Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Celt |
CeltNoun1. A member of a European people who occupied Britain and Spain and Gaul in pre-Roman times. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "Celt" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1596. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Literature | Celt A piece of stone, ground artificially into a wedge-like shape, with a cutting edge. Used, before the employment of bronze and iron, for knives, hatchets, and chisels. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The Celts are an indigenous people of central Europe with large numbers in the United Kingdom, in France, and in Ireland where they are in the majority.
The first literary reference to the Celtic people, as keltoi or hidden people, is by the Greek Hecataeus in 517 BC.
"Celt" is pronounced /kelt/, and "celtic" as /keltIk/ (in SAMPA). The pronunciation /seltIk/ should only be used for certain sports teams (eg. Boston Celtics NBA and the Scottish football (soccer) side, Celtic FC).
The use of the word 'Celtic' as a valid umbrella term for the pre-Roman peoples of North West Europe has been challenged by a number of writers - including Simon James of the British Museum. His book The Atlantic Celts - Ancient People Or Modern Invention makes the point that the Romans never used the term 'Celtic' in reference to the peoples of the Atlantic archipelago i.e the British Isles. He makes it clear that the term was coined as a useful umbrella term in the 18th Century when the English Kingdom united with the Scottish. The English found it expedient to use the hitherto neutral term British for their own imperial ends. Thus a new term was needed to unit nationalists in Scotland, Ireland and Wales. The term 'Celtic' fitted the bill. James makes the point that archaeology does not suggest a united celtic culture and that the term is misleading, no more meaningful that 'Western European' would be today, and is also anachronistic.
The Origins of the Celts
The Urnfield people were the largest population grouping in late Bronze Age Europe and were preeminent from c. 1200 BC until the emergence of the Celts in c. 600 BC. The period of the Urnfield people saw a dramatic increase in population probably due to innovations in technology and agricultural practices. The spread of iron-working led to the development of the Hallstatt culture (c. 700 to 500 BC). The Hallstatt culture effectively held a frontier against incursions from the east by Thracian and Scythian ethnic tribesmen.
The subject of the succession of Halstatt culture by La Tène culture, the final stage of the Iron Age, and its gradual transformation into a characteristically Celtic culture is both complex and diverse, however the technologies, decorative practices and metal-working styles of the La Tène were to be very influential on the Celts. The La Tène style was highly derivative from the Greek, Etruscan and Scythian decorative styles with whom the La Tène settlers frequently traded.
Geographical distribution of the Celts
Their original homeland has been shown by archaeological findings to have been around the upper reaches of the Danube, Switzerland and southern Germany, and before that perhaps the central Asian steppes. From central Europe they spread as far south as the Iberian peninsula, as far north as Scotland and Denmark and as far west as Ireland, no doubt assimilating the previous inhabitants of these regions as they went. It was not the Celts but these previous inhabitants who had built Stonehenge and the other Neolithic and Bronze Age megalithic monuments in Europe. There are, however, diverging opinions on the origins of the Celts - Colin Burgess in his book the Age of Stonehenge put forward the theory that celtic culture in Britain 'emerged' rather that resulted from invasion.
But even if the Celts had not constructed these monuments themselves, the religious significance of these places may well have endured among the conquered people and the Celts eventually adopted the practice of worshipping there as well. Many Celts settled in present-day France. These were the Gauls who are described by Julius Caesar in his Gallic Wars.
Other Celtic tribes invaded Italy, establishing there a city they called Mediolanum (modern Milan) and sacking Rome itself in 390 B.C. Not until 192 B.C. did the Roman armies conquer the last remaining independent Celtic kingdoms in Italy.
Other Central European tribes moved eastwards and settled in Asia Minor, there to become the Galatians (that is, Gauls) to whom an epistle of St Paul's is addressed.
Although they were for a long time the dominant people in central and western Europe, the Celts in France, Britain and Spain were eventually conquered by the Romans, while elsewhere they were pushed further westwards by successive waves of Germanic invaders, who had themselves been evicted from the Indo-European homeland on the Southern Russian steppes by Mongols, Huns and Scythians. Thus, today the Celts are still the most westerly of European peoples, as they were in Herodotus's time, since their modern descendants still inhabit the Atlantic coast. These include the Irish, Scots, Welsh, Breton, Manx and Cornish peoples and their descendants in the New World and other ex-colonies. (In fact, there are more people of Celtic descent in the United States alone than there are in all the Celtic countries combined!)
