Talk:Celts

realm of Breoghegan

The article seems to start at "half-time" with its averence "The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture (c. 800-450 BC)" It is not respectful to the culture and history.

At least some centuries of European Celtic history would appear to have been bypassed.

Could the writer please expand the article to include reference to the realm of Breoghegan (Brian?), Celtic king of what is effectively Portugal and Spain, who built Braganza, Europe's first walled city outside the classical world (please visit and investigate archaeological ruins).

Reference should expand as far as Breoghegan's son, Galamh, who is recorded to have led the armed forces of Egypt around 900-1000BC. Egyptian records are un-ambiguous. Galamh was the first non-Egyptian to take a Pharaoh's daughter in marriage, Scot'a (her identity disputed), some 2 years before religious heresay claimed Solomon was controversially espoused to the euphemistic "Pharaoh's Daughter" of the Bible. Scot'a is now accepted as memorialized in a sculpture in the Hort del Cura in Eltx, eastern Spain, a living relic that predates the term of the article by almost half a millennium.

It is believed (passed down in lore) that her sons conquered Ireland and Scotland and that she may have been the most likely source of the name "Scotland". This is unverified and needs further clarification. The Gaels have little written history.

This entire earlier period indicates a more warlike and mercenary, less agrarian, period of Celtic history to that reported in the article.

The fact remains that the Celts did not simply "land on Earth" in startled Franconia few hundred years BC.

There are clear linguistic links between the Celtic languages and the Scytho-Sarmatian group which were spoken widely in Western Russia pre-dating the times to which I have referred. Language speaks louder than pottery! (This is my field)

There is quite a demographic migration prior to Hallstadt. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Will Golden (talk • contribs) 09:43, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

You're obviously right that they didn't suddenly "land on earth" a few centuries BC out of nowhere. I think what that represents is as far back as modern scholarly consensus can trace them. There are enough migration legends before that point to fill a whole encyclopedia. Why stop at Breogheghan? Why not go all the way to Samothes, or Fenius Farsa, or Hu Gadarn? (Depending on which of the many, many Celt origin legends you use) If you have knowledge of these legends, use it to write and improve the existing articles dedicated to the legendary characters. A brief link from here would certainly be relevant.

Also regarding your statement: "Breoghegan's son, Galamh, who is recorded to have led the armed forces of Egypt around 900-1000BC. Egyptian records are un-ambiguous." What unambiguous Egyptian records??? Can you please point to any kind of link verifying this extraordinary claim? Thanks Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 12:57, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Dear Will, do not mistake legends for history. This article is about the Celts as a historical people. The Celts are utterly and precisely as Egyptian as the Franks are Trojan. And please, no WP:OR: even if you feel that there are close links tying the Scythian languages to Celtic, they are nowhere near as close as those tying them to the other Eastern Iranian languages. There is absolutely no scholarly disagreement on that matter. This article is meant to be based on current academic discourse, and nothing else. Trigaranus (talk) 23:16, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Trigaranus, have you read Isaacs on this - they may have been in proximity somewhere to the East of Western-Central Europe originally ?Jembana (talk) 23:28, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Hit me, Jembana: I've tried to find the article you meant online but couldn't find it due to too much white noise from religious nuts writing truckloads of nonsense blending the Bible ("Isaac's sons") with shreds of archaeology and linguistics. (There is also some interference from the pre-scientific "Scytho-Celtic" theory, which you probably didn't have in mind.) Which article do you mean? BTW I was not taking umbrage at the possibility that there is a spatial model for PIE that posits a period of proximity btw Celtic and Scythian (which is what you refer to, I assume?) but rather at what seemed to me a veil of respecable linguistics thrown in to give a drone of unreflected ramblings a semblance of academia. I have no problem assuming a Celtic presense on the Atlantic Coast during the late Bronze Age. But please spare me Pharao's bleeding flaming daughter and any pseudo-critical year-countery in a spurious past, and give me Tartessian instead. Trigaranus (talk) 10:20, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I came across it on page 160 of Isaac's Chapter 7 Origin of the Celtic Languages of Oxbow Books publication Celtic from the West. He says that Greek, Indo-Iranian (but some innovations only in Iranian not Indic) in particular, and also Baltic and Slavic are representative of a very late dialectal configuration innovating many features not shared in common by other IE languages (which had already developed, 'spit-off', in other distinctive directions). He says that from its features Celtic arose out of a section of this very late dialectal configuration and puts this configuration in Eastern Europe in the fourth to the third millenium BC (based on geography and linguistic history). He also sees features shared with Tocharian, Albanian and Italic on other pages so somewhere in that region of contact is what he say in particular the evidence of commonality shared with Iranian but not Indic. The Celtic from the West bit of Cunliffe, Oppenheimer and Koch in other chapters is the postulate that the Celtic branch of this very late IE dialectal differentiation arose somewhere like the Balkans area and spread by sea with the aes dana (men of Bronze Age metalworking skill - early smithies) across the Mediterranean to Iberia and into the Atlantic coast. This is a book with peer-reviewed chapters-papers so don't hit me as a fringe theorist - they present some evidence that some appear wanting to ignore and yes the Tartessian evidence is a perfect example of this.Jembana (talk) 06:42, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, Greek too.Jembana (talk) 06:49, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

That sounds like a cool book to read! (And this sounds a bit geekish, I think... but hey, it's WP, so: waheee!) No worries, Jembana. I don't think any WP editors have you down as a fringie. Or as a fringie lover, for that matter. ;-) I thought you meant something along the lines of PIE and late IE differentiation. Perfectly reasonable and fascinating stuff. (Above I was simply worried about Pharao's daughter and a bunch of Gaels stepping out of the proverbial steppe with their buddy Ossian and what have you.) I'll certainly check out the Isaac book. I'm particularly interested in what Oppenheimer has to say, because his linguistic "conclusions" at the end of the Origin of the British struck me as very half-baked indeed. Trigaranus (talk) 12:24, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Note re Cornish as a modern survival.

Of the two references supplied, one (Encyclopedia Britannica) does not mention Cornish, and the other talks in some depth about the revival of Cornish. Britannica states:

"Linguistically they survive in the modern Celtic speakers of Ireland, Highland Scotland, the Isle of Man, Wales, and Brittany."

Catfish Jim and the soapdish 09:28, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out, the line inserted here some time ago was pure plagiarism. I'm surprised it was allowed to stand for so long. It also doesn't say anything that isn't already said later in the lead.--Cúchullain ^t/c 12:23, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Minority view tagged as "undue weight"

The atlantic origin theory is well supported and has been proposed as an explanation to the weird results of the Gray and Atkinson phylogenetic work, the alledged celticity of the Tartessian language and other archeological data. I even think this extremly interesting theory deserves its own article so, why have the four or five lines about the matter been tagged as undue weight? Why is it even under "Minority Views" instead of "Atlantic theory"? It seems a bit POVish... I will remove the tag in a couple of days, because it has been there for a year without making any sense, but I would like to know if anyone has an explanation for it. Leirus (talk) 19:19, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Johnbod (talk) 20:32, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

The "undue" tag was placed in this diff [1] Catfish Jim and the soapdish 10:06, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

So I guess the person placing the tag would have all reference to the atlantic theory removed?. I think it is a valid theory, and one that the average person looking this page for information about "Celts" would find interesting. I am removing the tag. Leirus (talk) 01:40, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

no, I am happy with a brief discussion of this "atlantic theory". In the past, we had a lot of fringe pov-pushing in this area, and the tag was sort of counter-punching against that. As long as this thing is covered by sane editors with a reasonable emotional distance from the topic, I see no problem with a brief discussion under "minority views".

However, the suggestions that "the atlantic origin theory is well supported" and that it has anything whatsoever to do with the Gray and Atkinson paper (which was a playful experiment, not a serious study) are so far from any informed or balanced account, that Leirus very likely isn't very well prepared to cover this topic for us.

The entire point of this article is that the "average person" with no background knowledge will be misled by journalistic nonsense and will be served best by an article that debunks this kind of sensationalism rather than harping on it.

Note how our Neutrino article doesn't focus on, omg, they are going faster than light. There are journalists, who need to sell their newspapers, and there are (bona fide) Wikipedia volunteers, who do not need to sell anything. Big difference. Wikipedia wins, because we do not need to inflate and misreport non-notable tangents just to keep people interested. --dab (𒁳) 09:24, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Err... thank you very much for your confidence, but I am actually studying the matter. Not in the journals, exactly. I am currently studying Ancient Spain history, and the matter came up amongst the current theories about Tartessos. you know, the one denying the existence of Tartessos as anything other that the influence of phoenicians over the natives, the one related to the Atlantic theory, etc, etc. Prfessor Cunliffe visited our university and exposed his views. I have been reading the books where hid views are explained and, even if it has its flaws, I considere the theory interesting enough to be covered here. I do not mean well supported enough to be taken as truth, but definetly to be taken into account. Gray and Atkinson paper was extremely experimental and not to be taken as definitive results, but it was not a joke, and its results were intriguing. So please, try to not be that condescending next time. Leirus (talk) 03:58, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

I am glad you are "studying the matter", but that in itself doesn't really go to instil confidence, does it. I am aware of the "Tartessos" red herring. It does deserve some coverage. It is also very easily blown out of proportion. I am not going to discuss the Gray and Atkinson paper on this talkpage, if you need to bring that up, that's as good as saying, I don't really have a case. I know it was an interesting paper. I also know it has been chewed by journalists until it was impossible to discuss its actual, limited value. If you want to cover Tartessian, be my guest, but please do it at Tartessian language. --dab (𒁳) 12:45, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

The undue tag also covered "More recently, John Koch[34] and Barry Cunliffe[35] have suggested that Celtic origins lie with the Atlantic Bronze Age, roughly contemporaneous with the Hallstatt culture but positioned considerably to the West, extending along the Atlantic coast of Europe" - the only mention of this - which, without knowing anything much at all about the subject, seemed unreasonable to me. A recent gallery talk I wattended by the head of the British Museum Dept of Europe & Prehistory gave the Atlantic theory more "weight" than we do here. Johnbod (talk) 13:21, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

The point is that Wikipedia should not give the layman the impression that Koch's views are accepted, or to suggest that they are about to become mainstream. I don't know about archeology, perhaps Koch's ideas are popular there (but then, resisting the idea of post-Neolithic long-range Indo-European migrations – and over-confident interpretation of genetic data and anything that looks science-y, math-y and precise – has been a trendy fashion in archeology for the past decades, to be blunt, so I'm not surprised), but archeologists are in no position to assert anything authoritatively about Celtic languages and the classification of the Tartessian language. Koch's views have not been accepted in the community of Celtic specialists at large nor among linguists, and as pointed out by User:Taranis2010 on Talk:Tartessian language#Tartessian as Celtic, Altantic Theory, Koch's interpretation is problematic and Koch still has a lot to answer for, to put it mildly. The issue is still currently being blown out of proportion on Wikipedia. The fact that the Tartessian-as-Celtic speculation has been spammed all over vaguely related Wikipedia articles does not inspire confidence in the idea. If the idea was as compelling as it is currently being promoted as, there would be no reason for promotion, sensationalism and peacocky listings of scholars, which looks like POV-pushing and fringe-advocating if anything. Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:51, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

