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Celtic Languages

Celtic languages

The Celtic languages are the languages descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic", spoken by ancient and modern Celts alike. The Celtic languages are a family of the greater Indo-European language field. Anciently, during the 1st millennium BC, they were spoken across Europe, from the Bay of Biscay and the North Sea, up the Rhine and down the Danube to the Black Sea and the Upper Balkan Peninsula, and into Asia Minor (Galatia). Today, Celtic languages are now limited to a few enclaves in the British Isles, eastern Canada, Patagonia, scattered groups in the United States and Australia, and on the peninsula of Brittany in France. Proto-Celtic apparently divided into four sub-families:
- Gaulish and its close relatives, Lepontic and Galatian. These languages were once spoken in a wide arc from France to Turkey and from the Netherlands to northern Italy.
- Celtiberian, anciently spoken in the Iberian peninsula, namely in the areas of modern Portugal, Galicia, Asturias, Aragón and León.
- Goidelic, including Irish, Scots Gaelic, and Manx.
- Brythonic (also called Brittonic), including Welsh, Breton, Cornish, Cumbric, the hypothetical Ivernic, and possibly Pictish (opinion is divided as to whether Pictish, which surves only in place names and inscriptions, is a form of P-Celtic or a pre-Celtic language). Scholarly handling of the Celtic languages has been rather argumentative owing to lack of primary source data. Some scholars distinguish Continental and Insular Celtic, arguing that the differences between the Goidelic and Brythonic languages arose after these split off from the Continental Celtic languages. Other scholars distinguish P-Celtic from Q-Celtic, putting most of the Continental Celtic languages in the former group (except for Celtiberian, which is Q-Celtic). The Breton language is Brythonic, not Gaulish. When the Anglo-Saxons moved into Great Britain, some of the native Brythons or "Welsh" (from the Old English word for "foreigners") fled across the English Channel and landed in Brittany. They brought their Brythonic language with them, which evolved into Breton — which is still partially intelligible with Modern Welsh and Cornish. The distinction of Celtic into these four sub-families probably occurred about 1000 BC. The early Celts are commonly associated with the archaeological Urnfield culture, the La Tène culture, and the Hallstatt culture.

Classification

There are two competing schemata of categorization. One scheme, argued for by Schmidt (1988) among others, links Gaulish with Brythonic in a P-Celtic node, leaving Goidelic as Q-Celtic. The difference between P and Q languages is the treatment of Proto-Celtic
- kw, which became
- p in the P-Celtic languages but
- k in Goidelic. An example is the Proto-Celtic verb root
- kwrin- "to buy", which became pryn- in Welsh but cren- in Old Irish. The other scheme, defended for example by McCone (1996), links Goidelic and Brythonic together as an Insular Celtic sub-family, and Gaulish and Celtiberian as a Continental Celtic sub-family. According to this theory, the distinction of Q- and P-Celtic might have occurred independently or areally. The proponents of the Insular Celtic hypothesis point to other shared innovations among Insular Celtic languages, including inflected prepositions, VSO word order, and the lenition of intervocalic to , a nasalized voiced bilabial fricative (an extremely rare sound). There is, however, no assumption that the Continental Celtic languages descend from a common "Proto-Continental Celtic" ancestor. Rather, the Insular/Continental schemata usually considers Celtiberian the first branch to split from Proto-Celtic, and the remaining group would later have split into Gaulish and Insular Celtic. There are legitimate scholarly arguments in favour of both the Insular Celtic hypothesis and the P-Celtic/Q-Celtic hypothesis. Proponents of each schema dispute the accuracy and usefulness of the other's categories. Since the realization that Celtiberian was Q-Celtic in the 1970s, the division into Insular and Continental Celtic is the more widespread opinion. It should be remembered, however, that this dispute is purely academic in that it concerns the relationship between modern-day groups of languages and groups that are now extinct. No serious authority disputes that the Celtic languages spoken at present divide into Goidelic and Brythonic clusters. When referring only to the modern Celtic languages, "Q-Celtic" and "P-Celtic" may be taken as synonymous with Goidelic and Brythonic, respectively (although this terminology usually implies acceptance of the overall Q-Celtic/P-Celtic hypothesis). Within the Indo-European family, the Celtic languages have sometimes been placed with the Italic languages in a common Italo-Celtic subfamily, a hypothesis that is now largely obsolete. Assuming the Insular/Continental hypothesis, the family tree of the Celtic languages would be:
- Proto-Celtic or Common Celtic
  - Continental Celtic
    - Gaulish
      - Lepontic
      - Galatian
    - Celtiberian
  - Insular Celtic
    - Goidelic
      - Primitive Irish
      - Old Irish
      - Middle Irish
      -
- Irish
      -
- Scottish Gaelic
      -
- Manx
    - Brythonic
      - Cumbric
      - Pictish (possibly not Celtic)
      - Middle Welsh
      -
- Welsh
      - Southwestern Brythonic
      -
- Breton
      -
- Cornish Assuming the P-Celtic/Q-Celtic hypothesis, the Celtic family would be organised this way:
- Proto-Celtic or Common Celtic
  - P-Celtic
    - Gaulish
      - Lepontic
      - Galatian
    - Brythonic
      - Cumbric
      - Pictish (possibly not Celtic)
      - Middle Welsh
      -
- Welsh
      - Southwestern Brythonic
      -
- Breton
      -
- Cornish
  - Q-Celtic
    - Celtiberian
    - Goidelic
      - Primitive Irish
      - Old Irish
      - Middle Irish
      -
- Irish
      -
- Scottish Gaelic
      -
- Manx

Characteristics of Celtic languages

Although there are many differences between the individual Celtic languages, they do show many family resemblances. While none of these characteristics is necessarily unique to the Celtic languages, there are few if any other languages which possess them all. They include:
- Initial consonant mutation (Insular Celtic only)
- Inflected prepositions (Insular Celtic only)
- VSO word order as standard (Insular Celtic only)
- Two grammatical genders (modern Insular Celtic only; Old Irish and the Continental languages had three genders)
- Definite but no indefinite article (Insular Celtic only; no evidence for a definite article in Continental languages)
- Counting by twenties. Examples:
Ná bac le mac an bhacaigh is ní bhacfaidh mac an bhacaigh leat. (Irish example)
(Literal translation) Don't bother with son the beggar's and not will-bother son the beggar's with-you.

- bhacaigh is the genitive of bacach. The i is the genitive inflection; the bh is a mutation.
- leat is the second person form of the preposition le.
- The order is VSO in the second half. pedwar ar bymtheg a phedwar ugain (Welsh example)
four on fifteen and four twenties
- bymtheg is a mutated form of pymtheg, which is pump five plus deg ten. Likewise, phedwar is mutated from pedwar.
- The multiples of ten are deg, ugain, deg ar hugain, deugain, hanner cant, trigain, deg a thrigain, pedwar ugain, deg a phedwar ugain, cant.

Mixed languages


- Bungee language, a Metis mix of Scottish Gaelic and Cree language
- Shelta, a mix of Romany language, the Irish language and English
- Some forms of Romany language in Wales, also combined Romany itself with Welsh language and English language forms.

See also


- Language families and languages
- Celt (for the ancient Celts)
- Modern Celts
- Pronunciation of Celtic (on the pronunciation of this word in English)

External links


- [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=90047 Ethnologue report for Celtic languages]
- [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=90017 Ethnologue report for Indo-European languages]

References


-
-
- Category:Indo-European languages als:Keltische Sprachen ja:ケルト語派

Proto-Celtic

The Proto-Celtic language, also called Common Celtic, is the putative ancestor of all the known Celtic languages. Probably spoken around 800 BC, its lexis can be confidently reconstructed on the basis of the comparative method of historical linguistics. Proto-Celtic is a direct daughter-language of Proto-Indo-European and is widely regarded as the first of the Indo-European languages to spread in North-Western and Atlantic Europe. The area in which the language seems to have first become distinguishably Proto-Celtic, as opposed to earlier Centum dialect, corresponds to the Hallstatt culture, on the western fringes of the Urnfield. From roughly 800 BC, this culture by influence of "Thraco-Cimmerian" elements introduced the Iron Age to Europe. The contemporary Cimmerians were variously claimed as ancestors of the Cimbri, Sugambri and Cymru (see also British Israelism). The reconstruction of Proto-Celtic needs to be tentatively undertaken. While Continental Celtic presents much substantiation for phonology, and some for morphology, recorded material is too scanty to allow a secure reconstruction of syntax. Although some complete sentences are recorded in Gaulish and Celtiberian, the oldest substantial Celtic literature is found in Old Irish, the earliest recorded of the Insular Celtic languages.

