Celt: Encyclopedia II - Celt - Development of the term Celt

Celt - Development of the term Celt

The first literary reference to the Celtic people, as keltoi or hidden people, is by the Greek historian Hecataeus in 517 BC. He locates the Keltoi tribe in Rhenania (West/Southwest Germany). According to Greek mythology, Celtus was the son of Heracles and Celtine, the daughter of Bretannus. Celtus became the primogenitor of Celts ^[2]. In Latin Celta, in turn from Herodotus' word for the Gauls, Keltoi. The Romans used Celtae to refer to continental Gauls, but apparently not to insular Celts, which were divided into Goidhels and Britons, and possibly other peoples. This is likely due to the possibility that, at those times, the term "Celta/Keltos" was tied to those cultures or people descendant from the Central Europe Celts, while no ties were known to the insular people (especially the Gaels whose language was extremely different from that of Brythonic Celts).

The English word is modern, attested from 1707 (Lhuyd, p. 290). ^[3] In the late 17th century the work of scholars such as Edward Lhuyd brought academic attention, then 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 and Druidic. 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 the "Celtic revival".

Nowadays "Celt" is usually pronounced as /kɛlt/ and "Celtic" as /'kɛltɪk/ (in IPA) when referring to the ethnic group and its languages, while the pronunciation /'sɛltɪk/ remains in use mainly for certain sports teams (eg. the NBA team, Boston Celtics, and the SPL side, Celtic F.C., in Glasgow). (The pronunciation with /s/ reflects historical palatalization of the letter 'C' when it occurs before 'I' or 'E' in words of Latin origin; in the Classical era Latin 'C' was always pronounced as /k/. The modern pronunciation with /k/ is a reversion to the original, whereas the pronunciation with /s/ has not been reverted.) The word spelt as "Celtic" is (arguably) English, as the Latin was "Celticus" or "Celticum", the Welsh is "Celtaidd", and the Irish/Scottish Gaelic is "Ceilteach". By this argument, a pronunciation with /s/ should therefore be acceptable.

The term "Celt" or "Celtic" can be used in several senses: it can denote a group of peoples who speak or descend from speakers of Celtic languages; or the people of prehistoric and early historic Europe who share common cultural traits which are thought to have originated in the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures. In contemporary terms, there are typically six nations defined as 'Celtic Nations'. To be defined as a Celtic nation, that nation must have ownership of a Celtic language. The first six are usually defined as Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Brittany. The additional nations of Galicia and Asturias in Spain are sometimes considered to be modern Celtic nations based on the survival of Celtic traditions similar to the traditions of other Celtic nations, however, the Celtic language has not survived in either. England retains some Celtic influences yet hasn't retained a Celtic language. (even Cornwall became fully English speaking during the 18th century) and thus falls outside of categorisation as a Celtic nation. The Brythonic language of pre-Anglo Celtic speaking peoples influences dialects of some of its more rural regions, particularly those bordering Scotland and Wales and in the south west, the best known of which are Cumbric which was spoken from Strathclyde to Derbyshire as recently as the 11th century, and the language centred on Devon — both languages are under-going a modern revival. Other areas of Europe are associated with being Celtic as well, including France, which traces its roots to the Gauls. In Scotland, the Gaelic language traces at least some of its roots to migration and settlement by the Irish Dalriada/Scotti. Due to the settlement of English speaking Angles in the lowlands, which — among other things — reduced the spread of the Gaelic language which was supplanting Brythonic in Scotland, Scots Gaelic survives only in the country's northern and western fringes in the area which comprised of the Scot kingdom of Dalriada.

The use of the word 'Celtic' as a valid umbrella term for the pre-Roman peoples of Britain has been challenged by a number of writers — including Simon James, formerly of the British Museum. His book The Atlantic Celts - Ancient People Or Modern Invention? makes the point that the Romans never used the term 'Celtic' in reference to the peoples of the Atlantic archipelago, i.e. the British Isles and Ireland, and points out that the modern term "Celt" was coined as a useful umbrella term in the early 18th century to distinguish the non-English inhabitants of the archipelago when England united with Scotland in 1707 to create the United Kingdom. Nationalists in Scotland, Ireland and Wales looked for a way to differentiate themselves from England and assert their right to independence. James then argues that, despite the obvious linguistic connections, archaeology does not suggest a united Celtic culture and that the term is misleading, no more (or less) meaningful than 'Western European' would be today.

This is somewhat misleading, however, since the Romans and Greeks did describe the Atlantic and continental Celts as being related to each other, having military alliances (and rivalries) with one another, sharing similar languages and traditions, as well as having a common religion and priest class. Additionally, archeological evidence shows quite clearly that the Atlantic and continental Celts were engaged in commerce with each other via regular trade routes. No one on either side of the debate argues that Celtic people have ever been a single homogenous political or social unit, but to argue that the Atlantic Celts were not Celts at all simply because hostile Romans never described them as such betrays a rather unscholarly bias.

Miranda Green, author of Celtic Goddesses, describes archaeologists as finding "a certain homogeneity" in the traditions in the area of Celtic habitation including Britain and Ireland — She sees the inhabitants of the British Isles and Ireland as having become thoroughly Celticized 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...". Cunliffe tempers his remarks by pointing out that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but 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 League and the Nuer of East Africa. 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, and similar political institutions — but each having its own local language and 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.

In any case, it can safely be argued that, given the fact that both Goidhels and Brythonic Celts spoke related languages, and shared many cultural, social and religious traits, many going very deep, they were indeed all members of a related group, even in the absence of early recognition of the fact and despite the linguistic and political differences between various sub groups.

Celt - Population genetics

With the information gathered recently by population geneticists, it is becoming increasingly clear that the old idea of large-scale replacement by newer invaders is sometimes a misleading concept. The Celtic ethnicity debate took off at a particularly early stage in population genetic studies.

In his book Neanderthal, archaeologist Douglas Palmer refers to genetic research conducted across Europe, then states the original modern genetic group in Europe arrived between 9,000 and 5,000 years ago with the spread of farming, displacing the earlier hunter gatherer populations. Such displacement occurred by population explosion, since farming is capable of supporting up to 60 times greater population than the hunter-gatherer lifestyle in the same area:

It seems futile to suggest people who were once part of a wider Celtic cultural group cannot be considered Celtic, any more than their direct descendants in places like Devon or Cumbria cannot be considered English in modern times.

The populations of so called Celtic countries have been found to primarily belong to haplogroup R1B, which makes them descendants of the first people to migrate into north-western Europe after the last major ice age. According to the most recently published studies of European haplogroups, around half of the current male population of that portion of Eurasia is a descendant of the R1B haplogroup.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Development of the term Celt", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki