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| Queen Bee |
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Joined: 31 May 2008 12:53 am Posts: 8978 Location: Los Angeles
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roscoe wrote: TCP wrote: By the way, Marseilles lies on the Mediterranean...  Well actually it's on land That really IS the best you can come up with, I'm afraid... roscoe wrote: The Greek word Κέλτης pl. Κέλται or Κελτός pl. Κελτοί means stranger. FALSE http://www.hellenicgods.org/kelts---keltoiKelts (Celts) - (Keltoi, Gr. Κελτοί, ΚΕΛΤΟΊ) The etymology of the word Kelt is uncertain and controversial. Kelt may mean the "hidden people" or "hero."
The Kelts are said to be descendants of the union of Herakles and the nymph Keltine (Κελτίνη). Keltine was the daughter of Brattanos (Βρεττανός), king of Britain. She had concealed the herds of cattle that Herakles had won in his campaign against Geryon. She used these herds, along with her beauty, as a lure to achieve marriage with the Hero. The resulting son was named Keltos (Greek: Κέλτος, Latin: Celtus), who is called the father of the Kelts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CeltsThe English word is modern, attested from 1607. According to Greek mythology, Celtus was the son of Heracles and Celtine, the daughter of Bretannus. Celtus became the primogenitor of Celts (Ref.: Parth. 30.1-2, [1] (http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Heracles1.html)). In Latin Celta, in turn from Herodotus' word for the Gauls, Keltoi. The Romans used Celtae to refer to continental Gauls, but apparently not to insular Celts, which were divided in Goidhels and Britons, and possibly other peoples.This is likely due to the fact that, at those times, the term "Celta/Keltos" was tied to those people still remembered as descendant from the Cental Europe Celts, while no tie to the insular people (especially the Gaels whose language was extremely different from that of BrythonicCelts) was known.
The first literary reference to the Celtic people, as keltoi or hidden people, is by the Greek Hecataeus in 517 BC.
The Romans called them "Galli" ("to conceal"), from which the word "Gaul" comes.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_the_CeltsThe various names used since classical times for the people known today as the Celts are of disparate origins.
The name Κελτοί Keltoi and Celtae is used in Greek and Latin, respectively, as the name of a people of the La Tène horizon in the region of the upper Rhine and Danube during the 6th to 1st centuries BC in Greco-Roman ethnography. The name is probably from a tribal self-designation, but its etymology is uncertain. Likewise, the name of the Γαλάται Galatai / Galli is probably from a tribal name, also of uncertain etymology.
The names of the Gauls and of the Welsh, on the other hand, are taken from the designator used by the Germanic peoples for Celtic- and Latin-speaking peoples, *walha-.
The linguistic sense of the name Celts, grouping all speakers of Celtic languages, is modern. In particular, aside from a 1st-century literary genealogy of Celtus the grandson of Bretannos by Heracles, there is no record of the term "Celt" being used in connection with the Insular Celts, the inhabitants of the British Isles during the Iron Age, prior to the 17th century.The ethnonym Celts (Latin: Celtae; Ancient Greek: Κελτοί Keltoi, later also Κέλται Keltai) seems to be based on a native Celtic tribal name (cf. Celtici in Portugal).[1]
The name probably stems from the Indo-European root *kel- or *(s)kel-, but there are several such roots of various meanings: *kel- "to be prominent", *kel- "to drive or set in motion", *kel- "to strike or cut", etc.[2] The most common theory is that the word meant "hero" and is cognate with Old English hæleþ, Old Saxon helith, Old High German Helido (German Held) "hero" and Old Norse hǫlðr "free landowner, man".The first literary reference to the Celtic people, as Κελτοί (Κeltoi), is by the Greek historian Hecataeus of Miletus in 517 BC; he locates the Keltoi tribe in Rhenania (West/Southwest Germany). The next Greek reference to the Keltoi is by Herodotus in the mid-5th century BC. He says that "the river Ister (Danube) begins from the Keltoi and the city of Pyrene and so runs that it divides Europe in the midst (now the Keltoi are outside the Pillars of Heracles and border upon the Kynesians, who dwell furthest towards the sunset of all those who have their dwelling in Europe)". This confused passage was generally later interpreted as implying that the homeland of the Celts was at the source of the Danube, not in Spain/France.
