Sel~tic or Kel~tic
Scott Baker
What is the correct pronunciation of "Celtic"? Webster's says that either
Kel~tic or Sel~tic is correct, but what do other people say? In Language
History experts out there? Thanks!
Scott Baker
scot...@cts.com
Ceolas
In article <01bc534b$02a435e0$979f...@pscottb80.cts.com>, "Scott Baker"
<scot...@cts.com> wrote:
>What is the correct pronunciation of "Celtic"? Webster's says that either
>Kel~tic or Sel~tic is correct, but what do other people say? In Language
>History experts out there? Thanks!
Unless you're talking about the Boston basketball team or the Scottish
soccer team, then the correct pronounciation is 'Keltic'. Sel-tic (or
"Sell-tix" as they call the bball team) is a common mistranslation; in
English, any 'Ce' is pronounced with an S sound, in Irish and Scotish
Gaelic, it is pronounced hard (there is no K in the alphabet).
-Gerard.
--
Ceolas - Celtic music on the internet: IrishNet: directory of Irish-related
http://celtic.stanford.edu/ceolas.html resources in America:
FTP: celtic.stanford.edu http://celtic.stanford.edu/IrishNet/
Vern Lindquist
It's a hard "C," friend, unless you are in Boston. Then, it is still
a hard "C," but no one will laugh there.
Cheers--
Ptbrady
Celtic comes from a Greek word, "keltoi," and I don't have at my
fingertips what that word means, except I vaguely remember it as
"stranger" or something like that. (Corrections are welcome.) Anyway, this
is a hard "K" in Greek. The Irish (ie, Gaelic) alphabet doesn't have a
"k", so the "c" is always hard.
But, the French in Brittany (also Celtics) say "seltic," as do
Bostonians when referring to their basketball teams. You cannot argue with
(a) the French about anything, and (b) Bostonians about sports and perhaps
anything else.
But, the Irish say "keltic," and that's good enough for me.
Pete Brady
Nancy Cunningham
Ptbrady (ptb...@aol.com) wrote:
: Celtic comes from a Greek word, "keltoi," and I don't have at my
: fingertips what that word means, except I vaguely remember it as
: "stranger" or something like that. (Corrections are welcome.) Anyway, this
: Pete Brady
I seem to recall it meant "rural", though perhaps I'm thinking of
the word Gaul...
Chris "><HAVOC><" Cunningham
Civil/Environmental Engineering
West Virginia University
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If you don't lose your integrity, you can't be had and you
can't be hurt"
--VADM James B. Stockdale, USN (ret.)
(Quoted in USNI's "Proceedings")
/|\ "Y GWIR YN ERBYN Y BYD"
Dean Eric Hoffman
This question raises its head from time to time, and I've never been
convinced of any answer beyond personal preference.
On one side is the "origins" argument which talks of the greek 'Keltoi',
etc., supporting a hard c (never mind the people in question never
called themselves by that name). On the other is an equally valid
assertion that if we wanted to stay consistant in our love of so-called
"original" sounds, we would be saying "kiwilisation" for civilisation
and "kensor" for censor. And further, a hard c for celtic goes against a
fairly overwhelming preference in english for soft c's before i's and
e's.
Personally, I think that "seltic" is an unfortunate combination of
sounds, so I say 'keltic' because I like it better and I can get away
with it -- even though I think the other side has a better academic
argument. But outside Esperanto and the like, academics don't fashion
languages, much as they'd like to. The rest of us do.
The fashion seems to be shifting nowadays in the direction of the hard
c. I don't remember that as being true when the Boston basketball team
was christened.
--
Dean Eric Hoffman
http://www.clark.net/pub/deaneric/hapless.html
J P McLaughlin
Scott Baker wrote:
>
> What is the correct pronunciation of "Celtic"? Webster's says that either
> Kel~tic or Sel~tic is correct, but what do other people say? In Language
> History experts out there? Thanks!
>
> scot...@cts.com
It's a hard'C', as in Keltic, unless you are a basketball fan in Boston.
--
Cheers,
J P McLaughlin
The Gecko Group LLC
j...@thegeckogroup.com
www.thegeckogroup.com
Lawrence E Mallette
J P McLaughlin (j...@thegeckogroup.com) wrote:
: It's a hard'C', as in Keltic, unless you are a basketball fan in Boston.
Or unless you are French.
