CELTS

was name given by cla ical writers to all people living N. of the Alps. In Brit. history it is applied to the tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed race that invaded Britain from Gaul about the 6th cent. B.C., dominated and coalesced with the Iberian people it found there (to whom it also taught the use of iron), founded the states overthrown by the Romans, and finally, after the AngloS axon invasions in the 5th cent., is popularly supposed to have been exterminated in England, and survived only in Ireland, Wales, Isle of Man, Scot. Highlands, and Cornwall, while a section cro ed from the 8. to France and found-. me Celtic state of Britt any (Armorca). Celtic Languages.—Celtic belongs to the Indo-European group of languages, ‘and in its forms and inflections, so far as they are known directly or can be reconstructed. Early Celtic closely resembled Latin and Greek. Its personal names, like the Greek and Teutonic personal names, are all compounded terms, usually of two elements, of which one part qualified the other maros, ‘great in battle.’ At an early eriod celtic discarded the Indo-Germanc p sound initially and between vowels. Thus Latin and Greek pro became in Celtic ro; Lat. piscis is Gaelic tasc; Latin and Greek pater became Gaelic athair, ‘father’; Welsh edrydd, ‘patrimony.’ At a later but still early period, Celtic divided in the treatment of the In do European qu sound, certain dialects retaining it; others changing it to p. Thus we have a p group and a q group of Celtic languages. Continental Celtic belonged on the whole to the p group, though there are some traces of retained a place in Spain. In modern Celtic t two groups are sharply defined; Wel: Cornish (now extinct), and Breton < of the p group; Gaelic (Scottish a Irish) and Manx are of the q grow preserving qu asc orch. Thus we ha modern Celtic the two groups ha developed a number of other differenc fearna, Welsh givern; Early Cel Lastly, in modern Gaélic and Manx t stre in polysyllables regularly falls } the first syllable; in Welsh it falls | the penult. No Early Celtic literature has be preserved, though there must have be much bardic poetry and historical tal among the early Celts (e.g., Livy’s 2 count of the golden age of King Ambig tus implies a saga on this subject). T Druids did not commit their learning writing; the Bards may have follow their example. Yet by Cveesar’s tir writing was in vogue among the Gai who had come under the influence Ma ilian culture. The Helvetii, wh they went on their great migration, ke accurate muster rolls in Gr. characte! After the Roman conquest the Gauls France took readily to learning (as al to agriculture), and even hired profe o at the public expense. Cisalpine Ga supplied some of the greatest Lat writers: Virgil, Catullus, and Livy be Celtic names, and were probably Gau Seneca is also Celtic. The Celts Britain after ths introduction of Chri tianity showed the same desire for lear ing. Ireland from the latter part of t! 5th cent. till the end of the 8th cent. w: renowned throughout Eurepe for i scholars. Among the Celtic-speak i1 peoples of modern times learning h been always admired and desired, nor this the only way in which they resemh their remote ancestors.