The KUMB Ancient History Corner

[Johnny Byrne's Boots]

Do you know which of the two words means Church? I find Eglwys strangely close to the French word for it, Église.

The Welsh for 'Church' is 'Eglwys' according to my Welsh chums. They pronounce it 'egg-louse'. Like you, I strongly suspect it shares the same root as Église.

[The Old Man of Storr]

Hello Mate,

Welcome back.

What's the difference between Welsh, Gaelic & Celtic?

Are they all forms of a similar language or very different? You say Welsh was spoken up in Dumbarton but isn't that just Celtic?

Breton , Cornish and Welsh belong to the Brythonic line - these were spoken in Britain before the Romans arrived - Irish and Scots Gaelic come from Ireland , not sure of its origins - Celtic is a Football Club from Glasgow . There are similar words in Welsh and Gaelic but in essence they're quite different languages .

[The Old Man of Storr]

The Welsh for 'Church' is 'Eglwys' according to my Welsh chums. They pronounce it 'egg-louse'. Like you, I strongly suspect it shares the same root as Église.

Correct .

Apologies for late reply , we've been travelling all afternoon , now in Dornoch for a few days holiday .

[Tenbury]

What's the difference between Welsh, Gaelic & Celtic?

The affability of the sheep.

[Georgee Paris]

Stick on Vikings or the The Last Kingdom. Job done.

[Shabu]

Breton , Cornish and Welsh belong to the Brythonic line - these were spoken in Britain before the Romans arrived - Irish and Scots Gaelic come from Ireland , not sure of its origins - Celtic is a Football Club from Glasgow . There are similar words in Welsh and Gaelic but in essence they're quite different languages .

Isn't Celtic the ethnicity of the indigenous people of the British Isles?

[Misko]

Correct .

Apologies for late reply , we've been travelling all afternoon , now in Dornoch for a few days holiday .

Many thanks to JBB and you! The answer wasn't late at all. Enjoy your holiday, that's the most important right now

[prophet:marginal]

Iirc, the Celts are a scattered tribe, with connections to

1. The Basque region
2. Brittany
3. Cornwall
4. Wales
5. Scotland, and, of course,
6 . The Emerald Isle

[Shabu]

Iirc, the Celts are a scattered tribe, with connections to

1. The Basque region
2. Brittany
3. Cornwall
4. Wales
5. Scotland, and, of course,
6 . The Emerald Isle

And the Isle of Mann

[The Old Man of Storr]

The affability of the sheep.

[westham,eggyandchips]

Lance and Andy like this thread.

[Coops]

I've heard conflicting stories about The Celts. For example I once read that the Gaelic tribes were influenced by them but were not directly related to them and that the name was given to them much later. I am having trouble finding conclusive proof either way.

[The Old Man of Storr]

I've heard conflicting stories about The Celts. For example I once read that the Gaelic tribes were influenced by them but were not directly related to them and that the name was given to them much later. I am having trouble finding conclusive proof either way.

Same here - there's theories they originated from the Hallstat region of Austria , they came over from Spain via Phoenicia and I'm sure there are others .

Thing is , I can't think of another language similar to Welsh or Old Welsh - the written Welsh is possibly what the Romans made of the language - I believe there weren't any written records / history from the original inhabitants of Britain .

This from the BBC -

'' Today we associate Welsh with Wales. But we don't have to look far for evidence that a language similar to Welsh was once spoken in England and parts of Scotland too. Words like aber 'mouth of a river' and caer 'fortress' are found not only in names like Aberystwyth and Caerdydd 'Cardiff' in Wales but also in names like Aberdeen in Scotland and Carlisle in the north of England. And the names of most of the major rivers in England, such as Thames, Severn, and Avon, are also Celtic. Avon is particularly obvious to a Welsh speaker because afon is the Welsh word for 'river'.

To the early English settlers in England, the Celt was a walh, a 'foreigner' or a 'serf'. As well as Wales itself, several names in England such as Walcot, Walton and Wallasey contain walh. These might reflect some of the social differences in the population of early England. ''

[Greatest Cockney Rip Off]

Iirc, the Celts are a scattered tribe, with connections to

1. The Basque region

Also the region of Gallica in Spain has Celtic roots. The Gallaeci were originally a Celtic people who settled in Spain and northern Portugal in 600BC.

And the Isle of Mann

The Isle of Man also has a very lage Norse heritage too as it was settled there by the Vikings and used as a trading base for Ireland and Scotland.

[Toulouse_Iron]

The Basque language bears no relation to any other existing language. It is thought to be the last remaining descendant of pre-indo-european , prehistoric languages.

[pablo jaye]

The Isle of Man also has a very lage Norse heritage too as it was settled there by the Vikings and used as a trading base for Ireland and Scotland.

Yes, there’s plenty of evidence on the island of its Norse heritage - burial sites, settlement remains. The Manx Parliament is called Tynwald, which derives its name from other Norse place names - Tingvaller in Iceland for example, Dingwall in Liverpool and Scotland.

There is also a suggestion that some of the Spanish Armada made it to the island - a few Manx I know have very Latin features, there is a place called Spanish Head, and Juan (pronounced Jewan) is a first name of some islanders.

[Johnny Byrne's Boots]

I must own up to being a bit of a Tudor nerd. I've read the whole Wolf Hall trilogy, watched all the TV programmes, dramas and documentaries and have bookmarked several websites. It helps that it's a well documented era, but there's enough plot and intrigue to keep most people going for a good while.

[The Old Man of Storr]

Staying not that far from Caithness - up until the 19th C the language spoken there was called Norn .
Never knew that .

[Greatest Cockney Rip Off]

The Basque language bears no relation to any other existing language. It is thought to be the last remaining descendant of pre-indo-european , prehistoric languages.

It has been agreed that it does bear a slight resemblance to the language spoken around the Caucuses region, particularly Chechen which kind of proves it's a descendent language of Indo-European.

[Junco Partner]

Isn't Celtic the ethnicity of the indigenous people of the British Isles?

Nah, the Celts/Gaels were invaders from about 600 BC and supplanted/assimilated with the previous inhabitants across the British Isles.

The first Britons after the ice retreated (c6,000 BC) are an unknown culture, named now as Beaker People, and they loved a henge and a stone circle.

The Celts developed their own British forms of Celtic artwork and somewhere along the line split into two dialect groups - Goidelic, which developed in Ireland, Isle of Man and Western Scotland; and Brythonic, spoken across southern Britain, Cornwall, Wales and Cumbria. Pictish was closer to Brythonic and survived in North Eastern Britain above the Forth until after the Romans arrived.