Phonological reconstruction

Consonants

The phonological changes from Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Celtic consonants may be summarised as follows (an asterisk [
- ] prior to a letter or word designates that the phoneme or lexeme is not attested but is a hypothetical, reconstructed form): In contrast to the parent language, Proto-Celtic does not use aspiration as a feature for distinguishing phonemes. So where the Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirated stops
- ,
- ,
- merged with
- ,
- ,
- . The voiced aspirate labiovelar
- did not merge with
- , though: plain
- became
- in Proto-Celtic, while aspirated
- became
- . Thus, while PIE
- 'woman' became Old Irish ben and Welsh benyw, PIE
- 'to kill, to wound' is the source of Old Irish gonaid and Welsh gwanu. Proto-Indo-European
- was lost in Proto-Celtic, apparently going through the stages
- (as in the table above) and
- (perhaps attested by the toponym Hercynia if this is of Celtic origin) before being lost completely word-initially and between vowels. Adjacent to consonants, Proto-Celtic
- underwent different changes: the clusters
- and
- became
- and
- respectively already in Proto-Celtic. PIE
- became Old Irish s and Brythonic f; while Schrijver (1995, 348) argues there was an intermediate stage
- (in which
- remained an independent phoneme until after Proto-Insular Celtic had diverged into Goidelic and Brythonic), McCone (1996, 44–45) finds it more economical to believe that
- remained unchanged in PC, that is, the change
- to
- did not happen when
- preceded. (Similarly, Grimm's law did not apply to
- p, t, k after
- s in Germanic.) In Gaulish and the Brythonic languages, a new
- sound has arisen as a reflex of the Proto-Indo-European
- phoneme. Consequently one finds Gaulish petuar[ios], Welsh pedwar "four", compared to Old Irish
- cethair and Latin quattuor. In so far as this new /p/ fills the space in the phoneme inventory which was lost by the disappearence of the equivalent stop in PIE, we may think of this as a chain shift. The terms P-Celtic and Q-Celtic are useful when we wish to group the Celtic languages according to the way they handle this one phoneme. However the old view that the Celtic languaes first split into P- and Q-Celtic sub-families which then further divided is now seen as untenable, as it does not do justice to the evidence of the ancient Continental Celtic languages or to the large number of shared innovations among the Insular Celtic languages. Q-Celtic languages can also have a /p/ in loan words, though in some early borrowings from Welsh into Irish /k/ was used by sound substitution, as in Gaelic Cothrige, an early form of "Padraig". Gaelic póg "kiss" was a later borrowing (from the second word of the Latin phrase osculum pacis "kiss of peace") at a stage where p was borrowed directly as p, without substituting c.

Vowels

The Proto-Celtic vowel system is highly comparable to that reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European by Antoine Meillet. Dissimilarities include the incidence of Celtic
- ī for Proto-Indo-European
- ē (e.g., Gaulish rix and Irish rí, "king"; compare Latin rēx) and
- ā in place of
- ō. The vowel
- is the so-called "schwa indogermanicum", now interpreted as a laryngeal between two consonants.

Transition to Welsh

The regular consonantal sound changes from Proto-Celtic to the Welsh language may be summarised in the following table:

Morphology

The morphology (structure) of nouns and adjectives demonstrates no arresting alterations from the parent language. The Insular Celtic verb, on the other hand, shows a peculiar feature unknown in any other attested Indo-European language: verbs have different conjugational forms depending on whether they appear in absolute initial position in the sentence (Insular Celtic having Verb Subject Object or VSO word order) or whether they are preceded by a preverbal particle. The situation is most robustly attested in Old Irish, but it has remained to some extent in Scottish Gaelic and traces of it are present in Middle Welsh as well. Forms that appear in sentence-initial position are called absolute, those that appear after a particle are called conjunct. The paradigm of the present active indicative of the Old Irish verb beirid "carry" is as follows; the conjunct forms are illustrated with the particle ní "not". In Scottish Gaelic this distinction is still found in the future tense: In Middle Welsh, the distinction is seen most clearly in proverbs following the formula "X happens, Y does not happen" (Evans 1964: 119):
- Pereid y rycheu, ny phara a'e goreu "The furrows last, he who made them lasts not"
- Trenghit golut, ny threingk molut "Wealth perishes, fame perishes not"
- Tyuit maban, ny thyf y gadachan "An infant grows, his swaddling-clothes grow not"
- Chwaryit mab noeth, ny chware mab newynawc "A naked boy plays, a hungry boy plays not" The older analysis of the distinction, as reported by Thurneysen (1946, 360 ff.), held that the absolute endings derive from Proto-Indo-European "primary endings" (used in present and future tenses) while the conjunct endings derive from the "secondary endings" (used in past tenses). Thus Old Irish absolute beirid "s/he carries" was thought to be from
- (compare Sanskrit bharati "s/he carries"), while conjunct beir was thought to be from
- (compare Sanskrit a-bharat "s/he was carrying"). Today, however, most Celticists agree that Cowgill (1975), following an idea present already in Pedersen (1913, 340 ff.), found the correct solution to the origin of the absolute/conjunct distinction: an enclitic particle, reconstructed as
- after consonants and
- after vowels, came in second position in the sentence. If the first word in the sentence was another particle,
- came after that and thus before the verb, but if the verb was the first word in the sentence,
- was cliticized to it. Under this theory, then, Old Irish absolute beirid comes from Proto-Celtic
- , while conjunct ní beir comes from
- . The identity of the
- particle remains uncertain. Cowgill suggests it might be a semantically degraded form of
- "is", while Schrijver (1994) has argued it is derived from the particle
- "and then", which is attested in Gaulish. Continental Celtic languages cannot be shown to have any absolute/conjunct distinction. However, they seem to show only SVO and SOV word orders, as in other Indo-European languages. The absolute/conjunct distinction may thus be an artifact of the VSO word order that arose in Insular Celtic.

References


- Cowgill, Warren (1975). The origins of the Insular Celtic conjunct and absolute verbal endings. In Flexion und Wortbildung: Akten der V. Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft, Regensburg, 9.–14. September 1973, ed. H. Rix, 40–70. Wiesbaden: Reichert.
-
-
-
-
-
-

See also


- Italo-Celtic

External links

A reference for Proto-Celtic vocabulary is provided by the University of Wales at the following sites:
- [http://www.wales.ac.uk/documents/external/cawcs/PCl-MoE.pdf Proto-Celtic English dictionary]
- [http://www.wales.ac.uk/documents/external/cawcs/MoE-PCl.pdf English Proto-Celtic dictionary] Alternatively, the University of Leiden provides a Proto-Celtic dictionary:
- [http://www.indo-european.nl/cgi-bin/query.cgi?root=leiden&basename=%5Cdata%5Cie%5Cceltic Database query to An etymological lexicon of Proto-Celtic] Category:Celtic languages Category:Proto-languages

Celts

:This article is about the European people. For the tool, see celt (tool). celt (tool) The term Celts (pronounced "kelts") refers to any of a number of ancient peoples in Europe using the Celtic languages, which form a branch of Indo-European languages, as well as others whose language is unknown but where associated cultural traits such as Celtic art are found in archaeological evidence. Historical theories were developed that these factors were indicative of a common origin, but later theories of culture spreading to differing indigenous peoples have recently been supported by genetic studies. Though the spread of the Roman empire led to continental Celts adopting Roman culture, the development of Celtic Christianity in Ireland and Britain brought an early medieval renaissance of Celtic art between 400 and 1200. Antiquarian interest from the 17th century led to the term Celt being developed, and rising nationalism brought Celtic revivals from the 19th century in areas where the use of Celtic languages had continued. Today, "Celtic" is often used to describe the languages and respective cultures of Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, the Isle of Man and the French region of Brittany, but correctly corresponds to the Celtic language family in which are still spoken Scottish, Irish and Manx (Gaelic languages) and Welsh, Breton and Cornish (Brythonic languages).