Erich Schraer
The word "celtic" is not really a Celtic word except insofar as the
ancient Greeks may have taken the word "Keltoi" from a Celtic tribe. From
there it went -> Latin -> French -> English. By the normal phonological
changes it would be expected to be pronounced with an /s/ sound, hence the
popular pronunciation of the word, as can be heard in the names of the
various Celtic ball-teams. Also the pronunciation of "celt", an
Archaeological term for a prehistoric axe head, is with an /s/.
However there are other factors involved here. First even though the word
is not native to the modern Celtic languages, it's a convenient word to
use to refer to them (languages, people, etc.) collectively. Since none
of the Celtic languages have a soft-c, it would be natural for their
speakers to pronounce the word with a /k/ sound. Also German uses the
word "keltisch", and much scholarly philological work in the Celtic
languages has been done in the German language since the 19th century. I
think this would reinforce the /k/ pronunciation.
It seems to me that the normal English pronunciation of "Celtic" when
referring to things relating to the Celtic people or languages (such as
their music) is now /keltic/, though that didn't used to be the case.
--Erich
--
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| Erich Schraer Division of Biostatistics |
| Phone: (314)362-3681 Washington University Medical School |
| Fax: (314)362-2693 660 S. Euclid Ave., Box 8067 |
| Email: er...@wubios.wustl.edu St. Louis, MO 63110 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
Bruce Culbertson
Regarding Sel~tic versus Kel~tic...
At issue here, I think, is the pronunciation of the label that
appears on a CD bin at many music stores these days. That bin
typically contains Irish music, Scottish music, Galatian Music,
and many others.
For the pronunciation of "celtic", as in the CD bin, we really
should consult the marketing executives at the CD companies who
invented the term. However, I'd argue against pronouncing it
"keltic" since that would confuse it with the "Celts", an ancient
and noble group of people who had no known common, characteristic
music. It would be better to pronounce it "seltic", if for no
other reason, because we would be confusing the music with a mere
basketball team, rather than a group that once constituted the
entire population of Europe. On the other hand, "seltique" might
avoid the confusion problem altogether.
Many of us like to use the term "pre-celtic" for Irish music,
Scottish music, Welsh Music, et cetera, since those types of
music considerably pre-date the recently invented and heavily
hyped "celtic" genre. By the way, there is also a lot to be said
for terms like "Irish music" since they actually *mean* something
that is fairly self-explanatory and their pronunciation is
uncontroversial.
Your friendly curmudgeon,
Bruce Culbertson
Jack Davis
>Personally, I think that "seltic" is an unfortunate combination of
>sounds, so I say 'keltic' because I like it better and I can get away
>with it -- even though I think the other side has a better academic
>argument. But outside Esperanto and the like, academics don't fashion
>languages, much as they'd like to. The rest of us do.
"Unfortunate"? The two words sound exactly the same, i.e., neither sounds
better or worse than the other. We're talking about a language here,
something that is a melange of influences and which can never be "pure" in
any sense. Language has and IS constantly evolving. There is no "correct"
pronunciation or spelling of any word, although some extremely anal people
will tell you there are. There are only "norms" of spelling and
pronunciation, which can vary from region to region, quite legally and
logically, nothing more.
Jack Davis, biology/chemistry instructor
New Mexico State University-Alamogordo
Interests: biology of Coryphanthae cacti, halophyte/Tamarisk
ecology, tropical dry forests, conservation education/
wilderness areas
Quotes of the Week:
"I should not talk so much about myself if there were any body else
whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by
the narrowness of my experience."
"I have learned that the swiftest traveler is he that goes afoot."
"To make a railroad round the world available to all mankind is
equivalent to grading the whole surface of the planet."
Walden, Henry David Thoreau
Jack Davis
One might add also that "Celtic" is not even a Celtic word, is it? The
spelling certainly isn't...the Celts never developed their own written
language until very late when they learned spelling from other European
languages (from Romanized peoples). "Celtic" is actually an English word
and, according to the rules of English, it should be pronounced sel~tic,
although kel~tic is, by Webster at least, allowed in recognition of the fact
that the first four letters of the word probably are of Keltic origin. When
speaking Gaelic, however, it should be pronounced kel~tic.
The most hilarious aspect, however, of this "debate" is how certain
Americans, who have listened to Thistle and Shamrock for far too long IMO,
will swear religiously that anyone who doesn't say kel~tic is an incorrect
ignoramus (in this latter group would be all Spanish and French people who
have as much or more Celt blood in them as the average American "Celt"),
even though these Thistle-and-Shamrockians don't seem to know much about any
other aspects of the languages involved. Anything you tell them, they just
parrot back religiously, "The only correct pronunciation is kel~tic. I
heard Fiona Ritchie say so."
