Celts or Gauls?

[Loki1950]

You have forgotten the Cornish but that's common even most Brits have

Enjoy the Choice

[Mythos_Ruler]

Your author calls the Britons of this age "Celts" and even refers to continental Celts as "Gallic."

[greycat]

Your author calls the Britons of this age "Celts" and even refers to continental Celts as "Gallic."

He also states this is divergent from the way ancient authors used the word Celt.

Yes. The Gauls and the Brythons were likely speaking the same language around the time of Caesar.

The Goedelic speaking people seem to be a mixture of pre-Celtic people and Celtic?

Old Irish (Goedelic) would still seem to not be the best language to to represent the Celts as speaking at this time at least not the Gauls or Brittons.

I am also looking for truth, not just trying to prove myself correct...

Edited October 27, 2013 by greycat

[greycat]

Your author calls the Britons of this age "Celts" and even refers to continental Celts as "Gallic."

Also we are looking a this from a "Celtic language" perspective it seems...

Edited October 27, 2013 by greycat

[greycat]

Koch argues that in pre-Christian Ireland the most formal register of the language would have been that used by the learned and religious class, the druids, for their ceremonies and teaching. After the conversion to Christianity the druids lost their influence, and formal Primitive Irish was replaced by the then Upper Class Irish of the nobility and Latin, the language of the new learned class, the Christian monks.

Professor John T. Koch is an American academic, historian and linguist who specializes in Celtic studies, especially prehistory and the early Middle Ages.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_T._Koch

[greycat]

Repartition of Gaul ca. 54 BC

[GunChleoc]

The name Brythonic is already used for the Welsh, Cornish and Breton branch of the Celtic languages, and if you read the text you just quoted carefully, you will see that he calls the wider family Celtic as well. So, you will have to come up with something else if you don't like the name.

[greycat]

The name Brythonic is already used for the Welsh, Cornish and Breton branch of the Celtic languages, and if you read the text you just quoted carefully, you will see that he calls the wider family Celtic as well. So, you will have to come up with something else if you don't like the name.

Yes but they are not known to have spoken Goidelic in this area called Britannia.(see map) Don't like name?

Edited October 27, 2013 by greycat

[greycat]

The name Brythonic is already used for the Welsh, Cornish and Breton branch of the Celtic languages, and if you read the text you just quoted carefully, you will see that he calls the wider family Celtic as well. So, you will have to come up with something else if you don't like the name.

Some anthropologists don't like this name. They say the small amount if Celtic artifacts are not enough to justify it being called Celtic. They look at the bigger picture. Not trying to make you angry...The point is the Irish also had a large pre-Celtic influence, so they are not a good indicator of language of the Gauls/Brythons who are present in this area at this time. In the furthest stretch of the word Celt (ancient writers did no do this), Goidelic people are also Celts but they are not Brythonic/Brittons.

Edited October 27, 2013 by greycat

[greycat]

Also the map indicates what is considered Gaul by the Romans was a changing expanding thing over time also.

Edited October 27, 2013 by greycat

[greycat]

My main point here is that the people speaking Goidelic/ Irish Gaelic have not been discovered yet at this time to my knowledge...Or am I wrong?

Edited October 27, 2013 by greycat

[GunChleoc]

The early British artifacts might not all be specificly Celtic (I have no knowledge about this one way or the other), but the language definitely is. There probably was another language spoken there as well before the Celtic took over, but we have no evidence on what that language might have been like AFAIK.

The Romans did give Ireland the name Hibernia, but they didn't really go there as far as I know.

It is not clear how the Irish Gaels came to Ireland, but they did go on to found Scotland later on. They were verifiably in Scotland around 400AD, but they might have been there earlier than that. The evidence on this is unclear, but they did a lot of sailing, and you can see the Irish coast from Scotland, so it's not that far.

[greycat]

...but we do have some words that the man who derived the word Brythonic says...This gives us some very good clues.

"Roughly speaking, however, one may say that the whole Celtic family was made up of two branches or groups, the Goidelic group and the Gallo-Brythonic one ; and every Celt of the United Kingdom is, so far as language is concerned, either a Goidel or a Brython. The Goidels were undoubtedly the first Celts to come to Britain, as their geographical position to the west and north of the others would indicate, as well as the fact that no trace of them has ever been identified on the Continent. They had probably been in the island for centuries when the Brythons, or Gauls, came and drove them westward"

Sir John Rhys

This indicates to me they would be speaking mostly Brythonic and not Goidelic.

Edited October 28, 2013 by greycat

[greycat]

"Brythons, or Gauls"

This tells me In the eyes of the man who derived the word Brythonic these two are the same "or"

or

1—used as a function word to indicate an alternative

[greycat]

You have forgotten the Cornish that's common even most Brits have

Enjoy the Choice

I heard that language is having some kind of a revival (300 fluent speakers) I only like dead languages...

[GunChleoc]

Well, I like it when they survive, so I can talk to people

[Loki1950]

Well, I like it when they survive, so I can talk to people

Me too have a look at the endangered Languages list sometime very sobering as each one is a unique world view that we as a species may need in the future.Here in Canada we have several indigenous languages on that list due to the lack of respect for the underlying cultures by various governments.

Enjoy the Choice

[greycat]

Me too have a look at the endangered Languages list sometime very sobering as each one is a unique world view that we as a species may need in the future.Here in Canada we have several indigenous languages on that list due to the lack of respect for the underlying cultures by various governments.

