Celtic Elements in English

In the course of the first 700 years of its existence the English language was brought into contact with 3 other languages; the languages of the Celts, the Romans, and the Scandinavians.

It would seem reasonable to expect that the conquest of the Celtic population of Britain by the Anglo-Saxons and the subse

quent mixture of the two peoples should have resulted in a corresponding mixture of their \

languages; consequently we should find in the Old English vocabulary numerous instances of words whn.h the Anglo-Saxons heard in the speech of the native population and adopted In most places of England large numbers of the Celts were gradually adsorbed by the new inhabitants.

When we come to seek the evidence for the contact in the English language, investigation yields very meager results. Such evidence as there survives chiefly in place-names. The kingdom of Kent, for example, owes its name to the Celtic word canti or cantion. Devonshire contains in the first element the tribal name dumnonii, Cornwall means the "Cornubian Welsh", and Cumberland is the "land or the Cymry or Britons". Moreover, a number of important centers in the Roman period have names in which Celtic elements are embodied. The first syllable of Winchester, Salisbury, Exeter, Gloucester, Worcester, Lichfield is traceable to a Celtic source. It is in the names of rivers and hills and place in proximity to these natural features that the greatest number of Celtic names had radiated progressively northward and westward through France, Germany, the Low Countries, and finally to England.

The other was the growth of national pride, which began to flower in mid-century with the Reformation and reached its culmination amid the triumphs and glories of the brilliant Elizabethan Age.

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The extraordinary surge of interest in the classics opened the gates of the English language to a new verbal invasion - this time of Latin and, to a lesser extent, Greek words Latin was not read and written in England since the legions of the Emperor Claudius invaded and subjugated the island in A.D. 4^, the linguistic legacy of the Romans to the English vocabulary despite 400 years of occupation was surprisingly small. Following the conversion of England to Christianity a great number of Latin words found their way into English. \ et virtually all of these pertained to religion and the physical symbols of the church. And even though Latin was employed constantly in religious rituals, academic activities, and state ceremonies, its individual components did not seep into English. Now abruptly the new passion for the antique past, the zeal for reading the classic works of Homer and Virgil, of Horace, Catullus, Marcus Aurelius in original texts and, moreover, for employing the ancient languages in written and spoken forms lead to a great diffusion of Latin and Greek words.

Why did Latin suddenly penetrate the English language at this relatively late date when it had failed to do so earlier, despite 400 years of Roman occupation and a thousand years of Christian worship conducted in Latin?

Many Latin and Greek terms, mostly of an abstract philosophical or scientific character, were taken over intact by scholars and entered the language through the medium or writing - not talk, as was the case with the Scandinavian and French borrowings. Many of these classical words, though originally of a narrow or specialized application, later acquired general connotations and eventually became familiar and commonplace elements of everyday speech.

One more factor should be taken into consideration. According to Otto Jespersen: "The reason seems to be that the natural power of resistance possessed by a Germanic tongue against these alien intruders had been already broken in the case of the English language by the wholesale importation of French words. They paved the way for the Latin words which resembled them in so many respects. "

"If French words were more distingues than English ones, Latin words were still more so for did not the French themselves go to Latin to enrich their own vocabulary?" In the XVI-XVII th centuries English writers dipped into Greek and Latin to express new concepts in the realms of art, philosophy, literature, and, above all, science. To this day the terminology of such scientific disciplines as biology, botany, chemistry, physics, and medicine is overwhelmingly Latin and Greek. It is not without significance that the words arithmetic, grammar, logic, rhetoric, geometry, astronomy, music, are all of Greek origin.

So are most words connected with the theatre such as: drama (first recorded in 1515), comedy, tragedy, prologue, dialogue, epilogue, scene, climax, critic, and the word theatre itself. And in every domain of knowledge, educated men relied more and more on Greek and Latin terms in reference to the resources of their native language.

Upon entering the English language many of these borrowed words underwent slight adaptations (such as the dropping of case and verb endings). But others we lifted straight from the Greek and Latin in their original form still circulate today, unaltered in meaning or spelling from the days of ancient Greece and Rome. From the pure Latin we have arbitrator, executor, explicit, ftnis, gratis, index, item, major, minor, memento, memorandum, neuter, pauper, persecutor, prosecutor, proviso, simile

Thus the Thames is a Celtic river name, and various Celtic words for river and water are preserved in the names Avon, Exe, Usk, Dover, Wye. Certain Celtic elements occur more or less frequently, such as Cumb (a deep valley) in names like Duncombe, Holcombe, Winchcomes, Torr (high rock, peak) in

Torr, Torcrock, Torrill; Pill (a tidal creek) in Pylie Huntspill and Brocc (badger) in Brockholes, Brockhall Besides these purely Celtic elements a few Latin words such as Castra, Fontana, Fossa, Portus, Vicus, were used in naming places during the Roman occupation of the island and were passed on by the Celts to the English. Outside of place-names, the influence of Celtic upon the English language is small. Within this small number it is possible to distinguish 2 groups: 1) those which the Anglo-Saxons' learned through everyday contacts with the natives and 2) those which were "introduced by the Irish missionaries in the north. The former were transmitted orally and were of popular character; the latter were connected with religious activities and were more of less learned. The popular words include binn (basket, crib), bratt (cloack), and brocc (brock or badger); a group of words for geographical features which had not played part in the experience of the Anglo-Saxon in their continental home -grag, luh (lake), cumb (valley), and torr (outcropping or crojectmg rock, peak), dun (dark coloured), and ass (ultimately from Latin asinus).

Some of the Celtic words died out and others acquired only local currency. The rplatirin of thp two nennip was not such as to bring about any considerable influence on English life or on English speech. The influence of the Celts, had they, like the Romans, possessed a superior culture, something valuable to give the Anglo-Saxons, might have been greater. But the Anglo-Saxons found little occasion to adopt Celtic modes of expression and the Celtic influence remain;the least of the early influences which affected the English language.

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