According to the 1st-century poet Parthenius of Nicaea, Celtus (Κελτός) was the son of Heracles and Keltine (Κελτίνη), the daughter of Bretannus (Βρεττανός); this literary genealogy exists nowhere else and was not connected with any known cult.[4] Celtus became the eponymous ancestor of Celts.[5] In Latin Celta came in turn from Herodotus' word for the Gauls, Keltoi. The Romans used Celtae to refer to continental Gauls, but apparently not to Insular Celts. The latter were long divided linguistically into Goidels and Brythons, although other research provides a more complex picture (see below under "Classification").
The name Celtiberi is used by Diodorus Siculus in the 1st century BC, of a people which he considered a mixture of Celtae and Iberi.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaulish_languageThe earliest Continental Celtic inscriptions, dating to as early as the sixth century BC, are in Lepontic, found in Cisalpine Gaul and were written in a form of the Old Italic alphabet. Inscriptions in the Greek alphabet from the third century BC have been found in the area near the mouths of the Rhône, while later inscriptions dating to Roman Gaul are mostly in the Latin alphabet. According to Julius Caesar, the Gauls (Galli in Latin; Caesar tells us that they called themselves Celtae in their own tongue) were one of three groups who inhabited Gaul, the other two being the Aquitani and the Belgae.
According to his treatise On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis, Saint Irenaeus of Lyon still needed to preach in Gaulish in his diocese during the last quarter of the second century AD.[2] Saint Jerome (ca. 340-425) remarks in a commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians that the Treveri spoke almost the same language as the Galatians. Gregory of Tours wrote in the sixth century AD that a sanctuary in the Auvergne was "called Vasso Galate in the Gallic tongue", which has been taken to mean that Gaulish was still spoken in the region in his time.[3] However, his remark primarily refers to the linguistic origin of the place name, not necessarily to the survival of the language.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_GaulThe names Gallia and Galatia are of uncertain origin, either from a native name of a tribe, or exonyms. Birkhan (1997) considers a root *g(h)al- "powerful" (PIE *gelh, well-attested in Celtic, and with cognates in Balto-Slavic), but speculates the name also could be taken from a Gallos River, comparable to the names of the Volcae and the Sequani, which are likely derived from hydronyms. There also have been attempts to trace Keltoi and Galatai to a single origin. It is most likely the terms originated as names of minor tribes *Kel-to and/or Gal(a)-to-, which were the earliest to come into contact with the Roman world, but which have disappeared without leaving a historical record.[3]
Josephus claimed the Gauls were descended from Gomer, the grandson of Noah. Hellenistic etiology connects the name with Galatia (first attested by Timaeus of Tauromenion in the 4th c. BC), and it was suggested the association was inspired by the "milk-white" skin (γάλα, gala, "milk") of the Gauls (Greek: Γαλάται, Galatai, Galatae).
The English Gaul and French French: Gaule, Gaulois, in spite of superficial similarity, are unrelated to Latin Gallia, Galli. They are rather derived from the Germanic term walha, "foreigner, Romanized person", an exonym applied by Germanic speakers to Celts, likely via a Latinization of Frankish *Walholant "Gaul", literally "Land of the Foreigners/Romans", making it partially cognate with the names Wales and Wallachia), the usual word for the non-Germanic-speaking peoples (Celtic-speaking and Latin-speaking indiscriminately).[4]
The name Gaul is sometimes erroneously linked to the ethnic name Gael,[by whom?] which is derived from Old Irish Goidel (borrowed, in turn, in the 7th century AD from Primitive Welsh Guoidel - spelled Gwyddel in Middle Welsh and Modern Welsh - likely derived from a Brittonic root *Wēdelos meaning literally "forest person, wild man"[5]); the names are, thus, unrelated. The Irish word gall, on the other hand, did originally mean "a Gaul" i.e. an inhabitant of Gaul, but its meaning was later widened to "foreigner", to describe the Vikings, and later still the Normans.[6] The words gael and gall are sometimes used together for contrast, for instance in the 12th century book Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib.TCP
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