dab's comparison to the speed-of-light issue is spot-on. We don't advertise "Cosmic speed limit broken! Growing numbers of scientists convinced!" in big letters all over Wikipedia, either. Nor should we report on alleged decipherments as accepted facts prematurely. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:57, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Currently there is one sentence buried in a very long and dense article. I know nothing about the linguistics and little about the early archaeology, but I rather get the impression that the overall drift of the article does not represent current mainstream archaeological views, at least in the UK and Ireland, very well. Decoupling linguistics and the archaeology traditionally regarded as "Celtic" seems increasingly accepted. Perhaps things are different in Germany. Johnbod (talk) 19:44, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm rather thinking of other articles such as Prehistoric Iberia, History of Spain, History of Portugal or Andalusia, and various further articles, where User:Jembana has sneaked a copypasted paragraph in, which advertises Koch's view including peacock terms such as "highly respected scholars", apparently to ensure that no-one misses this awesome new hypothesis and how it is presumably backed by eminent scholars A, B, C, D and E, while conveniently failing to mention all the scholars who disagree.

As for the decoupling of Celtic linguistics and Celtic archaeology, I'm aware of that, but it makes no sense to me. It just leads to misunderstandings. Why not simply drop the term "Celtic" instead? It has no real meaning outside of linguistics anyway, since, as we are well aware, pots don't talk. Also, Koch uses "Celtic" very much in a linguistic sense, and the whole linguistic Tartessian-as-Celtic hubbub is tied by the Atlantic School to (their view of) Celtic archaeology; in fact, as a glorious confirmation of it. Hell, they're all about the Insular Celts, despite their weak archaeological links to the continental Celts. Therefore, it seems that the "decoupling" is not all that consistent, to put it mildly. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:17, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

"Celtic" is a successful brand that archaeologists tend to use on the covers and first couple of pages of their books, & then never refer to again - that has been the case for several decades. Would you be a linguist by any chance? Oh yes, you would. It is a cliche that "Celtic" is a term used in 3 main areas, ethnic/cultural, linguistic and cultural/archaeological, and the fit between them is not great. The ethnic/cultural meaning would seem to be the primary and original one, really, and certainly the hardest to shift. Perhaps the languages need a new name? It is certainly a mistake to think that the Atlantic theory holds or fails depending on Tartessian. Johnbod (talk) 23:44, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

"Oh, you are a linguist. Why do you want us archaeologists to give up the name Celtic? It's so cool, we don't want to give it up. Why don't you give it up instead?" Because Edward Lhuyd applied it to languages first, only languages, and not pots or ethnic groups or culture. :-P

Why were names such as Hallstatt culture created again? Remember? Right, so you needn't slap ethnic/linguistic labels on prehistoric cultures: that was the reason. It's true, you don't need the term "Celts" at all, not even as brand; in fact, it is misleading to even use it as that. If you did decouple both completely, we wouldn't have this conflict.

The ethnic/cultural meaning is intimately connected to the linguistic sense. Ethnic/cultural Celtic identity cannot be separated from the Celtic languages, just as ethnic/cultural Native American identity cannot be separated from the indigenous languages of the Americas. It's just that in minority situations, attachment to ethnic identity and culture typically defies and thus outlasts language shift. But the origins of the people(s) and the culture(s) considered Celtic lie in (a) Celtic-speaking environment(s). That's what defines them as Celtic, even if some elements (for example ornamentation styles) may have been taken over from ethnic groups or cultures not originally Celtic-speaking but assimilated. Every non-linguistic sense is derived from the linguistic meaning.

It is certainly a mistake to think the Atlantic theory holds or fails depending on Tartessian.