Enjoy the Choice

It is very bad when governments do that kind of thing. This is what happened in France with the Brenton language.

"Since the 19th century, under the Third, Fourth and Fifth Republics, the government has attempted to stamp out minority languages in state schools, including Breton, in an effort to build a national culture. Teachers humiliated students for using their regional languages, and such practices prevailed until the late 1960s"

[greycat]

Short video you guys may like to watch about Roman Empire and the death of the Gaulish language and culture.

Edited October 29, 2013 by greycat

[greycat]

a couple of known Gaulish words
cingeto = a warrior
uxellos = high noble (x = /ks/)

rīx, rīg = king - in names recorded by Ceasar

Edited October 30, 2013 by greycat

[greycat]

I found an interesting article about the DNA of the Irish people. http://www.sott.net/article/263587-DNA-shows-Irish-people-have-more-complex-origins-than-previously-thought

"The latest research into Irish DNA has confirmed that the early inhabitants of Ireland were not directly descended from the Keltoi of central Europe. In fact the closest genetic relatives of the Irish in Europe are to be found in the north of Spain in the region known as the Basque Country. These same ancestors are shared to an extent with the people of Britain - especially the Scottish."

[Mythos_Ruler]

[Rodmar]

He guys, I only read Wikipaedia (with modern references) and it explains quite well all the current theories:

Gaul/Gallia comes from a germanic word "Walxisk" that meant "foreigner" at first (the Celt being neighbours to the southern German), then specifically "Celts" as in "those who speak a celtic language", and lastly "those who are romanized or Romanes" because the Celt the German came in contact with on the Rhine belonged to the Roman Empire. This was not as depreciative as the Greek "Barbaros" and some so-called Gauls adopted the word for themselves. Also this word was not used to call other people such as Slavic or Huns, etc. So, old Germans knew exactly who were Gauls (the Celts and then, the whole Roman Empire Area) and who were not. The word was transmitted to Slavic people who used it in turn. If you think about it, the same happened with the word "Rom/Roum" that the Turkoman used to call the Byzantine at first and then all the northern mediterranean (by then christian) people.

Even during the modern area, Germanic people kept calling Romane people as "Gauls".

From the same world comes many celtic/romane people and country names:

Welsh/Wales (the 5th century Germans calling romanized Brittons "Gauls"), Walloons (the Dutch (Germans) calling this romanized Belgian/Frankish people "Gauls"), Welschen (the Alemanish Swiss calling all the non German-speaking Swiss "Gauls"), Wallach (romanized Dacian)

Even the modern-day Polish call the Italian "Gauls", that is "Romans".

The Roman or former geographers learned this word from the German. It was first used to name all the Celtic peoples NW from Roma, beginning with those who invaded and settled Italia (Gallia Cisalpina), but would eventually designate all the Celt during the Empire. The Galates that devastated part of the Asia Minor in 278 came from the Gallia Cisalpina, hence their name.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walh
http://www.orbilat.com/General_Survey/Terms--Wallachians_Walloons_Welschen_etc.html

[EDIT] I should add that a hypothesis for "Walxisk"'s origin is the name of an extremely mobile tribe (or a new ethnic group made out of non tribal elements) named Volques/Volcae, who settled lands in the eastern Hercynian forest, W of the Boii's during the 3rd century and the Celtic invasions (maybe after the Boii left). There, in now Bohemia, they would have developed exchanges with the German coming from the north until they eventually returned to the west, pressured by both the German and the Dacian.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volques%C2'>

[/EDIT]

Celt is more straightforward.

One of the three people who inhabited Gallia before the invasion (58 BC) were just calling themselves as "Céltes" that became Roman "Celtae". The Greek "Keltoi/Keltai" refers to the same people, either a subbranch of the future western Gaul, or those same Gaul from Cisalpina that called themselves "Céltes". It is not for nothing if the Roman Republic divided Gallia in three parts: Aquitania, Celtica and Belgica (during the Empire, those administrative boundaries shifted and were less related to former cultural and political entities)

Only the Celtica was inhabited only by Celts stricto-sensus (with pre and proto-Indo-european substrates).

Aquitania was inhabited by non Indo-european with a few Celtic tribes in the plains (N and E).

Belgica was mostly inhabited by celtized and partly celtized proto-Indo-european people (according to a seducing new theory, the German not being on the Rhine yet at this time), who recognized themselves as the Belgian Federation, proud of their non-celtic ("germanic") ascendancy (plus the non-Indo-european substrate). Those Belgian invaded or strongly influenced all the SW of Britain and were more advanced than the Brittons in technology and craftsmanship.

As for the Britton, according to the Roman, they were culturally nearer to the Céltes than to the Belgian.

Edited November 12, 2013 by Rodmar

[greycat]

It is important to remember though, that that the ancient writers before Caesar called people on both sides of the Rhine as Celts and did not distinguish between the two. Caesar also talks of Celts invading the most fertile pats of Germany and eventually starting to dress and eat the same food as the Germans. Calling them German seems appropriate for gaming purposes though i.m.o.

Edited November 11, 2013 by greycat

[greycat]

I guess my main point is that according to Caesar the main proponent of the term German we have Germanic tribes becoming more "Celtic" as with the Belgae. We also have Celtic tribes invading parts of Germany and becoming more "Germanic". So these terms are more a map and not the terrain itself i.m.o

Edited November 11, 2013 by greycat