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Names of the Celts
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The origin of the various names used since classical times for the people known today as the Celts is obscure and has been controversial. In particular, aside from a first-century literary genealogy of Celtus the grandson of Bretannos by Heracles, there is no record of the term 'Celt' being used in connection with the inhabitants of the British Isles prior to the nineteenth century.
term 'Celt(s)' (Latin Celtus pl.
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The origin of the various names used since classical times for the people known today as the Celts is obscure and has been controversial. In particular, aside from a first-century literary genealogy of Celtus the grandson of Bretannos by Heracles, there is no record of the term 'Celt' being used in connection with the inhabitants of the British Isles prior to the nineteenth century.
The term Celt
The term 'Celt(s)' (Latin Celtus pl. Celti or Celtae; Greek ???t?? pl. ???ta? or ?e?t?? pl. ?e?t??, Keltai or Keltoi) seems to be based on a native Celtic ethnic name. The singular *Celtos or *Celta with plurals *Celtoi or *Celtas are of uncertain origin. The root would seem to be a Primitive Indo-European *kel- or (s)kel-, but there are several such roots of various meanings to choose from (*kel- "to be prominent", *kel- "to drive or set in motion", *kel- "to strike or cut", etc.)
Ancient uses
The first literary reference to the Celtic people, as ?e?t?? (?eltoi), is by the Greek historian Hecataeus of Miletus in 517 BC; he locates the Keltoi tribe in Rhenania (West/Southwest Germany). The next Greek reference to the Keltoi is by Herodotus in the mid fifth century BC. He says that 'the river Ister (Danube) begins from the Keltoi and the city of Pyrene and so runs that it divides Europe in the midst (now the Keltoi are outside the Pillars of Heracles and border upon the Kynesians, who dwell furthest towards the sunset of all those who have their dwelling in Europe)'. This confused passage was generally later interpreted as implying that the homeland of the Celts was at the source of the Danube not in Spain/France.
According to the first century poet Parthenius of Nicaea, ?e?t?? (Celtus) was the son of Heracles and ?e?t??? (Keltine), the daughter of ??etta??? (Bretannus); this literary genealogy exists nowhere else and was not connected with any known cult. Celtus became the eponymous ancestor of Celts. In Latin Celta came in turn from Herodotus' word for the Gauls, Keltoi. The Romans used Celtae to refer to continental Gauls, but apparently not to Insular Celts. The latter were long divided linguistically into Goidhels and Brythons (see Insular Celtic languages), although other research provides a more complex picture (see below under "Classification").
The term in English
The English word is modern, attested from 1707 in the writings of Edward Lhuyd whose work, along with that of other late 17th century scholars, brought academic attention to the languages and history of these early inhabitants of Great Britain.
In the 18th century the interest in 'primitivism', which led to the idea of the 'noble savage', brought a wave of enthusiasm for all things 'Celtic'. The antiquarian William Stukeley pictured a race of 'Ancient Britons' constructing the 'Temples of the Ancient Celts' such as Stonehenge (actually a pre-Celtic structure) before he decided in 1733 to recast the 'Celts' in his book as 'Druids'. The Ossian fables written by James Macpherson - portrayed as ancient Scottish Gaelic poems - added to this romantic enthusiasm. The 'Irish revival' came after the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 as a conscious attempt to demonstrate an Irish national identity, and with its counterpart in other countries subsequently became known as the 'Celtic revival'.
Pronunciation
The pronunciation of the words Celt and Celtic in their various meanings has been surrounded by some confusion: the initial can be realised either as /s/ or /k/ but is most commonly said as /k/. Both can be justified philologically and both are "correct" in English prescriptive usage.
