"Celt" Conjecture

[cagwinn]

Interesting points. And certainly the term "Celt" must have had some significance amongst themselves if a man who tried to be King of Gaul was known as Celtillus.

Celtillus rather sounds like a Latin name. -llus/-lla is a diminutive suffix (e.g. Marcellus, Catullus, Metellus, Camillus). So it meant - to Romans! - something like 'little Celt'. Question is why Vercingetorix' father had a name which made sense to Romans.

Assuming it was nevertheless an indigenous name, it looks like it was altered through folk etymology, case in which there's no reliable *kelt root for an argument.

Celtillus is certainly a Gaulish name - the -us is simply a Latin substitution for the Gaulish -os (it was common practice for Latin authors to Latinize the endings of foreign names). There are numerous attested examples of the native Celtic suffix -il(l)-, so there is no need to suggest that we have some sort of Latin name here. That a *kelt- root existed in both the Gaulish and Celtiberian languages is beyond doubt - the root is amply attested in both.

If you want to learn a little about the Gaulish language, read Pierre-Yves Lambert's "La language gauloise" and Xavier Delamarre's "Dictionnaire de la langue gaulloise" - both are excellent introductions to the language.