Jack Davis
One might add also that "Celtic" is not even a Celtic word, is it? The
spelling certainly isn't...the Celts never developed their own written
language until very late when they learned spelling from other European
languages (from Romanized peoples). "Celtic" is actually an English word
and, according to the rules of English, it should be pronounced sel~tic,
although kel~tic is, by Webster at least, allowed in recognition of the fact
speaking Gaelic, however, it should be pronounced kel~tic. I should also be
pronounced kel~tic if you want to avoid getting lecture by the ever present
internet language police.
Erik Dutton
Mls834 wrote:
>
> k```eltic is the olde music of Brittany, Galicia, Celtic lands.
>
> C```eltic is a guy who plays basketball for that Boston, Massacuhsetts,
> group in the U.S.A.
>
> Mary
The easy way to remember this is to remember that the word is cognate
with the Greek "Keltoi", which is what the Greeks called the Celts.
--
Erik Dutton (edu...@worldnet.att.net)
"Si hoc scis legere, nimium eruditionis habes."
Mls834
Allen Garvin
In article <E9Iy5...@hplabsz.hpl.hp.com>,
Bruce Culbertson <culb...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>Regarding Sel~tic versus Kel~tic...
For the pronunciation of "celtic", as in the CD bin, we really
should consult the marketing executives at the CD companies who
invented the term. However, I'd argue against pronouncing it
"keltic" since that would confuse it with the "Celts", an ancient
and noble group of people who had no known common, characteristic
music. It would be better to pronounce it "seltic", if for no
other reason, because we would be confusing the music with a
mere basketball team, rather than a group that once constituted
the entire population of Europe. On the other hand, "seltique"
might avoid the confusion problem altogether.
The adjective "celtic" with a hard c has been in common use in the English
speaking world for the last century and a half to describe the literature
and culture of Ireland and Scotland, and to a lesser degree, Wales. American
sports fans and the French are the only people I know who say it was a soft
"s".
Many of us like to use the term "pre-celtic" for Irish music,
Scottish music, Welsh Music, et cetera, since those types of
music considerably pre-date the recently invented and heavily
hyped "celtic" genre. By the way, there is also a lot to be
said for terms like "Irish music" since they actually *mean*
something that is fairly self-explanatory and their pronunciation
is uncontroversial.
I've never heard the term "pre-celtic". I usually say something like
"Irish and Scottish traditional music", though, because Celtic music has
acquired in recent years the connotation of a new-agey sort of music (like
that of Clannad or Enya). I prefer the traditional forms. But I wouldn't
mind everything being put together in one section of the store. One record
store I go to has an Irish section, a Scottish section, and a Celtic section.
It's a bother to wander back and forth just to browse.
--
Allen Garvin kisses are a better fate
--------------------------------------------- than wisdom
eare...@faeryland.tamu-commerce.edu
http://faeryland.tamu-commerce.edu/~earendil e e cummings
Phil Wright
On 04-Sep-97 01:36:29, Allen Garvin was reported to have said:
>The adjective "celtic" with a hard c has been in common use in the English
>speaking world for the last century and a half to describe the literature
>and culture of Ireland and Scotland, and to a lesser degree, Wales.
>American sports fans and the French are the only people I know who say it
>was a soft "s".
FWIW, I was vacationing in Scotland at the beginning of August and while
listening to the radio I heard it pronouced several times as 'seltic'. I'm
pretty sure they were referring to a soccer team when these mentions came
up.
I was actually quite dissapointed as I prefer the 'keltic' pronounciation
and fully expected to only hear it that way while in Scotland. :)
Phil
Roderick MacDonald
I have always pronounced Celtic "Keltic" when referring to the music,
the tribe and the culture, but "Seltic" when cheering on the football
(soccer) team from Glasgow.
Bear in mind that Celtic music is a misnomer, as Ireland, Scotland
and large chunks of Northern Europe were settled by the Norse, the
Angles, the Saxons etc, and most of the local population (including
the musical ones) are hybrids like myself.
Roderick Macdonald (Norse-Celtic Hebridean Hybrid)
Royce Lerwick
>Bear in mind that Celtic music is a misnomer, as Ireland, Scotland
>and large chunks of Northern Europe were settled by the Norse, the
>Angles, the Saxons etc, and most of the local population (including
>the musical ones) are hybrids like myself.
