Originally Posted by
Sikeliot
This is my argument: I am absolutely not saying that modern day people with a Celtic history and heritage should not be able to claim it. People should be able to claim their roots or any part of their history. I am also not saying that people should not be able to identify with Celtic heritage. They absolutely can.
But I do challenge the notion of "Celtic nations" in an era where apart from Wales, no nation is majority Celtic-speaking nor distinct enough from the non-Celtic parts of their nations to justify such a distinction to be made. To me, if we include some of these places, then we must also include England and France as a whole.
The only regions that by my standards qualify as "Celtic nations" in the modern era are Brittany, due to its linguistic difference from the rest of France and the proven origin of the Bretons as being migrants from Britain, and Wales, because the Welsh language is widely spoken by the Welsh population.
However, I would argue that in 2018, the idea that there is any "Celtic" nation is pretty much defunct, a huge reach, and based on nothing more than wanting to distance themselves from the English and French. I also dispute the actual basis on which specific "Celtic" nations are defined as such. Let me explain.
Galicia: A Celtic language has not been spoken in Galicia since at least the 6th century, if not earlier. Galicians might use the bagpipe (an instrument which, mind you, is used everywhere from southern Italy to Ireland to Turkey and even parts of West Asia and has no distinct Celtic origin), and have a distinct regional culture in Spain, but "Celtic" in 2018 when they speak a language similar to/dialect of Portuguese and are scarcely culturally distinct from their neighboring regions in Spain? To me, this is just a "special snowflake" mentality of wanting to be different from the rest of Spain on the basis of being "Celtic." All Iberians have some Celtic ancestry and should be able to claim it but there is no basis for calling Galicia, a Romance-speaking region, a Celtic nation.
Asturias: sometimes included as the eighth "Celtic nation," I would make the same argument as I would make for Galicia.
Cornwall: The Cornish language has not been spoken for several hundred years, and arguing that the Cornish are descended from the Britons rather than the Anglo-Saxons and thus "Celtic" is based on an inaccurate, and archaic, view that the English are primarily Anglo-Saxon and that their ancestors pushed the Britons out of what is now England and toward the western extremities of the country. Cornish people are genetically closer to other English people, just they have less Anglo-Saxon input, but ALL English people have some Britannic ("Celtic") ancestry. Singling out the Cornish as being "Celtic" does not make sense to me, and it seems like Cornish identity can be rightfully asserted to being a distinct regional identity without claiming it is due to Celtic-ness. Cornish is a dead language, so as far as I am concerned, Cornwall in 2018 is no more Celtic than is East Anglia.
Scotland: Large parts of Scotland have not been Celtic-speaking any more recently than has most of England, and very few people speak Scottish Gaelic today. The Scottish Gaelic language came from Ireland, and was restricted mostly to the southwest of Scotland. Scotland also spoke Scots (a Germanic language resulting from the Anglo-Saxon conquest and influence from England). It seems strange to me for Scotland to be portrayed exclusively as a "Celtic" nation and never as a "Germanic" one when one could easily argue that much of Scotland is no more 'Celtic' than England is, and England is never as a whole portrayed as Celtic. To me, the only reason to portray Scotland as Celtic is to assert difference to England, but this can easily be done without trying to apply an identity that is only relevant to one part of Scotland to the entire country. There are also places in Scotland where Scandinavian influence is strongly present (Orkney, Shetland, northeast Scotland) but I do not see people claiming Scotland is part of Scandinavia. If we claim Scotland as Celtic because a small part of Scotland was Celtic speaking in recent times, then the presence of Cornwall and Cumbria in England should mean England is as a whole classified as Celtic, or the presence of Brittany should mean all of France is classified as Celtic. But we don't do this, so why with Scotland?
Isle of Man: Manx Gaelic has died out, so I would make the same argument here as I would for Cornwall.
Ireland: I would argue Ireland has a stronger case than Scotland, Cornwall, or Galicia, but defining the Irish as STRICTLY Celtic is highly inaccurate. The Irish are far from strictly 'Gaelic' in their ancestry, having significant Viking (RE: Germanic) input as high as 20% in nearly all parts of the island, as well as ancestry from nearly all parts of Britain scattered around the island. Additionally, the Gaelic language has died out in most of Ireland. I could see the Gaeltacht defined as "Celtic" because they have managed to retain use of Gaelic, but parts of Ireland are full of Norman surnames, have been speaking English for hundreds of years, and are culturally similar to non-"Celtic" parts of the UK.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks