The Celts

i was pondering over the name 'celtic' last night and i was just wondering, seeing as Irish and Scottish are seen to be Celtic, weren't the English Celtic at one point? meaning that the whole of the British Isles is connected through th celts in some way, or am i being stupid?:smiley-laughing002:

 

Scots, Irish, Welsh, Manx, Cornish and Bretons.

 

I don't think England and Scotland really exsisted in the form we know them as now at all back then.I'm sure there was many different lands and kingdoms and the Celts often fought each other over them.I doubt they were ever a united unit of people.There would've no doubt been Celtic people in and around 'England',but I don't think all the people there were ever classed as Celts.

 

Arn't they from Europe originally?

 

Culturally or ethnically?

Clearly, they aren't Celtic culturally-speaking.

Ethnically, the majority of DNA in Britain and Ireland is pre-Celtic (i.e. the English are mostly not ethnically Celtic).

 

The celts in England were largely displaced by the Romans, then the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, then the Vikings, then the Normans.

There are still some celtic places in England. Cumbria has a recent celtic history and Cornwall have a local celtic language related to Welsh, and a strong independence movement.

 

That's a linguistic tree mind, you got other celtic tribes all across Europe. And of course the Picts are presumed to have been celts.

 

At the time of the Roman Empire, this may've been the case, but the introduction of the Saxons & other Germanic tribes that moved into England after the Roman withdrawal meant that the traditional population was already massively depleted in those parts even prior to the time of the Norman invasion.

 

It was just an illustration, some historians are of the opinion that Picts i.e. Caledonians,Venicones, Vacomagi etc may have been indigenous to Alba:icon_mrgreen:

 

Aren't they Saxon and Norman? Bit of roman and German too. Can't forget the Bretons and abviously they'll be celts there as well.

 

And it is believed that their language was similar to Welsh, right?

 

The dominant theory is that it's in the P-Celtic tree, so similar but fairly distinct from Welsh, Breton and Cornish. No one really knows for sure though because it's extinct and the few written examples of it are in a script no one can translate. It could potentially be an isolate language like Basque, as caramia points out.

 

Thanks.

 

Good sources

Dr Alex Woolf

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7d1SP6ztlq0C&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10&dq=alex+woolf+picts&source=bl&ots=ya2X6ERpd4&sig=cYHDY8UvB2nzzeApIP0uVuwNxJg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4bd-UfzuLY66hAez14G4Aw&ved=0CGoQ6AEwCw#v=onepage&q=alex%20woolf%20picts&f=false

http://www.romanscotland.org.uk/pages/campaigns/mons_graupius/contents.asp

 

Lots of English have Celtic roots millions in fact. Cornwall had it's own Cornish language music and culture and had as much right to be a nation as Wales or Scotland did.

1616, Arthur Hopton stated:'England is ...divided into 3 great Provinces, or Countries ...every of them speaking a several and different language, as English, Welsh and Cornish.


It has though in modern times the last 30 years been a place for the rich toffs from London who have destroyed the place buying second homes making it impossible for normal Cornish people to buy their own homes. Cornwall is stunning but most of it's original culture is probably lost forever now.

 

Where I live suffers from same toff prob, retired toffs can sell stockbroker belt homes for mega money, outbid locals and relocate to a similar property here for less money, banking circa 0.5 million profit to live on

 

Interesting article.....http://www.cranntara.org.uk/gaelic.htm


It is amazing to think that a society from a foreign land feels the need to uphold a Scottish tradition so passionately when people in our own country fail to do so!
•1 By learning Scottish Gaelic you are undertaking something special. You are helping to preserve just one of the languages still under threat of perishing. You might also be inspiring native Indian people to defend their own languages. This is important because the World might lose as many as 3000 languages by 2010 unless it takes radical action.
•2 If you love history, then Scottish Gaelic is necessary. You can be transported back into another bygone age. The speaker of Gaelic embraces modern times, the Middle Ages and antiquity and his mental horizon is radically enlarged. If Americans seriously seek to affirm their roots then donning a kilt and tracing their ancestral roots is not an answer; learn Scottish Gaelic. This act not only more fully affirms an almost lost identity but practically supports Scottish culture. (Incidentally, the fact that so many Russians and Americans think the 'kilt', an English invention a symbol of Scottish, demonstrates how people continue to cling to a highly impoverished reinvention of the Scottish identity.)
•3 If you are a serious writer or poet, Scottish Gaelic can inspire creativity. Is it any wonder that we are at present witnessing a renaissance in Scottish writing when some Scots speak Lallans, Gaelic and English! The German philosopher, Schopenhauer, thought that learning ancient languages was far better for creativity than mastering modern languages as 'learning an ancient language offers more ideas than mastery of modern languages.
•4 If you are unhappy with your old identity and feel profoundly estranged and alienated from your own then join us. There is no harm in becoming Scottish. You do not have to be born in Scotland to embrace a Scottish identity. Learn the language than be born in Scotland .
•5 Learning Gaelic offers an insight into Irish culture. 75 % of words from Irish are identical with Gaelic. So you befriend not only the Scots but also the Irish. Learning Scottish Gaelic will get you far more respect from the Scots than learning English. It is one of the best complements you can pay Scotland .

 

They love the Celtic identity in Brittany. As Celt fans will know from Rennes fans.

During the 15th and 16th century it was believed Cornish, Welsh and Breton were interchangable like Scandanavian languages are today

 

I think that has largely been discredited by a lot of historians.

That being said though, some of the Pictish king names are truly bizarre though like Usconbuts and Canutluchamca. It doesn't seem totally implausible that they could have kept some of the pre indo European traditions and cultures.