Celtic Wal/ Gal

[Oakey Dokey]

Wal and Gal are the same word.

They mean foreigner or outsider or even 'next to'

I seriously think that the whole Celtic region was referred to as the "outsiders" or Galatia.

I'll repeat a few earlier posts I made on the Applied Epistemology site as they seem to be very on topic here:

Barb -Female- Latin The foreigner or stranger. From the name Barbara.

Barbara- Female Latin- The foreigner or stranger.

WALE (British). "Foreign" (Germanic); or, "choice, excellent, noble" (Middle English); or, "ridge, bank".

GERMAN (British). "German." The term 'German' is a Celtic word meaning either "neighbour" or "battle-cry."

And MOST interestingly with W = G

Gaul in Latin is Gallia
the Welsh noun plural - les Gallois - The Welsh.
So Wales was known as the foreigners before the English coined the word Wal for them!!! WOW now that is odd.

Finally

The whole of Britain at the end of the last Ice Age was becoming detached from mainland Europe, there was little distinction between the tribes until the English Channel filled.

Gal- Britain (post Ice age)
Wal- Britain (pre Celtic? ie Picts, Viking etc)
Portugal, Galicia, Gaul (France), Cornwall (Cornugales - Cornu=horn), Gales (Wales)

British lands end Fingal? End of Britain?
Galloway etc.

[Oakey Dokey]

I can't find the translation online but my daughter (a fluent Welsh speaker) says that Gall in Welsh also means 'clever' or 'bright'

(adj.) wise, sensible, rational, prudent, astute, discreet, judicious, politic
gallu [gall-; 3.s. gall, geill; 2.s.imp. gall]

[Oakey Dokey]

The Kelts/Celts/Cymry are the Keltoi the Greeks knew of to their north and in fact traded and fought with. The in-house name for the whole of the peoples was Gauls or 'of the gal' and this is the confusion. That seeking a national identity the Roman translation of the Greek accounts of the northern Gallic tribes had been transcribed onto ONE specific tribe amongst many in the British Isles if not in Wales. For instance the French traditionally thought of as Gauls call the Welsh and Wales - pays de galles.

I suspect that Celt was not so much a people as a battle technology or way of life of ancient times (metal working and art) that swept Europe as the technologies moved from the east to west amongst Gaulish society with a little bit of migration. We are most likely mixing terms up that follow the Beaker people revolution westward. To be a Celt is to say ancient European, north of Greek and Roman interest (of which they probably owe a bit to their creation).

The languages are most likely quite close for many reasons but the Gauls were said at first to be educators of the Roman elites' children and to trade freely with Rome. Quite a feat for a people who were supposedly illiterate and have no written form of language.

Celts' association with Welsh Britain and ancient monument-builders should be sifted into the category of "they are the same people but mistranslated".

The Beaker people were most likely a societal change by migration and technology influx from the east that gave birth to what we term Gaul- or Celt.

[Why the Welsh are different in appearance to most other Gaulish nations is another matter...]

[macausland]

I've just had a look at wiki and they say that megalith is the Greek for 'great stone'.

Gal apparently means great. Is this another instance of Gal/Wal meaning great?

Scots Gaelic 'Gall' means foreigner. Hence the Galldachd as opposed to the Gaildhealtachd. The first being applied to the the Lowlands and the people who live there and the land and people of the Gaels.

French uses 'G', 'V', and 'W' interchangeably.

Vague is wave. Guillaume is William etc.

I thought that the Irish referred to the 'Fingall' as being the 'fair haired foreigners as opposed to 'Dubhgall' being the dark haired foreigners.

Just a thought or two if it's worth anything.

[hvered]

I've just had a look at wiki and they say that megalith is the Greek for 'great stone'.

Gal apparently means great. Is this another instance of Gal/Wal meaning great?

I suspect that megalith was coined by Victorian antiquarians during the craze for digging up or around old stones, a breed inculcated with Classical erudition (mega- is 'great', -lith 'stone').

Wal to my mind, pace Oakey Dokey, is more about mining. In Cornish wheal refers to a mine or mining complex. Words like wealth and weald may be rooted in mineral riches.

[Jools]

I can't find the translation online but my daughter (a fluent Welsh speaker) says that Gall in Welsh also means 'clever' or 'bright'

This Vallancey whom Boreades mentioned claimed that Gal is trader. His notion that Galway is a place of merchants rather than a colony of foreigners as per the accepted etymology could fit the bill.

In Hebrew גלגל (= galgal) means 'wheel' which is not unlike wal. The name Galil is said to mean 'rolling hills' but could equally well be translated as 'wheel of god'.

[spiral]

What nobody mentions in these connections.......... is the C=G

In fact Celt also and its derivatives (!) are exactly the same "word" as Galli,Galatai, Galatoi, Gael Gaul Wales and so on

Your Romans just lumped your (in their eyes) fair skinned untanned primitives under one single label.

[spiral]

OR to put it another way, that the Romans, who were taking over the trade in Bronze, to exploit their own currency exchange rate, had a low regard for those that traded under the proto peoples coinage of the ME network. Republican Rome trade first shifted west, to exploit Bronze,.... then as the Emperors switched to "rich man's" currency of silver and gold, the Empire physically shifted East..... Leaving most of the ME trading network in place, to carry on as per normal.

[macausland]

Barry Cunliffe gives an informative lecture to an American audience in this video from 2008.

He discusses older theories regarding the Celts, who they were and where they came from before discussing current ideas as of the date of the lecture.

His conclusion is that the evidence so far shows that the Celts didn't come here but were rather here before spreading out into various parts of Europe. He shows them at the heart of an Atlantic trading 'empire' along the coast of western Europe from Spain and Portugal in the south to possibly Denmark in the north.

He seems to put forward that the Celtic language of the time was probably a trading language understood by such diverse peoples although he does touch on dna evidence showing a possible origin in Iberia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8FM9nMFbfI

For those interested here's the link. For those not interested please feel free to harrumph.

[Boreades]

Barry Cunliffe's notion of Celtic as a maritime trading language reminds me of the similarities that were reportedly found between Irish Gaelic words and Phoenician words. But then the idea was poo-poo'd by the ortho-historians.

Anyway, the genetic evidence still supports the idea.



http://dna-project.clan-donald-usa.org/DNAmain4.htm

Genetically, the MacDonalds are closer to Spain, Ireland and Cornwall than they are to England, Holland and Germany.

Any surprises?