tribal name (and partly lending itself readily to modern explanations), there is no point to be made for any ethnic continuity at all. And, according to Wikipedia standards, we are not allowed to publish our own theories here, but only such as are put forward by serious research employing empiricist methods.Trigaranus (talk) 13:06, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Most anciently found

Hello there! I've removed the "most anciently found in Pannonia" from the article and placed it here. Although I checked various sources, I haven't found anything to prove that "most anciently" clain, and even though the German article mentions that they were originally from the Rhine-Main-Danube area, even that seems to be pure speculation. As far as I know, we don't know. So if you have any source to support that claim, please add it as a reference and re-insert the passage. Cheers, Trigaranus 19:33, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I've also removed the following from the header, hoping the contributor does not mind too much:

"in the area of the Seine and Marne rivers, but later migrated across the Alps and settled near the mouth of the Po River in Italy around 400 BC. It was part of a wave of Celtic tribes that included the Boii, Lingones and Senoni, who sacked Rome in 387 BC."

The reason why I have moved it here is that any localisation of Boii in Gaul before the Gallic wars is highly conjectural. All we have as an indication as to where they moved to Italy from, are burial customs that link them to Bohemia:

One notable characteristic —- the prevalence of cremation among the Boii —- serves both to distinguish them from other Celtic communities in the Po Valley and to link them to the Bohemian homeland from which they came. (...) The burials of the Senones and Cenomani, on the other hand, reflect more closely styles already apparent in the Marne region.

— Barry Cunliffe, The Ancient Celts (1997) ISBN 0-14-025422-6, p. 72.

I have also moved the addition "...who had 120 рatrimonial groups and..." from the header, as I have not found any ancient sources backing that up (besides, what is a patrimonial group?), and I would like to leave this here until referenced.

I've re-inserted the references to the eastern Boii settlements, which had been dropped from the header at one point. While I'm aware that the last relative clause is non-defining, it nevertheless might be misinterpreted as stating that not the Senones but a coalition of Boii, Lingones and Senones sacked Rome. Trigaranus (talk) 18:02, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup template

This talk page is pretty messy (hard to read - at least for me). I am not sure which cleanup template would be best to insert here, so I added {{sections}}. EliAS 16:41, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Wow.. I have seen some messy talk pages in my time.. but this really is in quite a bad state! I have tried to section the conversation(s) the best I could judging by what was being discussed (at least, it is easier to navigate now). Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:01, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Map Suggestion

I've created a map indicating some of the most important Boii migrations. Tell me what you think about it and if we should include it in the article. Trigaranus (talk) 21:04, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion for map

Mr. Trigaranus! All these responses and then nothing for almost a year! What happened, give up? Hm. Celtika was not built in a day. I'm going to work on this but very slowly, shaping it bit by bit. Now, for your map - I think I will use it, but it leaves too much unsaid. We seem to have to understand the Boii got everywhere in Caesar's time and that will not fly at all. I will see what I can do. I note that a lot of ancient sources, who would fill in the gaps, such as the geographers, have been left out. I think one can be too rigid about this. If the Boii came over the Alps to north Italy even though no one says where they actually had been I think we have to assume they did not suddenly begin to exist, like quanta, but were north of the Alps in central Europe. Otherwise they are going to be tunneling here there and everywhere like electrons - now in the location, now in that location. Let's see how it develops. I doubt it will develop any differently from the picture scholars have had, but we have to document it all with sources. Best wishes.Dave (talk) 17:35, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

PS. I opened up your map and was so disappointed to see that the lettering is unreadable. We don't have too many good maps on this. I would suggest bolding the lettering or using one of the darker fonts, if you still have motivation for it.Dave (talk) 19:43, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Half forgotten about that map. If you point me to a freeware programme that uses vectoring, I'd me more than happy to have that sorted. Trigaranus (talk) 08:49, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Plagiarism

Please check out this site:

• [1]

You will see that it is this article word for word less recent changes. The site is that of Elio Corti, a man who claims to be a chicken fancier and makes all sorts of other claims most of which I personally doubt. He does not give Wikipedia credit for this article. I suppose legally he is not obliged to, but it raises questions as to who copied whom! As his site does not look too scholarly and he is fairly whimsical, claiming to be interested in the history of chickens, I would guess he probably is copying Wikipedia. I don't see any copyright on his site. If anyone knows anything about this, come forward. Meanwhile this article lacks refs on most of what is said. It sort of leaves me in a vacuum. If it is Corti's, I'm not allowed to modify it. How about some legal beagleing here? Meanwhile I am going to feel free to rewrite using legitimate sources.Dave (talk) 18:25, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Boii in Balkans and Galatia

Sorry, Bottleville, but this does not belong here. There is only the slightest circumstantial evidence that Boii could have participated in these movements (we talked about them). It is not enough to warrant such a long narrative on the invasion of the Balkans and Galatia in an article about a tribe that was never mentioned a single time in connection with these events. If you have a publication by a historian making a point of their likely involvement, you can mention that in another paragraph. But everyhing beyond that is too much, I'm afraid. I know how it feels like to contribute productively to an article and then have it removed (not very pleasant), but here it will have to happen. Trigaranus (talk) 10:52, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Dear Dave, I'm sorry to go on pestering you here. Many of your edits in this article (and a large section of the Tolistobogii) has to be changed or removed in order to conform to WP policies. Some of it is WP:OR, some WP:SYN. There is a possibility of a connection between Boii and Tolistobogii, but it is slim, certainly not valid enough to include an entire historical episode (Celts in the east) in this article on a tribe that was never mentioned in connection with those movements. What we can have in this article here is a note that there is this possibility of a connection to the Tolistobogii, and then have all the facts in that other article. I know it's tempting, but we cannot do more than this on WP. Trigaranus (talk) 17:27, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Some more: where does that "Vindos" stuff come from? I've just found him here, and he is more present than he should in the Tolistobogii article. I'd be very happy to find a source for that. Trigaranus (talk) 18:14, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Hello,

The derivation boii from the Old Irish legal term for "outsider:" amboue, seems to me a little bit cumbersome, as in old Irish "an bo" just signifies "the catlle", thus boii = "the cattle owners".

I don't recognize the suffix "-hemiam" to be of Celtic origin or been used in Celtic languages. I think the word is of Germanic origin: "heim", "heem", "hem" still been used in German, Scandinavian and Dutch languages for "home", the latter being the English cognate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.131.251.25 (talk) 12:58, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

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