Celtic Languages...

[Mistwalker]

Just wondering... what would be considered the Celtic language? Are there any sites that might assist in learning it?

Thanx.

[nicanfhilidh]

Hi Mistwalker -

About three thousand years ago, there was a language spoken, probably in central Europe, that scholars call "Old Celtic." From this (after mixing with various local tongues) developed the languages that were spoken around the time of the first Celtic "Golden Age", c. 2500 - 1500 years ago. See http://www.siliconglen.com/celtfaq/1_3.html for a nice breakdown of these languages.

Nowadays, the only surviving languages in the Celtic family are Irish, Scottish, Manx, Welsh, Cornish and Breton. Irish, Scottish and Welsh still have a fair amount of native speakers and resources to learn these languages are easy to find. Cornish and Manx have died out as native tongues, but are undergoing a rebirth in their home countries as second languages.

Hope this helps!

[bansidhe]

try this link:
http://www.erinsweb.com/gaelic1.html

also, if searching for a specific language, e.g. irish, it might be easier to try 'gaelic' or for scottish, 'scots gaelic' etc.

hope dat helps!!! ;)

[Silver_Alhena]

For information on manx, irish and scottish gaelic, check out this site below:

http://www.ceantar.org/Lessons/index.html

Unfortunatly quite a few links are broken.

Also a good site to learn Scots gaelic on is the BBC scotland site on:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/alba/foghlam/beag_air_bheag/index.shtml

I would highly recommend the latter site..:)

[Twig]

I'm Twig, the (as of lately) reticent moderator of this little forest in this community. :elf: Forgive me for not responding to your post in the Just Talk forum on May 19th. I was having some ISP problems. :D But this Forum works because of the diversity of the people in it. Here are Historians, Herbalists, Fourth Agers, and a myrid of other seekers. Each one, a part of the whole. We will help in any way we can! :)

You say you're interested in the Druid way!? That's why we are here, to learn from each other. All we ask is that All follow the guiding rule;

Respect All Others and their Path, no matter What it Be.

So Relax and Enjoy! There are No stupid questions only unanswered ones.

Peace
Twig
:elf:

[Silver_Alhena]

Twig, what's a Fourth Ager please?

[Twig]

Originally posted by Silver_Alhena
Twig, what's a Fourth Ager please?

Forth Agers...hmmm....I guess you could say that I'm a Forth Ager! This is another name for those known as Neodruids. Or should I say, what they have become! Now I could be wrong but as far I know it was first conceived on the Yahoo club (now the Yahoo group) Living Druidry, of which I am a founding member. More on that later. ;)

With the resurgance of interest in the druid ways comes a problem. There is very, very little archeological or emperical evidence as to who the druids actually were and how they operated. We have "accounts" of them from those who were their advisaries, such as the romans and early christian missionaries. These descriptions may give a good general idea of how outsiders saw them but that is all they are, General in nature and mostly biased. Then there is the problem that theirs was a verbal, not a written, tradition and teaching style. They apparently had to memorize what they learned from their mentors as they either didn't trust writing it down or thought the power of words so great that it wasn't wise for them to do so. Whatever the reason, because of that, there are no written "bibles" for us to work from other than the bardic verses that survive from the last part of their reign as the clergy of that time.

So when interest in the druid way began to reemerge in the later part of the 20th century, those who would pray to the celtic Gods and try to emulate the ways of Old had to "wing it". Things from the wiccan way were incorperated in ritual to better facilitate the "bridge crossing" to call on their Gods. Celtic reconstructionists saw this as "blasphamy" and labeled them the "neodruids".(neo=new) http://www.druidry.org can give you a Lot better history on this than I can here.

Then along comes a young man from South America named "Awen" with a club and then, a vision. When I first started posting in this club it was only 6 days old. Well, the debate and learning between us and others that joined got so intense and spirited that some of us began to have powerful dreams and visions. My Brother Awen had a vision in which he was shown that the druids have gone through 4 stages. The First was the introduction and establishment of the religion that was the "Druids" of Old. The Second age was the persecution and attempted erradication of the Path by successive invasions by other countries, then the christian faith which finally won over the populice by osmossis of the holidays and the conveniance of the 1 God theology. (not to mention the wholesale slaughter of any who openly rebelled against them) The 3rd Age of Druidry was brought about by the reemergence of interest in the Druid Path in our modern times. These are the Neodruids of which I spoke of above. But with no set guidelines, they introduced outside influences to supplement the lack of historical guidelines with which to follow. We of the LD club, by our intensity of Faith and Truth with each other were being shown a new Path to take. One where the Spirits of the Ancients worked through us to ressurrect the Old ways as it should be done. THIS is the Fourth Age of Druidry......Welcome Aboard.

So we are known as Fourth Agers. Of All the possible Druid (or other) paths to walk, this is the scariest and most rewarding one I can think of. Why??? Because you work with blind faith and are using untested methods in most everything you do. The closest analogy I have to it is chaos magic. ( For those that know what I am speaking of, the major difference is that instead of just freeing the spirits you have an intimate bond with them. ) When I go to perform a ritual, hell in most everything I do, I have no preconceived idea of how I will go about it. I don't know until I've done it why I'm going about the task at hand the way I do. But by the Gods it ends up being the RIGHT way, EVERY time. I have a Spirit Guide (everyone does) which works through me. HE is the one who shows me what to do, THROUGH me. And it ends up being the correct method every time without fail. It is a paradox because my Guide is a prior incarnation of myself! Apparently I made an oath to myself some 1800 years ago and I am back to show myself how to walk the Path with no path. It is like dancing on a glass floor. ;) You don't really know where the bottom is and what you trust is unseen.