Development of the term "Celt"

The first literary reference to the Celtic people, as keltoi or hidden people, is by the Greek historian Hecataeus in 517 BC. 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). 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 into Goidhels and Britons, and possibly other peoples. This is likely due to the possibility that, at those times, the term "Celta/Keltos" was tied to those cultures or people descendant from the Central Europe Celts, while no ties were known to the insular people (especially the Gaels whose language was extremely different from that of Brythonic Celts). The English word is modern, attested from 1707. In the late 17th century the work of scholars such as Edward Lhuyd brought academic attention, then in the 18th century the interest in "primitivism" which led to the idea of the "noble savage" brought a wave of enthusiasm for all things Celtic and Druidic. The "Irish revival" came after the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 as a conscious attempt to demonstrate an Irish national identity, and with its counterpart in other countries subsequently became the "Celtic revival". Nowadays "Celt" is usually pronounced as and "Celtic" as (in IPA) when referring to the ethnic group and its languages, while the pronunciation remains in use mainly for certain sports teams (eg. the NBA team, Boston Celtics, and the SPL side, Celtic F.C., in Glasgow). (The pronunciation with /s/ reflects historical palatalization of the letter 'C' when it occurs before 'I' or 'E' in words of Latin origin; in the Classical era Latin 'C' was always pronounced as /k/. The modern pronunciation with /k/ is a reversion to the original, whereas the pronunciation with /s/ has not been reverted.) The word spelt as "Celtic" is (arguably) English, as the Latin was "Celticus" or "Celticum", the Welsh is "Celtaidd", and the Irish Gaelic is "Ceilteach". By this argument, a pronunciation with /s/ should therefore be acceptable. The term "Celt" or "Celtic" can be used in several senses: it can denote a group of peoples who speak or descend from speakers of Celtic languages; or the people of prehistoric and early historic Europe who share common cultural traits which are thought to have originated in the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures. In contemporary terms, there are typically six nations defined as 'Celtic Nations'. To be defined as a Celtic nation, that nation must have ownership of a Celtic language. The first six are usually defined as Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Brittany. The additional nations of Galicia and Asturias in Spain are sometimes considered to be modern Celtic nations based on the survival of Celtic traditions similar to the traditions of other Celtic nations, however, the Celtic language has not survived in either. England retains many Celtic influences but is not Celtic, but the languages of Pre-Anglo Celtic peoples influences dialects of some of its more rural regions, particularly those bordering Scotland and Wales, the best known of which are Cumbric which was spoken from Strathclyde to Derbyshire as recently as the 11th century, and the language centred on Devon — both languages are under-going a modern revival. Other areas of Europe are associated with being Celtic as well, including France, which traces its roots to the Gauls. In Scotland, the Gaelic language traces at least some of its roots to migration and settlement by the Irish Dalriada/Scotti. Due to the settlement of English speaking Angles in the lowlands, which — among other things — drove out the Gaelic language, Scots Gaelic survives only in the country's northern and western fringes in the areas where Scotti tribes settled and dominated over the indigenous Brythonic culture. The use of the word 'Celtic' as a valid umbrella term for the pre-Roman peoples of Britain 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, and points out that the modern term "Celt" was coined as a useful umbrella term in the early 18th century to distinguish the non-English inhabitants of the archipelago when England united with Scotland in 1707 to create the United Kingdom. Nationalists in Scotland, Ireland and Wales looked for a way to differentiate themselves from England and assert their right to independence. James then argues that, despite the obvious linguistic connections, archaeology does not suggest a united Celtic culture and that the term is misleading, no more (or less) meaningful than 'Western European' would be today. This is somewhat misleading, however, since the Romans and Greeks did describe the Atlantic and continental Celts as being related to each other, having military alliances (and rivalries) with one another, sharing similar languages and traditions, as well as having a common religion and priest class. Additionally, archeological evidence shows quite clearly that the Atlantic and continental Celts were engaged in commerce with each other via regular trade routes. No one on either side of the debate argues that Celtic people have ever been a single homogenous political or social unit, but to argue that the Atlantic Celts were not Celts at all simply because hostile Romans never described them as such betrays a rather unscholarly bias. Miranda Green, author of Celtic Goddesses, describes archaeologists as finding "a certain homogeneity" in the traditions in the area of Celtic habitation including Britain and Ireland — an assertion backed up by recent genetic evidence which shows the populations of Ireland and Wales to be virtually indistinguishable from each other. She sees the inhabitants of the British Isles and Ireland as having become thoroughly Celticized by the time of the Roman arrival, mainly through spread of culture rather than a movement of people. In his book Iron Age Britain, Barry Cunliffe concludes that "...there is no evidence in the British Isles to suggest that a population group of any size migrated from the continent in the first millennium BC...". Cunliffe tempers his remarks by pointing out that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but modern archaeological thought tends to disparage the idea of large population movements without facts to back them up, a caution which appears to be vindicated by genetic studies. In other words, Celtic culture in the Atlantic Archipelago and continental Europe most probably emerged through the peaceful convergence of local tribal cultures bound together by networks of trade and kinship — not by war and conquest. This type of peaceful convergence and cooperation is actually relatively common among tribal peoples; other well known examples of the phenomenon include the Six Nations of the Iroquois League and the Nuer of East Africa. The ancient Celts are thus best depicted as a loose and highly diverse collection of indigenous tribal societies bound together by trade, a common druidic religion, and similar political institutions — but each having its own local language and traditions. Michael Morse in the conclusion of his book How the Celts came to Britain concedes that the concepts of a broad Celtic linguistic area and recognizably Celtic art have their uses, but argues that the term implies a greater unity than existed. Despite such problems he suggests that the term Celt is probably too deep-rooted to be replaced and — what is more important — it has the definition that we choose to give it. The problem is that the wider public reads into the term quite anachronistic concepts of ethnic unity that no one on either side in the academic debate holds.

Population genetics

With the information gathered recently by population geneticists, it is becoming increasingly clear that the old idea of large-scale replacement by newer invaders is often a misleading concept. The Celtic ethnicity debate took off at a particularly early stage in population genetic studies. In his book, "Neanderthal", the archaeologist, Douglas Palmer, refers to genetic research conducted across Europe, and then states that the original modern genetic group in Europe arrived between 9,000 and 5,000 years ago with the spread of farming, displacing the earlier hunter gatherer populations. Such displacement occurred by population explosion, since farming is capable of supporting up to a 60 times greater population than the hunter-gatherer lifestyle in the same area; :"None of Europe's subsequent historic upheavals - even catastrophic wars and famines - has seriously dented the old pattern set by the influx of farmers. The Goths, Huns and Romans have come and gone without any significant impact on the ancient gene map of Europe". -Douglas Palmer It seems futile to suggest that people who were once part of a wider Celtic cultural group, cannot be considered Celtic, in the same way that it would seem futile to suggest that their direct descendants in places like Devon or Cumbrian cannot be considered English in modern times. Perhaps our percepion of race and culture need to change, as European population genetic history seems to indicate that the latter is independent of the former.

