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Gaul (Latin: ''Gallia'') was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age that was inhabited by Celtic tribes, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the Rhine. It covered an area of 190,800 mi² or 494,169 km². According to the testimony of Julius Caesar, Gaul was divided into three parts: Gallia Celtica, Belgica and Aquitania. Archaeologically, the Gauls were bearers of the La Tène culture, which extended across all of Gaul, as well as east to Rhaetia, Noricum, Pannonia and southwestern Germania during the 5th to 1st centuries BC. During the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, Gaul fell under Roman rule: Gallia Cisalpina was conquered in 203 BC and Gallia Narbonensis in 123 BC. Gaul was invaded by the Cimbri and the Teutons after 120 BC, who were in turn defeated by the Romans by 103 BC. Julius Caesar finally subdued the remaining parts of Gaul in his campaigns of 58 to 51 BC. Roman control of Gaul lasted for five centuries, until the last Roman rump state, the Domain of Soissons, fell to the Franks in AD 486. While the Celtic Gauls had lost their original identities and language during Late Antiquity, becoming amalgamated into a Gallo-Roman culture, ''Gallia'' remained the conventional name of the territory throughout the Early Middle Ages, until it acquired a new identity as the Capetian Kingdom of France in the high medieval period. ''Gallia'' remains a name of France in modern Greek(Γαλλία) and modern Latin (besides the alternatives ''Francia'' and ''Francogallia''). ==Name== The Greek and Latin names ''Galatia'' (first attested by Timaeus of Tauromenion in the 4th century BC), and ''Gallia'' are ultimately derived from a Celtic ethnic term or clan ''Gal(a)-to-''.〔Birkhan 1997:48〕 The ''Galli'' of Gallia Celtica were reported to refer to themselves as ''Celtae'' by Caesar. Hellenistic folk etymology connected the name of the Galatians (Γαλάται, ''Galátai'') to the supposedly "milk-white" skin (γάλα, ''gála'' "milk") of the Gauls.〔"The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville" p.198 Cambridge University Press 2006 Stephen A. Barney, W. J. Lewis, J. A. Beach and Oliver Berghof〕 The English ''Gaul'' is from French ''Gaule'' and is unrelated to Latin ''Gallia'', despite superficial similarity. As adjectives, English has the two variants ''Gaulish'' and ''Gallic''. The two adjectives are used synonymously, as "pertaining to Gaul or the Gauls", although the Celtic language or languages spoken in Gaul is predominantly known as Gaulish. The name ''Gaul'' is derived from the Old Frankish reflex of Proto-Germanic '' *walhaz'', "foreigner, Romanized person", an exonym applied by Germanic speakers to Celts and Latin-speaking people indiscriminately, making it cognate with the names Wales and Wallachia.〔Sjögren, Albert, Le nom de "Gaule", in ''Studia Neophilologica'', Vol. 11 (1938/39) pp. 210-214.〕 The Germanic ''w-'' is regularly rendered as ''gu-'' / ''g-'' in French (cf. ''guerre'' = ''war'', ''garder'' = ''ward''), and the diphthong ''au'' is the regular outcome of ''al'' before a following consonant (cf. ''cheval'' ~ ''chevaux''). ''Gaule'' or ''Gaulle'' cannot be derived from Latin ''Gallia'', since ''g'' would become ''j'' before ''a'' (cf. ''gamba'' > ''jambe''), and the diphthong ''au'' would be unexplained; the regular outcome of Latin ''Gallia'' is ''Jaille'' in French, which is found in several western placenames.〔''Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology'' (OUP 1966), p. 391.〕〔''Nouveau dictionnaire étymologique et historique'' (Larousse 1990), p. 336.〕 Also unrelated in spite of superficial similarity is the name ''Gael''.〔''Gael'' is derived from Old Irish ''Goidel'' (borrowed, in turn, in the 7th century AD from Primitive Welsh ''Guoidel''—spelled ''Gwyddel'' in Middle Welsh and Modern Welsh—likely derived from a Brittonic root '' *Wēdelos'' meaning literally "forest person, wild man"): John Koch, "Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia", ABC-CLIO, 2006, pp. 775-6〕 The Irish word ''gall'' did originally mean "a Gaul", i.e. an inhabitant of Gaul, but its meaning was later widened to "foreigner", to describe the Vikings, and later still the Normans. The dichotomic words ''gael'' and ''gall'' are sometimes used together for contrast, for instance in the 12th-century book Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib. ==History== 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「Gaul」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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