So I thank you for your question Mistwalker. I hadn't planned on going into any detail when I first read it but I ended up letting everyone know from just where I speak of when I talk of things druid. I fully expect some to think I'm a crazy old bastard but that's ok because I have seen and been part of things that I can only describe as miracles. At 44 I look at the world again with a childs eyes and curiosity and know that we can regain the magic we lost so many millenia ago when we began to think we were above the world, not part of it...............

We have only to belive again.

Peace,
Twig
:elf:

ps- excuse the spelling and content. It's late and I don't feel like editing.

[Silver_Alhena]

Twig, thanks a lot for explaining that. I'm going to save your answer for future reference! :sunny:

[TheTempestuous1]

I am curious... do many neo druids learn celtic languages to feel closer to it? Does anyone here speak any of them?

[Bethra]

I speek Welsh since I am but the language is older than the venacula we speek today and old Welsh is oftimes hard to understand. There is also a North South devide in the language which makes it more difficult.

[Myrddyn Emrys]

Then along comes a young man from South America named "Awen" with a club and then, a vision. When I first started posting in this club it was only 6 days old. Well, the debate and learning between us and others that joined got so intense and spirited that some of us began to have powerful dreams and visions. My Brother Awen had a vision in which he was shown that the druids have gone through 4 stages. The First was the introduction and establishment of the religion that was the "Druids" of Old. The Second age was the persecution and attempted erradication of the Path by successive invasions by other countries, then the christian faith which finally won over the populice by osmossis of the holidays and the conveniance of the 1 God theology. (not to mention the wholesale slaughter of any who openly rebelled against them) The 3rd Age of Druidry was brought about by the reemergence of interest in the Druid Path in our modern times. These are the Neodruids of which I spoke of above. But with no set guidelines, they introduced outside influences to supplement the lack of historical guidelines with which to follow. We of the LD club, by our intensity of Faith and Truth with each other were being shown a new Path to take. One where the Spirits of the Ancients worked through us to ressurrect the Old ways as it should be done. THIS is the Fourth Age of Druidry......Welcome Aboard.



As a note, I, Myrddyn Emrys, initially came up with the Treatise on the Fourth Age of Druidry, not Awen from Brazil who hosted the Yahoo Club Living Druidry. But, now, I do see that there are many more contributing factors than just four that have shaped Druidism into what it is today. The initial concept of the Four Ages was just that, a concept. Being an early work of mine, it lacked the in-depth research that a work like that really needed to sustain itself.

Granted, we are in a Modern age of Druidry, but the Ages number way far more than four.

[CromanMacNessa]

Just wondering... what would be considered the Celtic language? Are there any sites that might assist in learning it?

/|\
Mistwalker,

There is no single Celtic language. As nicanfhilidh pointed out, there was once a language which modern linguistic scientists refer to as "Proto-Celtic," or "Common Celtic," or "Old Celtic." Out of that developed ... well, here, see my brief summary of the history of the Celtic languages:

http://groups.msn.com/CromansGrove/celtlanghist.msnw (http://groups.msn.com/CromansGrove/celtlanghist.msnw)


As for learning a Celtic language, take your pick:

Breton, Brythonic Celtic language of Brittany -
http://groups.msn.com/CromansGrove/bretonlinks.msnw (http://groups.msn.com/CromansGrove/bretonlinks.msnw)

Information on the "dead" Celtic languages which were spoken on the European Mainland until the early centuries of this era -
http://groups.msn.com/CromansGrove/continentalcelticlinks.msnw (http://groups.msn.com/CromansGrove/continentalcelticlinks.msnw)

Cornish, Brythonic Celtic language of Cornwall -
http://groups.msn.com/CromansGrove/cornishlinks.msnw (http://groups.msn.com/CromansGrove/cornishlinks.msnw)

Gaelic, Goidelic Celtic language of Scotland (with Scots, the Germanic language of Scotland) -
http://groups.msn.com/CromansGrove/gaeliclinks.msnw (http://groups.msn.com/CromansGrove/gaeliclinks.msnw)

Irish, Goidelic Celtic language of Ireland -
http://groups.msn.com/CromansGrove/irishgaeliclinks.msnw (http://groups.msn.com/CromansGrove/irishgaeliclinks.msnw)

Manx, Goidelic Celtic language of the Isle of Man -
http://groups.msn.com/CromansGrove/manxlinks.msnw (http://groups.msn.com/CromansGrove/manxlinks.msnw)

Old Irish, ancestor of modern Gaelic, Irish, and Manx -
http://groups.msn.com/CromansGrove/oldirishlinks.msnw (http://groups.msn.com/CromansGrove/oldirishlinks.msnw)

Welsh, Brythonic Celtic language of Wales -
http://groups.msn.com/CromansGrove/welshlinks.msnw (http://groups.msn.com/CromansGrove/welshlinks.msnw)

'S mise Draoidh Ath-Bheothachaidh nam Ceilteach.