Hail, fellow. Well met.
Royce Lerwick
Dafyyd
all,
It is derived from the "Book of Kells"
Dafyyd
vectromat (overhead underhang optional)
Pin~on Jack wrote:
>
> >"Keltic" is the proper way of saying it. In Scotland, "seltic" is the
> >way the way they call the soccer team, like the "Boston Celtics"
>
> There is no proper way of saying anything, only conventions that vary from
> place to place and change through time. Since Celtic is an English word,
> it's properly pronounced seltic, although keltic is also allowed.
>
>
> I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the
> dark, though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and
> candles have been introduced.
>
> Creo que el hombre todavia por lo general tiene miedo de la
> oscuridad, aunque se han colgado todos los brujos, y el
> cristianismo y la vela han sido introducido.
>
> Walden
Argh! Again. No, it's NOT an English word! And as correctly established
in the other thread on this topic, it is correctly pronounced with a K
sound.
MG
vectromat (overhead underhang optional)
I'd like to point out here that large chunks of the local population
were ALREADY hybrids, and so were the invaders! Of course, other large
chunks weren't. I'm one of the original, and best!:)
For example, enormous segments of the populations of the British Isles
have remained very stable for periods of *thousands* of years. Witness
"Cheddar Man", the ten(?) thousand year old skeleton found in the
Cheddar caves. When it became possible to do a DNA test from this
skeleton earlier this year, the first person selected for comparison, a
local man who lived just down the road from the caves, was found to be a
direct descendant of the owner of the skeleton. Beat that!
Cheers,
Martyn G
PS it's not really a misnomer, either. The music is distinctlty
different to Germanic music, the ethnic makeup of the people playing it
notwithstanding. And I'm pretty sure that even though most Icelanders
are descended, apparently, from Irish slaves, they'd rather think that
THEIR music is all Vikingish.
PPS My own family is from a valley in the Black Mountains of south Wales
- cranial comparisons shows that people there are at least partly of
pre-Brythonic stock, and like the Cheddar people have been there since
the end of the Ice Age. I wonder where they were getting their wives?
Ugh! No, I don't think I'll think about that one too hard...:)
Dean Eric Hoffman
There are good, solid academic arguments for either pronunciation. But
if academic arguments or simple 'tradition' really held sway in the
production of language, then we should all be speaking Bopp's
Indo-European or some antecedent.
For now, it seems in english you can pick whichever pronucation and
supporting arguments appeal to you ... and still be justified and widely
understood when you say the word "celtic".
To remain on firm ground, the only thing you cannot do very clearly is
to correct someone else's preference!
Pin~on Jack
>Argh! Again. No, it's NOT an English word! And as correctly established
>in the other thread on this topic, it is correctly pronounced with a K
>sound.
YOU are not kapable of establishing anything korrectly. YOU have no
authority in the matter. You linguisto-nazis just can't get it, can you?
"Resulta pués, que una misma realidad se quiebra en muchas
realidades divergentes cuando es mirada desde puntos de vistas
distinto."
"The result is, therefore, that one reality breaks up into many
differing realities when seen from different points of view."
(my translation)
José Ortega y Gasset, _La Deshumanización del Arte_
vectromat (overhead underhang optional)
Pin~on Jack wrote:
>
> >Argh! Again. No, it's NOT an English word! And as correctly established
> >in the other thread on this topic, it is correctly pronounced with a K
> >sound.
>
> YOU are not kapable of establishing anything korrectly. YOU have no
> authority in the matter. You linguisto-nazis just can't get it, can you?
>
Are you up to this debate? Have you anything with an ounce of thought
behind it to contribute? Have you any functional grey matter at all?
I'm a peaceful little soul, and I don't like to denigrate others, (well,
OK, I do, actually! :) but hey, since you're on for it, have at you!
It's a VERY SIMPLE CONCEPT, mate! Go back and look at it. Just because
you've gotten used to pronouncing it wrong, doesn't mean you can't give
up your obvious attachment to the whole 'Seltic' thing, and join the
joyous multitude marching towards a new tomorrow, where the glorious
once-and-future pronunciation will reign supreme!!!
Cheers wee matey,
Martyn Griffiths
PS I am sorry if my rather grumpy tone last night is the only thing that
prompted this response. If you are a nice person after all, please
ignore my sarcasm.
vectromat (overhead underhang optional)
Dean Eric Hoffman wrote:
>
> There are good, solid academic arguments for either pronunciation. But
> if academic arguments or simple 'tradition' really held sway in the
> production of language, then we should all be speaking Bopp's
> Indo-European or some antecedent.