Origins and geographical distribution

Huns style. The red area indicates an idea of the possible region of Celtic influence around 400 BC.]] The Celtic language family is a branch of the larger Indo-European family, which leads some scholars to a hypothesis that the original speakers of the Celtic proto-language may have arisen in the Pontic-Caspian steppes (see Kurgan). However, as the Celts enter history from around 600 BC, they are already split into several languages groups, and spread over much of Central Europe, the Iberian peninsula, Ireland and Britain, and studies now suggest that some of the Celtic peoples - including the ancestors of all the modern Celtic nations - had a largely pre-Celtic genetic ancestry, shared with the Basque people and possibly going back to the Palaeolithic. . Some scholars think that the Urnfield culture represents an origin for the Celts as a distinct cultural branch of the Indo-European family. This culture was preeminent in central Europe during the late Bronze Age, from ca. 1200 BC until 700 BC, itself following the Unetice and Tumulus cultures. The Urnfield period saw a dramatic increase in population in the region, probably due to innovations in technology and agricultural practices. The spread of iron-working led to the development of the Hallstatt culture directly from the Urnfield (c. 700 to 500 BC). Proto-Celtic, the latest common ancestor of all known Celtic languages, is thought to have been spoken at the time of the late Urnfield or early Hallstatt cultures, in the early 1st millennium BC. The spread of the Celtic languages to Britain and to Iberia would have occurred during the first half of the 1st millennium, the earliest chariot burials in Britain dating to ca. 500 BC. Over the centuries they developed into the separate Celtiberian, Goidelic and Brythonic languages. Whether Goidelic and Brythonic are descended from a common Insular-Celtic language, or if they reflect two separate waves of migration is disputed. The La Tène culture, in any case, can be associated with the Gauls, but it is entirely too late for a candidate for the Proto-Celtic culture. The Hallstatt culture was succeeded by the La Tène culture, and during the final stages of the Iron Age gradually transformed into the explicitly Celtic culture of early historical times. The La Tène culture was distributed around the upper reaches of the Danube, Switzerland, Austria, southern and central Germany, eastern France, Bohemia and Moravia, and parts of Hungary. The technologies, decorative practices and metal-working styles of the La Tène were to be very influential on the continental Celts. The La Tène style was highly derivative from the Greek, Etruscan and Scythian decorative styles with whom the La Tène settlers frequently traded. It is not known whether the Picts of Scotland were Celts or the remnant of an earlier population of the British Isles who had been pushed to the margin by Celtic invasions, or indeed whether they spoke a Brythonic language. The lack of any evidence to support the Celtic Invasion model, however, leads many scholars to favor the former model. In historical times western Scotland was colonised by Celtic Scotti from Ireland, who subsequently formed a political union with the Picts under Kenneth mac Alpin who had both Scots and Pictish ancestry. Additional forays into Greece and central Italy during the historical period did not result in settlement, though the same movement that brought Celtic invaders to Greece pushed on through to Anatolia, where they settled as the Galatians. As there is no archaeological evidence for large scale invasions in some of the other areas, one current school of thought holds that Celtic language and culture spread to those areas by contact rather than invasion. However, the Celtic invasions of Italy, Greece, and western Anatolia are well documented in Greek and Latin history. Examine the Map of Celtic Landsfor more information. Stonehenge and the other megalithic monuments long predate the Iron Age Celtic culture, but Genetic evidence indicates that the Celtic populations of the Atlantic Archipelago have been relatively stable for at least 6,000 years, in which case the modern Celts would be the direct descendants of their builders. There is no evidence that they used these sites as areas of worship from the Iron Age on, however, and indeed most evidence suggest that the Druidic Celtic religion(s) preferred to use groves of Oak trees as places of worship. The connection between these monuments and the Celts largely stems from 18th century romantics such as William Stukely.

Celts in Ireland and Britain

The indigenous populations of Britain and Ireland today are primarily descended from the ancient peoples that have always inhabited these lands. As to their culture, little is known but remnants remain primarily in the naming of certain geographical features, such as the rivers Clyde, Tamar, Thames and Tyne. By the Roman period most of the inhabitants of the isles of Ireland and Great Britain (the ancient Britons) were speaking Goidelic or Brythonic languages, close counterparts to Gaulish languages spoken on the European mainland. Historians explained this as the result of successive invasions from the European continent by diverse Celtic-speaking peoples over the course of several centuries. In 1946 the Celtic scholar T. F. O'Rahilly published his extremely influential model of the early history of Ireland which postulated four separate waves of Celtic invaders. What languages were spoken by the peoples of the British Isles before the arrival of the Celts is unknown. early history of Ireland Later research indicated that the language and culture had developed gradually and continuously, and in Ireland no archaeological evidence was found for large intrusive groups of Celtic immigrants, suggesting to historians such as Colin Renfrew that the native Late Bronze Age inhabitants gradually absorbed influences to create "Celtic" culture. The very few continental La Tène culture style objects which had been found in Ireland could have been imports, or the possessions of a few rich immigrants. Julius Caesar had written of people in Britain who came from Belgium (the Belgae), but archaeological evidence which was interpreted in the 1930s as confirming this was contradicted by later interpretations and it was suggested that there might have been only a handful of élite Belgae in Britain. In the 1970s this model was popularised by Colin Burgess in his book The Age of Stonehenge which theorised that Celtic culture in Great Britain "emerged" rather than resulted from invasion and that the Celts were not invading aliens, but the descendants of the people of Stonehenge. More recently a number of genetic studies have supported this model of culture being absorbed by native populations. The study by Cristian Capelli, David Goldstein and others at University College, London showed that genes associated with Gaelic names in Ireland and Scotland are also common in Wales, Cornwall and most parts England, and are similar to the genes of the Basque people, who speak a non-Indo-European language. This similarity supported earlier findings in suggesting a largely pre-Celtic genetic ancestry, possibly going back to the Paleolithic. They suggest that 'Celtic' culture and the Celtic language were imported to Britain by cultural contact not mass invasions, either by Indo-Europeans bringing farming or by Celts in 600 BC. Recent studies have proven that, contrary to long-standing beliefs, the Teuton tribes did not wipe out the Romano-British of England but rather, over the course of six centuries, conquered the native Brythonic people of what is now England and south east Scotland and imposed their culture and language upon them, in a manner similar to the Irish spread over the west of Scotland.

Roman influence

At the dawn of history in Europe, the Celts in present-day France were known as Gauls. Their descendants were described by Julius Caesar in his Gallic Wars. There was also an early Celtic presence in northern Italy. Other Celtic tribes invaded Italy, establishing there a city they called Mediolanum (modern Milan) and sacking Rome itself in 390 BC following the Battle of the Allia. A century later the defeat of the combined Samnite, Celtic and Etruscan alliance by the Romans in the Third Samnite War sounded the end of the Celtic domination in Europe, but it was not until 192 BC that the Roman armies conquered the last remaining independent Celtic kingdoms in Italy. Under Caesar the Romans conquered Celtic Gaul, and from Claudius onward the Roman empire absorbed parts of the Celtic British Isles. Roman local government of these regions closely mirrored pre-Roman 'tribal' boundaries, and archaeological finds suggest native involvement in local government. Latin was the official language of these regions after the conquests. The native peoples under Roman rule became Romanized and keen to adopt Roman ways. Celtic art had already incorporated classical influences, and surviving Gallo-Roman pieces interpret classical subjects or keep faith with old traditions despite a Roman overlay.

Examples of Romanization

Examples of Romanization include the slow dissapperence of druids. This was because under Roman rule the druids lost power. Before Roman rule druids were important and made almost all desicions. When Rome came to rule druids no longer made these desicions. The use of stone by Celts. Before Rome they almost only used mud and sticks. When they started to interact with Rome more they started to use stone. Appearence of Roman-Celt hybrid gods. With more interaction with Rome celtic gods started to have names such as Mars.

Celtic Christianity

While the regions under Roman rule adopted Christianity along with the rest of the Roman empire, unconquered areas of Scotland and Ireland moved from Celtic polytheism to Celtic Christianity which was a major source of missionary work in other parts of Britain and central Europe. This brought the early medieval renaissance of Celtic art between 400 and 1200, developing many of the styles now thought of as typically Celtic, and found through much of Ireland and Britain, including the north-east and far north of Scotland, Orkney and Shetland Islands. This was brought to an end by Roman Catholic and Norman influence, though the Celtic languages and some minor influences of the art continued.

