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York, a cathedral city in the north of England, was the Eburacum or Colonia Eburacensis of Roman Britain. Its name has usually been explained from Irish iubhar ‘yew tree’ (or alternatively from Welsh efwr ‘hogweed’) and so ‘place where yew trees grow’; or else as containing the British(-Latin) personal name Eburus plus the suffix -aco-, and so ‘estate of Eburus’ (with commentators wavering between the two). The author provides an overview of the etymological interpretations suggested in literarure and adduces arguments in favour of the second explanation. The yew tree (Taxus baccata) is typically found in dry woodland and scrub, often on chalk. It hates wet soil, which York has in plenty, for it occupies a low-lying site at the junction of the Rivers Ouse and Foss. Damp and subject to flooding, York is no place for yew trees. A direct link with yews may be rejected and a sense ‘estate of Eburus’ accepted with confidence, even if Eburus (somewhat confusingly) itself meant ‘he who lives by a yew tree’. The implications of topographical factors for the name of York may be recalled on other dubious etymologies in Watts’s 2004 dictionary, including ‘port with deep water’ for Dunwich, ‘water, pool’ for London, ‘fort of a breast-shaped hill’ for Manchester, or ‘fork, watershed’ for the Isle of Wight.

The paper focuses on the probability of the Celtic substratum hypothesis in the toponymy of North Holland. Agreeing that the most north-western tip of the Netherlands is an unlikely place to look for Celtic toponyms, the author suggests that the name Huisduinen relates to the same group of names of which Heusden is the most common representative, and which appears to have a Celtic etymology. Thus making it a tempting task to look at a few other names in the same area. As the area lost most of its population in the 4th century AD and became repopulated in the 5th century, language shift offers a possible scenario for a change from Celtic to Germanic with remnants of a Celtic substratum surviving up to the present day. In the same period, the landscape involved saw radical changes as well. In earlier publications it has been suggested that the medieval name Uxalia may be Celtic. Here it is suggested that this name may originally refer to the present-day island of Texel and not — as it later did — to the neighbouring island of Vlieland. A Celtic etymology is also proposed for the names Helsdeur and Den Helder, which — if accepted — have related etymologies. The name Helsdeur refers to the deepest part of the strait between the mainland of the province North Holland and the island of Texel. The lack of early attestations of this name is explained by suggesting its probable taboo status. This hypothesis is supported by a series of relevant examples of taboo place names in the maritime context.

This article explores the poetry of François Jaffrennou, who published under the druidic pseudonym Taldir ab Hernin, as a case study in decolonized multilingualism. Close readings of Taldir's writing in Breton, Welsh and French reveal the pressures of negotiating a hybrid Celtic-French identity, as he affirms his Celticity while maintaining a careful relationship with France. Taldir criticizes the French state in his Welsh texts, whereas in French and Breton his critique is more guarded, subtly codified. The Celtic space which emerges here is full of tensions, as Taldir works both within and against the impulse to reconcile Celtic and French identities. I argue that being provincially Other in France requires a delicate balancing act, a special way of being French. I also contend that to work on the local is to work on the global, looking beyond regionalist and postcolonial approaches to Breton writing in an effort to dismantle the monolingualizing tendencies of French Studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay uses Samuel Johnson’s characterization of Gaelic culture as an essentially airborne phenomenon as the starting point for a wide-ranging consideration of the links between atmospheric and Celtic discourses during the Romantic era. This period has been deemed foundational to the literary ‘appearance’ of air and the conceptual formation of Celticity, but these two cultural phenomena have rarely been considered in tandem. Beginning with a discussion of the atmospheric ideas that underpin the Poems of Ossian’s infamous mists, the essay argues that critics have largely ignored the complexity of Macpherson’s medicalized ecologies of air. The essay then moves on to consider the development of comparable cloudy symbolism during the Welsh cultural revival of the 1790s, when overcast skies became an organising metaphor used to express the cultural benightedness of Wales. The often-unexamined cliché of ‘Celtic mistiness’ is revealed as a vital metaphor for the allure and imperfection of intercultural mediation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the significance of the Cornish setting in Thomas Hardy's A Pair of Blue Eyes. Given a long tradition of marginalizing the region in literary and cultural histories, Hardy's use of Cornwall in his writing is more than just an incidental product of his personal experiences. This analysis illuminates Cornwall's significance in the Victorian popular imagination as a seemingly barbarous, uncivilized space, arguing that Hardy's familiarity with a haunted Cornwall influences his use of Gothic tropes in the novel. Hardy's Cornwall is a distinct region with a distinct history, part of but separate from England. An understanding of contemporaneous cultural changes in Cornwall at the time--with which Hardy would have been familiar--enriches and informs our understanding of the author's use of genre and regionality in this novel and in his wider oeuvre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is now commonplace to see surnames written in the Irish language in Ireland, yet there is no online resource for checking the standard spelling and grammar of Irish-language surnames. We propose a data structure for handling Irish-language surnames which comprises bilingual (Irish–English) clusters of surname forms. We present the first open, data-driven linguistic database of common Irish-language surnames, containing 664 surname clusters, and a method for deriving Irish-language inflected forms. Unlike other Irish surname dictionaries, our aim is not to list variants or explain origins, but rather to provide standard Irish-language surname forms via the web for use in the educational, cultural, and public spheres, as well as in the library and information sciences. The database can be queried via a web application, and the dataset is available to download under an open licence. The web application uses a comprehensive list of surname forms for query expansion. We envisage the database being applied to name authority control in Irish libraries to provide for bilingual access points.

