Celt Question

[highlander_Daz]

No ones "right" the word celt has many different meanings depending on where you are, and in what context its used. I was simply giving and example of common useage here.

[Archangel]

Rob is right. The Celts were more dark haired and dyed their hair with natural juices. In my opinion, being Celtic is more a matter of culture and not a race for the Celts occupied most of Western Europe and the Brittish Isles. So all in all, most Europeans have the same background up until the fourth fifth century when the Vikings and other germanic tribes invaded Rome and other parts of Europe. So in my opinion, anybody can be celtic for it is a culture, although it would kind of hard to live your life like a true Celt now days.

This is pretty foggy history, but it was a foggy time. The Celts, Gael, Galations (recognize that one?) are an ancient migratory people slowly heading west. Their origins are not clear, it's supposed that perhaps India, but they got all the way west to the "seven nations".
Germanic tribes invasions were around the C4/5th, Vikings were much later.

I'm a dark brown haired Scot, red in beard before it went gray. Legends attribute that colour to the Spanish Armada's wreckage along the coast. Probably there is very little basis in fact for this.

Yeah, it's probably hard to claim a Celtic culture but I like the feeling.

[Manu]

Anybody with a Celtic background would love the idea because it is a beautiful culture so rich in every aspect. I for one am very proud of the Celtic heritage left in Spain.

[KiltedCodeWarrior]

Interesting...

I have to chime in from an experience I had at Epcot while kilted this weekend. We were walking back toward the front of the park to view the fireworks at 9:00PM. We had been there since about 1:30PM and worked our way around from Canada (and listened to the Celtic band Offkilter who were awesome) and were almost all the way around the pond to Mexico. A woman came up behind us and asked "Are you a true Scotsmen?", and I replied (not reading anything into her question) "No, actually I am of Welsh descent", she continued past us and said "No, I meant true to the wearing of the kilt!", and went on her way before I could respond.

So maybe this is a variation on "the question".

[jjoseph]

It's been done: Albion's Seed by Fischer. It's a large university level text, fairly fascinating read. It's become a classic and there are a few academic challenges to it.

Coolies! I'll mention it to my sister; she's got a Masters in linguistics. Thanks!

[Rob]

As there seems to be a lot of confusion as to who is ‘Celtic’ in the British Isles, and who isn’t, especially among Americans who want to know more about their ancestry, I will take the opportunity of presenting a bit of the historical background, as agreed by most of today’s historians.

One thing that there is a consensus on among historians, is that the old tales of successive waves of pre-historic continental invaders sweeping across the British Isles and replacing the previous inhabitants is definitely incorrect. So the Bronze Age was not brought to Britain and Ireland by a mass wave of ‘Beaker Culture’ folk, and the Iron Age was not introduced by another mass wave of invaders consisting of mid European Celts. In fact, modern archaeology, and (most recently) population genetics, shows that the population of the British Isles was fairly stable in terms of origins right up to the 43AD Roman invasion. It is now firmly believed (with strong supporting evidence) that the Indigenous Britons were predominantly the descendents of Stone Age Iberians, who migrated to, and occupied, Britain and Ireland when the ice sheets receded at the end of the last Ice Age (about 9000 years ago). Bronze (and later Iron) technologies spread to the islands by means of trade and cultural links and not by mass invasions, as had previously been thought.

The Indigenous Britons were genetically almost identical to the Basque people of Northern Spain. This is not surprising, as this was the region where they migrated from, and they must have spoken a non-Indo European language similar to that of the early Basques. Celtic languages did not exist at that time. The Indo-European family of languages (including Celtic) slowly spread across Europe a few thousand years after the Indigenous Britons arrived in the British Isles. This process did not involve mass migrations of people, but mainly trade and cultural contacts. The so-called Celts were not a single genetic grouping, but a name given to those people who acquired a Celtic language. Thus the Celts of the British Isles were not genetically related to the Celts of Central Europe. This fact is recognised by modern historians and linguists, who refer to the Celtic-speaking peoples of the British Isles as ‘Insular Celts’. The term ‘Celtic’, with reference to the Britons, was not used until the 18th century, when it was discovered that the Brythonic and Gaelic languages were members of the Celtic family.

Between the departure of the Roman Legions from Britain in 410AD and the Norman Conquest in 1066AD, Britain was invaded/settled by a number of Germanic and Nordic tribes. There were Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, Danish Vikings and Norwegian Vikings. The genetic heritage of these incomers can still be seen today, but it is not spread evenly over the island. The Danish Viking genetic signature is indistinguishable from that of the Anglo-Saxons, and this signature is mainly to be found in the eastern part of England, where percentages with Germanic genetic signatures vary from 50% to 70%. In the South, West, and some parts of Northern England, the Britons (Insular Celts) still predominate, just as they do throughout Wales, Ireland and most of Scotland. The Norwegian Viking contribution is strongest in the Northern Isles of Scotland (Orkney and Shetland), but some genetic traces can also be found in the northern coastal regions of the Scottish mainland, the Western Isles (the Outer Hebrides), the Isle of Man and also in Cumbria, where the remnants of the Vikings who were evicted from Dublin in 902AD settled.

