Re: Germanic and Celtic (was Re: Verb-second ... verb-penultimate languages?)

staving Ray Brown:
>Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
>[snip]
>
>>What do you mean by "they"?  If you mean Continental Celtic, it is generally
>>accepted that they are the closest kin of Insular Celtic; I don't know why
>>Ray always puts "Celtic" in quotes.
>
>Not always, but often   :)
>
>I know this is controversial, and there was a thread about this some time
>back so I do not want to stir things up, but only to answer Jörg's query.
>
>None of the ancient authors ever refers to any of the inhabitants of
>Britain & Ireland as Celts. Indeed, no one referred to anyone in these
>islands as Celtic until the 18th century. Since then, however, the term
>has acquired overlays of all sorts mythic and political connotations that
>are unwarranted, so some of us are not entirely comfortable with this
>blanket term.
>
>See:
>http://www.le.ac.uk/ar/stj/celtindex.html
Did you see that programme about the history of the Celts on Channel Four a
couple of months ago? It suggested that Celtic identity was defined
culturally rather than ethnically, and that it spread across much of Europe
from the Danube region due to the cultural influence of wealthy traders.
There was a point in the programme where they compared Gaulish with Welsh,
and found some very close cognates. Caesar was quoted as saying that the
Britons spoke a language similar to the Celts of Gaul.

It is certain that the Britons did not use the term "Celts" of themselves,
nor did anyone else use the term of them in their own time. However, it is
clear that they were part of a cultural and linguistic group that includes
people who were known as Celts. The programme also said that while British
artwork was clearly in the Celtic style, there were lots of distinctive
British twists that set it apart from continental Celtic artwork.

Pete

Reply