The relevance of the research is determined by the growing interest to modern manifestations of Celtic culture, the desire of almost half of the population of Scotland to gain independence and the increasing attractiveness of Scotland as a tourist destination. As a result, the traditional symbols are viewed not only as trade and ethno-territorial brands, but also as social and ethnoculturally relevant imperatives. To achieve the objectives of defning the factors that influenced the transition of the kilt into an informal symbol of “Scottishness” it was imperative to consider the concept of Scottish identity and the role of the kilt in constructing its various forms: cultural, ethnic and national. The analysis of the existing approaches to studying identity and defnitions of the concept suggested by psychologists, philosophers, sociologists and experts in cultural studies allows to conclude that the kilt as one of the informal symbols of Scotland can be considered as a symbol of both cultural and national identity: the latter is explained by the fact that Scotland has such forms of statehood as autonomy, a coat of arms, a flag, an anthem, its own parliament and languages – Scots (Anglo-Scottish) and Gaelic. The tradition of wearing the kilt by the representatives of the royal family, popularizing “Scottishness” by means of the tourist and entertainment industries makes it possible to speak about a new phenomenon – the perception of the kilt as the symbol of both Scottish and British culture.

The article comprises brief appreciations about the importance and contribution of the Miniature Art to the development of the culture, art and civilization of the Middle Ages. The small Celtic island – Ireland has influenced in a great manner the European creations and the miniature manuscripts from the 6th – 9th century. As surprisingly as it may seem, the majority of the manuscripts are essentially dominated by the abstract approach, which is close to the non-figurative creations. The testimony of this approach is represented by the Irish ornaments of Celtic origin, that are unique, complicated, non-repeatable, and full of unforeseen, which prove an unending fantasy and a great technical virtuosity.

The transition from Gaulish to Breton has been much discussed. Recent publications have shown that Brythonic and Gaulish hardly differed, ‘similes sunt’ according to Tacite, and Caesar before him. It is possible to draw a parallel between Breton, Cornish and Welsh in relation to insular Celtic on the one hand and the Romance languages in relation to Latin on the other. The Gaulish words we know of (around a thousand words plus compounds) can all be found if not in Neo-Celtic, Breton and its sister languages then in Gaelic. One well-known example is the Breton brug (continental Celtic) and the Welsh grug, both meaning ‘heather’, which evolved from the same *uroica (in Irish fraoch). Breton almost universally features the Celtic in S (se), an dra-se (that), and in H (he-, henn), an dra-he (this & that), the Brythonic or insular variant of the same root.

