[HN Gopher] Who Were 'The Celts' and How Did They (Some of Them)...
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Who Were 'The Celts' and How Did They (Some of Them) Fight?
Author : gostsamo
Score : 66 points
Date : 2023-05-12 11:32 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (acoup.blog)
(TXT) w3m dump (acoup.blog)
| cyocum wrote:
| I have a degree in "Celtic Studies" and while I tend to study the
| Irish early medieval period rather than the ancient period, I
| would highly recommend reconsidering the entire idea of "Celtic".
| A couple of books that might be good to read if you have time
| are: John Collis, The Celts : origins, myths & inventions
| (https://www.worldcat.org/title/921219683) and Simon James, The
| Atlantic Celts : ancient people or modern invention?
| (https://www.worldcat.org/title/249450858). I have not had the
| time lately to read up on the state of the question so I will
| read the recommended article: Rachel Pope, Re-approaching Celts:
| Origins, Society, and Social Change
| (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10814-021-09157-1)
| with keen interest.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| From somewhere near the middle of the linked article:
|
| > All of that is to make the point that any treatment of
| 'Celtic' warfare is immediately begging an enormous question
| because 'who were the Celts?' is at best an unanswered question
| and to be frank, probably an unanswerable question.
|
| This table is also of interest:
| https://acoup.blog/2023/05/12/collections-who-were-the-
| celts....
|
| So I guess you agree with the author.
| dbingham wrote:
| That's not the middle - that's pretty near the beginning
| (look at your scroll bar).
|
| But yeah, the author spends a great deal of time on the
| question and it's really interesting. I got maybe 20
| paragraphs in before I realized "this is fascinating, but I
| need to be doing other things".
|
| I intend to return later though, the author's style is great
| and this is a really interesting article.
| xapata wrote:
| I was surprised by the length of his writing, then said,
| "Ah, that's what he meant by unmitigated."
| DylanSp wrote:
| I think Devereaux mentioned on Twitter that this is the
| longest single post he's written; he usually breaks his
| more detailed writing into series.
| tombh wrote:
| Could you very briefly describe what you consider to be a more
| productive way of thinking of "The Celts"?
| cyocum wrote:
| I will try. I tend to think of "The Celts" linguistically as
| a set of related languages. However, that is an artefact of
| my own training and background. How the people who spoke
| those related languages lived can differ radically wherever
| you find them. For me, to define Celtic is: did they speak a
| language that is related to those that we have labelled as
| Celtic? That means that "Celtic" is a convenient shorthand
| for talking about these languages and does not necessarily
| have a meaning outside of that.
|
| I have not yet finished reading the linked article so I will
| see if it may alter my thinking any.
| colmmacc wrote:
| Lorient in Brittany hosts an Interceltique festival; it's a
| cross-cultural festival that celebrates art, food,
| language, but it's centered around music and features the
| best bands from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, The Isle of Man,
| Cornwall, Brittany, Galicia, Cape Breton, PEI, and New
| Brunswick.
|
| I've gone several times as an accompanist attached to Irish
| bands, and it's remarkable to me how I can sit in with
| other musicians from any of those regions and the idioms,
| base tunes, time signatures, and ornamentation are so
| similar. I grew up speaking Irish, and while I can
| understand Scottish Gaelic, I can't follow anything but a
| word or two of other other Celtic languages. But with music
| and dance, things seem much much closer. I have to listen
| and learn much much more to play with other regional folk
| music, like Eastern European or even French Canadian (which
| is sort of close to Celtic and shares many tunes), but with
| the Celtic countries, I've literally sat in on main stages
| with no rehearsal and we just all know what to do. It does
| feel like there is quite a deep shared history there.
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| Awesome anecdote, I'd love to listen to you guys play.
| awesome_dude wrote:
| I like this answer because it's relatable to today's
| English. English is spoken by many people around the world,
| but it's not one group of people, it's many many different
| people and cultures who have come to use English for one
| reason or another.
| ak_111 wrote:
| But you can still point out who the original English were
| or at least trace almost 100% of English speakers today
| as originating from 1600s England's conquest of the
| world.
|
| The debate about 'The Celts' is that we can't point out
| where the original language emerged, and the potential
| range of where it emerged is quite huge stretching from
| Ireland through central Europe with some claiming it
| emerged in Turkey even.
| awesome_dude wrote:
| I'm not sure how that's related to what I am saying, or
| what I was replying to.
|
| The point being made is how celts are peoples that are
| grouped by language, but have a disparate set of
| histories.
|
| And I am recognising that a contemporary analogy is how
| English speakers around the world also share a language,
| but have disparate histories.
|
| Your problem of where the Celts originated from is
| separate.
| sammalloy wrote:
| > who have come to use English for one reason or another
|
| Pretty sure that singular reason was colonialism.
| awesome_dude wrote:
| For a great many, yes, but not for all. Some because of
| much _much_ worse things (Slavery), some because of
| trade.
| sammalloy wrote:
| What a strange hill to die on. English is the colonial
| language, and its global success was singularly due to
| imperialist hegemony. This is taught at the university
| system level and is in every textbook on the subject. I
| love a good myth about capitalism just as much as the
| next exploited worker, but attributing the success of
| English to trade is equivalent to teaching children myths
| about Thanksgiving and Washington chopping down a cherry
| tree.
| awesome_dude wrote:
| I cannot see anyone trying to argue anything about why it
| was successful, only you have decided that that is the
| point.
|
| I've merely pointed out that it is widespread and that
| there are (at least) three reasons for people to speak
| it.
|
| Edit: Note, if you don't wish to speak it, that's fine by
| me - I'll be just as happy to not hear from you again :-)
| sammalloy wrote:
| English is widely spoken because it was the colonial
| language enforced at the highest levels of society. This
| is still true today and is currently a primary plank in
| the political platform of US conservatives.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-only_movement
|
| There are libraries of books written solely on this
| subject. Your bizarre hypothesis ignores this and instead
| points to slavery and trade. More to the point, there are
| new articles on how English was enforced on subjugated
| people published on an almost weekly basis. Last week,
| the article I read on this topic was about how indigenous
| orphans were prohibited from using their native language
| and forced to use only English. But let's talk about
| glowing myths about trade and slavery instead which have
| literally nothing to do with it.
| awesome_dude wrote:
| Then stop speaking it.
|
| Let's have a korero in Maaori instead.
| sammalloy wrote:
| Why do you think an irreversible binomial employed as a
| thought-terminating cliche in the form of an argumentum
| ergo decedo is an appropriate response?
| awesome_dude wrote:
| Why do you not think?
|
| Toku tangata were massively affected (read:
| disadvantaged) by colonialism (and we still are), but we
| started learning English to trade with Pakeha, we married
| them, and learnt their reo.
|
| Colonialism, for us, came after, not before. It came as a
| direct result of a need to trade, in goods, and ideas.
|
| Now, as for absurdities: your faux complaint about the
| only language you can speak, that you have being throwing
| about in some bizarre need to garner attention for
| yourself, because you certainly haven't been interested
| in discussing the actual points, is where all the
| absurdity begins and ends in this sub-thread.
|
| Even your Latin is stolen.
| ak_111 wrote:
| Where would the origin of the Celts be according to current
| archeological finds if you approached it from this
| linguistic point of view? Atlantic or central Europe?
| skywal_l wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_T%C3%A8ne_culture
| [deleted]
| pfdietz wrote:
| Picts or it didn't happen.
| prox wrote:
| XD
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