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"The Balts ARE", "The Slavs ARE" but "The Celts were"? Every other European ethno-linguistic group has a single article discussing them as a modern people but the Celts have two, one which speaks of us in the past tense and another which also quotes racists who deny our very existence. 84.203.151.5 (talk) 03:10, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This article does not discuss them as a modern people. The existence of a current Celtic ethno-linguistic group, or at least a monolithic one, is very questionable. Most scholars are reluctant to accept it. I think you'll find many other nations have similar divisions - Germany, Italy, Belgium etc etc. Johnbod (talk) 04:17, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The historic Keltoi were a Germanic people who lived in the Alps in Classical Greek times. The first usage of "Celt" to refer to people in the British Isles is from the late 17th century. There is no connection whatsoever between the historic Keltoi and modern "Celts", other than one group appropriating the name of the other. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.87.143.164 (talk) 19:57, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@197.87.143.164 Forgive me for my ignorance, but this article seems to focus on the (indisputably?) not Germanic Celtic people, and lists the Gaels (who definitely exist today) as being descendants of the Celts. I know that thousands of years of cultural evolution and dominance by other groups has changed Celtic culture, but is there any source for the idea that modern Celts are wholly unrelated to ancient Celts? KiwiNova (talk) 00:11, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
DNA shows us the modern Celts (Brythonic and Gaelic speakers) are not the descendants of the Celts noted by ancient Greeks and Romans. Linguists categorize Brythonic and Gaelic as Celtic languages. DNA indicates the Gaels and Britons are cousins to the Celts. Common usage of Celtic works well both genetically and linguistically as a branch of Indo-European language and people. Unless a new name is coined for the branch, Gaels and Britons are Celts. Gortaleen (talk) 11:23, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Gortaleen Building on this, I would also note that genetic heritage and cultural heritage are not the same thing (see the Pots not People debate). I do think there is a solid enough cultural and historical connection between ancient and modern Celts to consider reframing this article and emphasizing that it focuses on the ancient Celts (as opposed to implying, as it does, that the ancient Celts were the only Celts). KiwiNova (talk) 11:26, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As far as such an implication (does it imply it?) is concerned, the very first look at the article (e.g. the top map) acknowledges that modern Celtic languages are still spoken on the Western Fringe. There is no doubt that there are still speakers of Celtic languages around, and the article does not put this into question in the least. The concept of "Modern Celts" is an entirely different kettle of fish, though. I'm okay with both the articles for Celtic and Germanic peoples being concerned with the ancient ethnolinguistic groups, not with modern ones, even if the person originally ticking this cascade off took umbrage at the different treatments for the Balts and Slavs. Trigaranus (talk) 20:36, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's a view that the Irish and Scots are not a Celtic people at all but are of a Scythian/Slavic ancestry who invaded the British Isles around the 5th century AD. This should be explored. ~2026-14568-27 (talk) 03:54, 7 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Well, there is certainly undeniable archaeogenetic proof now that the so-called Celtic peoples of the British Isles don’t actually cluster genetically with the Proto-Celtic population of Hallstatt. They cluster with other Germanic-speaking populations of Europe such as English, Dutch, Scandinavians and northwestern Germans.
Even more interestingly enough the modern “Celts” of the British Isles actually cluster much closer genetically with historical Proto-Germanic populations than they do with historical Proto-Celtic populations.
Much of the ancestry (roughly 50%) of groups like Slavs, Celts, Balts, Germanics etc. does ultimately come from a region which was known for most of recorded history as Scythia, as in the Pontic-Caspian Steppe. ~2026-87094-9 (talk) 12:49, 17 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
One of the regrettable things about the popularisation of genetics is that it's revived racial thinking. The Celts are not and never were a genetic group. They were a cultural and linguistic group. This sort of thinking should be long dead. --Nicknack009 (talk) 18:51, 17 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, but the people calling themselves Celtic today overwhelmingly speak English. So why are we classing them Celtic at all?
If you speak a Germanic language AND cluster genetically with people who speak Germanic languages in Europe on what grounds, exactly, are you Celtic?
The entire basis of their identity was that they just happened to be Germanic-speaking, while descending from supposedly distinct historical Celtic populations. ~2026-87094-9 (talk) 09:31, 18 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you, btw. These terms (Celtic, Germanic, Slavic etc.) are rooted in language. These identities are all rooted in language. Humans overwhelmingly group by shared attributes by language and cultural similarities etc. Material things, not ancestry.
Many groups do however develop false beliefs about common, distinct ancestry/race for themselves over time and emphasize this, for sure, but archaeogenetics actually debunks most of this historical thinking.
