Definition of Celtic / Celticity

[Anthropologique]

The technical definition of Celtic / Celticity that is broadly accepted by academics and other experts is:

"[A] proven affiliation with the Celtic languages or (for non-linguistic evidence) a demonstrable close connection with them". This definition is provided by Barry Cunliffe, perhaps the world's most respected Celtic archaeologist and Celtic culture expert (Cunliffe and Koch, 2010).

Raimund Karl (2010), a prominent Celticist, agrees with the following definition of who is a Celt:

"[A] Celt is someone who either speaks a Celtic language or produces or uses Celtic art or material culture or has been referred to as one in historical records or has identified himself or been identified by others as such &c.".

Personally, I fully accept the first definition and the second only partially. I would not count self-identification. To this I would add: a significantly long Celtic history (say, at minimum, 500 years), evidenced by language, material culture and some form of association with Celtic "folkways" - Celtic spirituality, consciousness, and the like.

Population groups that have retained a Celtic language and / or material culture (practiced in some regular and meaningful manner) and various Celtic "folkways" combined with a long history of Celticity can certainly be classified as Celtic.

In my opinion, these population groups today can be found only in the Atlantic Facade.

[Anthropologique]

Further to the above post, in a very interesting paper, Dagmar Wodtko, a major expert on the Lusitanian language, discusses how the Celtic language spoken in Gallaecia, Galaic, was very closely connected to Lusitanian. Lusitanian is classified as Para-Celtic. The Lusitani culture was very much Celtic dominant.

See: The Problem of Lusitanian In: Celtic from the West... (2010).

[Sikeliot]

I'd generally define modern British islanders, French, Iberians, and some Central Europeans (Northern Italians, Swiss, Belgians etc.) as being, to some extent, Celtic.

[riverman]

I'd generally define modern British islanders, French, Iberians, and some Central Europeans (Northern Italians, Swiss, Belgians etc.) as being, to some extent, Celtic.
Agreed, I think that is an accurate estimation, except for many French, who I think have quite a distinct heritage from nearby Celts such as the people of Brittany. I really view Celts as an ethnic group rather than as national groups or countries, though arguably places like Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Britain have either majority or are in large part Celtic.

[Anthropologique]

I'd generally define modern British islanders, French, Iberians, and some Central Europeans (Northern Italians, Swiss, Belgians etc.) as being, to some extent, Celtic.

Don't know about the Belgians (Northern / NW Euros). The Belgae were Celtic but I don't believe there are any true surviving Celtic traditions in Belgium. The Swiss and Alpine Italians have a Celtic heritage but I'm not certain how long Celticity actually survived in Alpine Italy and Switzerland.

[riverman]

The opinions cited in the OP seem generally accurate to me, that's how I would define Celtic, anyway.
*Both the scholarly accepted opinion and the Celticist's definition.

[Anthropologique]

The opinions cited in the OP seem generally accurate to me, that's how I would define Celtic, anyway.
*Both the scholarly accepted opinion and the Celticist's definition.

I think nearly all points in the two definitions for what signifies a Celt and Celticity are universally accepted in learned circles. That's what reasonable people should go by.

[Bobcat Fraser]

Could it be like "Latino"? Could it describe varied ethnicities who share Celtic culture and language and/or descend from people who did? I descend from Gaelic Irish, Highland Scottish, and Welsh people, so I'm partly Celtic based on the second definition. I have yet to find any Cornish blood, though.

[LouisFerdinand]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e54MuhkWaHM

[brennus dux gallorum]

The ancient Celts, were a linguocultural group, they couldn't be racially homogenous as the had assimilated pre-IE population of each of their regions. I think that all the Celtic speaking+latinised people with Celtic ancestry can claim Celtic heiritage

BTW It's Kelts, not Celts ;)


I'd generally define modern British islanders, French, Iberians, and some Central Europeans (Northern Italians, Swiss, Belgians etc.) as being, to some extent, Celtic.

I agree with this, maybe except of Enlglish or even German-speaking Swiss

[Iloko]

I want to know more about this too!

[Profileid]

Iberians aren't Celtic.

[Nehellenia]

What if you're born overseas, but you're more celtic than anything else genetically and your family have strong affinity for their ancestral origin and go to cultural events.
Are you considered still celtic then? xD

[Profileid]

What if you're born overseas, but you're more celtic than anything else genetically and your family have strong affinity for their ancestral origin and go to cultural events.
Are you considered still celtic then? xD

I consider myself partially celtic. My ancestry is primarily British Isles.

[Jana]

How can anyone be a Celt without knowledge about Celtic languages ? It's primarly a liguistic group. You can be celtic-descended and ''genetically Celtic'' but without live use of the language the self-identification is pretty questionable.


Iberians aren't Celtic.
They were
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtiberians

[Nehellenia]

I consider myself partially celtic. My ancestry is primarily British Isles.

Would you consider yourself more American culturally than what you are ancestrally?
I guess it's a bit complex when you're ethnically mixed.. but i don't think one should be cancelled out if you have a strong affinity for one even if it's not majorly what you ethnically are.
I've seen some Irish online (for instance) having attitude against foreigners who claim to be Irish, particularly Americans xD but half the population left, died or were taken away after the potato famine in Ireland and some of those descendants remained marrying other Irish descendants for generations.. *cough* Conan O'Brien..

Here me -> http://i63.tinypic.com/2u90a3k.png

I have no idea where the finnish came from, so i don't believe i can claim that too xD i've visited finland twice, but considered very foreigner to the finns i know xD lol

[Profileid]

How can anyone be a Celt without knowledge about Celtic languages ? It's primarly a liguistic group. You can be celtic-descended and ''genetically Celtic'' but without live use of the language the self-identification is pretty questionable.
I guess 90% of irish aren't celtic then.



They were
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtiberians

They aren't now.
They're swarthy wogs.

[Profileid]

Would you consider yourself more American culturally than what you are ancestrally?
Definitely.not even a question.