Although the word originated in an early Continental Celtic language, it comes to us from Greek (Keltoi), where it is spelled with a kappa; thus /k/ is the original pronunciation. This was borrowed into Latin (Celtae), where it was likewise pronounced as a stop. However in Mediaeval Latin, the letter , originally pronounced /k/, shifted to /s/, a process known as palatalization, and many words and names borrowed from Latin into English after this sound shift are pronounced this way: centre/center, celestial, celibate, cilia, Cicero, et cetera. Thus /s/ is the inherited pronunciation in English for these words. This sound change has resulted in a general orthographic convention of English, whereby in almost no instance does a before , , or represent a /k/. For additional discussion see Latin pronunciation.
Until the mid-20th century, Celtic was usually pronounced with /s/ in English except by academics, but the pronunciation with /k/ has been gaining ground rapidly. Following the usage of philologists, /k/ is now almost invariably used with reference to Celtic languages even in non-academic contexts. It is also the most popular pronunciation when talking about most other aspects of Celtic culture.
However /s/ remains the only recognised pronunciation of the word when it occurs in the names of sports teams, most notably Celtic Football Club and the Boston Celtics basketball team; as these are proper names, the traditional pronunciation is entrenched.
There is a great deal of misinformation in circulation on this topic. It should be noted that there is no American-British distinction in these pronunciations nor is there a Scottish-Irish distinction. Neither pronunciation has been influenced by any modern Celtic languages, nor by Old Norse. The corresponding words in French are pronounced with /s/ while those in German have /k/ (and ), but neither French nor German has influenced English usage; rather, they show independent reflexes of the same phenomena in Latin and Greek.
The celt, a stone tool, has a completely separate etymology from Celt and Celtic. In English its sole pronunciation is //.
Modern uses
In a modern historical context, the terms 'Celt' and 'Celtic' are used in several senses: to denote peoples speaking Celtic languages; the peoples of prehistoric and early historic Europe who shared common cultural traits which are thought to have originated in the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures; or the peoples known to the Greeks as Keltoi, to the Romans as Celtae and to either by cognate terms such as Gallae or Galatae. The extent to which each of these meanings refers to the same group of people is a matter of debate.
In a modern context, the term 'Celt' or 'Celtic' is used to denote areas where Celtic languages are spoken—this is the criterion employed by the Celtic League and the Celtic Congress. In this sense, there are six modern nations that can be defined as Celtic: Brittany, Cornwall, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Scotland and Wales. Only four, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and Brittany have native speakers of Celtic languages and in none of them is it the language of the majority. However, all six have significant traces of a Celtic language in personal and place names, as well as in culture and traditions.
Another area of Europe, inhabited by the historical celts, Galicia, Asturias,Cantabria, in north-western Spain, and Portugal retains a strong Celtic cultural identity and acknowledgement of their own Celtic past.
Regions of England such as Cumbria and Devon likewise retain some Celtic influences, yet haven't retained a Celtic language (even Cornwall became fully English-speaking during the 18th century) and are therefore not categorised as Celtic regions or nations. Cornish aside, the last attested Celtic language native to England was Cumbric, spoken in Cumbria and southern Scotland and which may have survived until the 13th century, but was most likely dead by the 11th century. As in the case of Cornish, there have been recent attempts to recreate it, based on medieval miracle plays and other surviving sources.
Another area of Europe sometimes associated with the Celts is France, which traces its roots to the Gauls. In Scotland, the Gaelic language traces its roots to migration and settlement by the Irish Dál Riata/Scotti. Gaelic-speaking communities survive chiefly in the country's northern and western fringes. The language of the Scotti came to dominate the existing tribes among whom they settled, known as the Picts. Such tribes were probably also Celts, though the evidence to say for certain does not exist.
Insular Celts
The first person to use the term 'Celt' in relation to Britain and Ireland was George Buchanan in 1582. After its use by Edward Lhuyd in 1707, the use of the word 'Celtic' as an umbrella term for the pre-Roman peoples of Britain gained considerable popularity. By the nineteenth century use of the term had become widespread, and it remains in common usage. However its historical basis has now been called into question by some historians and archaeologists.