Celts pushed west by Germanic migration

Celts were pushed westwards by successive waves of Germanic invaders, perhaps themselves at times pressured by Huns and Scythians or simply population pressures in their homeland of Scandinavia and Northern Germany. With the fall of the Roman Empire the Celts of Gaul, Iberia and Britannia were "conquered" by tribes speaking Germanic languages. Elsewhere, the Celtic populations were assimilated by others, leaving behind them only a legend and a number of place names such as 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 England. Their mythology has been absorbed into the folklore of half a dozen other countries. For instance, the famous Medieval English Arthurian tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is almost certainly partially derived from the medieval Irish text Fled Bricrend (The Feast of Bricriu). Argument rages in the academic world as to whether the Celts in England were mostly wiped out/pushed west as the lack of evidence for influence of the Celts on Anglo-Saxon society suggests, or whether the Teuton migration consisted merely of the social elite and that the genocide was cultural rather than physical due to such relatively few numbers of Anglo-Saxons mixing with the far larger native population, enabled to do so due to the civil strife in Britain after the Roman withdrawal and the unity of the incoming invaders. Recent DNA studies have confirmed that the population of England maintains a predominately ancient British element, equal in most parts to Cornwall and Wales. The general indigenous population of Yorkshire, East Anglia and the Orkney and Sheltand Islands are those populations with the least traces of ancient British continuation . Ironically, it is Viking genetic influence and not Anglo-Saxon which has had a more profound impact on British bloodlines.

Celtic social system and arts

The pre-Christian Celts had a well-organized social structure, based on class and kinship, with the religion we call Celtic polytheism. Elected Kings led the tribes, and society was divided into three groups: a warrior aristocracy, an intellectual class including druids, poets, and jurists, and everyone else. Women participated both in warfare and in kingship, and all the offices of high and low kings were filled by election under the system of tanistry, both factors which would confuse Norman writers expecting the feudal principle of primogeniture where the succession goes to the first born son. Little is known of family structure, but Athenaeus in his Deipnosophists, 13.603, claims that "the Celts, in spite of the fact that their women are very beautiful, prefer boys as sexual partners. There are some of them who will regularly go to bed – on those animal skins of theirs – with a pair of lovers," implying with a woman and a boy. Celtic societies were organised around warfare, but this seems to have been more of a sport focussed on raids and hunting rather than organised territorial conquest, drawing obvious comparisons to warfare among Native Americans prior to European contact. This was the age of Hillforts and duns, but there was apparently no urbanization. There is strong archeological evidence to suggest that the pre-Roman Celtic nations were tied into a network of overland trade routes that spanned Eurasia from Ireland to China. Celtic traders were also in contact with the Phoenicians, gold works made in Pre-Roman Ireland have been unearthed in archeological digs in Palestine, and trade routes between the Celtic nations and Palestine date back to at least 1600 BC. Local trade was largely in the form of barter, but as with most tribal societies they probably had a reciprocal economy in which goods and other services are not exchanged, but are given on the basis of mutual relationships and the obligations of kinship. Though they had a written language, the Ogham script, it was only used for ceremonial purposes and they produced little in the way of literary output. Instead, Celtic peoples preferred the oral Bardic tradition. The oldest recorded rhyming poetry in the world is of Irish origin and is a transcription of a much older epic poem, leading some scholars to claim that the Celts invented Rhyme. They were highly skilled in visual arts and Celtic art produced a great deal of intricate and beautiful metalwork, examples of which have been preserved by their distinctive burial rites. In some regards the Atlantic Celts were conservative, for example they still used chariots in combat long after they had been reduced to ceremonial roles by the Greeks and Romans, though when faced with the Romans, and in the Atlantic islands their chariot tactics defeated the invasion attempted by Julius Caesar.

Celtic Religous Patterns

Although Celtic gods varied from region to region and tribe to tribe, the Celtic religion had some patterns. For example like Mediterranean cultures most early Celts worshipped in sacred groves. This was once postulated to have occured because of Celts trading with Mediterranean cultures; however, evidence from Hallstatt era finds show that the earliest Celts practiced this before such trade took place. More reasonably, it is a byproduct of most primitive religion to worship in such a way. However, La Tene Celts also built temples of varying size and shape, though they still usually maintained sacred trees, or votive pools. Worship was, in this way, defered to temples, when they were available. Numerous temples were converted by the Romans, and with little difficulty; the design was rather similar to Roman temples, as they were both highly influenced by the Greeks, architecturally speaking. They druids postitions vary; a druid is not always a priest. Druids are any members of a Celtic society who had what we would view today as a college education. The most educated druids were usually doctors, priests, and heralds, as these occupations required the most memorization and skill for their practices. Priests from this class were in charge of a great deal of religious festivals, as well as organizing the calendar; a daunting task as the Celtic calendar is incredibly accurate, but required manual correction about every 40 years, meaning lengthy mathematic discourse. Druids also carried out sacrifices of crops, animals, and during specific festivals, humans. In a Celtic society, people were not executed for crimes, except during these festivals. Such executions varied, depending on what god the execution was dedicated to. Among the most famous is the human sacrifices practiced in the course of Essus worship. Essus was, more or less, a benevolent law god to many Celts, particularly Gauls. However, Essus worship also intoned a sense of merciless behavior toward repeated criminals, rapists, traitors, and other societal dregs. The offender, if found guilty, would be taken to the temple of Essus, where an oak would be growing through an opening in the temple roof. His stomach would be cut open, and he would be hung from an oak branch. The Celts' gods were often named after natural things. For example the source of rivers would often have their own goddesses, though rarely many gods. Another theme with Celt gods were triple deities; not only goddesses, but numerous gods. For example the Mothers of Britain, or Cromm Cruach's slovenly, deific, and humanistic forms. The main deities of Celtic religion, contrary to much misconception, were usually male. The world in some remaining myths is often depicted as having been forged by a god with a hammer, such as Dagda or Sucellos, who then poured all life from a magic cauldron or cup; a source of pre-Christian 'Holy Grail' myths in Celtic societies. While deities varied, several constant deities or demigods existed over a wide area. A great example is Lugos, a heroic sun god from Gaul and the southern, Gallic parts of Britain. He is also known as Lugh (in Ireland), Llew (in non-Gallic Britain), and Lug (among Celtiberians, who were not culturally true Celts). Early depictions of him exist as early as the Hallstatt era, suggesting him as one of the longest existing gods of Celtic religion. Similar is the horse and fertility goddess, Epona, who was also worshipped by the Romans when they came to rule Gaul. She also seems to have existed from the early era. Finally, there is Sucellos, who is argued by some to have been the 'creator of the universe' in some Celtic religions. He is party to Dagda of Ireland, and was worshipped over an enormous area, including by non-Celtic peoples such as the Lusitani. He was the patron god of the Ordovices tribe of Britain, and was built up by the Arverni and their allies to replace the druidic god Cernunnos, as the Gallic druids were allies of their enemies in the rule for Gaul; the Aedui. Other religious practices also existed; Celts seem to have universally removed body hair. Some postulate this as religious, but was more realistically part of the Celtic propensity for cleanliness. Body hair kept dirt close to the body, and Celts were an extremely cleanly people, so this was unacceptable. However, Celts also took heads from dead enemies. This was definitely a religious practice in origin. However, even post-Christian Gaels continued this practice into the middle ages; some Irish even took to scalping the heads that they took, so they could braid the scalp through rings on their weapons. The religious connotations by that point were slim, but it does imply that taking heads had incredible cultural importance to have persisted so long after the religious background had been removed. To our understanding, Celts believed the soul resided in the head, and that capturing a head meant that one captured the soul of an opponent, and that when a Celt died, the dead whom he had collected would serve him as slaves for eternity.

