Galicians would be pseudo celt

Scorpio   Mon Feb 15, 2010 7:37 pm GMT
I've always wondered about Celtic issues. And I realize that the Galician language is a purely Roman language. I even read that the Celts were a minority in North-West Spain, northern Italy and southern France, and were constituted only of military gentries (this would be why for example the phonology of southern France and Southern Europe look alike). The majority of Celtic languages would have in fact stopped near the Alps and the Massif Central.
Was the celtic folklore of Galicia purely invented ? .. A bit like if the north africans would give a rebirth in a germanic folklore because Vandals had founded a kingdom there after the roman times...And why would they have done so ? .

Your opinion ?
rep   Mon Feb 15, 2010 7:52 pm GMT
Galician is not purely Roman language or dialect . It has Iberian substrate too ( for example esquerdo -left).
Franco   Mon Feb 15, 2010 8:00 pm GMT
According to Schulten Galicia was not populated by Celts but by Ligurians. There is no consensus about the origin of the Ligurians. Some authors think they were pre-IE and other ones believe they belong to a wave of IE settlers before the Celts. The same with Asturias, Cantabria and pre-Basque Basque Country. Celtic speakers were in Portugual and Central Spain:

http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt320/pterodactylo/celtas_ligures_iberos.jpg
Steak 'n' Chips   Mon Feb 15, 2010 9:25 pm GMT
Franco: <<Some authors think they were pre-IE and other ones believe they belong to a wave of IE settlers before the Celts.>>

That's really interesting! If I remember right, the Basques (Vascones on the map) speak a pre-IE language. Could Ligurian have been related to Basque? Are there any detectable links between Galician words and Basque words?
Lolling Joao   Tue Feb 16, 2010 12:00 am GMT
Galician is a Romance language. The Celtic influence might be a bit exagerated, but there are archeological findings from the Celts throughout Northern Spain and Northern Portugal.

Galicians play bagpipes in traditional music. The bagpipes are wrongly associated with Celtic culture. Either the use of this instrument was introduced from other European countries without any Celtic conotation, or it was introduced as an artificial Celtic cultural icon during Romantism. Trade along the Atlantic between North and South also helped to trade cultural aspects.
What I surely know is that this wind instrument is not of Celtic origin. It's origin lies somewhere in Bulgaria/Balkans and the middle east. In Bulgaria it's called "gaida".
From there it spread throughout medieval Europe. In Central Europe, its use faded. In the British Isles, Northern Portugal and Galicia it's still played in traditional music.
The Balkanic name "gaida" or "gajda" gave origin to the Galician word for bagpipe: "gaita", and to a Portuguese old/slang word for any kind of wind instrument: "gaita".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaida
Franco   Tue Feb 16, 2010 12:37 am GMT
<<there are archeological findings from the Celts throughout Northern Spain and Northern Portugal.>>

For example?

<<Galicians play bagpipes in traditional music. >>

In Pakistan they have bagpipes too.
PARISIEN   Tue Feb 16, 2010 7:23 pm GMT
<< The bagpipes are wrongly associated with Celtic culture. >>

-- This is very right. And actually the bagpipes used in Spain belong to the Arabic/Turkish type.

On the other hand, I've heard that the popularity of the guitar in Spain based on the fact that it was the "non-Moorish" instrument, unlike the Arabic lute that was preferred in the rest of Europe.
Loolling Joao   Wed Feb 17, 2010 2:46 am GMT
For Celtic traces in Iberia, Wikipedia has the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtiberians
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callaici
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lusitanians
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castro_culture


About the bagpipes, I asume its creation was ages later than the pre-Roman age when Celts were dominant throughout most of Europe.
Its use in the British Islands was also brought from the Balkans via the Europan mainland.
Marujita   Wed Feb 17, 2010 2:52 am GMT
Los castros no son celtas. Sorry to delude you.
Lolling Joao   Wed Feb 17, 2010 3:17 pm GMT
«Los castros no son celtas» The "Castros" are not Celts.

Maybe. Honestly I do not know much about it. From which people were they then?
merchandising Celta   Wed Feb 17, 2010 8:21 pm GMT
Look it up at the Wikipedia if you like that source so much. The Celts from La Tene culture (true celts) built squared houses, not circular like the Northern Spanish and Portuguese castros.
lolling Joao   Thu Feb 18, 2010 12:25 am GMT
«Look it up at the Wikipedia if you like that source so much. The Celts from La Tene culture (true celts) built squared houses, not circular like the Northern Spanish and Portuguese castros.»

Maybe. Is that an element to distinguish Celts from other pre-Roman peoples? Don't know.
Many descriptions about Celtic life came to us because they were written by Romans. Were the Romans being factual? Maybe.
Were the Romans wrongly naming as Celts all the peoples they encountered in their conquests in Europe? Maybe.

The English page about the Castro culture is absent in naming those traces as Celts. It mentions that it originates from people coming from Central Europe and other regions (speculation? or is there evidence?)

The Galician page has an interesting theory: That according to some, the names left in those archeological findings reveal latinized forms of Celtic languages, simmilar to thos of the British Islands, and that the Celtic settlements in those islands originate from the NW Iberia. True or speculation?
http://gl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultura_castrexa#A_lingua_castrexa

The page in Spanish mentions the Celts. True or speculation?
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultura_castre%C3%B1a

Anyway, maybe the Castros were not Celts. Who were the Celts after all? I wonder if that wasn't a name given by the Romans to all the less civilized peoples they encountered in their European conquests and that all the peoples were quite different from each other. Dunno.

This subgect makes me willing to visit those places in the north of Portugal. I've never visited those archeological sites such as Citania de Briteiros.
Scorpio   Thu Feb 18, 2010 6:11 pm GMT
I agree with some precedent posts. I think that celticity is today very superficial. I'm interested by the subject only for history. Even in "real" celtophone regions (Wales, Scotland, Brittany...), the whole of the people don't speak celtic languages anymore.
The bagpipes ? They are spread all around the Mediterranean Sea, even in India. The megaliths ? They have been erected in Neolithic, nothing to do whith celts...I think that Austrian, German or Hungrian people could have more legitimacy to claim themselves as heirs of celtic original lands than galician.

Is it a mean for some southern europeans to become closer to northern Europe than to the Mediterranean world ?
Guest?   Thu Feb 18, 2010 6:13 pm GMT
France is not Germanic or Celtic or Latine, it is Phallic. France has his own unique identity. Read internet.
Raven   Thu Feb 18, 2010 6:19 pm GMT
"France is not Germanic or Celtic or Latine, it is Phallic."

You seem to be an expert in dicks (probably iberic one...).