I guess it's a bit complex when you're ethnically mixed.. but i don't think one should be cancelled out if you have a strong affinity for one even if it's not majorly what you ethnically are.
I've seen some Irish online (for instance) having attitude against foreigners who claim to be Irish, particularly Americans xD but half the population left, died or were taken away after the potato famine in Ireland and some of those descendants remained marrying other Irish descendants for generations.. *cough* Conan O'Brien..

Here me -> http://i63.tinypic.com/2u90a3k.png

I have no idea where the finnish came from, so i don't believe i can claim that too xD i've visited finland twice, but considered very foreigner to the finns i know xD lol

They're snobs. Celtic heritage in western and even central europe is huge but underappreciated.
The Finnish component is interesting. I sent out my 23andme kit today. Can't wait to see my results in like 2 months.

[Jana]

I guess 90% of irish aren't celtic then.
And that's the sad truth, their language almost died out due to English pressure and discrimination.
Gaelic Irish is learned in Irish schools so they are determined to reviwe the language and return to real Celtic identity.

''Irish is a main home, work or community language for approximately 1% of the population of the Republic of Ireland (the population of the Republic of Ireland shown to be 4,761,865 in the 2016 census). The 2011 census in Northern Ireland showed that over 10% of people spoke Irish or had "some ability in Irish" (see Irish language in Northern Ireland). At least one in four people (~1.7 million) on the island of Ireland claim to understand Irish to some extent. Estimates of fully native speakers range from 40,000 up to 80,000 people. Areas in which the language remains a vernacular are referred to as Gaeltacht areas.''
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_of_the_Irish_language


They aren't now.
They're swarthy wogs.
Broad generalization. There is no proof Celts were specifically fair either, since most Celtic areas of British Isles are also darkest in hair color.

[Nehellenia]

Definitely.not even a question.


They're snobs. Celtic heritage in western and even central europe is huge but underappreciated.
The Finnish component is interesting. I sent out my 23andme kit today. Can't wait to see my results in like 2 months.

Lol, never visited Ireland and i don't consider myself Irish at all.. it's too distant and paternal.
My mum is Scottish/Welsh and if any of them told me i wasn't one, i'd kick them in the balls xD yes i've visited those countries, my family have always been big on celtic festival and highland gatherings in particular. The average scot has usually up to 1.2% finnish, so me having 6.2% is highly strange and wouldn't know how it was possible unless i have some distant ancestry i don't know about.. i expected more scandinavian due to history.. my grandma/mum/sisters all look very northern.
I'll wait for your DNA results then.

[brennus dux gallorum]

I guess 90% of irish aren't celtic then.




They aren't now.
They're swarthy wogs.

majority of celts were swarthy, if i am not mistaken especially people from southern england and wales were described as such by romans.

and how could people linguistically similar to the inhabitants of italian peninsula (italics, see italo-celts) being scandinavian looking

[Profileid]

majority of celts were swarthy, if i am not mistaken especially people from southern england and wales were described as such by romans.

and how could people linguistically similar to the inhabitants of italian peninsula (italics, see italo-celts) being scandinavian looking

Celtic culture originated in central Europe. Hallstatt Austria.
the short woggish romans described them as being pale,tall warriors who breathed fire and they were scared shitless.

italics absorbed older populations in the italian peninsula which is why italians are dark.

also i never said they were scandinavian looking. they're their own thing.

[Brás Garcia de Mascarenhas]

the short woggish romans described them as being pale,tall warriors who breathed fire and they were scared shitless..

Nearly all Celtic regions were conquered and dominated by "short woggish Romans" for centuries. Learn some history please. "They were scared shitless": lol! You're reading too much Asterix and Obelix, please...

[Brás Garcia de Mascarenhas]

Also I hate to tell you that I am fully native Iberian and my Y-DNA peaks in freaking Ireland and Scotland. I must have gotten it by magic. Lets see which Y-DNA you will get when your results arrive ;) Lets see if it is a Celtic haplogroup as well.

[brennus dux gallorum]

Celtic culture originated in central Europe. Hallstatt Austria.

And so did most of the people who later colonized most of Southern Europe

italics absorbed older populations in the italian peninsula which is why italians are dark.
the same goes for all Europeans, with the exception of Balto-slavs

also i never said they were scandinavian looking. they're their own thing.
and this own thing of them back then, was more like a pale version of southern looking than a dark version of northern looking. i am not saying they were associated with southern Europe, but at least related

[Neon Knight]

I don't object to it, but it is quite a romantic thing for a modern person to identify with any of these ancient cultures - Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Viking, etc. They all had much more in common with each other than they would have with any of us. I suppose national or ethno-national identities are what is important now.

[Brás Garcia de Mascarenhas]

I don't object to it, but it is quite a romantic thing for a modern person to identify with any of these ancient cultures - Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Viking, etc. They all had much more in common with each other than they would have with any of us. I suppose national or ethno-national identities are what is important now.

Same, I know I am Iberian but I don't introduce myself as Iberian in real life, just as Portuguese obviously otherwise I would sound like a freaking weirdo.

[MinervaItalica]

the short woggish romans described them as being pale,tall warriors who breathed fire and they were scared shitless.

italics absorbed older populations in the italian peninsula which is why italians are dark.


Says the Syrian girl...

[Profileid]

Nearly all Celtic regions were conquered and dominated by "short woggish Romans" for centuries. Learn some history please. "They were scared shitless": lol! You're reading too much Asterix and Obelix, please...


The Gauls are tall of body with rippling muscles and white of skin and their hair is blond, and not only naturally so for they also make it their practice by artificial means to increase the distinguishing colour which nature has given it. For they are always washing their hair in limewater and they pull it back from the forehead to the nape of the neck, with the result that their appearance is like that of Satyrs and Pans since the treatment of their hair makes it so heavy and coarse that it differs in no respect from the mane of horses. Some of them shave the beard but others let it grow a little; and the nobles shave their cheeks but they let the moustache grow until it covers the mouth.
-Diodorus Siculus

Also I hate to tell you that I am fully native Iberian and my Y-DNA peaks in freaking Ireland and Scotland. I must have gotten it by magic. Lets see which Y-DNA you will get when your results arrive ;) Lets see if it is a Celtic haplogroup as well.