Ah, so it cannot be proved or disproved? I guess that's why it's called a "theory". Like the Paleolithic Continuity Theory. Serious models such as the Kurgan hypothesis are called hypotheses – speculative, unfalsifiable hogwash is boastingly branded "theory" to immunise it from criticism. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:06, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

The problem can only be solved if seprate articles are created/ expanded about the la Tene culture, hypotheses about Celtic language, and the historic Celts of Herodotus, et al. The more wise of course understand that the these do not match completely, and it is thus futile to attempt to present all 3 here as part of a grand narrative of the "Celts" Slovenski Volk (talk) 11:47, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Of course articles exist on the Celtic language and on La Tene. There is no point in having an article specifically devoted to Hedodotus' view of Celts. This article is however about the historical Celts. And yes, ccreating what you call "grand narrative" is exactly what encyclopedias are supposed to do, as long as it does not present its account as undisputed fact when real disputes do exist. Paul B (talk) 12:00, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Fair point Slovenski Volk (talk) 08:04, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

That was my point, and one I did not expect to draw such hostility. To explain from where I am coming... Spain represents a bit of a problem for the traditional view that links together Hallstat, La Tene and Celts, because while half of the country was "celtic" (as per the Untermann line between celtic "-briga" and iberian "-ill", and the classic descriptions) the La Tene findings are restricted mostly to the northeast (Catalonia and surrounding areas, more or less). To explain this, I have seen in several spanish authors a tendency to accept this division between celtic material culture and celtic languages. Salinas de Frias is a good example of this, and he is one of the lead experts in the spanish late bronze and iron ages. Almagro Gorbea theories, referenced in the article, were also sprung by this incoherence. It is not just about the Tartessian language, either, the inhabitants of ancient Gallaecia were also described as celts, but there are no La Tene or Hallstat materials to speak of in the area. Celtiberians, who spoke a celtic language and whose Botorrita bronzes are, to my knowledge, the oldest long texts we have in a celtic language show also very little Hallstatic influence. That is why I thought it could be interesting to make reference to this atlantic idea in here... Not as the main theory, but as an interesting hypothesis currently being studied. I am not inmersed in any pro Koch campaign (In fact I first heard about this view by Cunliffe himself without reading his book, and came back to it later after founding references by Kristiansen and Salinas) but if you accept that celtic languages may not have first appeared in the Hallstat/La Tene culture, the atlantic view becomes less outrageous. To be honest I still do not have a fully formed opinion about this, other than it deserves to be looked into, but I think that if we are going to have a reference to this at all in the article (as we have now) we should as well have a good explanation. What currently can be read is "Martín Almagro Gorbea[35] proposed the origins of the Celts could be traced back to the 3rd millennium BC, seeking the initial roots in the Bell Beaker culture, thus offering the wide dispersion of the Celts throughout western Europe, as well as the variability of the different Celtic peoples, and the existence of ancestral traditions an ancient perspective. More recently, John Koch[36] and Barry Cunliffe[37] have suggested that Celtic origins lie with the Atlantic Bronze Age, roughly contemporaneous with the Hallstatt culture but positioned considerably to the West, extending along the Atlantic coast of Europe. Stephen Oppenheimer[38] points out that Herodotus seemed to believe the Danube rose near the Pyrenees." That is confusing and not really useful, so I thought it would be better if we added why these authors think that. Or we could, against my better judgement, take it entirely out of the article, but as it is now, it just sticks out as a sore thumb. I think a good article should have the least amount possible of tags, and the rest of the article is really good (again, in my opinion). Just my two cents... Leirus (talk) 01:16, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

"...so I thought it would be better if we added why these authors think that..." OK then I'll make a start, but i would prefer if others such as yourself made a contribution here to flesh out this section. I have added a linking article built on and expanding the ideas of Almagro Gorbea with a very thoughtful and detailed analysis of what the archaeological record is really showing us in the Iberian Peninsula and it does propose a rethinking on this basis of the La Tene incursion model as the sole basis for Celtic cultures and sort of links the ideas of Almagro Gorbea with those of Cunliffe and Koch - needs a bit more of an explanation. Anyway, have a read and modify as you think fit.Jembana (talk) 01:36, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

