Life is about learning, right? Upon coming to Ireland, a couple things were clarified for me by my Irish friends. For instance, no one speaks ‘Gaelic’ in Ireland.
Before people start fainting, let me explain. Gaelic is a linguistic term that covers three different Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. It’s what’s called in the biz, ‘Q-Celtic’, because when certain words in the Gaelic languages were making ‘Q’ or ‘K’ sounds, their sister-words in ‘P-Celtic’ languages were making ‘P’ or ‘B’ sounds. Welsh, Breton, and Manx make up the P-Celtic, Brythonic languages.
Here’s an example:
In Irish, the word for ‘son’ or ‘boy’ is mac.
In Welsh, that word is mab.
See what happened there? This is why asking an Irish person if they speak ‘Gaelic’ will only get you a confused reply. The Irish speak Irish. Basta cosí.
The second thing my friends made clear was that Irish myth is Irish, Welsh myth is Welsh, Cornish myth is Cornish. ‘Celtic’ is another word that won’t get you very far.
Like Gaelic, ‘Celtic’ is a linguistic umbrella term. It makes about as much sense to talk about a book of ‘Celtic myths’ as it does to talk about the ‘Romantic cookbook’ you used for that lasagne recipe (Italian is a Romance language). Often, when people talk about ‘Celtic’ myth, what they really mean are the myths of one of the six languages mentioned above.
TL;DR. Celtic ≠ Irish
≠ Gaelic, etc.
Why does this matter?
It matters because these are different cultures we’re talking about, different histories and social identities. In calling the character Rhiannon a Celtic goddess, she loses definition. She becomes vague. In calling her a Welsh character, she has a context, a history. Cú Chulainn is not a Celtic hero, but an Irish one, with all the literary and historical implications that brings. It doesn’t help that we don’t have, archaeologically or linguistically, any evidence to say that all the cultures that spoke Celtic languages shared a similar cultural identity.
Liz Bourke and Charles Stross have recently blogged on similar lines, and I admit I was inspired to say something, myself, after reading them. (Check them out!)
Is this all a bit pedantic? Maybe. To be honest, it’s worth being a little persnickety if it means adding definition and clarity and understanding to our world. Understanding, in my mind, is always a good thing.
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