I would love to show you,but I don't have Y-DNA and couldn't get my brother to spit in the tube.

[Mingle]

BTW It's Kelts, not Celts ;)

It's unfortunately spelled Celt in English. The <c> in English should be pronounced like a /k/ but it is not. If we are going to respell Kelt, then we would also have to respell Makedonia, Thrake, Kyprus, Dakia, Kappadokia, etc. (even the word etcetera was pronounced etketera in Latin). Even the <c> in Greece wasn't supposed to be pronounced like an /s/.


I agree with this, maybe except of Enlglish or even German-speaking Swiss

Why are they exempt? English and German-Swiss people are mostly Celticized natives. I don't consider them Celts though, but it makes no sense to exclude them if you are going to consider Frenchies and Iberians as Celtic.

[Mingle]

Also I hate to tell you that I am fully native Iberian and my Y-DNA peaks in freaking Ireland and Scotland. I must have gotten it by magic. Lets see which Y-DNA you will get when your results arrive ;) Lets see if it is a Celtic haplogroup as well.

You probably have a different subclade from British Islanders, as that's usually the case.

[Enflamme]

Celtic doesn't exist.

[The.Mask]

Celtic culture originated in central Europe. Hallstatt Austria.
the short woggish romans described them as being pale,tall warriors who breathed fire and they were scared shitless.

italics absorbed older populations in the italian peninsula which is why italians are dark.

also i never said they were scandinavian looking. they're their own thing.celts were actually subhumans who were totally genocides by Romans even though celts were the most numerous people in Europe by the time stretching from northern iberia to western and northwestern Europe and central Europe.

They were eradicated.

Also roman soldiers were not short, especially during the imperial age when Illyrian soldiery rised to very high levels.


The typical Albania haplogroup Ev-13 was founded in high abundance in all roman military settlements in Britain when they conquered it.

[Al-Meksiki]

It's a language group, same as the concept of Slavs

[Profileid]

celts were actually subhumans who were totally genocides by Romans even though celts were the most numerous people in Europe by the time stretching from northern iberia to western and northwestern Europe and central Europe.

They were eradicated.

Also roman soldiers were not short, especially during the imperial age when Illyrian soldiery rised to very high levels.


The typical Albania haplogroup Ev-13 was founded in high abundance in all roman military settlements in Britain when they conquered it.

How were they subhumans or totally eradicated? The ones in Gaul adopted Roman culture but were still genetically the same people.
There's no evidence at all to suggest they were totally eradicated.

[Ajeje Brazorf]

Celtic culture originated in central Europe. Hallstatt Austria.
the short woggish romans described them as being pale,tall warriors who breathed fire and they were scared shitless.

italics absorbed older populations in the italian peninsula which is why italians are dark.

also i never said they were scandinavian looking. they're their own thing.

Not all Italians are the same and not all are dark like us southerners, don't you know? How ignorant must you be to say that Romans were "short woggish and scared shitless"? Do you even know that about 20-40% of the difference in height between individuals can be attributed to environmental effects, mainly nutrition? Insufficient protein can lead to a perceptible reduction in height even where the caloric intake is adequate, as has been shown by a number of studies, so that reductions in the consumption of meat or vegetable protein in the working class diet which would only be revealed by detailed surveys of consumption can be detected through anthropometric evidence. The relatively recent reappearance of significant quantities of meat in modern European lower class diets is likely an important factor in the marked improvement in mean heights over the last two centuries, just as the continued, albeit narrowing, gap between the heights of Southern and Northern Europeans over the last two centuries is presumably attributable to the more restricted use of meat in the traditional Mediterranean diet. For example data derived from burials show that before 1850, the mean stature of males and females in Leiden, Netherlands was respectively 166.7cm (5' 5.6") and 156.7cm (5' 1.7"), the average height of 19-year-old Dutch orphans in 1865 was 160 cm (5' 3"). Nero recruited the Legio I Italica and the original legionaries were Italics, all over 182cm tall. They have been able to estimate the mean height of Italian adult males at 168.3 cm (5' 6.4"), by synthesizing the results of 49 separate studies, based upon the measurement of long bones from 927 adult male skeletons from throughout Italy dated between 500 BC and 500 AD. We are dealing with adult males of all ages, not, with young men. It is very well documented that males tend to reach their final height between 18 and their early 20s depending upon their level of nutrition, and that their height gradually declines thereafter, particularly in middle and old age, by a good 3cm or more according to some estimates. The average height of Italian conscripts born in 1854 was a mere 162.64cm, over 5cm or 2 inches shorter than deceased Romans. Not until 1956, when the age cohort born in 1936 reached military age, would a segment of the modem Italian population match the Romans in height and therefore nutrition. Two Italian physical anthropologists, S. M. Borgognini Tarli and F. Mazzotta, have compiled and averaged measurements of long bone lengths from Italian anthropological studies prior to 1983, examining a total of 459 papers studying Italian skeletal remains dating from 2000 BC through 1000 AD, these measurements yield an average stature for Roman era Italians of 167.46cm. Vegetius emphasized the shortcomings of the Roman Army in his lifetime. To do this, he eulogised the army of the early Empire. In particular, he stresses the high standard of the legionaries and the excellence of the training and the officer corps. In reality, Vegetius probably describes an ideal rather than the reality. The army of the early Empire was a formidable fighting force, but it probably was not in its entirety quite as good as Vegetius describes. In particular, the 5' 10" minimum height limit identified by Vegetius would have excluded the majority of the men in Roman times (the Roman foot was less than the English foot, at 11.65 inches; hence, 5' 10" Roman is 5' 7.5" in modern terms, which is just above average height of Roman (Italian) men of the time from skeletal evidence from Herculaneum in 79 AD). The major samples from Herculaneum and Pompeii reveal that the average height for females was calculated from the data to have been 155cm in Herculaneum and 154cm in Pompeii: that for males was 169cm in Herculaneum and 166cm in Pompeii. This is somewhat higher than the average height of modern Neapolitans in the 1960s and about 10 cm shorter than the WHO recommendations for modern world populations. The emperor Valentinian (364–375) lowered the height limit to 5' 7" Roman which equals 5' 5". Despite the romanticism extolling the idealized virtues of the Roman legion of an earlier time, Vegetius' De Re Militari remains a reliable and useful insight into the success of the early Roman Empire. Vegetius also commented on the great stature of German warriors: "what could the short Roman soldier dare to do again the tall German?" Such tales may have been stereotyping or even propaganda, an attempt to portray the Germanic warrior as fierce and dangerous, a worthy foe for the Roman legionary. Were northern Europeans taller, on average, than their Mediterranean counterparts, or is this a myth? What we need is some comparison of ancient skeletons from southern Europe (the Mediterranean) with a similar sized sample from northern Europe. Two climatologists, Nikola Koepke and Joerg Baten, examined thousands of skeletons from across the continent and from the past 2000 years. They were looking for a relationship between the sizes of people in the past in relation to climatic temperature. They found that bodies from the north were generally taller than their Mediterranean counterparts, due most probably to low population densities and a long-standing, protein-rich diet based on cattle-rearing practices. Germanic folk were on average 1.63cm taller, giving the German tribesmen an average height of 170cm. Germans were by no means "giants" in comparison to some of their Italian officers, but on the whole were taller and probably slightly better built than them.