Elsewhere, the Celtic populations were assimilated by others, leaving behind them only a legend and a number of place names such as the Spanish province of Galicia (i.e., Gaul), Bohemia, after the Boii tribe which once lived there, or the Kingdom of Belgium, after the Belgae, a Celtic tribe of Northern Gaul and south-eastern Britain. Their literary heritage has been absorbed into the folklore of half a dozen other countries. For instance, the famous Arthurian tale of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" is clearly an adaptation of a much older Irish legend about the exploits of the hero Cu Chulainn.
The Celts had a well-organised social system, which was harmonious with nature. They produced little in the way of literary output, preferring the bardic, oral, tradition. They were highly skilled in visual arts and produced a great deal of intricate and beautiful metalwork.
Related topics
- Celtic mythology
- Irish mythology
- Celtic language
- Welsh language
- Cornish language
- Celtic law
- Celtic knots
- Celtic High Crosses
- Celtic Christianity
- Glasgow Celtic
- Boston Celtics
- Water horse
- List of famous Celts
Reference
British Museum Press
- The Archaeology of Late Celtic Britain and Ireland c. 400--1200 AD, Lloyd Laing, London 1975
- The Atlantic Celts - Ancient People Or Modern Invention? James, Simon
In archaeology, celt is a term used for a type of ground stone tool that resembles a long, narrow axe, and which may have been used for various woodworking tasks. They are most commonly part of the lithic assemblages of more sophisticated prehistoric cultures, and have been found both in the Old World and the New.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Celt."
Synonym: CeltSynonym: Kelt (n). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Celt |
| English words defined with "Celt": Gael, Gaul. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Celt" is also a word in the following language with the English translation in parentheses. Romanian (celt). |
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
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| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Economic History | Ireland | Probably a Celt himself, St. Patrick preserved the tribal and social patterns of the Irish, codifying their laws and changing only those that conflicted with Christian practices. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Celt" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Celt" is used about 23 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 23 | 72,767 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "Celt": irish celt. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "Celt": ex-celt. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "Celt"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Afrikaans | Kelt. (various references) | |
Albanian | kelt (celtic, kelt, keltic). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | келт (kelt), първобитно длето. (various references) | |
Czech | keltština, kelt (kelt). (various references) | |
Dutch | Kelt. (various references) | |
Esperanto | kelto. (various references) | |
Finnish | kelttiläinen (Celtic). (various references) | |
French | Celte (Celtic). (various references) | |
German | kelte. (various references) | |
Greek | κέλτησ. (various references) | |
Hungarian | kelta (gaelic). (various references) | |
Irish | Ceilteach. (various references) | |
Italian | celta. (various references) | |
Manx | Celtiagh (Celtic). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | eltcay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | celta (celtic, gael, kelt), língua céltica (celtic, kelt). (various references) | |
Romanian | celt. (various references) | |
Russian | кельт (kelt). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | kelt (gael, kelt). (various references) | |
Spanish | celta (celtic, kelt, keltic). (various references) | |
Swedish | kelt (kelt). (various references) | |
Turkish | kelt (celtic, Gael, gaelic, kelt, keltic), hint-avrupa kökenli kavim, galya, breton ve irlanda neslini oluşturan kavim. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | кельт. (various references) | |
Vietnamese | người Xen-tơ. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "Celt": celts. (additional references) | |
| |
"Celt" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Acelt, Aclet, Calot, cealt, Ceel, Celf, Celta, Cest, cilt, ciltt, clect, Clett, Ecld, Eclr, Kellti, Kelty, Qelt. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "Celt" (pronounced se"lt or ke"lt) |
| 3 | -e" l t | belt, dealt, dwelt, felt, knelt, melt, pelt, smelt, svelte, welt. |
| 3 | -e" l t | belt, dealt, dwelt, felt, knelt, melt, pelt, smelt, svelte, welt. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "c-e-l-t" | |
-1 letter: cel, let, tel. | |
-2 letters: el, et. | |
| Words containing the letters "c-e-l-t" | |
+1 letter: celts, cleat, cleft, clept, culet, eclat, elect, letch, telic. | |
+2 letters: acetal, acetyl, atelic, cablet, callet, camlet, cantle, caplet, cartel, castle, cattle, cental, chalet, citole, claret, cleats, clefts, client, closet, clothe, collet, colter, culets, cullet, cutely, cutler, cutlet, cuttle, delict, deltic, dulcet, eclats, elects, elicit, fletch, lancet, lectin, lector, lentic, locate, locket, lucent, luetic, ocelot, placet, rectal, relict, reluct, select, stelic, tackle, talced, tectal, tercel, thecal, tickle, yclept. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
