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The Celts (, occasionally , see pronunciation of ''Celtic'') were people in Iron Age and Medieval Europe who spoke Celtic languages and had cultural similarities, although the relationship between ethnic, linguistic and cultural factors in the Celtic world remains uncertain and controversial. The exact geographic spread of the ancient Celts is also disputed; in particular, the ways in which the Iron Age inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland should be regarded as Celts has become a subject of controversy.〔〔 The history of pre-Celtic Europe remains very uncertain. According to one theory, the common root of the Celtic languages, a language known as Proto-Celtic, arose in the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture of Central Europe, which flourished from around 1200 BC. In addition, according to a theory proposed in the 19th century, the first people to adopt cultural characteristics regarded as Celtic were the people of the Iron Age Hallstatt culture in central Europe (c. 800–450 BC), named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria.〔 Thus this area is sometimes called the 'Celtic homeland'. By or during the later La Tène period (c. 450 BC up to the Roman conquest), this Celtic culture was supposed to have expanded by diffusion or migration to the British Isles (Insular Celts), France and The Low Countries (Gauls), Bohemia, Poland and much of Central Europe, the Iberian Peninsula (Celtiberians, Celtici, Lusitanians and Gallaeci) and northern Italy (Golaseccans and Cisalpine Gauls) and, following the Gallic invasion of the Balkans in 279 BC, as far east as central Anatolia (Galatians). The earliest undisputed direct examples of a Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions, beginning in the 6th century BC. Continental Celtic languages are attested almost exclusively through inscriptions and place-names. Insular Celtic is attested beginning around the 4th century AD through Ogham inscriptions, although it was clearly being spoken much earlier. Celtic literary tradition begins with Old Irish texts around the 8th century. Coherent texts of Early Irish literature, such as the ''Táin Bó Cúailnge'' (''The Cattle Raid of Cooley''), survive in 12th-century recensions. By the mid 1st millennium AD, with the expansion of the Roman Empire and the Great Migrations (Migration Period) of Germanic peoples, Celtic culture and Insular Celtic had become restricted to Ireland, the western and northern parts of Great Britain (Wales, Scotland, and Cornwall), the Isle of Man, and Brittany. Between the 5th and 8th centuries, the Celtic-speaking communities in these Atlantic regions emerged as a reasonably cohesive cultural entity. They had a common linguistic, religious, and artistic heritage that distinguished them from the culture of the surrounding polities. By the 6th century, however, the Continental Celtic languages were no longer in wide use. Insular Celtic culture diversified into that of the Gaels (Irish, Scottish and Manx) and the Brythonic Celts (Welsh, Cornish, and Bretons) of the medieval and modern periods. A modern "Celtic identity" was constructed as part of the Romanticist Celtic Revival in Great Britain, Ireland, and other European territories, such as Portugal and Spanish Galicia. Today, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton are still spoken in parts of their historical territories, and Cornish and Manx are undergoing a revival. ==Names and terminology== (詳細はHecataeus of Miletus, the Greek geographer, in 517 BC,〔Sarunas Milisauskas, 〕 when writing about a people living near Massilia (modern Marseille).〔H. D. Rankin, 〕 In the 5th century BC Herodotus referred to ''Keltoi'' living around the head of the Danube and also in the far west of Europe.〔Herodotus, ''The Histories'', 2.33; 4.49.〕 The etymology of the term ''Keltoi'' is unclear. Possible roots include Indo-European *''k´el''-‘to hide’ (also in Old Irish celid), IE *''k´el''- ‘to heat’ or *''kel''- ‘to impel’.〔John T. Koch (ed.), ''Celtic Culture: a historical encyclopedia''. 5 vols. 2006, p. 371. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO.〕 Several authors have supposed it to be Celtic in origin, while others view it as a name coined by Greeks. Linguist Patrizia De Bernardo Stempel falls in the latter group, and suggests the meaning "the tall ones".〔P. De Bernardo Stempel 2008. Linguistically Celtic ethnonyms: towards a classification, in ''Celtic and Other Languages in Ancient Europe'', J. L. García Alonso (ed.), 101-118. Ediciones Universidad Salamanca.〕 In the first century BC Julius Caesar reported that the people known to the Romans as Gauls (''Galli'') called themselves Celts,〔Julius Caesar, ''Commentarii de Bello Gallico'' 1.1: “All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae live, another in which the Aquitani live, and the third are those who in their own tongue are called ''Celtae'', in our language ''Galli''.”〕 which suggests that even if the name ''Keltoi'' was bestowed by the Greeks, it had been adopted to some extent as a collective name by the tribes of Gaul. The geographer Strabo, writing about Gaul towards the end of the first century BC, refers to the "race which is now called both Gallic and Galatic," though he also uses the term Celtica as a synonym for Gaul, which is separated from Iberia by the Pyrenees. Yet he reports Celtic peoples in Iberia, and also uses the ethnic names Celtiberi and Celtici for peoples there, as distinct from Lusitani and Iberi.