A map showing the average height of men in the British Isles, 1897

http://i.imgur.com/iwwvZ0u.png

http://i.imgur.com/H0FIDpj.png

Table 1: Greco-Roman skeletal remains. Mean Heights (cm) of late Iron age and Roman era Italian males

http://i.imgur.com/inZgsTf.png
http://i.imgur.com/TeUs0ju.png

Table 2: the dates at which nations achieved particular mean heights mean height achieved (cm)

http://i.imgur.com/SduVvId.png

[Peterski]

Celtic Britons were genetically just like modern British people:

http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?212389-Ancient-Britons-amp-Anglo-Saxons-in-Eurogenes-K36&p=4452921&viewfull=1#post4452921

http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?213198-K36-Roman-era-gladiators-from-York-and-Anglo-Saxon-from-Teeside&p=4468667&viewfull=1#post4468667

Modern English people, like Norb, are mostly Celtic-descended:

http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?212016-My-Eurogenes-Admixture-Proportions-GEDmatch-results-what-do-they-tell-you&p=4464054&viewfull=1#post4464054

Similarity rates of Hinxton-1 (Celtic Briton from 160 BC - 26 AD) to modern populations:

http://i.imgur.com/0RwfyPL.jpg

Similarity rates of Hinxton-4 (Celtic Briton from 170 BC - 80 AD) to modern populations:

http://i.imgur.com/6vgXRaA.jpg

RISE174 (427-611 AD) shows how the genetic profile of Anglo-Saxon invaders looked like:

http://i.imgur.com/bWQZO4n.jpg

[Ajeje Brazorf]

Celtic Britons were genetically just like modern British people

http://i.imgur.com/2rZ1HET.png

[Brás Garcia de Mascarenhas]

You probably have a different subclade from British Islanders, as that's usually the case.

Perhaps and perhaps not. I got 18% Northwestern European from which at least 6% is British\Irish. Nearly 15% of it is still unassigned though, I hope in the future they will fix it.

[Bell Beaker]

Even if Celtic languages are dying in Britain and NW France, many people still have huge amounts of Celtic ancestry, like the Irish, Scottish, Welsh, the English, Swiss, Austrians and the French.

Portuguese, Spaniards, and North Central Italians have also significant amounts of it!

[Profileid]

stuff

Didn't read.
Deal with it wog.

[Ziveth]

They are British islanders or from Ireland. They have light hair (usually red or light brown) and light blue/green eyes, plus the Hallstat celtic, they have more blonde hair than red.
Celtic:
https://uploadir.com/u/wlx9bneu
Hallstatt:
http://i.imgur.com/mq0QlvC.png
Of course be celtic depends also on culture and history, not only on race.

[de Burgh II]

Celts were essentially a Indo-European Steppe population that sprung forth in Central-Eastern Europe before they were pushed to Western Europe. Western Europeans before the coinciding Bronze age were genetically a pre-Indo-European population of native WHG and Neolithic farmer ancestry. So the Celtic tribes that mixed with these populations in this vicinity of Europe were eventually assimilated by other peoples as history played out. Thus, Celtic culture and the language were no more besides surviving in pockets on the British Isles and Brittany.

[Benacer]

Celtic is a somewhat vague historical term to describe a wide array of different peoples, as well as their language group, and to a lesser extent, a shared culture among those peoples. In modern times it's useful for classifying the language family. I think the use of such historical cultural groupings to classify modern day cultures can be a bit complicated, even if there is a shared historical root and maybe some historical chain of causality linking ancient peoples to modern ones, things just change a damn lot over time. In the end people just end up adopting the customs that are more practical and make life more bearable, there is no emotionally charged romanticism that can resist that.

[Iloko]

Celtic maps:
http://i.imgur.com/HLW0rZT.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/KjSqaZV.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ZLfg4jm.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/tzAbqX1.gif
http://i.imgur.com/Xhkv72j.gif
http://i.imgur.com/R4bbMKs.jpg
...
Modern genetic relatedness:
http://i.imgur.com/xSdOThN.png

[The.Mask]

How were they subhumans or totally eradicated? The ones in Gaul adopted Roman culture but were still genetically the same people.
There's no evidence at all to suggest they were totally eradicated.

Eredication means to lose your language and culture and Romans managed to genocide cells in large numbers by also genociding their culture and language.

Albanians did not lose their language and culture even thought we were 20 times less in numbers than celts and we also were a leading faction in the roman empire with 35 illyrian-roman emperors.

[catgeorge]

When Diodoro Ciculus wrote about Celts it was Julius Ceasar campaigns against the Gauls. He only wrote about Gauls and were the Celts. So they are French.

