"Celt" Conjecture

[cagwinn]

You miss the point. In English "it is/sounds Greek to me" refers to something else. As such, the word "Greek" can be used in English with no relation whatsoever with real Greek language or ethnicity.

LOL - I am a native English speaker - you don't have to explain my own language to me.

Besides what I've already said, as you point out, this word is not even borrowed directly from Greek.

Sigh. It still comes ultimately from a Greek ethnic name.

Let's draw a chronology. This word shows up
- first at some Greek authors
- then at some Latin authors
- and at last in some Roman inscriptions, sometimes referring to people speaking what we call today a Celtic language

The attestations suggest the Romans learned it from the Greeks. If you prefer extreme skepticism, then fine, we don't know where the Romans learned this name. Maybe they heard it from Carthaginians.
I thought that if I'm demolishing a theory it would be nice to put something in place. You don't want it, I don't really mind.

The simplest and best explanation is that the Greeks learned it from people who called themselves Keltoi or Keltikoi. That these people were still employing this ethnic name centuries later is confirmed for us by Caesar, et al., and the numerous onomastic examples that I have cited.

Sorry, for me this is outdated scholarship. PIE is a reconstruction. It cannot be really used as a solid argument for anything. And *kel- is a monosyllabic root which can be used to support any kind of speculation.

Outdated scholarship?? LOL - what would be "current scholarship - give me a date. I am glad to hear that the entire field of Celtic historical linguistics can be demolished because it relies on monosyllabic Proto-Indo-European roots!!

It's up to you to present inscriptions if they really support the case. It's hard for me to track something which is just "inscribed on a stone" even if you add Peñalba. You may refer to this. Or maybe to some short inscriptions from Clunia (Peñalba de Castro) - see my previous links for that.

Peñalba de Villastar. See: Luciano Perez Vilatela, "Inscripciones celtibericas ineditas de Penalba", in "La Hispania prerromana", Universidad de Salamanca, 1996, pp. 256-257.

According to RIG, L-81a is dated vers 40-30 avant J.-C. (after the Roman conquest). As for the text, mais la lecture est extrêmement douteuse. If even the editors of L-81a find that reading extremely doubtful, I rest my case.

I have a picture of the inscription right here in my hands - it certainly looks like CELTICA to me. The people in this region were still speaking Gaulish at this time, by the way.

I'm glad you notice that, because mutatis mutandis what I'll be saying of the Slavs goes for the Celts.

The point remains, "Slav", no matter how it came to be used as an ethnic name, is linguistically a SLAVIC word, just as "Celt" is CELTIC word.