Re: USAGE: Survey

On Sunday 16 March 2003 12:06 am, you wrote:
> I always gave "Celtic" a very strict meaning: "of or pertaining to the
> stuff from the UK and Ireland, that I've actually seen, excluding anything
> obviously British."  I don't think I had a very strong characterization of
> the term, to be honest.
I've always connected it strictly to the language and culture of the Britons
originating from the British Isles from before the times of the Roman Empire.
That also includes the Bretons, because they fled the invasion of the Angles,
the Saxons and the Jutes to Britanny - Little Britain - around the 4-5th C.
CE.

Anything originating in France, for example, or further east, is Gaulish as
far as I'm concerned.

  Presumably being involved in Irish dance and being
> raised surrounded by various nick-nacks from Europe diluted the impression
> of mystical Avalonish stuff.  That and actually trying to read some of that
> medieval stuff (which made me glad to be a relatively *modern* history
> enthusiast -- my little sister is heavy into the period between 600 and
> 1500 CE, warring hordes and such).  Anyway, in the Bible they're into
> lists, and I'd always associated those with older cultures.  I think it'd
> surprise me to see 19th century Celtic literature with lots of lists,
Actually, judging from some of my mother's family's oral history - as written
down in 1987 - the particular Welsh literary forms of characterising
individuals - the seven noble X of place Y, etc - survived well into the
nineteenth century and crossed over into English via the Non-Conformist
Churches.

Not that they lasted the conforming development of universal literacy and
cheap newspapers.

 but
> hey.  I don't think I'm quite romantic enough to have my head full of
> visions of Celtic-ness.
>
> The world of Tolkien and similar sorts of things always seemed very
> specifically otherworldly to me, not very much like what I knew Europe was
> ever really like.  I've done reenactments and I know what life was like
> before electricity and polyester and zippers, thanks much, and I like my
> dreams more fairy-like and without chamber pots.  Therefore, I adore all
> that kind of fiction, and don't have a strong romantic attraction to the
> far Western edge of Europe (at least not on that account; a part of me
> really does want to go walking through Spain and Ireland, but more for the
> immediate personal history of it -- e.g. I want to visit a certain
> monastary because my grandfather was a POW there...).  I like Irish dance
> for the way it feels (and I don't like Welsh dance, which is just as
> "Celtic") when I'm dancing.  Again, not much of a romantic.
>
> I don't like the stereotype.
I find it quite amusing.  My father's mother's mother's father - if I've got
the genealogy straight - was Welsh, born in Wales.  He was adopted by a
Krakow Jew surnamed Levy, who brought him to New Zealand; cit:
http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/DNZB/alt_frameBody.htm
Levy, Enoch Bruce; 1892 - 1985
Agricultural scientist, scientific administrator

That's two stereotypes, blamm-blamm, shotgun-fashion.  The Welsh and the
Jewish (Samuel Levy took up the trade of jeweller in Invercargill, SI, NZ,
apparently, during the Otago Gold Rush in the 1860s.).  "Cymry am bith, oy
vay!"

  But I also take offense to various Russian
> characterizations of the Baltic peoples, and am annoyed by coastal types
> who make fun of Mormons and Southerners (or, for that matter, Southerners
> who make fun of coastal types and Mormons, and Mormons who make fun of
> anyone else).  Perhaps that's because I'm a Mormon with Irish and Baltic
> roots with a ton of family in the South.  I fit a lot of stereotypes and
> don't fit a lot of the others, and all of the stereotypes seem remarkably
> unuseful.
Treat them as a good way to make fun of the stereotypist.  It's the
stereotypist offering him/herself as a sacrificial victim to whoever wants to
rip his/her self-esteem to shreds.

  I also know way more not-effeminate French people,
> not-forthright English people, warm and friendly Chinese people, etc., than
> folks that live up to those stereotypes.  It's like thinking everyone from
> California likes to surf -- what good does it do anyone, other than the
> Beach Boys?
>
> Sarah Marie Parker-Allen
> lloannna@surfside.net
> http://www.geocities.com/lloannna.geo
> http://lloannna.blogspot.com
>
> "I will not turn into a snake. It never helps." -- Rules for the Evil
> Overlord
"Ask not what you can do for your country.
"Ask instead what your country can do you for!"
Dubya's Golden Rule.

Wesley Parish

>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Constructed Languages List [mailto:CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU]On
> > Behalf Of Sally Caves
> >
> > Does the "Celtic" mean something to you outside of its linguistic
> > eccentricities?  Does it appeal because of a wider sense of mythology,
> > culture, magic, poetry, and strangeness?  I'm interested in understanding
> > the aura of "celticism," whatever that is--probably something partially
> > invented, egged on by Mythopoeia, Creative Anachronism and
> > nineteenth-century sentimentality.  Patrick Simms-Williams of Cambridge
> > derided the stereotype of the "Visionary Celt," one that is consonant
> > with other ethnic stereotypes (pace!): the forthright Englishman, the
> > inscrutable
> > Chinaman, the effiminate Frenchman, and so forth.  The
> > "visionary" Celt is a
> > person of the country who lives with his sheepdogs in a world of music,
> > poetry, and second sight, and can therefore be excused if he is not
> > paying too much attention to the economy or the affairs of the world (a
> > paraphrase
> > of something PSW quotes from some godawful conference proceedings in the
>
> ---
> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by SURFSIDE INTERNET]
--
Mau e ki, "He aha te mea nui?"
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku e ki, "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata."
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people."