[Grace O'Malley]

All the people saying Celts no longer exist. :) The Irish are still classified as Celts today because what other group would they be associated with? What is the motive of people denying the Celticity of places like Ireland and Wales?

Dictionary definition.

NOUN

1A member of a group of peoples inhabiting much of Europe and Asia Minor in pre-Roman times. Their culture developed in the late Bronze Age around the upper Danube, and reached its height in the La Tène culture (5th to 1st centuries BC) before being overrun by the Romans and various Germanic peoples.
Example sentences
1.1 A native of any of the modern nations or regions in which Celtic languages are (or were until recently) spoken; a person of Irish, Highland Scottish, Manx, Welsh, or Cornish descent.

Celtic League definition of Celt:
The only accurate way to define Celtic is by language and its attendant culture. A Celt is simply one who speaks, or is known to have spoken within the modern historical period, a Celtic language.

https://www.celticleague.net/tag/professor-kenneth-mackinnon/

Here an interesting article on why Galicia wasn't accepted as a Celtic nation and discussion on who they consider Celtic countries today.

https://www.transceltic.com/pan-celtic/celtic-identity-language-and-question-of-galicia

Anyway people on here can say there are no Celts today but the truth of the matter is that people like Irish, Welsh, Scots and Bretons are still considered Celts. Argue about it all you like but you won't change this.

[Potentia]

Also I hate to tell you that I am fully native Iberian and my Y-DNA peaks in freaking Ireland and Scotland. I must have gotten it by magic. Lets see which Y-DNA you will get when your results arrive ;) Lets see if it is a Celtic haplogroup as well.

Lmao. You poor Celts.

My Spanish Ancestors had R1b-U152.

ROMA INVICTA

https://i.gyazo.com/4a5a76ce6bf4691fb4cbc139bad3df6b.png

[Neon Knight]

All the people saying Celts no longer exist. :) The Irish are still classified as Celts today because what other group would they be associated with? What is the motive of people denying the Celticity of places like Ireland and Wales?

Dictionary definition.

NOUN

1A member of a group of peoples inhabiting much of Europe and Asia Minor in pre-Roman times. Their culture developed in the late Bronze Age around the upper Danube, and reached its height in the La Tène culture (5th to 1st centuries BC) before being overrun by the Romans and various Germanic peoples.
Example sentences
1.1 A native of any of the modern nations or regions in which Celtic languages are (or were until recently) spoken; a person of Irish, Highland Scottish, Manx, Welsh, or Cornish descent.

Celtic League definition of Celt:

https://www.celticleague.net/tag/professor-kenneth-mackinnon/

Here an interesting article on why Galicia wasn't accepted as a Celtic nation and discussion on who they consider Celtic countries today.

https://www.transceltic.com/pan-celtic/celtic-identity-language-and-question-of-galicia

Anyway people on here can say there are no Celts today but the truth of the matter is that people like Irish, Welsh, Scots and Bretons are still considered Celts. Argue about it all you like but you won't change this.
What do you say are the minimum qualifications for being a Celt? Speaking a Celtic language and having a certain amount of ancestry (how much and from how far back?) or just one of those?

[brennus dux gallorum]

Celtic maps:
http://i.imgur.com/HLW0rZT.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/KjSqaZV.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ZLfg4jm.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/tzAbqX1.gif
http://i.imgur.com/Xhkv72j.gif
http://i.imgur.com/R4bbMKs.jpg
...
Modern genetic relatedness:
http://i.imgur.com/xSdOThN.png

3 and 4 maps are wrong

There was zero celtic presence in most of Netherlands and half of Germany, meanwhile picts were almost equally celtic, and of course Provence was inhabited mainly by celts, in contrast to what these 2 maps show

[Neon Knight]

What do you say are the minimum qualifications for being a Celt? Speaking a Celtic language and having a certain amount of ancestry (how much and from how far back?) or just one of those?
Any opinions on this? Does the Irish speaking Gaelic as a second language make them Celts? And are they are then not also Anglo-Saxons because they speak English? If a Russian learns to speak Welsh (Brythonic) very well does he then become a Celt or a Celto-Slav?

[Creoda]

It's nothing but history for nearly everybody, except for pockets of NW Europe. Unless you speak a Celtic language it's all larping.

[Faklon]

Celticism, Celtitude, and Celticity: the consumption of the past in the age of globalization.
(https://www.academia.edu/273595/Celticism_Celtitude_and_Celticity_the_consumption_ of_the_past_in_the_age_of_globalization?fbclid=IwA R2koJNpcO2sdp2EsJ0bxKLJe0GM2l68wRcfLUEl29cmGyuS-sTFGRaWFN0)


A few of these organizations,such as the Druid Order and the Ancient Order of Druids , have histories dating back to the firstRomantic revival of druidism in the 18 th century.However, the vast majority are of quite recentorigin – some dating to the 1960s and most to thepast couple of decades. Moreover, whereas theearlier neo-druids operated within the frameworkof what is called “Celtic Christianity” and weremarkedly patriarchal, most of the newer branchesthat have arisen during the past couple of decadesconsider themselves to be part of the neo-Paganor New Age movements (Adler 1986; Bowman1993; 1996; Hardman 1996; Hutton 1996). Hence,they tend to be polytheistic, strongly feminist,and largely “green” in orientation. Indeed, manyof the founders of recent druid organizationswere former practitioners of the other dominantneo-Pagan religion, Wicca (see Shallcrass 1996).And in many branches there is a good dealof mutual borrowing of ritual and symbolismbetween Druids and Wiccans (not to mention bor-rowing from Native American, Hindu, and other religions). There are even groves of Zen Druids inOlympia (Washington), and Hassidic Druids in St.Louis who mix Yiddish and Celtic traditions (Adler 1986, 324-325). Clearly such neo-druids have con-structed a very different sense of what it means tobe “Celtic” than, for example, the Breton Movement,Scottish nationalists, or the “Celtomaniac” Frenchnationalist historians of the 19th century invoking“our ancestors the Gauls” (Chapman 1992; Dietler 1994; McDonald 1989).


