"Celt" Conjecture

[Rumo]

Sigh...and yet the fields of Celtic and Proto-Indo-European historical linguistics carry on unabated....to think of all the years wasted (not to mention the ink!) by these poor, befuddled ""scientists" on this lunacy!

You got it wrong. I quoted from a debate between PIE historical linguists. If you believe they "carry on unabated" there is much which you don't know.
Much effort was wasted in wishful thinking indeed. That is one of the several causes for that inertia.

Is there any evidence 'Celt' is inherited from PIE? No, none.
Is there any evidence 'Celt' is inherited from a PIE root *kel-t- ? No, none.
Is there any evidence what was the meaning of the PIE *kel-? No, none. Can we even be sure a *kel- root ever existed? No. It's just a theoretical prediction.
Is there any evidence of an IE speaking population in, say, 7th century BCE calling themselves Celts? No, none. Not even Caesar claims that.
Is there any reason to believe 'Celt' is not borrowed from a distinct, non-Celtic IE language or even non-IE language (which can be extinct and we'll never be aware of its existence)? No.

Will ever some evidence be found for any of the above? Most probably not. Maintaining such beliefs has therefore nothing to do with science.

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.

Not really.

Apparently many on this thread have not read Strabo. I mentioned earlier how Strabo's position is opposite to Caesar's, and also referred to several passages in which Strabo says the name 'Celt' was actually given by others. I did not insist on the point, but since several of you choose to believe Caesar ad litteram and at the same time claim Greeks learned the word 'Celt' from actual Celts, I think we should read Strabo, 1.2.27:

• I maintain, for example, that in accordance with the opinion of the ancient Greeks — just as they embraced the inhabitants of the known countries of the north under the single designation "Scythians" (or "Nomads" to use Homer's term) and just as later, when the inhabitants of the west also were discovered, they were called "Celts" and "Iberians," or by the compound words "Celtiberians" and "Celtiscythians," the several peoples being classed under one name through ignorance of the facts — I maintain, I say, that just so, in accordance with the opinion of the ancient Greeks, all the countries in the south which lie on Oceanus were called "Ethiopia."

None of the onomastic examples (all from Roman times) can confirm they called themselves Celts, so we're left with Caesar's claim which applies to Gaul only.

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.

Untrue. 'Slav' is an English word, as well as it is a word in many other languages.

The first language where we have it attested is Greek, in 6th century CE: ?????????. However there's no evidence that those Sclavini were Slavic speakers (even though it's possible that some of them were). As I pointed out already, their leaders do not seem to have Slavic names.

In Slavic languages there's a homonymous word: 'slava' = fame, glory (which means, by the way, that some -slav- names may be related to that, and not to their alleged group identity). Some scholars bound the 'slav' ethnonym to 'slovo' = word, that is they defined themselves as those who can speak intelligibly (see the Greek definition of themselves vs barbarians), which is a likely scenario in the case of Slovenians or Slovaks. Nevertheless there's no evidence that Sklavinoi is a Greek rendering of 'Sloveni'.

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

Not necessarily.

There are several theories to explain Graikoi, I'll mention two of them:

- Graikoi as inhabitants of Graia, a settlement or a region in Boeotia (for identification see M. H. Hansen and T. H. Nielsen (eds.), An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis, at page 434).
- Aristotle in Meteorologica wrote of the three names the Greeks had in Epirus (Dodona): Selloi, Graikoi and at last, Hellenes. Scholars like Hammond prefer to trust this account and connect it to a Greek origin in Epirus. At the same time, ancient Epirus was inhabited by other populations, as well (Illyrian tribes, for example), so we can't be sure in this scenario the name is of Greek origin. Nevertheless this myth shows how names can change, unlike in the story of those 'lofty men'.

However your objections (with Greeks, Slavs) do not really hold. The origin of an ethnic name is not always in the languages spoken by that ethnic group.

The name of the Russians is arguably not Slavic. The name of the Bulgarians is not Slavic, and probably not even Indo-European (the Bulgars were some steppe - probably Turkic speaking - tribes). The French speak a Romance language, the Franks didn't (at least not initially). The name of the Gypsies (speaking Indic languages) comes from the name of Egyptians, which we first have it attested in Greek. Probably we have it also in Linear B. Then is it a Minoan name? A genuine Egyptian one (related to Ptah)?