"Celt" Conjecture

[Conal]

In a slightly different wording and with different emphases, the problem is

• the virtual impossibility of precisely identifying the original referent of a reconstructed lexical item. Even an approximate reconstruction of its semantic content may be very difficult. It is imperative, in working on the problem of Indo-European origins, that the contents of the PIE lexicon not be treated too literally. Historical linguistics has shown numerous examples of how dramatically the meaning of a given word can shift in the course of a few centuries [my favourite example is nice], let alone several millennia. Any PIE form may have had different meanings at different points in time within the time-frame posited for the PIE language.

And mine is funk

That "lofty man" named *kel-t- falls in this array of speculative reconstructions which needs to be abandoned. No evidence, no possible evidence, it is just a dead end, a convenient assumption (convenient because it is constructed to support a position in the first place).

Where you have a word alone you may have an arguement but wher you have a context maybe not;

Massilia ; The Greeks met a people they termed ??????. This used as a term to encompass them as a group. How big a group we can only pseculate.

Julius Ceasar; Said a group in the same area called themselves Celtae.

I would think it safe to assume that the meaning of Celts had not changed.

You are falling too far into the trap that absence of evidence is evidence of absence.