The English and the Celts - no genocide?

[Robert Vermaat]

All these languages are part of the Indo-European language groups - why should Celtic be too difficult for an Anglo-Saxon to learn? Surely you aren't suggesting that the Old English weren't clever enough?

As an explanation you may like it -- but that does not mean that it is actually the case.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has difficulties pronouncing Welsh names and words. D

A test: try pronouncing the Dutch name 'Van Gogh' correctly. It's not even Celtic, but it resembles the Welsh Goch - 'red'. So far, I've failed to find one single Englisman who could!
But where it comes to the 'll' sound, I must pass. Strangely enough, when I learnt Arab and Persian, the former gave me less trouble than Welsh and the patter was almost easy, pronounciation-wise.

My point? Could it not be possible that many British words and names were so hard to reproduce by the early English that they did not even try? Coates signals that some of the few words that were adopted, were words that were changed into an English version.