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Post by ihrian on Aug 4, 2006 6:34:55 GMT -5
i was at the library a while ago and it was closing, so i grabbed any random books i might want, and left. one of them is about the celts, which is why i grabbed it, but its..interesting. the author believes that there were no celts, and his book tries to prove it. he says that never in history has there been a race called the celts...it was an idea created by someone in a book, i cant remember the name now. what do u think tho? if there were no celts, then the term 'celtic' doesnt really mean a thing, and yet when someone says a person is celtic we all understand what they mean..how could something so widely acknowledged and understood be false? and if there really were no celts, then who was in their place?
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Post by Senbecc on Aug 4, 2006 9:20:30 GMT -5
i was at the library a while ago and it was closing, so i grabbed any random books i might want, and left. one of them is about the celts, which is why i grabbed it, but its..interesting. the author believes that there were no celts, and his book tries to prove it. he says that never in history has there been a race called the celts...it was an idea created by someone in a book, i cant remember the name now. what do u think tho? if there were no celts, then the term 'celtic' doesnt really mean a thing, and yet when someone says a person is celtic we all understand what they mean..how could something so widely acknowledged and understood be false? and if there really were no celts, then who was in their place? Well he's right somewhat I suppose, they certainly never *called* themselves Celts, though I have heard some interesting suggestions as to where the term may have originated. I think the term "Celt" where ever it may have originated, has more or less over the centuries became a term used to classify peoples by the languages they spoke. Now...Whether the term it's self is of Greek and Roman origin (since they both infact had similar terms for the varrious *Celtic* cultures, or whether the word derrives from some anceint Celtic tribe, or even some Celtic word meaning who knows what, it is now the term used to describe Celtic culture as a whole. On the other hand now, if this author is claiming ALL the cultures are made up...Then some one needs to let the archaeological community in on this man's discovery I should think. Hope this helps sort out some of your confusion.
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Post by wren on Aug 4, 2006 11:04:19 GMT -5
Ihrian, I just spent a great deal of time on a paper for a course I'm taking. 'Celtic' is a term we now use to describe a language/culture which we now see as being more homogeneous than it truly was. I think those we are describing, in the past, would have scratched their heads at the idea that they were all one group of people, though there are many similarities among them. There are those today who object strongly to the very idea.
As a result of my study (which continues) I see 'Celtic' describing unique cultures which evolved around Gaelic-speaking people in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, etc. (those in Gaul, etc. eventually shifted to other languages and cultures, leaving the British Isles a unique group). While they would never have seen themselves as a single culture, it helps us to know just whom we are discussing now to see them as 'Celts'. Just as the US has different dialects and sub-cultures, they too had as many differences as similarities. It would be a shame to lose their 'uniqueness' by lumping them all together.
The modern interest in the 'Celts' is also responsible for the revival and reconstruction efforts which may result in saving some very important languages and more. It been a fascinating subject, with many differing opinions. What is the title of the book, and author, if you don't mind me asking?
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Post by ihrian on Aug 6, 2006 19:48:51 GMT -5
sure, im at school at the moment so i cant go check..tho its in my bag, i'll go see..ok, 'The Atlantic Celts- Ancient People or Modern Invention', by Simon James.
so the people were there, just not known as celts..i think thats what he was trying to say, tho he says that to him there were no celts, so the people claiming to be descendents of them have built their beliefs from a fictional people
but if they were still there, the people, then this isnt true, because we're studying their culture, etc, and thats what our beliefs are built upon....they could have been called anything, we'd still love them..
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Post by wren on Aug 10, 2006 15:03:06 GMT -5
so the people were there, just not known as celts..i think thats what he was trying to say, tho he says that to him there were no celts, so the people claiming to be descendents of them have built their beliefs from a fictional people but if they were still there, the people, then this isnt true, because we're studying their culture, etc, and thats what our beliefs are built upon....they could have been called anything, we'd still love them.. I do think we are saying virtually the same thing. They would not have called themselves Celts and it is different to be descended from a language-based culture, rather than a bloodline that goes back to ancient Scotland or Ireland or Wales, etc. I don't think we are directly 'descended' from the Celts, rather more that we identify with the culture and are trying to reconstruct that culture/language/beliefs in today's world. *ducks while pot flies by my head* I can say I have ancestors from England, Scotland and France, all "Celtic" societies at one time. That doesn't make me a Celt. Rather, I shall study the lore, the history, attempt to learn Gaelic and try to keep alive the spirit of those people, the values they lived by and the beliefs they held. Their art and music and stories and spiritual world. That I feel so strong a connection might also speak to ties of another sort, past lives spent in such a society perhaps. As I told someone else recently, I have never been to Scotland in this lifetime, yet I know without a doubt I have lived there before. What matters most is that the culture and the language are preserved and kept alive, IMHO. That we are studying, keeping the lore alive, learning the old ways, reconstructing the druid ways, and not letting such a valuable culture be extinguished. Just as it is a loss when any species becomes extinct and forever lost to us, so I think it is just as great a loss when a culture is lost forever. So, even though you can reasonably argue against the reality of the 'Celts' as a homogeneous group, it is the very "revival" that may save the culture on which they were based. As long as we understand that we are reconstructing something and do not assume we know everything about them, we can still keep these things alive. *Sorry, I'll get off my soap box now...Hope that made sense...* I've found it very enlightening to study the history individual groups within with the Gaelic-speaking cultures Picts, Gaels, etc. or Highlander and Lowlander in Scotland), rather than to think of the Celts as a group. Celtic to me refers to a kind of music, art, lore, society, language, spirituality... not one group of people in particular any longer.
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