But this ultimately debunks most modern Celtic identifying people. On either grounds. There is no language basis for them (beyond the few that actually speak Celtic languages still in these regions), and certainly no genetic basis for them being classified as Celtic.
If you want to throw around nebulous terms like culture, whatever that means in today’s world especially when these regions by and large have nothing demonstrably Celtic about their cultures and societies beyond superficial tokenisms (many of which aren’t even attributable to historical Celts or are just entirely fabricated neologisms), then that is another ultimately self-defeating road to travel down. ~2026-87094-9 (talk) 09:37, 18 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Okay. It’s been a while since I read through it. I remember several years ago many Celtic articles on Wikipedia seemed to be heavily blurring the lines between actual historical Celtic peoples (or even modern Celtic populations) and the modern racial ethnoLARP within English-speaking populations. ~2026-87094-9 (talk) 11:38, 18 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Celticness, now and in the past, has linguistic, cultural and ethnic dimensions, but these are not stapled together as a complete 'Celtic package'. We know that some Germanic speaking peoples absorbed and used La Tene material culture and that the Celtic and Celtiberian peoples of the Iberian Peninsula were hardly influenced by La Tene artistic styles at all. The most important aspect of Celticness is speaking a Celtic language, if there is evidence that a people speak or spoke a Celtic lnguage, then they are Celts. Slán agaibh - there you go, I'm a Celt! Urselius (talk) 17:40, 18 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Well of course, culture like I said is a nebulous term, especially in today’s hyperindividualist world. Language much less so, regardless of what people may think in certain parts of the world, particularly the English-speaking world.
Yeah, good one. Could you actually hold a 5 minute conversation in a Celtic language with a native speaker of one, though? Is a Celtic language your mothertongue, or at least your main tongue? If not, I wouldn’t consider you to be Celtic.
A joke. One of my gt. grandmothers was an Irish speaker, Irish being her mother tongue, however. You seem to be agreeing with me in a strangely argumentative manner. Aithníonn ciaróg ciaróg eile. Urselius (talk) 08:47, 19 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
An analogy I usually like to use for people claiming ethnicities based on (usually partial) ancestries is that I may have an ancestor, or multiple ancestors, who was a doctor. Now I can claim that makes me a doctor by descent. I can claim I have doctor blood flowing through my veins. Am I myself materially a doctor though? Is any actual qualified, trained, legally recognized doctor going to accept me as a doctor? Is a hospital going to hire me? Is anyone going to let me operate on them? Of course not…
It’s especially apt for cases of ethnolinguistic identities like Celtic, Germanic, Slavic etc. which of course only exist in the first place because of distinct languages and later groups of languages developing that defined and grouped these peoples historically. ~2026-87094-9 (talk) 12:44, 19 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
And that’s not even to dismiss or attack people doing this, it’s to stress the importance of maintaining the material identity that defined/defines the ethnic/ethnolinguistic group historically.
Otherwise you’re gonna end up in a world with no doctors. Or rather more amusingly a world with many people identifying as ‘ethnic doctors’ attacking the few remaining real doctors left for their supposed lack of doctor blood (even though they themselves usually only have partial doctor ancestry at best in most cases) in some purityspiralling nothing cult.
That’s basically what we have today with many ethnicities in certain parts of the world, usually ones that have seen recent, largescale language shift through colonization and mass immigration. ~2026-87094-9 (talk) 12:57, 19 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Being a little po-faced are we not? BTW, I am a doctor (PhD) - biomedical, not medical. Doctor means 'teacher', derived as it is from the Latin docere, to teach. Medics merely assumed a title borne by people qualified to be university teachers for their own aggrandisement; subsequently for it to become both habitual and formally recognised. A Celt in my book is someone who speaks or spoke a Celtic language, or whose ancestors spoke one, preferably relatively recently. The 1st century Galatians count, even though by that time most spoke Greek. Modern Turks from the region around Ankara, do not. It is a sliding scale and far from perfect, but it works for me. Claiming a national identity from distant ancestry is an American habit, I am not American. The 'I am a Celt!' was a joke, which I subsequently flagged as such. Urselius (talk) 18:07, 19 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Oh so there we go. Whose ancestors spoke one. A racial genetic fantasy argument. An ethnoLARP, effectively.
You ancestral line has spoken countless different languages, most of them long lost to time.
Why does recency of ancestry matter, btw? Very Nuremberg Law-esque, isn’t it. Where Jewish ancestrt seemingly ceased to matter if it was a few generations ago.