For example, one of the limited bits of reliable observation we do have from ancient texts about druids is that they maintained a strongly oral culture, insisting that vast amounts of information be committed to memory and strongly resisting the use of writing.



Among other ironic features isthe fact that neo-druids, who are overwhelminglyin sympathy with ecological and animal rights movements, should have found inspiration in an ancient religion for which the few rituals actually known include, prominently, human and animal sacrifices.


“The Druids had some unpleasant customs which I have no intention of perpetuating… It isi mportant to know where you are coming from if you are going to claim you are connected to certain ancestors or traditions. If you say you area ‘Druid’ you ought to know what kind of peoplethey were and what kinds of thoughts they had.Then you can pick and choose what parts make sense in modern America” (Adler 1986, 326).


A taste for Celtic music is no longer confined simply toregional folk music enthusiasts or nostalgic ethnicdiasporas; it has now become ubiquitous in NewAge contexts, Hollywood film soundtracks (rang-ing from Braveheart to Titanic ), Broadway-stylemusical shows (such as Riverdance and CelticTiger ), and a host of other venues. A recent pro-gram on American PBS television called “CelticWoman” featured singers from Ireland performing an eclectic range of pop music that was linkedmostly by the New Age “Celtic” style in which it was rendered.


t is clear that these new forms of Celtitude and Celticity have a large and expanding commercialdimension that fuels consumption. Yet, even asglobal identityscapes, they have an ambivalentrelationship to globalization. On the one hand,the construction of both forms of a trans-nationalCeltic imaginary involves a reaction against globalization. In the case of Celtitude, this generally centers around a rural image of the ancestralhomeland that is frozen in time and removed fromthe economic and social realities of, for example,the “Celtic Tiger” of the new Ireland. Similarly,Celticity is in many ways fundamentally constituted by a neo-Romantic reaction against globalcapitalism and the spiritual and environmental destruction it is believed to have wrought. Yet both are enabled and fed by global technologies,global flows of capital, and global mediascapes. In addition to the elements already mentioned, such as the roots tourism industry feeding diaspora pilgrimage to the mystical homeland and the Celtic music industry, there is a wide, and ever increasing,range of products and services that play upon the Celtic theme.


Archaeologists have not been insensitive tothis market of avid consumers, as the proliferationof lavishly (and sometimes luridly) illustrated cof-fee-table books on “The Celts”, “The Celtic World”,“Celtic Gods and Goddesses”, “Celtic Art”, etc. testi-fies. Moreover, even for the specialist academicmarket, the logic of publishers’ marketing pressures(at least in the Anglophone world) demands thatthe word “Celtic” is now virtually mandatory inthe title of almost any book on the European IronAge, even though many professionals have seriousreservations about the scholarly use of the word.


For example, neo-Pagandruids often feel that New Age Celtic enthusiastsare responsible for a commercialization of spirituality (Bowman 1996), and Irish-diaspora Celt sare sometimes annoyed by what they disparageas inauthentic, frivolous claims to Celticity byneo-druids and New Agers alike. A more seriouspolitical concern is that many of the more traditional regionalist Celticism movements view the universalizing discourses of postmodern Celticity with alarm as a new form of cultural imperialism– an attempt to absorb, co-opt, and delegitimizetheir own sense of distinctive local culture andidentity and to impose a new form of hegemonic center-periphery relationship.

[Cristiano viejo]

Celticity = Celtiberianism, nothing else.

[Ford]

A Celt in modern times is someone who either speaks a Celtic language or has a significant connection to one of the living Celtic languages/cultures.

Celt in the historical sense is quite a broad umbrella term that is often misused in modern times.

[Cristiano viejo]

A Celt in modern times is someone who either speaks a Celtic language or has a significant connection to one of the living Celtic languages/cultures.

Celt in the historical sense is quite a broad umbrella term that is often misused in modern times.
Sorry but that is a stupid definition. According it Iberians are not Iberians "because we dont speak any Iberian language" :rolleyes:

My city was founded by Celtiberians, and maaaaany Celtiberian traditions still survive nowadays. That is equally important if not more than just language.

[Token]

Sorry but that is a stupid definition. According it Iberians are not Iberians "because we dont speak any Iberian language" :rolleyes:

My city was founded by Celtiberians, and maaaaany Celtiberian traditions still survive nowadays. That is equally important if not more than just language.

If the only criteria are a Celtic past and surviving traditions from Celtic times, then pretty much all of Western Europe would be Celtic.

[Ford]

Sorry but that is a stupid definition. According it Iberians are not Iberians "because we dont speak any Iberian language" :rolleyes:

My city was founded by Celtiberians, and maaaaany Celtiberian traditions still survive nowadays. That is equally important if not more than just language.

You are Iberian of course, it's just a name given to a peninsula (albeit with a toponym of Celtic origin via Latin, but that is irrelevant). The Celts have also left strong cultural and archaeological prints in the Balkans too, or pretty much anywhere in mainland Europe. Still can't be called anything but maybe Celtic influenced in various degrees. It's a distant memory for most modern Europeans except for the actual Celts.

[Cristiano viejo]

If the only criteria are a Celtic past and surviving traditions from Celtic times, then pretty much all of Western Europe would be Celtic.

I could not care less about the rest of Europe or Western Europe. I am talking about my land, which for sure remains much more traditions, toponyms and archaelogical sites than most of the rest of these countries.

[Token]

I could not care less about the rest of Europe or Western Europe. I am talking about my land, which for sure remains much more traditions, toponyms and archaelogical sites than most of the rest of these countries.

Pretty sure you aren't able to prove anything you said. Celtic toponymy isn't particularly concentrated in Spain compared to the rest of Western Europe:

https://i.redd.it/60p87wez3tc41.png

[Creoda]

I wonder if anyone else on here but me has a Celtic surname.