In an examination of contemporary Pagan pilgrimage in Ireland, based on longitudinal ethnographic research, this article identifies and analyzes different cultural processes at work, focusing on the sacralization of the landscape through ritualization and re-storying. Correlations and differences between modern Pagan pilgrimage and the popular Roman Catholic pilgrimage tradition are identified since the way in which modern Pagan pilgrimage manifests is most similar to traditional Catholic site-specific pilgrimage. Contemporary Pagan activities and discourses are contextualized within Irish history and within other meaningful layers constructed over time in relation to Ireland's sacred landscape. Counterheritagization processes and the contestation of meanings connected to pilgrimage sites is discussed as regards the process of Celticization in how a Celtic past is reactivated in the present by journeying to, and engaging with, significantly reclaimed and "re-storied" sites. For this new religious movement, the land itself plays a vital role as a dynamic and active space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the traditional etymology of Latin sāpō as a loanword from the Germanic words for 'soap' is phonologically not possible. Instead, it proposes a phonologically regular explanation: a loanword in both Germanic and Latin from the common Celtic-Germanic substrate (with Gaulish transmission in the case of Latin). Dieser Beitrag argumentiert dafür, dass die traditionelle Etymologie von lat. sāpō als Lehnwort aus den germanischen Wörtern für 'Seife' lautlich nicht möglich ist. Stattdessen wird eine phonologisch regelmäßige Lösung vorgeschlagen: eine Entlehnung sowohl im Germanischen als auch im Lateinischen aus dem gemeinsamen keltisch-germanischen Substrat (im Falle des Lateinischen mit gallischer Vermittlung). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous slag samples and a piece of iron bloom with slag from excavations of Celtic settlements (La Téne C and D) at Ordacsehi, Szilvásvárad and Jászberény (Hungary) were examined. The main objectives of the investigations were to study the material and structural properties of the slag specimens, the definition of the metallurgical functions of the different pieces of slag. Analytical techniques are wet chemical analysis (ICP-OES complemented with carbon determination, moreover using titration for separating the Fe2+ and Fe3+), textural-chemical investigations with SEM-EDS microanalysis and mineralogical analysis with XRD. Chemical investigations can be supplemented by ED-XRF. Most of the examined slags can be originated from the purification hammering process, where in an oxidizing atmosphere intended to separate the slag from the iron after reheating the bloom, or the forging of the iron tool. Some of the slag samples with fine dendrites remind metallurgical slag, although there have not been found traces of bloomery at the excavation sites. The examined slaggy bloom-fragment interlocks to the beginning of the technological line of forging as the first (by)product after the smelting formed in the bloomery furnace. Most of the examined slag samples are by-products of smithy workshop working in buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and objectives: This paper aims to examine the acquisition of phonetics and phonology in the context of Scottish Gaelic immersion schooling. I explore the effect of differing home language backgrounds among primary school children on the production of laterals and stop consonants. Design/methodology/approach: Acoustic analysis was performed on Gaelic and English speech data collected from children in Gaelic Medium Education in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. Data and analysis: Word list data were collected from 18 children aged 7–11 and analyzed using measurements of formants and duration of stop phases. Half of the sample had little or no exposure to Gaelic in the home, while the other half had differing degrees of family input. Statistical analysis was conducted using Conditional Inference Trees. Findings and conclusions: This study finds that any initial differences between children who enter Gaelic Medium Education as fluent speakers and those who do not are leveled out by late primary school, at least in terms of pronunciation. I suggest that leveled varieties of minority languages can develop in pre-adolescence in peer group settings such as minority language education. Originality: This study is the first to examine phonetic and phonological acquisition in Gaelic-English bilingual children. It is one of a small number of studies to examine bilingual phonological acquisition in immersion schooling. The study supports recent research exploring the development of peer group varieties among young minority language speakers. Significance and implications: This research aims to expand traditional models that consider the extent of exposure to two languages as key in predicting phonetic and phonological production. I suggest that the impact of the peer group and the context of language use are also significant factors. Results suggest potential development of education varieties of Gaelic. These findings have implications for future revitalization strategies for minority languages across the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The substrate words in Romanian are assumed to be Dacian, Thracian or Balkanic. At closer inspection, many of them have cognates in Italy, which rules out a Balkanic origin; or Northern Italy and France, which indicates a Celtic origin.

