- The Early Celts -
When we consider in what way and to what extent the linguistic evidence of the
ancient world, concentrating on the linguistic evidence of Old Celtic, can playa role
in our understanding of the patterns observable in the fabric of society among Celtic
peoples, we have here to be ruthlessly restrained. However, we cannot avoid alluding
to some theoretical constructs, definitions, models and divisions of opinion and
we have to take account of some overpedantic, even misleading, studies of certain
language-related aspects of the history and culture of the Celts. There is no need
to repeat here comments made elsewhere on matters connected with the origins of
the Celts and the connotation and usage of the terms 'Celts' and 'Celtic', crucially
important though both of these topics must be.^4 Tied in with the question of the
ethnogenesis of the Celtic peoples are most difficult matters relating to nebulous
proto-cultures and proto-languages, the urge to locate old cradles or homelands
and to trace the spread and mix of peoples and of cultures probably over several
millennia. The great abundance of work published in recent years seeking to harmo-
nize the evidence of language and archaeology in relation to the so-called
Indo-European (and pre-Indo-European) complex and to evaluate various traditions,
myths and models, new and old, relating to that complex has not produced anything
approaching a consensus or convincing synthesis.^5 Lord Renfrew has interestingly
and frankly conceded that 'It is perhaps fair to say that the enterprise of relating
linguistic data to archaeological data is a more difficult one than has hitherto been
appreciated' and this for sure still applies in the area of Early Celtic studies.^6 Models
'acceptable to all parties' (to quote Dr Stefan Zimmer's phrase? have not been
established. It is, in any case, a truism that the quest for the ultimate origin of a
particular language or particular groups or families of languages is futile if we have to
delve far into prehistory for our tentative answers.
The term 'Celtic' is at best vague and it has too easily, but improperly, been
claimed by some scholars that it should, strictly speaking, have a linguistic connota-
tion only. It has been used in the modern period,^8 certainly, to denote a group or
family of languages surviving chiefly on the north Atlantic seaboard of Europe in
Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Brittany, but with related precursors attested over
far-flung tracts of territory the length and breadth of Europe in the ancient world.
It is well recognized that in the evidence preserved in epigraphic sources, graffiti,
coin legends, pottery and tile stamps, in the writings of historians and geographers,
ethnographers and naturalists and many others in antiquity, in contact languages and
in substrata in later languages, there is a very rich and greatly varied reflection of Old
Celtic languages, from Galatia in Asia Minor to Celtiberia in the Iberian peninsula,
from Italy (especially in the region of the north Italian lakes), Danubian or central
European regions and ancient Gaul to Britain and Ireland.
The date, range, density and quality of the evidence vary from area to area. A com-
prehensive analysis of this evidence has not hitherto been achieved, partly because
it is so varied and extensive and partly because it is not always securely identified or
(for various reasons) securely analysed. Nevertheless, in recent decades scholars have
been inclined to attach names to particular areas or groupings of evidence, especially
for Continental Celtic.^9 There has been the view that we can identify fairly securely
some variant Celtic languages for continental Europe. This is true, up to a point. But
these variants have had certain tags overconfidently attached to them. The name