Celts as head-hunters

"Amongst the Celts the human head was venerated above all else, since the head was to the Celt the soul, centre of the emotions as well as of life itself, a symbol of divinity and of the powers of the other-world." - Paul Jacobsthal, Early Celtic Art. The Celtic cult of the severed head is documented not only in the many sculptured representations of severed heads in La Tene carvings, but in the surviving Celtic mythology, which is full of stories of the severed heads of heroes and the saints who carry their decapitated heads, right down to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight who picks up his own severed head after Gawain has struck it off, just as St. Denis carried his head to the top of Montmartre. Separated from the mundane body, although still alive, the animated head acquires the ability to see into the mythic realm. Diodorus Siculus, in his 1st century History had this to say about Celtic head-hunting: "They cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle and attach them to the necks of their horses. The blood-stained spoils they hand over to their attendants and carry off as booty, while striking up a paean and singing a song of victory; and they nail up these first fruits upon their houses, just as do those who lay low wild animals in certain kinds of hunting. They embalm in cedar oil the heads of the most distinguished enemies, and preserve them carefully in a chest, and display them with pride to strangers, saying that for this head one of their ancestors, or his father, or the man himself, refused the offer of a large sum of money. They say that some of them boast that they refused the weight of the head in gold; thus displaying what is only a barbarous kind of magnanimity, for it is not a sign of nobility to refrain from selling the proofs of one's valour. It is rather true that it is bestial to continue one's hostility against a slain fellow man." The Celts also believed that if they attached the head of their enemy to a pole or a fence near their house, the head would start crying when the enemy was near. The Celtic headhunters venerated the image of the severed head as a continuing source of spiritual power. If the head is the seat of the soul, possessing the severed head of an enemy, honorably reaped in battle, added prestige to any warrior's reputation. According to tradition the buried head of a god or hero named Bran the Blessed protected Britain from invasion across the English Channel.

Names for Celts

The origin of the various names used since classical times for the people known today as the Celts is obscure and has been controversial. It appears that none of the terms recorded were ever used by Celtic speakers of themselves. In particular, there is no record of the term "Celt" being used in connection with the inhabitants of Ireland and Britain prior to the 19th century.

The name "Gauls"

English Gaul(s), French Gaulois(es), Spanish Galo(s), Latin Gallus or Galli, German Gallier might be from an originally Celtic ethnic or tribal name (perhaps borrowed into Latin during the early 400s BC, Celtic expansions into Italy). Its root may be the Common Celtic
- galno, meaning "power" or "strength". Greek Galatai (see Galatia in Anatolia) seems to be based on the same root, borrowed directly from the same hypothetical Celtic source which gave us Galli (the suffix -atai is simply an ethnic name indicator).

The word "Welsh"

The word Welsh is a Germanic word, yet it may ultimately have a Celtic source. It may be the result of an early borrowing (in the 4th century BC) of the Celtic tribal name Volcae into early Germanic (becoming the Proto-Germanic
- Walh-, "Foreigner" and the suffixed form
- Walhisk-). The Volcae were one of the Celtic peoples that barred, for two centuries, the southward expansion of the German tribes in central Germany on the line of the Hartz mountains and into Saxony and Silesia. In the middle ages certain districts of what is now Germany were known as "Welschland" as opposed to "Deutschland", and the word is cognate with Vlach (see: Etymology of Vlach) and Walloon as well as the 'wall' in Cornwall. During the early Germanic period, the term seems to have been applied to the peasant population of the Roman Empire, most of whom were, in the areas immediately settled by the Germans, of ultimately Celtic origin.

The name "Celts"

English Celt(s), Latin Celtus pl. Celti (Celtae), Greek Κέλτης pl. Κέλτες seem to be based on a native Celtic ethnic name (singular
- Celtos or
- Celta with plurals
- Celtoi or
- Celta:s), of unsure etymology. The root would seem to be a Primitive Indo-European
- kel- or (s)kel-, but there are several such roots of various meanings to choose from (
- kel- "to be prominent",
- kel- "to drive or set in motion",
- kel- "to strike or cut" etc.)

See also


- Lusitanians
- Saka
- Cimmerians
- Scythians
- Amazons
- Cimbri
- Belgae
- Ancient Britain
- Celtic mythology
- Irish mythology
- Celtic language
- Welsh language
- Cornish language
- Celtic law
- Celtic art
- Celtic music
- Celtic knot
- Celtic High Crosses
- Celtic Christianity
- Cumbric language
- List of Celts
- List of Celtic tribes
- The Celt belt
- Proto-Germanic
- Modern Celts
- Pronunciation of Celtic
- Pan-Celticism
- Celtic League (political organisation)
- Celtic Congress
- Latin-celt
- Franco-celt

Endnotes

# "The pronunciation of the word remains ambiguous, however, a conflict between its Greek root, keltoi, and its path through French, where celtique is pronounced with a soft c: 'sell-TEEK'. Although many dictionaries, including the OED, prefer the soft c pronunciation, most students of Celtic culture prefer the hard c: 'KELL-tik', in acknowledgement of its Greek origin." [MacKillop, 1998, p. XVII] # # Lhuyd, Edward. Archæologia britannica. [cf. p. 290] #

References


- Collis, John. The Celts - Origins, Myths & Inventions. Stroud: Tempus Publishing, 2003. ISBN 0752429132.
- Cunliffe, Barry. The Ancient Celts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. ISBN 0198150105.
- Cunliffe, Barry. Iron age Britain. London: Batsford, 2004. ISBN 0713488395
- James, Simon. The Atlantic Celts - Ancient People Or Modern Invention? Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, August 1999. ISBN 0299166740.
- James, Simon & Rigby, Valerie. Britain and the Celtic Iron Age. London: British Museum Press, 1997. ISBN 0714123064.
- Kruta,V., O. Frey, Barry Raftery and M. Szabo. eds. The Celts. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1991. ISBN 0847821935.
- Laing, Lloyd. The Archaeology of Late Celtic Britain and Ireland c. 400--1200 AD. London: Methuen, 1975. ISBN 0416823602
- MacKillop, James. A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0192801201
- McEvedy, Colin. The Penguin Atlas of Ancient History. New York: Penguin, 1985. ISBN 0140708324
- Mallory, J. P. In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth. London: Thames and Hudson, 1991. ISBN 0500276161.
- Powell, T. G. E. The Celts. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1980. third ed. 1997. ISBN 0500272751.
- Raftery, Barry. Pagan Celtic Ireland: The Enigma of the Irish Iron Age. London: Thames & Hudson, 1994. ISBN 0500279837.
- Renfrew, Colin. Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. ISBN 0521386756.
- Ward-Perkins, Bryan. "Why Did The Anglo-Saxons Not Become More British?" in English Historical Review, June 2000.
- Weale, M. "Y Chromosome Evidence For Anglo-Saxon Mass Migration." in Society For Molecular Biology And Evolution, 2002.
- Lloyd and Jenifer Laing. Art of the Celts, London: Thames and Hudson, 1992 ISBN 0500202567

External links


- [http://www.resourcesforhistory.com Celts and Romans]
- [http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MA/CELTS.HTM The Celts]
- [http://www.familytreedna.com/pdf/capelli2_CB.pdf "A Y Chromosome Census of the British Isles" (pdf)]
- BBC [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/2076470.stm "English and Welsh are races apart"]
- BBC [http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/bloodofthevikings/genetics_results_07.shtml "Descendents of the ancient Britons in genetic survey results for Rush and Castlerea, Ireland, 2003".] Category:Ancient Roman enemies and allies Category:Ancient peoples Category:Celts Category:Ethnic groups of Europe als:Kelten ms:Celt ja:ケルト人

Indo-European

Indo-European was originally a purely linguistic term, referring to the Indo-European language family. By extension, it became a collective name for cultures and religions associated with these languages. Hypothetically, these cultures arose from the expansion of an ancient people, the Proto-Indo-Europeans, from a homeland that has remained obscured, although opinion is generally divided between southern Russia and eastern Anatolia.