In this paper we investigate category-specific effects through the lens of Welsh mutation. Smith (2011) and Moreton et al. (2017) show that English distinguishes nouns and proper nouns in an experimental blending task. Here we show that Welsh distinguishes nouns, verbs, personal names, and place names in the mutation system. We demonstrate these effects experimentally in a translation task designed to elicit mutation intuitions and in several corpus studies. In addition, we show that these effects correlate with lexical frequency. Deeper statistical analysis and a review of the English data suggests that frequency is a more explanatory factor than part of speech in both languages. We therefore argue that these category-specific effects can be reduced to lexical frequency effects.

Summary: Horns are paired appendages on the head of bovine species, comprising an inner bony core and outer keratin sheath. The horn bud forms during early fetal development but ossification of the developing horn does not occur until approximately 1 month after birth. Little is known about the genetic pathways that lead to horn growth. Hornless, or polled, animals are found in all domestic bovids. Histological studies of bovine fetuses have shown that the horn bud does not form in polled individuals. There are currently four known genetic variants for polledness in cattle on BTA1. All of the variants are intergenic, but probably affect regulation of nearby genes or long non‐coding RNAs. Transcriptomic studies suggest that the expression of two nearby long non‐coding RNAs are affected by the Celtic POLLED variant, but further studies are required to confirm these data. Candidate genes located elsewhere in the genome are involved in regulating bone formation and epithelial‐to‐mesenchymal transition. Expression of one of these candidate genes, RXFP2, appears to be reduced in the fetal horn bud of polled animals carrying the Celtic variant compared with horned individuals. Investigating horn ontogenesis and the genetic pathway by which the POLLED variants prevent horn development has implications for cattle breeding. If the genetic basis of horn bud formation and polledness is better understood, then new targets may be identified for precision genome editing to create polled individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solutions based on "equivalence interference" are proposed for various problems involving OE verbs. WG verbs with 1SG /-ͻͻmi/ were modeled on Celtic verbs with /-aami/. Pre-OE eode is from /eiͻͻde/, analogical to 1SG /eiͻͻmi/ from /eimi/. OE dyd- is from reinterpretation of peasant /dïd-/, from low-stressed /ded-/ used as a non-emphatic periphrastic, as noble /düd-/. WG /bii-/ 'be' was modeled on Celtic /bii-/ '(habitual-future) be'. Habitual-future /bi-/ (lost on the continent) re-developed in OE on the model of habitual-future /bi-/ in Brittonic. The English rule that non-indicative forms of BE are /b/-forms is from Brittonic. 3PL bi(o)đon was modeled on Brittonic /biđont/. Pre-OE /ist/ and /im/ were influenced by Brittonic /is/ and /æm/. Loss of distinct endings before 1PL and 2PL subject pronouns and loss of distinct preterit subjunctive endings were both modeled on their analogues in Brittonic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The efforts to determine the origin of beliefs in the aquatic daimon called water bull (which are ethnographically attested in Serbia, Macedonia and Bulgaria), and for which there have not been found parallels in other Slavic traditions, led the scholarship to see it as a recidive from the Greco-Roman period. The two major hypotheses tried to link the stories about killing of the water bull with: 1) the Athenian bouphonia; 2) the mithraic scene of tauroctony. The paper discusses these hypotheses and their weaknesses, and proposes a new approach: shifting attention towards other worlds’ traditions in which the water bulls are attested - those of Yakuts, Mongols, Celts, Mapuche, Khoekhoe and San - with the aim to establish the level, and determine the type of the possible similarities between them. The results of the comparative analysis show a very high degree of overlapping of ideas - those that probably were parts of a pristine concept of a water bull. They concern: the appearance, habitat, characteristics, behavior, as well as a number of phenomena associated with water bulls (predictions, thunder, lightning, storm, medicine). This leads the author to conclude that the conception of the water bull is very archaic and probably originating from a same, although uncertain source, which cannot be explained by intercultural contacts. The beliefs and the religious and magical practice of the Khoisan show that water bulls operate functionally - with the fullness of their religious potential - in animistic type of religious traditions (where the origin of the concept should be looked for). This indicates that these animistic ideas might lie at the root of the bull-like features of the storm gods from the posterior polytheistic religions. Further investigation in this direction is proposed. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 47016: Interdisciplinarno istraživanje kulturnog i jezičkog nasleđa Srbije. Izrada multimedijalnog portala ‘Pojmovnik srpske kulture’]