>
favour of a soft pronunciation? The Latin bit?
> For now, it seems in english you can pick whichever pronucation and
> supporting arguments appeal to you ... and still be justified and widely
> understood when you say the word "celtic".
Yep, though plenty of people will argue with ya!
>
> To remain on firm ground, the only thing you cannot do very clearly is
> to correct someone else's preference!
People are so attached to their little bits of dogma, aren't they? :)
Bye bye,
MG
Dean Eric Hoffman
vectromat (overhead underhang optional) wrote:
> I'm sceptical - what, for interest, *are* the academic arguments in
> favour of a soft pronunciation? The Latin bit?
In part: the route of that word into english was by way of Latin and
French wherein many c's before slender vowels became softened. If you
want to use the "k" pronunciation of the classical periods in Greece or
Rome as a justification for a modern k rendering of celtic, then why not
assert kiwilisation for civilisation or Kaiser for Caesar, not standing
on keremony. You could try, but you'd probably be viewed as a crackpot.
Any sound shift in any language can be viewed as institutionalized
mistakes, but the notion of "correcting", on some academic argument, a
thousand years of widespread "bad habits" seems pretty fatuous.
I think that neither side of this argument has obtained sufficient
majority to form a government. I choose the k pronunciation -- first,
because I'm able to choose one or the other without serious risk of
being misunderstood and second because it fits better into my sound
palate.
What on earth is wrong with living with the fact that the spoken sound
of this word has equally acceptable variants in English?
Roderick MacDonald
In message <34181563...@clark.net>
Dean Eric Hoffman <dean...@clark.net> writes:
> I think that neither side of this argument has obtained sufficient
> majority to form a government. I choose the k pronunciation -- first,
> because I'm able to choose one or the other without serious risk of
> being misunderstood and second because it fits better into my sound
> palate.
> What on earth is wrong with living with the fact that the spoken sound
> of this word has equally acceptable variants in English?
Hear! Hear!
Rod
Royce Lerwick
On Tue, 9 Sep 1997 18:58:20 GMT, if...@nmsua.nmsu.edu (Pin~on Jack)
wrote:
>>Argh! Again. No, it's NOT an English word! And as correctly established
>>in the other thread on this topic, it is correctly pronounced with a K
>>sound.
>
>YOU are not kapable of establishing anything korrectly. YOU have no
>authority in the matter. You linguisto-nazis just can't get it, can you?
Linguists are apparently all boring assholes. This has already been
established in a plethora of like arguements raised on a host of
topics equally unrelated to anything even vaguely musical on
rec.music.makers.bagpipe. This, I believe, stems from a lifetime of
contemplating the manner or speech rather than the content of speech,
which leaves them perpetually all dressed up with nowhere to go and
nothing to say when they arrive.
Royce
PS: Spell and grammar checkers will be castrated with the sharp edge
of a piece of A4 !00% acid free ragstock.
PPS: Brilliant green dreams sleep fiercely.
vectromat (overhead underhang optional)
Dean Eric Hoffman wrote:
If you
> want to use the "k" pronunciation of the classical periods in Greece or
> Rome as a justification for a modern k rendering of celtic, then why not
> assert kiwilisation for civilisation or Kaiser for Caesar, not standing
> on keremony.
This actually isn't a bad idea, and I gather it's being tried out in
Finland quite a lot at the moment, what with the current Latin revival
there. Yeah, let's get a movement going in the rest of the
world...thanks for the suggestion!
I've already explained my little thought: those words are heavily
adapted to English usage and in their English forms, effectively
*belong* to English.
Words which have been dug up and dusted off quite recently should be
used
in their correct forms....why does this idea offend you so? It isn't
particularly Fascist, is it?
You could try, but you'd probably be viewed as a crackpot.
Too late, it seems - I already am, sob, sniff........
> Any sound shift in any language can be viewed as institutionalized
> mistakes, but the notion of "correcting", on some academic argument, a
> thousand years of widespread "bad habits" seems pretty fatuous.
Agreed - read my earlier posts....
>
> What on earth is wrong with living with the fact that the spoken sound
> of this word has equally acceptable variants in English?
It doesn't keep *me* awake at night! I just like to stir!
Byeeeeeeeeee,
MG