Also another question for you. When do your descendants stop being Celtic (in your eyes) and start being whatever your native language is, since they will only be descended from speakers of said language. ~2026-87094-9 (talk) 19:16, 19 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
But you’re doing exactly what many Americans do. Claiming an identity from ancestry. Strange that you try to denigrate them doing that, when you are doing exactly the same thing. ~2026-87094-9 (talk) 19:18, 19 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I’m just curious to understand your thinking. Like I said, many ethnic groups tend to develop false beliefs about a common ancestry which distinguishes them from other peoples. Archaeogenetics usually does not support this belief, at all.
I just find the recency of ancestry part highly odd. Albeit, again, very common for humans when it comes to ethnic identification.
I assumed it was a joke, but then you started claiming in the reply that Celticness wasn’t just speaking a Celtic language, but rather about having spoken one (whatever that means), or about ancestry, but only ancestry within a certain amount of generations. How many? Why is there a cutoff?
Again, just curious to know. You seem to be engaging in goalpostshifting here, which tbh I’m not surprised by as I’ve engaged in this stuff before with (neo-)Celtic… enthusiasts, shall we say.
I was attempting some lightheartedness here, but seem to be hitting an unyielding slab of humourlessness. What is a Celt? People that the Greeks called Keltoi and the Romans Celtae, Galli, Galates etc.? People who produced the material cultures archaeology has called Hallstatt and La Tene? People that linguists have ascertained spoke or speak a Celtic language? Any of these traits alone, or in combination, can be considered Celtic. There is no hard and fast definition, the concept of Celticness can be either concrete or nebulous depending on specific situations. Is an Irishman who habitually speaks English, and retains only a few words and phrases from his years of compulsory Irish lessons at school, a Celt? If he isn't, but goes to night school and spends a few weeks in the Gaeltacht and becomes proficient in conversational Irish, does he become a Celt? Being inflexible and dogmatic is pointless when looking at Celtic identity. The concept of Celticness, like La Tene art, is plastic, deformable and abstract. Urselius (talk) 22:03, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
“Is an Irishman who habitually speaks English, and retains only a few words and phrases from his years of compulsory Irish lessons at school, a Celt?”
Objectively not. Pretty clearly.
“If he isn't, but goes to night school and spends a few weeks in the Gaeltacht and becomes proficient in conversational Irish, does he become a Celt?”
Certainly far more Irish and Celtic than he was prior to doing so. He is Gaelicizing and Celticizing. I think if he gets to the point where he can speak Irish as well as if it was his mothertongue (or somewhere close to it) he can absolutely claim to be Irish and a Celt.
Okay, so what you’re now saying is Celtic is a nebulous, nothing term. That simultaneously means everything and nothing. Didn’t you start this by wading in and claiming being a Celt was about speaking Celtic languages? Am I mistaking you with someone else? Someone definitely made this claim earlier in the conversation. ~2026-87094-9 (talk) 00:46, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Are you going to claim being Celtic is about having a sense of humor next, or some other generalistic human personality archetypes that literally occurs in every population group? Drinking alcohol? Being a kind person? Go on, amaze me… Come up with an original
one.
I’ll just preemptively accept your concession here though that 99% of the people claiming to be Celtic today in Europe are engaging in an ethnoLARP on par with hyphenated Americans. Symbolic ethnicity. They are not, in fact, Celtic.
You know the funny thing is if you spent half as much time actually learning a Celtic language as you did trying to convince people you were Celtic through mental gymnastry and goalpostshifting… you’d be speaking a Celtic language and nobody would even be questioning your Celticness.
We can also be aware that populations who spoke (or speak) Celtic languages appear to largely descend from the Indo-European haplogroup R-P312 paternal line that spread across Western Europe after 3000 BCE reaching Britain and Ireland circa 2500 BCE. Published academic references to this knowledge appear to be lagging but they should eventually be available. For example, there's a public paper by Tibor Fehér regarding Y DNA haplogroups (most descend from R-P312) and Irish family names that is of interest. He's an amateur but I am impressed by his research. Gortaleen (talk) 13:26, 29 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
But you’re circling back to archaeogenetics, which doesn’t support the idea that the people of the British Isles are Celtic, or ever were. Because they don’t genetically cluster with Proto-Celts or historical regions of Europe that were Celtic, but rather Germanic peoples.
Yes, and if you knew the slightest thing about archaeogenetics you’d know P312 is just a subclade of a subclade of a subclade of a subclade of a subclade of a subclade… ad nauseam. P312 also has subclades which themselves have subclades etc etc etc. I’m sure you get the idea.
Are you suggesting Russians and Irish are the same people because they’re both R1?
Came across an article for an alternative origin for the Celts. The article references historical authors and scientific sources. Article can be found at celthistory.com ~2026-24230-86 (talk) 23:30, 20 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]
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