There's only one useful definition of _Celt_, and that's `speaker of a
Celtic language'. All the rest is smoke and mirrors, Blut und Boden, Arthur
and unicorns. Of course the Britons were Celts. By definition.
Isn't what revisionist historians and archaeologists like Higham, Prior and
Wade-Something are telling us that the "English" were Celts?
Richard
--On 19 October 2004 09:54 +0100 Keith Briggs <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Thanks to Richard for his detailed reply. But this has made me worry
> about a meta-question: why, at a time when archaeologists and historians
> are busy telling us that the ancient Britons were not Celts, are the
> linguists finding ever more evidence of so-called Celtic language on
> English? Is the word `Celtic' being used here in a purely conventional
> way? On the other hand, I have read two recent books* on Gaulish which
> have all the latest inscriptional evidence, and many similarities to
> Welsh are evident. Surely either British and Gaulish must both be
> Celtic, or neither?
>
> * P-Y Lambert, La langue gauloise; X Delamarre, Dictionnaire de la langue
> gauloise (both Errance 2003).
>
> Keith
----------------
Richard Coates
HoD, Dept of Linguistics and English Language
Room Arts B135
School of Humanities
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK
Phone +44 (0)1273 678522
Email [log in to unmask] OR [log in to unmask]
Departmental Coordinator: Sarah Cuffe, [log in to unmask], +44 (0)1273 678116
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