Names of the Celts

The various names used since classical times for the people known today as the Celts are of disparate origins.

The names Κελτοί (Keltoí) and Celtae are used in Greek and Latin, respectively, to denote a people of the La Tène horizon in the region of the upper Rhine and Danube during the 6th to 1st centuries BC in Graeco-Roman ethnography. The etymology of this name and that of the Gauls Γαλάται Galátai / Galli is uncertain.

The

Celts, Celtae

The first recorded use of the name of Celts – as Κελτοί (Keltoí) – to refer to an ethnic group was by Hecataeus of Miletus, the Greek geographer, in 517 BC when writing about a people living near Massilia (modern Marseille).^[1] In the 5th century BC, Herodotus referred to Keltoi living around the head of the Danube and also in the far west of Europe.^[2]

The etymology of the term Keltoi is unclear. Possible origins include the Indo-European roots *ḱel,^[3] 'to cover or hide' (cf. Old Irish celid^[4]), *ḱel-, 'to heat', or *kel- 'to impel'.^[5] Several authors have supposed the term to be Celtic in origin, while others view it as a name coined by Greeks. Linguist Patrizia De Bernardo Stempel falls in the latter group; she suggests that it means "the tall ones".^[6]

The Romans preferred the name

Aside from the Celtiberians — Lusones, Titii, Arevaci, and Pellendones, among others – who inhabited large regions of central Spain, Greek and Roman geographers also spoke of a people or group of peoples called Celtici or Κελτικοί living in the south of modern-day Portugal, in the Alentejo region, between the Tagus and Guadiana rivers.^[10] They are first mentioned by Strabo, who wrote that they were the most numerous people inhabiting that region. Later, Ptolemy referred to the Celtici inhabiting a more reduced territory, comprising the regions from Évora to Setúbal, i.e. the coastal and southern areas occupied by the Turdetani.

Pliny mentioned a second group of Celtici living in the region of Baeturia (northwestern Andalusia); he considered that they were "of the Celtiberians from the Lusitania, because of their religion, language, and because of the names of their cities".^[11]

In

In the 18th century, the interest in "

The initial consonant of the English words Celt and Celtic is primarily pronounced /k/ and occasionally /s/ in both modern British and American English,^{[21][22][23][24]} although /s/ was formerly the norm.^[25] In the oldest attested

The English word originates in the 17th century. Until the mid-19th century, the sole pronunciation in English was /s/, in keeping with the inheritance of the letter ⟨c⟩ from Old French to Middle English. From the mid-19th century onward, academic publications advocated the variant with /k/ on the basis of a new understanding of the word's origins. The /s/ pronunciation remained standard throughout the 19th to early 20th century, but /k/ gained ground during the later 20th century.^[26] A notable exception is that the /s/ pronunciation remains the most recognized form when it occurs in the names of sports teams, most notably Celtic Football Club in Scotland, and the Boston Celtics basketball team in the United States. The title of the Cavan newspaper The Anglo-Celt is also pronounced with the /s/.^[27]

Modern uses

In current usage, the terms "Celt" and "Celtic" can take several senses depending on context: the

After its use by Edward Lhuyd in 1707,

The Celts are an ethnolinguistic group of Iron Age European peoples, including the Gauls (including subgroups such as the Lepontii and the Galatians), Celtiberians, and Insular Celts.

The timeline of

Simon James argues that while the term "Celtic" expresses a valid linguistic connection, its use for both Insular and Continental Celtic cultures is misleading, as archaeology does not suggest a unified Celtic culture during the Iron Age.^{[importance?][page needed]}

Modern context

Latin Galli might be from an originally Celtic ethnic or tribal name, perhaps borrowed into Latin during the Gallic Wars of the 4th century BCE. Its root may be the Common Celtic *galno-, meaning "power" or "strength". The Greek Γαλάται Galatai (cf. Galatia in Anatolia) seems to be based on the same root, borrowed directly from the same hypothetical Celtic source that gave us Galli (the suffix -atai simply indicates that the word is an ethnic name).

Linguist Stefan Schumacher presents a slightly different account: he says that the ethnonym Galli (nominative singular *Gallos) is from the present stem of the verb that he

The name of the Gallaeci (earlier form Callaeci or Callaici), a Celtic federation in northwest Iberia, may seem related to Galli but is not. The Romans named the entire region north of the Douro, where the Castro culture existed, in honour of the Castro people who settled in the area of Calle – the Callaeci.^{[citation needed]}

Gaul, Gaulish, Welsh

English Gaul / Gaulish are unrelated to Latin Gallia / Galli, despite superficial similarity. The English words ultimately stem from the reconstructed Proto-Germanic root *walhaz,^[32] "foreigner, Romanized person."^[33] In the early Germanic period, this exonym seems to have been applied broadly to the peasant population of the Roman Empire, most of whom lived in the areas being settled by Germanic peoples; whether the peasants spoke Celtic or Latin did not matter.

The Germanic root likely made its way into French via Latinization of Frankish Walholant "Gaul," literally "Land of the Foreigners". Germanic w regularly becomes gu / g in French (cf. guerre 'war', garder 'ward'), and the diphthong au is the regular outcome of al before another consonant (cf. cheval ~ chevaux). Gaule or Gaulle can hardly be derived from Latin Gallia, since g would become j before a (gamba > jambe), and the diphthong au would be unexplained. Note that the regular outcome of Latin Gallia in French is Jaille, which is found in several western placenames.^[34][35]

Similarly, French