Language Family

See main article Indo-European languages. The Indo-European language family is attested in twelve branches, some of them extinct, with a historical distribution over most of Europe, North India, Pakistan, Anatolia, Armenia, Iran, and parts of Central Asia (East Turkistan). The word Indo specifically refers to India alone. India has the largest single Indo-European speaking population on the planet where 75% of the non-Dravidian population (some 700 million people) speak many different Indo-European languages and dialects, which are descendents of a language called Proto-Indo-Aryan by linguists. During the age of colonialism, Indo-European languages spread from Europe to all continents, and today there are over three billion speakers of Indo-European languages, distributed all over the world. The languages are traditionally separated into a Satem group in the east (Baltic, Slavic, Indo-Iranian, Armenian) and a Centum group in the west (Greek, Italic, Celtic, Germanic), according to their different treatment of PIE velar sounds. The two groups are considered paraphyletic, i.e. there are no separate proto-languages for each group and their common characteristics are likely due to prolonged contact because of their geographical proximity. Also, there is evidence that the Anatolian, Tocharian and Albanian branches belong to neither of the two groups.

Comparative Linguistics

See main article Indo-European studies. The existence of the Proto-Indo-Europeans has been inferred by comparative linguistics. The discovery of the genetic relationship of the various Indo-European languages goes back to William Jones, a British judge in India, who in 1782 observed the strong affinity of Sanskrit, Greek and Latin. The language group was briefly referred to as "Indo-Germanic", until it became apparent that the group included most of the other languages of Europe, as well. "Indo-European", the term now current in English, was coined in 1813 by the British scholar Sir Thomas Young. Franz Bopp performed extensive comparative work. At first, the related languages were simply compared, with no attempt at reconstruction. August Schleicher was the first scholar to compose a tentative text in the extinct "common source" Jones had predicted. The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) represents, by definition, a hypothetical model of the common language of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, great progress was made due to the discovery of more language material belonging to the Indo-European family, and by advances in comparative linguistics, by scholars such as Ferdinand de Saussure.

Proto-Indo-Europeans

See main article Proto-Indo-Europeans.

Origins

The scholars of the 19th century that originally tackled the question of the original homeland of the Indo-Europeans (also called Urheimat after the German term), were essentially confined to linguistic evidence. A rough localization was attempted by reconstructing the names of plants and animals as well as the culture and technology. The scholarly opinions became basically divided between a European hypothesis, positing migration from Europe to Asia, and an Asian hypothesis, holding that the migration took place in the opposite direction. However, from its early days, the controversy was tainted by romantic, nationalistic notions of heroic invaders at best and by imperialist and racist agendas at worst. The question is still the source of much contention. racist according to the Kurgan hypothesis. The purple area corresponds to the assumed Urheimat (Samara culture, Sredny Stog culture). The red area corresponds to the area which may have been settled by Indo-European-speaking peoples up to ca. 1000 BC.]] In the twentieth century, Marija Gimbutas (1956) created a modern variation on the traditional invasion theory (the Kurgan hypothesis) which regards the Indo-Europeans as nomadic horsemen in what is today South Russia and Eastern Ukraine, expanding in several waves during the 3rd millennium BC. However, others have associalted the Kurgans with the Indo-Iranians. Colin Renfrew (1987) is the main propagator for another theory according to which the Indo-Europeans were farmers in Anatolia who introduced agriculture into southeast Europe around 7000 BC and assimilated the Preindoeuropeans. This is also problematic, however, as the Indo-European language had words for things such as yoke and plough which were not present at the introduction of agriculture to Europe. The rise of Archaeogenetics, which uses genetic analysis to trace migration patterns, added new elements to the puzzle. Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza recently used genetic evidence to in some ways combine Gimbutas' and Renfrew's theory.

Religion

Main article: Proto-Indo-European religion The hypothetical PIE religion was centered on sacrificial rituals where animals were slaughtered to establish good relations with the gods. The chief god of the Proto-Indo-European pantheon, probably mirroring the position of the king in human society, was the sky-god Dyeus.

See also


- Pre-Indo-European
-

Europe

:This article is about the continent. For other meanings, see Europe (disambiguation). Europe is geologically and geographically a peninsula or subcontinent, forming the westernmost part of Eurasia. It is conventionally considered a continent, which, in this case, is more of a cultural distinction than a geographic one. It is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean and to the south by the Mediterranean and Black Seas and the Caucasus. Europe's boundary to the east is vague, but has traditionally been given as the Ural Mountains and Caspian Sea to the southeast: the Urals are considered by most to be a geographical and tectonic landmark separating Asia from Europe. :See also Continent, Bicontinental country, and Table of European territories and regions. Table of European territories and regions Table of European territories and regions Europe is the world's second-smallest continent in terms of area, covering around 10,790,000 km² (4,170,000 sq mi) or 2.1% of the Earth's surface, and is only larger than Australia. In terms of population, it is the third-largest continent (Asia and Africa are larger) with a population of more than 700,000,000, or about 11% of the world's population.

Etymology

Africa.]] In Greek mythology, Europa was a Phoenician princess who was abducted by Zeus in bull form and taken to the island of Crete, where she gave birth to Minos. For Homer, Europé (Greek: Ευρωπη; see also List of traditional Greek place names) was a mythological queen of Crete, not a geographical designation. Later Europa stood for mainland Greece, and by 500 BC its meaning had been extended to lands to the north. The Greek term Europe has been derived from Greek words meaning broad (eurys) and face (ops) -- broad having been an epitheton of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion; see Prithvi (Plataia). A minority, however, suggest this Greek popular etymology is really based on a Semitic word such as the Akkadian erebu meaning "sunset" (see also Erebus). From the Middle Eastern vantagepoint, the sun does set over Europe, the lands to the west. Likewise, Asia is sometimes thought to have derived from the Akkadian word asu, meaning "sunrise", and is the land to the east from a Mesopotamian perspective.

History

Europe has a long history of cultural and economic achievement, starting as far back as the Palaeolithic, although this is true for the rest of the Old World as well. The recent discovery at Monte Poggiolo, Italy, of thousands of hand-shaped stones, tentatively carbon-dated to 800,000 years ago, may prove to be of particular importance. The origins of Western democratic and individualistic culture are often attributed to Ancient Greece, though numerous other distinct influences, in particular Christianity, can also be credited with the spread of concepts like egalitarianism and universality of law. The Roman Empire divided the continent along the Rhine and Danube for several centuries. Following the decline of the Roman Empire, Europe entered a long period of changes arising from what is known as the Age of Migrations. That period has been known as the "Dark Ages" to Renaissance thinkers. During this time, isolated monastic communities in Ireland and elsewhere carefully safeguarded and compiled written knowledge accumulated previously. The Renaissance and the New Monarchs marked the start of a period of discovery, exploration, and increase in scientific knowledge. In the 15th century Portugal opened the age of discoveries, soon followed by Spain. They were later joined by France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom in building large colonial empires with vast holdings in Africa, the Americas, and Asia. After the age of discovery, the ideas of democracy took hold in Europe. Struggles for independence arose, most notably in France during the period known as the French Revolution. This led to vast upheaval in Europe as these revolutionary ideas propagated across the continent. The rise of democracy led to increased tensions within Europe on top of the tensions already existing due to competition within the New World. The most famous of these conflicts was when Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power and set out on a conquest, forming a new French empire that soon collapsed. After these conquests Europe stabilised, but the old foundations were already beginning to crumble. The Industrial Revolution started in the United Kingdom in the late 18th century, leading to a move away from agriculture, much greater general prosperity and a corresponding increase in population. Many of the states in Europe took their present form in the aftermath of World War I. From the end of World War II through the end of the Cold War, Europe was divided into two major political and economic blocks: Communist nations in Eastern Europe and capitalist countries in Western Europe. Around 1990, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Eastern bloc disintegrated.