In this paper two (not completely unrelated) factors are discussed which may contribute to the use of preposed adjectives (i.e. AN vs NA phrases) in Scottish Gaelic, namely the grammatical feature of subjectivity and the pragmatic feature of emphasis. A combined analysis of a corpus study and interviews with native speakers was applied in the research. Subjectivity occurs in the case of certain nouns related to time and modality (such as latha 'day' and rùn 'intention'). Emphasis has been attested in the case of a number of nouns qualified by the preposed adjective deagh- 'good' both in the corpus and the interviews. The study has also revealed that preposed adjectives are typically found in more compoundlike expressions, while plain adjectives tend to highlight quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comprises brief appreciations about the importance and contribution of the Miniature Art to the development of the culture, art and civilization of the Middle Ages. The small Celtic island - Ireland has influenced in a great manner the European creations and the miniature manuscripts from the 6th - 9th century. As surprisingly as it may seem, the majority of the manuscripts are essentially dominated by the abstract approach, which is close to the non-figurative creations. The testimony of this approach is represented by the Irish ornaments of Celtic origin, that are unique, complicated, non-repeatable, and full of unforeseen, which prove an unending fantasy and a great technical virtuosity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Iron Age and Roman periods are often defined against each other through the establishment of dualities, such as barbarity–civilisation, or spiritual–rational. Despite criticisms, dualities remain prevalent in the National Curriculum for schools, television, museum displays and academic research. Recent scientific studies on human origins, for example, have communicated the idea of an 'indigenous' Iron Age, setting this against a mobile and diverse Roman-period population. There is also evidence for citizens leveraging dualities to uphold different positions on contemporary issues of mobility, in the UK and internationally. This paper discusses values and limitations of such binary thinking, and considers how ideas of ambiguity and temporal distancing can serve to challenge attempts to use such dualities to map the past too directly onto the present, reflecting on recent social media debates about Britain and the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the ways in which contemporary Pagans in Ireland engage with traditional culture, as well as with notions of the Celtic, in forming identities that are regarded by some practitioners as being indigenous identities. This cultural process at work in the Pagan movement is examined against a backdrop of contested constructions of "Irishness" in different political and sociocultural milieus. Drawing from ethnographic research on the Irish Pagan community, the examination includes examples of mechanisms used by modern Pagans to engage with ancestral and historical cultures. In entering the "magic mists" to search for symbols and ideas to help connect to the "old religion," modern Pagans create something new and unique while taking inspiration from the past. This overview of Pagans' utilization of cultural forms, and their use of tradition, aims to communicate why this creative approach to the past, and resulting formation and maintenance of identities, is culturally significant in the Irish context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review addresses the ‘CELT - Corpus of Electronic texts’ archive, developed and housed at University College Cork, Ireland. CELT is a digital humanities archive – and arguably a scholarly platform – comprising 1600 documents. An account of its piecemeal historical evolution, spanning the emergence of the Digital Humanities in Ireland, is given in this review. This review contextualises the range of content (documents, editions, works), for the most part digital representations based on TEI, pertaining to the study of the Irish language and Celtic civilisation and culture, collected together in CELT – as it stood in April 2017.