Status of the CELTIC Languages in Europe Today!

Redacted, do you care to answer my question?

If England has a variety of heritages within its borders then great. But why are we constently trying to talk in ethnic terms and produce borders that fit? East Anglia has its Iceni history (Boadicea/Boudicca etc.) Does that make them Celts?? Where does it stop?

Simon, who are you speaking to?

Redacted. I had continued our debate in my head, which he probably isn't aware of.

Ah, I see now. You have got me thinking about this Celticness as well. But I must admit, I like the Celtic identity, but since I look at most things through a language-culture aspect, I am just happy to learn about the other languages of the world.

No, I like it too. But sometimes it's used to divide the United Kingdom or even England. The cultural situation of the United Kingdom is very complex and simplifying it into Celt and non-Celt makes no sense. Devon is now promoting its Celtic past but it's an English county. If we agree that the whole of England was once inhabited by Celts, where doesn't have a Celtic past. People's identities are their own business but in terms of officialness, what is necessary is preservation of living Celtic languages, and understanding that Scotland is not far away (in legal and cultural terms) from actually being a separate nation.

The UK needs a new identity that takes into account what it actually is and includes in a general sense all that live within it. But labelling certain areas as Celtic and others as non-Celtic is nonsensical.

"British" people don't understand. What they need is a genuinely British identity to sit on top of their existing English identity that they erroneously refer to as British. They think "English" would be something new they have to develop and stick underneath their British identity and on top of their local town/county identity.

Britain has been around a long time. Any one who makes this land their
home becomes British just as anyone making Canada their country is Canadian. There is nothing wrong with finding out what your roots are and
celebrating them. 80 per cent of the people of England have Brythonic
ancestry and that is British to those who don't understand this connection.

Never in my life have I met an english person that did not consider themselves British.

I have a question. If the Celts were "pushed" farther and farther to the
west, where did they end up? Did they drown in the Altantic. This push idea
can only go so far. Consider this, if all the celts were pushed westward then there would have been tens of millions of them in Britain, enough to
with stand any continental invasion by Romans, Anglo Saxons or who ever.
The truth is the majority of celts did not run away but became part of
the new order i.e Gauls become Romans citizens. Helvetti in Switzerland
become Roman citizens and so on.

The Romans did not push the Celts anywhere; that is to say, the Romans and the Celts lived together in relative harmony. It was not until the invasions by the Angles, Saxons, etc... that the Celts were pushed west and north into Wales, Cornwall and Scotland and to Brittany in France.

I was thinking last night - as I watched a Sewdish film (Adam og Eva/Adam and Eve) that we talk of the Scandinavian languages as being North Germanic but we don't often put the English/Frisian/German/Flemish/Dutch cultures in a category with Scandinavia and call it Germanic culture. This is what should happen with the term Celt. There is a cultural bond between Britain and Ireland that relates to them sharing the same island spaces. The English language is Germanic but like Scandinavia, it is a simplification to say we have exactly the same culture as the the Netherlands.

In short, we need to stop confusing blood, linguistics, religion and music etc. and actually say what we mean.

This is not true Clark. Boadicea and her posse the Iceni got mash up by the Romans after givin' dem plenty licks.

http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/YourClanOrOurs.htm

"For many Scottish­Americans, Scotland stands for authenticity, racial 'purity', and social order. It's not a big stretch to see Scotland morphing into a metaphor for the Old South."

Simon, yes, you are right, but so am I. Not all of the British people gave the Romans a hard time. A lot of these people were came to be known in our life times as, "Romano-British." Implying that these "Celts" lived in Roman fashion.