Re: CHAT: The etymology of (King) Arthur (was Re: CHAT: reign names)

On Thursday, September 23, 2004, at 08:12 , Andreas Johansson wrote:

> Quoting Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>:
>
[snip]
>> I still find it noteworthy that no ancient author ever referred to the
>> inhabitants of Britain or Ireland as Celts, yet they knew Celts on the
>> continent.
>>
>> Far too many assumptions are made IMHO about early Britain.
>
> [snip]
>
> I might be uncharacteristically uninfected by the whole ol' "Celtic Myth"
>  for a
> young westerner who spent much of his teens plowing thru Fantasy novels,
> but
> when I hear someone question whether the ancient inhabitants of the
> British
> Isles were "Celts", my immediate interpretation is linguistic - I take it
> as
> questioning whether their languages belong to the same branch of IE as do
> the
> continental Celtic languages (Gaulish and friends).
Friends? AFAIK Gaulish is the only known one - and what is known of that
is far from perfect. But as I understand it, the main reason that the
pre-English languages of Ireland & Britain were not called 'Gallic' is
that the name resonated too much of France which in the 18th century was
depicted as our "natural enemy". But J. Caesar said the Celtae made up the
larger part of the Galli, so 'Celtic' was coined as being politically
neutral (i.e. 'political correctness' is not a late 20th century
phenomenon). Another example of the whole being named after a part?

> Now, given the arguments
> you put forth, it seems pretty clear you're rather addressing a question
> of
> what might be called ethnic identity.
Yes, in part. I am also addressing the notion I have seen in some books of
a 'Celtic Empire' stretching from Ireland, through western & central
Europe and across into Galatia in Asia Minor. There is, of course, no
evidence of any such 'empire'. But I also question the idea of a single
uniform culture, held together by 'druids', that I have seen portrayed.

It seems to me that we are dealing with a long process of diffusion and
acculturation.

> What I'm getting at is that this kind of question may be more fruitfully
> discussed if it's clear at the outset if we by terms such as "Celts"
> refers to
> a linguistic, cultural, racial or other grouping.
Indeed so - but alas the whole "Celtic Myth" has had such a hold that it
has become difficult to disentangle these elements. Even linguistically
IMO it does not help. Some people talk about various features, e.g.
initial consonant mutation, as 'typical' of the 'Celtic languages'. But
there is no evidence of this in Gaulish. This and most other 'typical'
features seem to be features of the Insular 'Celtic' languages - and their
only appearance on the continent is when British (Brezhonek) was taken
across to Brittany by those fleeing from the harassing from Saxon
encroachment & Irish piracy (no idea of common Celticness then!).

What were the elements that contributed to the Insular languages? How did
certain features that some have seen as Semitic get there? Contact with
Phoenician traders to the "Tin Isles"?  Etc.

Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
ray.brown@freeuk.com
===============================================
"They are evidently confusing science with technology."
UMBERTO ECO				September, 2004

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