[Cristiano viejo]

Pretty sure you aren't able to prove anything you said. Celtic toponymy isn't particularly concentrated in Spain compared to the rest of Western Europe:

https://i.redd.it/60p87wez3tc41.png

I dont need to prove anything, you did. Thanks to prove my points in that map :thumb001: Even Ireland is a joke compared with Spain :thumb001:

[Token]

I dont need to prove anything, you did. Thanks to prove my points in that map :thumb001: Even Ireland is a joke compared with Spain :thumb001:

The map doesn't includes data for western Ireland, which is why it is painted white. :laugh:

If anything, the map shows that Spain is a joke compared to Britain and France. Now why don't you show us some of the many extremely Celtic traditions of Spain, Cristiano.

[Grace O'Malley]

I wonder if anyone else on here but me has a Celtic surname.

Yes my maiden surname is Celtic as was my mother's but as I'm sure with yourself we all use the Anglicised versions.

You also get some people from the Gaeltacht like Gráinne Seoige in English that would be Grace Joyce and Joyce is a surname of Norman origin. There are quite a few native Irish speakers that have Norman surnames which is a bit strange to think about. A good example is Peig Sayers who was a native Irish speaker and seanchaí who wrote stories in Irish but Sayers is a Norman origin name. No doubt that someone like Gráinne Seoige and Peig Sayers would be Celts as Gráinne is a native from the Gaeltacht and Peig was an Irish speaker from the last century.

So I agree that for people to call themselves Celts they should be speakers of a Celtic language. Someone that has no connection to the Celts other than through ancient history is not a Celt. Most countries have so many influences that the only thing people could say is that their country had Celtic influences which obviously many countries had including places like the Czech Republic. The only countries that can be members of the Celtic League for example have a living Celtic language, excepting Cornwall for some strange reason, as their Celtic language died out in the last century. Their reasoning is obvious in that their main objective is to preserve the Celtic languages that are still here.

[Grace O'Malley]

Pretty sure you aren't able to prove anything you said. Celtic toponymy isn't particularly concentrated in Spain compared to the rest of Western Europe:

https://i.redd.it/60p87wez3tc41.png

How is all of Ireland without Celtic toponymy when their names are from the Irish language which is Celtic? That's a bit odd?

Actually if you read the Reddit thread on the map


It seems to be due to the sources. The names are pulled from ancient Roman and Greek sources. Ireland was never conquered, and the Roman presence there was mostly limited to trading on the east coast. So while Britain has many records, Ireland is severely lacking.


There aren’t. The map is wrong. Or it’s using Latin sources as noted elsewhere in this post.

Ireland is full of Celtic place names, Anglicised from Irish. Irish is a Goidelic Celtic language. And by “full” I mean literally nearly every place name is derived from Irish. I can think of only a very few exceptions.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/etilrz/frequency_of_celtic_place_names_across_europe/

I looked for the source of the map and found it was posted in Reddit because I thought how odd when Ireland is full of Celtic names. :)

[Grace O'Malley]

Here we go which explains why Ireland is so bereft. It is a map from classical sources.

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/0a/b6/73/0ab67315ef629f407bda53e20467d25f.jpg

[Token]

How is all of Ireland without Celtic toponymy when their names are from the Irish language which is Celtic? That's a bit odd?

Actually if you read the Reddit thread on the map

https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/etilrz/frequency_of_celtic_place_names_across_europe/

I looked for the source of the map and found it was posted in Reddit because I thought how odd when Ireland is full of Celtic names. :)
The map doesn't includes data for Ireland as i wrote in my previous post, and that's why it is painted in white like eastern Europe.

[Grace O'Malley]

The map doesn't includes data for Ireland as i wrote in my previous post, and that's why it is painted in white like eastern Europe.

I missed that. :thumb001: Cross posted.

[Cristiano viejo]

The map doesn't includes data for western Ireland, which is why it is painted white. :laugh:
As white as Morocco :laugh:


If anything, the map shows that Spain is a joke compared to Britain and France.
Then you should put glasses, Spain, specially the Western part, is quite colored, while Ireland, wtf :lol:

And that is why I said, textually, "I am talking about my land, which for sure remains much more traditions, toponyms and archaelogical sites than most of the rest of these countries."... but I did not expect a Brazilian was able to read it properly, my bad :thumb001:


Now why don't you show us some of the many extremely Celtic traditions of Spain, Cristiano.
Sure

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danzas_de_palos_y_de_cintas
https://megustavolar.iberia.com/2016/03/celtas-magia-espana/
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BAsica_celta#M%C3%BAsica_celta_en_Espa%C3%B1a
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapa_das_bestas
http://thisistherealspain.com/es/actualidad/mas-alla-de-halloween

[Faklon]

Morocco is part of the Atlantic facade


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH-2-114Dzc&ab_channel=AlFirdausEnsemble%D9%81%D8%B1%D9%82%D8% A9%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%81%D8%B1%D8%AF%D9%88%D8%B3

[Token]

I missed that. :thumb001: Cross posted.

Here's the original map from Oppenheimer 2010, it's indeed based on Hellenistic and Roman sources:

http://s155239215.onlinehome.us/turkic/20Roots/211Celts/Cunliffe2010Celts-2.jpg

I've found it strange that eastern Britain had so many Celtic toponymy when it is well known that Anglo-Saxons practically erased them. That explains it. It is interesting to see how much of a impact the Celts were able to make in Britain when we consider that place names tend to fossilize if the newcomers are largely outnumbered by the natives.

[Creoda]

Here's the original map from Oppenheimer 2010, it's indeed based on Hellenistic and Roman sources:

http://s155239215.onlinehome.us/turkic/20Roots/211Celts/Cunliffe2010Celts-2.jpg

I've found it strange that eastern Britain had so many Celtic toponymy when it is well known that Anglo-Saxons practically erased them. That explains it. It is interesting to see how much of a impact the Celts were able to make in Britain when we consider that place names tend to fossilize if the newcomers are largely outnumbered by the natives.
Can you expand on this?

btw here is your map again
https://i.postimg.cc/Df1Yc05w/Cunliffe2010-Celts-2.jpg

[Curiosity]

Any opinions on this? Does the Irish speaking Gaelic as a second language make them Celts? And are they are then not also Anglo-Saxons because they speak English? If a Russian learns to speak Welsh (Brythonic) very well does he then become a Celt or a Celto-Slav?