Geography and extent

Eastern bloc Geographically Europe is a part of the larger landmass known as Eurasia. The continent begins at the Ural Mountains in Russia, which define Europe's eastern boundary with Asia. The southeast boundary with Asia isn't universally defined. Most commonly the Ural or, alternatively, the Emba river can serve as possible boundaries. The boundary continues with the Caspian Sea, and then the Araxes river in the Caucasus, and on to the Black Sea; the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles conclude the Asian boundary. The Mediterranean Sea to the south separates Europe from Africa. The western boundary is the Atlantic Ocean, but Iceland, much farther away than the nearest points of Africa and Asia, is also often included in Europe. There is ongoing debate on where the geographical centre of Europe is. At times "Europe" is defined with greater regard to political, economic, and other cultural considerations. This has led to there being several different Europes that are not always identical in size, including or excluding countries according to the definition of Europe used. Almost all European countries are members of the Council of Europe, the exceptions being Belarus, and the Holy See (Vatican City). The idea of the European continent is not held across all cultures. Some non-European geographical texts refer to the continent of Eurasia, or to the European peninsula, given that Europe is not surrounded by sea. In the past concepts such as Christendom were deemed more important. In another usage, Europe is increasingly being used as a short-form for the European Union (EU) and its members, currently consisting of 25 member states. A number of other European countries are negotiating for membership, and several more are expected to begin negotiations in the future (see Enlargement of the European Union).

Physical features

In terms of shape, Europe is a collection of connected peninsulas. The two largest of these are "mainland" Europe and Scandinavia to the north, divided from each other by the Baltic Sea. Three smaller peninsulas (Iberia, Italy and the Balkans) emerge from the southern margin of the mainland into the Mediterranean Sea, which separates Europe from Africa. Eastward, mainland Europe widens much like the mouth of a funnel, until the boundary with Asia is reached at the Ural Mountains. Land relief in Europe shows great variation within relatively small areas. The southern regions, however, are more mountainous, while moving north the terrain descends from the high Alps, Pyrenees and Carpathians, through hilly uplands, into broad, low northern plains, which are vast in the east. This extended lowland is known as the Great European Plain, and at its heart lies the North German Plain. An arc of uplands also exists along the northwestern seaboard, beginning in the western British Isles and continuing along the mountainous, fjord-cut spine of Norway. This description is simplified. Sub-regions such as Iberia and Italy contain their own complex features, as does mainland Europe itself, where the relief contains many plateaus, river valleys and basins that complicate the general trend. Iceland and the British Isles are special cases. The former is a land unto itself in the northern ocean which is counted as part of Europe, while the latter are upland areas that were once joined to the mainland until rising sea levels cut them off. Due to the few generalisations that can be made about the relief of Europe, it is less than surprising that its many separate regions provided homes for many separate nations throughout history.

Biodiversity

Having lived side-by-side with agricultural peoples for millennia, Europe's animals and plants have been profoundly affected by the presence and activities of man. With the exception of Scandinavia and northern Russia, few areas of untouched wilderness are today to be found in Europe, except for different natural parks. The main natural vegetation cover in Europe is forest. The conditions for growth are very favourable. In the north, the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Drift warm the continent. Southern Europe could be described as having a warm, but mild climate. There are frequent summer droughts in this region. Mountain ridges also affect the conditions. Some of these (Alps, Pyrenees) are oriented east-west and allow the wind to carry large masses of water from the ocean in the interior. Others are oriented south-north (Scandinavian Mountains, Dinarides, Carpathians, Apennines) and because the rain falls primarily on the side of mountains that is oriented towards sea, forests grow well on this side, while on the other side, the conditions are much less favourable. Few corners of mainland Europe have not been grazed by livestock at some point in time, and the cutting down of the pre-agricultural forest habitat caused disruption to the original plant and animal ecosystems. Eighty to ninety per cent of Europe was once covered by forest. It stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Arctic Ocean. Though over half of Europe's original forests disappeared through the centuries of colonisation, Europe still has over one quarter of the world's forests - spruce forests of Scandinavia, vast pine forests in Russia, chestnut rainforests of the Caucasus and the cork oak forests in the Mediterranean. During recent times, deforestation has been stopped and many trees were planted. However, in many cases conifers have been preferred over original deciduous trees, because these grow quicker. The plantations and monocultures now cover vast areas of land and this offers very poor habitats for European forest dwelling species. The amount of original forests in Western Europe is just two to three per cent (in the European part of Russia five to ten per cent). The country with the smallest forest-covered area is Ireland (eight per cent), while the most forested country is Finland (72 per cent). In "mainland" Europe, deciduous forest prevails. The most important species are beech, birch and oak. In the north, where taiga grows, a very common tree species is the birch tree. In the Mediterranean, many olive trees have been planted, which are very well adapted to its arid climate. Another common species in Southern Europe is the cypress. Coniferous forests prevail at higher altitudes up to the forest boundary and as one moves north within Russia and Scandinavia, giving way to tundra as the Arctic is approached. The semi-arid Mediterranean region hosts much scrub forest. A narrow east-west tongue of Eurasian grassland—the steppe—extends eastwards from Ukraine and southern Russia and ends in Hungary and traverses into taiga to the north. Glaciation during the most recent ice age and the presence of man affected the distribution of European fauna. As for the animals, in many parts of Europe most large animals and top predator species have been hunted to extinction. The woolly mammoth and aurochs were extinct before the end of the Neolithic period. Today wolves (carnivores) and bears (omnivores) are endangered. Once they were found in most parts of Europe. However, deforestation caused these animals to withdraw further and further. By the Middle Ages the bears' habitats were limited to more or less inaccessible mountains with sufficient forest cover. Today, the brown bear lives primarily in the Balkan peninsula, in the North and in Russia; a small number also persist in other countries across Europe (Austria, Pyrenees etc.), but in these areas brown bear populations are fragmented and marginalised because of the destruction of their habitat. In the far North of Europe, polar bears can also be found. The wolf, the second largest predator in Europe after the brown bear, can be found primarily in Eastern Europe and in the Balkans. Other important European carnivores are Eurasian lynx, European wild cat, foxes (especially the red fox), jackal and different species of martens, hedgehogs, different species of snakes (vipers, grass snake...), different birds (owls, hawks and other birds of prey) Important European herbivores are snails, amphibians, fish, different birds, and mammals, like rodents, deers and roe deers, boars, and living in the mountains, marmots, steinbocks, chamoises among others. Sea creatures are also an important part of European flora and fauna. The sea flora is mainly phytoplankton. Important animals that live in European seas are zooplankton, molluscs, echinoderms, different crayfish, squids and octopuses, fish, dolphins, and whales. Some animals live in caves, for example proteus and bats.

Demographics

Almost all of Europe was possibly settled before or during the last ice age ca. 10,000 years ago. Neanderthal man and modern man coexisted during at least some of this time. Roman road building helped with the interbreeding of the native Europeans' genetics. In contemporary times Europe has one of the lowest inbreeding rates in the world because of an extensive transport network paired with open borders. Europe passed well over 600 million people before the turn of the 20th century, but now is entering a period of population decline, for a variety of social factors.

Territories and divisions

Political divisions

Independent states

interbreeding on this map.]] :See also: Table of European territories and regions The following independent states have territory in Europe: 2 Azerbaijan and Georgia lie partly in Europe according to the usual definition which consider the crest of the Caucasus as the boundary with Asia.
3 Kazakhstan's European territory consists of a portion west of the Ural and Emba Rivers.
4 The name of this state is a matter of international dispute. See Republic of Macedonia for details.
5 Those territories of Russia lying west of the Ural Mountains are considered as part of Europe.
6 State union of Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Montenegro.
7 European Turkey comprises territory to the west and north of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles straits.
2, 3, 5, 7 See Countries in both Europe and Asia for details.

Dependent territories

The European territories listed below are recognised as being culturally and geographically defined. Most have a degree of autonomy. In the list below, each territory is followed by its legal status.
- Faroe Islands (autonomous region of Denmark)
- Gibraltar (UK overseas territory)
- Guernsey (British crown dependency)
- Jersey (British crown dependency)
- Man, Isle of (British crown dependency)
- Svalbard (autonomous region of Norway) Note that this is not a list of all dependencies of all European countries. Dependencies located on other continents are not listed.

Unilaterally seceded territories

Following are breakaway regions of independent states. These regions have declared and de facto achieved independence, but this is not recognised de jure by their home state or by the other independent states.
- Abkhazia (from Georgia)
- Nagorno-Karabakh (disputed by Armenia and Azerbaijan)
- South Ossetia (from Georgia)
- Transnistria (from Moldova)

Territories under United Nations administration


- Kosovo and Metohia (province of