Of the Insular Celtic languages, the Brythonic variant developed in Great Britain, and the Gaelic variant developed in Ireland. The Gaelic dialect spread to Western Scotland during the 5th/6th centuries due to some Irish migration to the Argyll region of the Scottish Highlands. The Irish ‘Scotti’ tribe thus gave Scotland its name.

The question is often asked as to who qualifies as being termed ‘Celtic’ today. The answer very much depends on the chosen definition of the term ‘Celtic’. If we restrict the term to those who still speak a Celtic language, then the answer is very few, being geographically limited to a minority of Welsh who still use the Welsh language as their everyday native tongue, and similarly the small minority of Scots and Irish who normally speak their own variants of Gaelic. Some find this definition to be too restrictive, and arbitrarily define all Scots, Irish, Welsh, Manx and Cornish as being Celts, claiming that these are the people whose ancestors spoke one of the Insular Celtic languages. Others claim that this definition is also flawed, as the ancestors of the majority of the English also spoke a Brythonic (Celtic) language, especially those in the South and West, so these should also be included, particularly those from areas (such as the South West and Cumbria) where remnants of Celtic culture, such as Celtic Wrestling, Celtic Step Dancing and variants of Hurling are still (or were recently) practiced.

What about Celts and the kilt? The kilt was definitely of Highland Scottish origin, and probably did not come into being, in a form that we would recognise today, until about the 16th century. Since then, tartans have spread throughout the world, firstly to the other Celtic regions and then into areas with no claims to Celtic origins. Most Scots seem to have no objections to this phenomenon, and some see it as a gradual spread of their influence on the rest of the World.

To sum up, the answer to the question of who is Celtic depends on which definition the individual chooses to adopt. Who can wear a kilt? Answer: Anybody who wants to.

[highlander_Daz]

Rob said "The Irish ‘Scotti’ tribe thus gave Scotland its name" I was under the Impressions that the Roman Emperor Hadrian christened us the "Scotti" because we kept raiding his outpost and stealing his supplies "scotti"=Bandit.

Im always sceptical about things that are "agreed by most historians" most of history as we percieve it is based on very flimsy evidence, and is supposition ratger than fact. There is no Celtic race to me its more of a cultural thing knowing a smattering of Gaelic words doesnt make you a celt, however residence or being a descendant of a resident of a celtic country might be a starting point.

[Rob]

Rob said "The Irish ‘Scotti’ tribe thus gave Scotland its name" I was under the Impressions that the Roman Emperor Hadrian christened us the "Scotti" because we kept raiding his outpost and stealing his supplies "scotti"=Bandit.

highlander Daz,

You are right about the name 'Scotti' being a Roman designation, but they applied it to the Irish tribe who we now refer to as the Dalriada Scots. There is ample evidence that these people settled in what is now Argyllshire in the 5th century.

Im always sceptical about things that are "agreed by most historians" most of history as we percieve it is based on very flimsy evidence, and is supposition ratger than fact. There is no Celtic race to me its more of a cultural thing knowing a smattering of Gaelic words doesnt make you a celt, however residence or being a descendant of a resident of a celtic country might be a starting point.

Defining a Celt as being a resident of a Celtic country is merely avoiding the question. What makes a country Celtic?

Rob

[Archangel]

Interesting...

I have to chime in from an experience I had at Epcot while kilted this weekend. We were walking back toward the front of the park to view the fireworks at 9:00PM. We had been there since about 1:30PM and worked our way around from Canada (and listened to the Celtic band Offkilter who were awesome) and were almost all the way around the pond to Mexico. A woman came up behind us and asked "Are you a true Scotsmen?", and I replied (not reading anything into her question) "No, actually I am of Welsh descent", she continued past us and said "No, I meant true to the wearing of the kilt!", and went on her way before I could respond.

So maybe this is a variation on "the question".

Well, yeah, braggart. That's how it's usually put around here. My answer gives nothing away because, of course, I am Scottish. Well, Canadian as of August.

[Riverkilt]

The nature of my profession has demanded extensive cultural study. Bottom line is there just aren't any groups of people who can be called "pure" anything.

Human's love romance too much.

The part of the world my ancestors came from was well mixed as documented in previous posts. My brother believes our father was such a "dark Scot" because of some story about Vikings with a load of African slaves running around on Skye and the surviving slaves being assimilated into the populus.

Whatever heritage runs in my blood, I'm kilted!

Ron