‘The Celts: A Modern History’ by Ian Stewart Review | Hacker News Reader

‘The Celts: A Modern History’ by Ian Stewart Review

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107 pointslermontov43 comments

Thanks. This looks like a good book and probably one I'll buy. I have many books on the "Celts" and their history, plus many more on the Iron Age in general. It's a fascinating period unfortunately let down by the lack of many good sources. The Greeks and then the Romans were very confused about these people and that's made it very hard to sort out the reality. As the review states, add a large helping of racism (not necessarily all of the negative sort), nationalism, romanticism and mythology and it can be a recipe for many competing histories. Hopefully we're starting to untangle what we can with help from books like Stewart's.

These little gems are why I love HN. I come for the niche tech projects and stay for the random things that I would never have even thought to read about

Rule to remember: all Gauls (Gaulois) were Celts, but not all Celts were Gauls

> Rule to remember: all Gauls (Gaulois) were Celts, but not all Celts were Gauls

and not all Gauls (Gaulois) ... were Gauls

See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galicia_(Spain)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galicia_(Eastern_Europe)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galatia_(Roman_province)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galatia

First one should be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallaecia

All I know is that all Gaul is divided into three parts.

No, four parts - for one small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the Roman invaders.

Ave Caesar.

Having reading the posts thus far and having listening to, say, Indians speak English I can't help saluting thus:

Awe Kaiser

Languages are a hodge-podge.

> Awe Kaiser

This is actually closer to the original Latin pronunciation than the modern English pronunciation of "Ave Caesar".

That's how you'd pretty much pronounce it in Latin.

"Ah-way", IIRC, and yep the C was a hard C.

To read about the history of your own culture is a revolutionary act.

I feel like any article that talks about "Celts" or uses the word "Celtic" should clarify that it starts with a hard "c". Americans familiar with the basketball team will probably pronounce it wrong otherwise.

And then there are those of us who are history nerds who don’t even consider the possibility of pronouncing it otherwise. I think a history-based domain and a book with “history” in the title will self-select this group.

The US is only around 5% of the global population right now, and many of us, if not most, know the correct pronunciation (for uses other than the basketball team). There's no reason to bog down articles with pandering nonsense.

The correct pronunciation depends on language (German vs. Deutsch, for an extreme example), so non-English speakers could still use the wrong pronunciation when speaking English. In my own language, 'celts' sounds like 'kelts', but until now I thought the correct way to say it in English was 'selts'.

This exactly. In French we use a soft “c” and I assumed English did the same because the only use I knew was about Larry Bird's team!

For the rest of the world they will have the same problem as the Americans except they know the word from the football club Celtic which is pronounced with a soft c as well.

And others still will not have heard of either and would think the clubs are pronounced like the historic culture

Why should the people know how the culture is pronounced in English?! (If they knew about the culture in the first place)

As far as I know this is not obscure knowledge (where I am from)

Non-anglo celt here. Selt. Didn't know it's supposed to be pronounced kelt in english (us an uk alike). I upvote GP.

It’s not an Anglo thing. It’s from the Greek name for the people, Κελτοί. That’s a kappa, hard K.

For a bit more fun, inside the Celtic (hard 'c') fringe, in Glasgow you will find Celtic (soft 'c') football club!

Is there an actual negative association with the “Selt” pronunciation or something? It is the French version of a word, which was at times applied to the French and the Irish (among others). Maybe it can be used to celebrate their shared heritage of having to deal with English nonsense…

In English Celt is generally pronounced kelt nowadays. Celtic is always pronounced seltik when referring to sports teams (e.g. Celtic Football Club), but keltik otherwise, e.g. Celtic languages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celts

Resident of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia (trans. New Scotland) here. In somewhat of an acknowledgment of this issue, we've used "Keltic". See for e.g. Keltic Lodge:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keltic_Lodge

How the Anglo Saxon English pronounce it is not really the point. In Wales, Scotland and Ireland, the Celtic fringe, we call ourselves Kelts... the football club is a fun anomaly! That is definitely Seltic

> Celtic Football Club

Interesting, there are to "C"s here but they aren't same letter...

The French c is French, which is the culture with the most-consistent and strongest claims to Celtic heritage.

In German, it’s kelte, same sound as Irish c and Greek kappa.

Maybe we should leave the distinction irrelevant. From the author himself, “ in the nineteenth century many of the scholarly breakthroughs were made by German scholars, who were recognised to be the leaders in this field. Many of them also harboured sympathy for the Celtic regions of Brittany, Ireland, and Wales, and thought they should be freed from French and English imperialism.” And that’s how the word became popular in 1930s Germany.

I’m surprised to hear that Germans in the 1930s thought negatively about English imperialism. My understanding was that the German leadership at the time was impressed by English imperialism in the way you might be impressed by a financially successful cousin. Do you know if this view was like a populist view of the people but not the leadership, or if it was a niche view among the people, or have I got the views of the leadership wrong?

Germany also had some very liberal and intellectual pockets in the, 20’s before Nazi takeover. It wouldn’t be that surprising if the view of German academics in the 30’s reflected that.

I haven’t read the book, but his other interviews sound like it covers that in between episodes on Ireland. Be prepared for Nazi “mistakes” about ethnicities that conveniently justify invasion.

Then again we use soft-c for e.g. Caesar and Cicero, whereas the original pronunciation would be hard. Kaiser and Kikero.

I actually pronounce Celt both ways depending on the day of the week.

If we’re going to start accounting for the ignorance of the average American in everything we do we’re not going to get much done.

Why is it pronounced like that in English? And why are the Boston Celtics pronounced differently? For thr record in French we pronounce Celtes with a soft "c".

I believe what happened is, at some point in the past we used the soft-c (I guess this is when all the sports teams were named). But more recently it was switched to hard-c, to reflect the Greek origin of the word.

I think that’s right: from 300 AD to 1700, nobody used the word. Medieval Latin dominated in the meantime, and so preferred a soft c in Celtae without an academic to insist on the k in Keltoi.

English doesn't share the same linguistic root, so these differences are bound to appear. Well, if you take out indo-european that is.

> English doesn't share the same linguistic root. […] Well, if you take out indo-european that is.

It's a bit more complex, English is half a Germanic language but also half French.

But that doesn't explains why “Celtic” is pronounced differently in “Boston Celtics”.

That I presume is just the natural evolution of language, their origins fade away, they become culturally assimilated, and pronounced more in line with the hosts. Nothing new. But interesting nonetheless. I don't have a definitive answer but I presume it was something like that.

> hard "c"

So "k" (as opposed to "s")?

I still find it strange that there is letter "c" in English, while not really used.

sure soft 'c' is used, e.g. century, celebrate, cease, certain

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