〔Strabo, ''Geography'', 3.1.3; 3.1.6; 3.2.2; 3.2.15; 4.4.2.〕 Pliny the Elder cited the use of Celtici in Lusitania as a tribal surname,〔Pliny the Elder, ''The Natural History'' 21: “the Mirobrigenses, surnamed Celtici” (“Mirobrigenses qui Celtici cognominantur”).〕 which epigraphic findings have confirmed.〔http://revistas.ucm.es/est/11326875/articulos/HIEP0101110006A.PDF〕〔Fernando DE ALMEIDA, ''Breve noticia sobre o santuário campestre romano de Miróbriga dos Celticos (Portugal)'' :D(IS) M(ANIBUS) S(ACRUM) / C(AIUS) PORCIUS SEVE/RUS MIROBRIGEN(SIS) / CELT(ICUS) ANN(ORUM) LX / H(IC) S(ITUS) E(ST) S(IT) T(IBI) T(ERRA) L(EVIS)〕 Latin ''Gallus'' (pl. ''Galli'') might stem from a Celtic ethnic or tribal name originally, perhaps one borrowed into Latin during the Celtic expansions into Italy during the early 5th century BC. Its root may be the Common Celtic '' *galno'', meaning “power, strength”, hence Old Irish ''gal'' “boldness, ferocity” and Welsh ''gallu'' “to be able, power”. The tribal names of Gallaeci and the Greek Γαλάται (''Galatai'', Latinized ''Galatae''; see the region Galatia in Anatolia) most probably go with the same origin. The suffix ''-atai'' might be an Ancient Greek inflection. Classical writers did not apply the terms or "Celtae" to the inhabitants of Britain or Ireland,〔〔〔 which has led to some scholars preferring not to use the term for the Iron Age inhabitants of those islands.〔〔〔〔 Celt is a modern English word, first attested in 1707, in the writing of Edward Lhuyd, whose work, along with that of other late 17th-century scholars, brought academic attention to the languages and history of the early Celtic inhabitants of Great Britain.〔(Lhuyd, p. 290) Lhuyd, E. ''Archaeologia Britannica; An account of the languages, histories, and customs of the original inhabitants of Great Britain.'' (reprint ed.) Irish University Press, 1971. ISBN 0-7165-0031-0〕 The English form Gaul (first recorded in the 17th century) and ''Gaulish'' come from the French ''Gaule'' and ''Gaulois'', a borrowing from Frankish '' *Walholant'', "Land of foreigners or Romans" (see Gaul: Name), the root of which is Proto-Germanic '' *walha-'', “foreigner”', or “Celt”, whence the English word Welsh (Anglo-Saxon ''wælisċ'' < *''walhiska-''), South German ''welsch'', meaning “Celtic speaker”, “French speaker” or “Italian speaker” in different contexts, and Old Norse ''valskr'', pl. ''valir'', “Gaulish, French”). Proto-Germanic '' *walha'' is derived ultimately from the name of the Volcae, a Celtic tribe who lived first in the South of Germany and emigrated then to Gaul. This means that English Gaul, despite its superficial similarity, is not actually derived from Latin ''Gallia'' (which should have produced '' * *Jaille'' in French), though it does refer to the same ancient region. Celtic refers to a family of languages and, more generally, means “of the Celts” or “in the style of the Celts”. Several archaeological cultures are considered Celtic in nature, based on unique sets of artefacts. The link between language and artefact is aided by the presence of inscriptions. (See ''Celtic (disambiguation)'' for other applications of the term.) The relatively modern idea of an identifiable Celtic cultural identity or "Celticity" generally focuses on similarities among languages, works of art, and classical texts,〔Paul Graves-Brown, Siân Jones, Clive Gamble, 〕 and sometimes also among material artefacts, social organisation, homeland and mythology.〔Carl McColman, 〕 Earlier theories held that these similarities suggest a common racial origin for the various Celtic peoples, but more recent theories hold that they reflect a common cultural and language heritage more than a genetic one. Celtic cultures seem to have been widely diverse, with the use of a Celtic language being the main thing they have in common.〔 Today, the term Celtic generally refers to the languages and respective cultures of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Brittany, also known as the Celtic nations. These are the regions where four Celtic languages are still spoken to some extent as mother tongues. The four are Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton; plus two recent revivals, Cornish (one of the Brythonic languages) and Manx (one of the Goidelic languages). There are also attempts to reconstruct the Cumbric language (a Brythonic language from North West England and South West Scotland). Celtic regions of Continental Europe are those whose residents claim a Celtic heritage, but where no Celtic language has survived; these areas include the western Iberian Peninsula, i.e. Portugal, and north-central Spain (Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Castile and León, Extremadura). (See also: Modern Celts.) Continental Celts are the Celtic-speaking people of mainland Europe and Insular Celts are the Celtic-speaking peoples of the British and Irish islands and their descendants. The Celts of Brittany derive their language from migrating insular Celts, mainly from Wales and Cornwall, and so are grouped accordingly. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Celts」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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