I don't know that much about Celts to be able to contribute, I just wanted to point out here that this comparison you did with russians learning welsh doesn't really make sense, does it? Irish people speak gaelic as a second language only due to colonization and english having been "forced" upon them, but originally spoke irish or irish gaelic (it differs from scottish gaelic doesnt it?), however it is called, I'm not sure. They usually refer to it (as far as I was able to understand while I was living there) as simply Irish. It's not really just like learning any random second language. Also, even though the majority of them is not fluent in gaelic, they are still in contact with the language all the time: they still learn it in school, their signs on the streets are written in both english and gaelic, most phone services will have english and Irish options, they very often have Irish names, and there are even some places where they still mostly speak Irish. I remember that an irish friend told me she went to some kind of summer camp/school in a place where everyone would speak Irish, and that was the objective.

Again, I dont know much about the subject but if you are going to call any single people "Celts", It is the Irish, isn't it ? Does it get more Celt than them?

[Token]

Can you expand on this?
When the newcomers aren't numerous enough there is a natural tendency of the invaders to insert themselves into the existing superstructure and adopt the place names of the native population because that's easier and far more lucrative than entirely reorganizing and redistributing the land. That's essentially what migration studies call "elite dominance model". Case studies of the Norman conquest of Britain (where the invaders simply accommodated themselves in the existing estates, without any significant redistribution of land) and earlier in the fall of the Roman Empire prove the point - in both cases the toponymy remained largely untouched. The same is true for parts of Latin America (Peru comes to mind as a very good example). On the opposite, when the invaders are numerically significant, the existing superstructure isn't able to accommodate the newcomers. Thus the land is completely reorganized and redistributed, and the invaders give new names to the newly formed "places". That's essentially what occurred in Anglo-Saxon England: the Romano-British landed estates were forcefully broken up into smaller fragments, otherwise there wouldn't be sufficient land to make all of the king's subjects happy and the consequences would be numerous revolts. "Forcefully" because maintaining the existing structure is always more lucrative and less problematic. In this case, the previous place-names can be almost completely erased as we see in Anglo-Saxon England. It seems to me that the Celtic migration comes closer to the Anglo-Saxon model of invasion.

[Creoda]

When the newcomers aren't numerous enough there is a natural tendency of the invaders to insert themselves into the existing superstructure and adopt the place names of the native population because that's easier and far more lucrative than entirely reorganizing and redistributing the land. That's essentially what migration studies call "elite dominance model". Case studies of the Norman conquest of Britain (where the invaders simply accommodated themselves in the existing estates, without any significant redistribution of land) and earlier in the fall of the Roman Empire prove the point - in both cases the toponymy remained largely untouched. The same is true for parts of Latin America (Peru comes to mind as a very good example). On the opposite, when the invaders are numerically significant, the existing superstructure isn't able to accommodate the newcomers. Thus the land is completely reorganized and redistributed, and the invaders give new names to the newly formed "places". That's essentially what occurred in Anglo-Saxon England: the Romano-British landed estates were forcefully broken up into smaller fragments, otherwise there wouldn't be sufficient land to make all of the king's subjects happy and the consequences would be numerous revolts. "Forcefully" because maintaining the existing structure is always more lucrative and less problematic. In this case, the previous place-names can be almost completely erased as we see in Anglo-Saxon England. It seems to me that the Celtic migration comes closer to the Anglo-Saxon model of invasion.
Right, I agree completely. The parallels between the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon conquests of Britain is something that has been surprisingly unremarked upon in my opinion.

I made a thread on that point 2.5 years ago
https://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?276882-The-Celtic-Conquest-of-Britain-and-Ireland

[Token]

Right, I agree completely. The parallels between the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon conquests of Britain is something has been surprisingly unremarked upon in my opinion.

I made a thread on that point 2.5 years ago
https://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?276882-The-Celtic-Conquest-of-Britain-and-Ireland

Yeah, things will be settled soon for Britain. But i think the Irish problem is more complicated from the genetic and especially linguistic point of view. After reading a thesis by Professor Peter Schrijver i'm convinced that Celtic entered Ireland from Britain in a very late date, perhaps in the 1st century of the common era, thus making Ireland the last place to shift to Celtic. In the subsequent few centuries Old Irish seems to have undergone a complete overhaul of its sound system (for example, what in 400AD was *wiras ‘man’ had become fer /f ́er/, fi r /f ́iŕ/ three centuries later) and an extreme rise in the complexity of the morphological structure of the language which made it one of the morphologically most complex languages of the world. Schrijver is convinced that post 5th century Old Irish is the result of pre-Celtic natives using their phonetic inventory to speak Celtic, thus creating a very weird variety of Celtic in the process, which does fits the genetic evidence to some degree.

[Neon Knight]

I don't know that much about Celts to be able to contribute, I just wanted to point out here that this comparison you did with russians learning welsh doesn't really make sense, does it? Irish people speak gaelic as a second language only due to colonization and english having been "forced" upon them, but originally spoke irish or irish gaelic (it differs from scottish gaelic doesnt it?), however it is called, I'm not sure. They usually refer to it (as far as I was able to understand while I was living there) as simply Irish. It's not really just like learning any random second language. Also, even though the majority of them is not fluent in gaelic, they are still in contact with the language all the time: they still learn it in school, their signs on the streets are written in both english and gaelic, most phone services will have english and Irish options, they very often have Irish names, and there are even some places where they still mostly speak Irish. I remember that an irish friend told me she went to some kind of summer camp/school in a place where everyone would speak Irish, and that was the objective.

Again, I dont know much about the subject but if you are going to call any single people "Celts", It is the Irish, isn't it ? Does it get more Celt than them?
A child of Russian immigrant parents growing up in Ireland would have the same experiences with the old Gaelic language as the Irish children. My original question was about the importance of ancestry and language-speaking for Celtic identity. Is only one of those necessary, or both? Of course, this question can apply to any ethnic identity.