What are the specific place names ending in -briga? Aren't they in Spain? Thanks, Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 01:31, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, from the top of my head you have Segobriga, Nertobriga, Centobriga or Conimbriga. Of course they are in Spain, or better, in Iberia, but they are mainly outside the area where we have found significant Hallstat/La Tene influences (The so called Untermann line divides the coastal mediterranean area or iberian area from the rest of the peninsula or indoeuropean/celtic area). That is, in fact, the main problem which has made the decoupling between celtic language and culture more acceptable for spanish authors. Leirus (talk) 15:54, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

As new and un-mainstream as Koch's theories are, the central-western European origin stance (as popular as it has been); has not been proven. And that's the way it is when it comes to languages, you simply cannot ascertain where a language "originates" in such circumstances as Iron Age continental Europe; and the idea as a language originating in a definable geogrpahic entity might itself be absurd (as per Renfrew). In fact, some have even argued that Celtic originate in Pannonia. Slovenski Volk (talk) 06:02, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

You mean the way the idea that Latin/Romance originated in Central Italy or even (gasp!) specifically the city of Rome is absurd? You've got to be kidding. Oh wait, I'm almost completely sure you're not.

An early stage of Celtic may very well have spoken in Pannonia; in fact, that's even highly probable (given that it's geographically in between attested Celtic and wherever Indo-European originated, which everyone except some leftover Nordicists agree was more to the east). It depends on what period of time you are talking about. Languages are highly mobile beasts, especially when you consider timespans of centuries and millennia.

As for the Celtiberians – if their material culture doesn't match the Hallstatt culture, accepted as the classic Celtic or Proto-Celtic material culture, so what? It is certainly a truism that language and material culture don't always match. Such cases are commonplace and even abound in recorded history. That's why Mallory created his Kulturkugel model: relatively small groups can migrate and conquer, form an upper class and exert elite dominance over a foreign population and induce them to shift their language, without causing them to abandon their material culture and even much of their social customs. Just study a couple of those landnahme events and language shift cases in recorded history to see how it works. To linguists, it's absolutely trivial that not all cultures which they suspect to have been Celtic-speaking are alike; that matters absolutely squat, nil, nada, zero, zip, zilch. It's not a mystery, it's a completely unexciting observation. It's everyday reality! Get used to it. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:30, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Question

Would it be incorrect to suggest them to be an ethnicity in the lede like they have here in the article on Germanic peoples. The below is the extract from the lede

"The Germanic peoples (also called Teutonic or Gothic in older literature) are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age."

The Celts could definitely be described as an ethnno-linguistic group? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_language Sheodred (talk) 10:05, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

To add we could use a photo of a notable Celtic figure as they do on the Germanic article. Vercingetorix perhaps? Sheodred (talk) 10:08, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

The relationship between the languages and cultures labelled "Celtic" and ethnicity, is extremely controversial and uncertain, and pretty certainly not a close match. Any statement should be extremely tentative, and referenced to up to date top-quality sources, although most of these avoid and definite statements and many by-pass the subject altogether as a hopeless morass. Johnbod (talk) 14:02, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I much prefer the scholarly map we have here to the macho and nationalistic image of a sword-waving warlord, as seen on the Germanic people page. This the "Celts" page not the "Celts are Great" page. Paul B (talk) 14:11, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Epigraphic evidence

I do not see reference to the use of the ethnonym celt by the people in their own time. More specifically the use as an endonym. If you check this database for celti and choose a province you will find several epigraphic inscriptions, Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss / Slaby , it goes beyhond theories, they actually engraved on tombstones,in their owntime their ethnic origin,(of course if they were dead the family did it.It does not seem they cared what people would think or what theories would be created two thousand years after. This is primary source can be used in small doses. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.250.108.1 (talk) 23:05, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

When do these inscriptions date from ? I would not be surprised if they came from circum-Roman time, when such a label was imposed upon the peoples of Gaul by the Romans, and secondarily accepted by them as an oppositional term against the Romans. Slovenski Volk (talk) 05:54, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Polish?

How can the poles be related to the celts?