Archaeologist Simon James (formerly of the British Museum), in his book The Atlantic Celts: Ancient People or Modern Invention? states that the ancient Romans never used the term 'Celtic' (nor one of the Latin cognates) in reference to the peoples of Ireland or Britain. He writes that the modern term 'Celt' was coined as an umbrella term in 1707, after Scotland united with England to create the Kingdom of Great Britain, and was used specifically to describe the non-English inhabitants of the archipelago. Nationalists in Scotland, Ireland and Wales looked for a way to differentiate themselves from England and assert their right to independence. James argues that, despite the obvious linguistic connections, archaeology does not suggest a united Celtic culture and that the term is misleading.
Archaeologist Miranda Green, author of Celtic Goddesses, describes archaeologists as finding 'a certain homogeneity' in the traditions in the area of Celtic habitation, including Ireland and Britain. She sees the inhabitants of Ireland and Britain as having become thoroughly Celticised by the time of the Roman arrival, mainly through spread of culture rather than a movement of people.
In his book Iron Age Britain, Barry Cunliffe concludes that '...there is no evidence in the British Isles to suggest that a population group of any size migrated from the continent in the first millennium BC...'. Modern archaeological thought tends to disparage the idea of large population movements without facts to back them up, a caution which appears to be vindicated by some genetic studies. In other words, Celtic culture in the Atlantic Archipelago and continental Europe could have emerged through the peaceful convergence of local tribal cultures bound together by networks of trade and kinship — not by war and conquest. This type of peaceful convergence and cooperation is actually relatively common among tribal peoples; other well known examples of the phenomenon include the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy and the Nuer of East Africa. He argues that the ancient Celts are thus best depicted as a loose and highly diverse collection of indigenous tribal societies bound together by trade, a common druidic religion, related languages, and similar political institutions — but each having its own local traditions.
Michael Morse, in the conclusion of his book, How the Celts came to Britain, concedes that the concepts of a broad Celtic linguistic area and recognizably Celtic art have their uses, but argues that the term implies a greater unity than existed. Despite such problems he suggests that the term 'Celt' is probably too deep-rooted to be replaced and — what is more important — it has the definition that we choose to give it. The problem is that the wider public reads into the term quite anachronistic concepts of ethnic unity that no one on either side in the academic debate holds.
The name "Gauls"
English "Gaul(s)" and Latin Gallus or Galli might be from an originally Celtic ethnic or tribal name, perhaps borrowed into Latin during the early 400s BC Celtic expansions into Italy. Its root may be the Common Celtic *galno, meaning 'power' or 'strength'. The Greek Galatai seems to be based on the same root, borrowed directly from the same hypothetical Celtic source which gave us Galli (the suffix -atai is simply an ethnic name indicator). (see Galatia in Anatolia)
The English form Gaul comes from the French Gaule and Gaulois, which is the traditional rendering of Latin Gallia and Gallus, -icus respectively. However, the diphthong au points to a different origin, namely a Romance adaptation of the Germanic *Walha-. (see Gaul: Name). Notably and significantly the French term for Wales is Pays de Galles
The word "Welsh"
The word 'Welsh' originates from word wælisc, which is Anglo-Saxon for 'foreigner'. Though it may be Germanic in origin, it may actually have a Celtic source: It is possibly the result of a 4th century BC transition from the Celtic tribal name Volcae into early Germanic, thus becoming the Proto-Germanic *Walh-, 'foreigner of the Roman lands' and the suffixed form *-walhisk. The Volcae were one of the Celtic peoples who for two centuries barred the southward expansion of the Germanic tribes (in what is now central Germany) on the line of the Harz mountains and into Saxony and Silesia.
In the Middle Ages, territories with primarily romance language-speaking populations, such as France and Italy, were known as Welschland as opposed to Deutschland, and the word is cognate with Vlach and Walloon as well as with the '-wall' in 'Cornwall'. Other examples are the surnames 'Wallace' and 'Walsh'. During the early Germanic period, the term seems to have been applied to the peasant population of the Roman Empire, most of whom were in the areas immediately settled by the Germanic people.
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