Journey back to the Garumna by Anthony Ambrozic Published by Cythera Press, Toronto, Canada

Available from the author:

Anthony Ambrozic

8 Lafayette Place

Thornhill, Ontarion L3T 1G5

Canada

Telephone 905-881-2636

Introduction

by Borut Prah

Books that illuminate the likely link between the Veneti language, long extinct, and Slovenian language, which is very much alive today, keep appearing from least likely places. Canada, Austria, Italy -- but not from Slovenia. Academicians in Slovenia are still holding the party line and only rarely a positive article appears in Slovenian periodicals or newspapers discussing the topic rationally. Mostly, the official line from Slovenia remains the old South Slav theory that was so useful to the architecture of Yugoslavia. One can easily understand why such degrading theory would be favored for many centuries by anybody who employed the hard-working Slovenian people. But one wonders what motivates Slovenian authorities today to cling to it.

But, the evidence against the 6th century arrival of Slovenian nation, whose elite, according to official historians and school curriculum consisted of illiterate beekepers and goatmen, continues to grow. A second book on this topic by Canadian attorney Anthony Ambrozic (brother of Canada's cardinal Ambrozic) was just published. As in his Adieu to Brittany, the author uses Slovenian language as the principal catalyst to understand the roots or derivations of toponyms and other inscriptions in France.

On 218 pages, the author attempts to translate many incriptions that were engraved and chiselled in stone over two thousand years ago. I have no competence to say whether their translation is valid or even if they have ever been successfully translated before or not. I can only say that some tranlations looks plausible, some interesting and some astonishing. It is up to professionals to discern which is which.

Here is a reprint of the Foreword and the last few paragraphs of the concluding Reflections (page 215) in the book Journey Back to the Garumna...

Foreword

Scholars of Celtic history and language face a dilemma of ambivalence and uncertainty. Some ascribe it to "myth" arising from "ambiguity and pervasion of legend" and recognize it "as having come to us in a symbolic form." They suggest that "one of the chief methods of investigation, but not the sole discipline, be 'to proceed' by psychoanalyzing the myth, the legend, and at the same time the purely historic, or what is believed to be historic" (Jean Markale, The Celts, p. 19).

Others plainly admit that "the history of the Celts is veiled in uncertainties." They "place the Celtic origin with the Indo-Europeans who, in the third millennium B.C., inhabited the territory of the Carpathian Mountains. The story of their dispersal north and west remains unclear. Rich in oral tradition, details of everyday life must be pieced together from later classical references, archaeological finds, and legends later put into writing by hish monks." "For now," they say, "we must defme the Celts as a loose federation of European tribes - people who never formed a political empire but who shared a common tongue, a distinctive material culture, and closely related religious ideas" (Supplement to National Geographic, May 1977, Vol. 15 1, No. 5, p. 582A).

According to still other authors, "an aura of inscrutable mystery haunts their descendants to this day?" (Gwenc'hlan Le Scouezec, Guide de la Bretagne Mystérieuse). It is the intent of this book to dispel some of this ambiguity and uncertainty: not by any further refinement of the Celtic paradox but, rather, by detaching from it a very troubling and confusing element causing it.

To give a concrete example of some of what is being attempted, let us examine the paradox of the Celtic mode of fighting. Polybius reports that a Celt went into battle naked, except for his helmet, neck torque, and belt. Thus attired, he felt himself to be protected by a higher power. Yet, on the caldron of Gundestrup, claimed as being of Celtic provenance, the warrior marches into battle clothed in tightfitting trousers. The paradox arises in many instances from the fact that things obviously not Celtic have been claimed as such. The very name of Kelt is synonymous with the "kilt" he wears. Therefore, the warrior on the caldron of Gundestrup cannot possibly portray a Celt.

Another case in point: human sacrifices were purportedly conducted by Celts in oak groves and the victims bled so that blood drenched the altars. The sacrificial victim depicted on the caldron of Gundestrup, on the other hand, is a youngster being pitched ("DAN NOT" - passage XXVI in Adieu to Brittany) by the priest into the sacred cinerary shaft.

With all due deference to the often frustrated efforts at decryption of many a supposed Celtic passage, it should be realized that the early branching off of the Celtic from the Indo-European offers ready parameters to the Celtic scholar, without the need of encroaching on the linguistic sphere of an obviously more recently departed linguistic subgroup. As a direct result of the transcription and translation of forty-two Venetic (Slavic) passages from Gaul (previously erroneously deemed as falling within the Gaulish ambit), a more clearly defined demarcation will benefit both groups. It is to this end that this work is undertaken ... and.

Chapter XXVIII, Reflections

One cannot but be amazed at the ready recognition of meaning of the place names the settlers left behind. The sheen of the combinational compounding of such places as NABOULIERAS, VUIDEPOT, BELEYMAS, BESSUNITRAS, GANAVEIX, NOVZERINES, PUYREGONDE, TALIVAUD, VERZOLET, MALATRAY, MALLEPEYRE, BLAVEPEYRE, MALIGORNAY, and the triad of OSMOY, OSMERI, OSMETS is as fresh as the glow of coinage minted yesterday.

How did this come about? Why does the quaint tang of these two-thousand-year-old places still have such a familiar ring fo the average Slovene and northern Croatian? Why do these names still sound so much like the village upstream or the town on the other side of the hill?

The answer lies in the path the transalpine tribes had to follow to reach their destination. Whether it was the Po valley of northern Italy or the Balkans farther south, they had to pass through the river valleys of the eastern Alps. And whether it was the Saluvii or the tribes that followed them, whether the ubiquitous Boii before and after the battle of Bologna, whether the Belovesus Biturgi or the Volcje Tectosages on their last journey to Toulouse, they all had to pass through the eastern gaps of the mountain chain.

It was here that the roving tribes left behind bands of followers, who, enfeebled or perhaps tired of adventure, had sated their wanderlust, and chose to pursue the more serene munificence of field, craft, and pasture. In Slovenia, especially, the large number of dialects points to several tribes having thus siphoned off surplus retinue.

The rest of the story is one of petrification in the erosion and disappearance of the Slavic in the onslaught and the langue d'oc aftermath of the Roman juggernaut in Gaul. In the less contentious Alpine area, the dialects survived. But, each in its gerrymandered solitude, ossified in the benign neglect of the Roman, Carolingian, and Habsburg governance.