Talk:Celts

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Streches[edit]

The word 'stretches' is misspelled in the first paragraph but I'm unable to edit it. Murdokdracul (talk) 07:57, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

   Thanks for making the effort to "drop a flag" (or a dime) on that figurative "play". An intervening edit seems to have obliterated the word completely, tho a confirmation by a colleague with a more limber toolbox than mine could be worth the (non-)ink & (non-)paper it'd cost us.
-JerzyA (talk) 20:51, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Unclear map legend[edit]

Re: 

Main language areas in Iberia, showing Celtic languages in beige, c. 300 BC

What looks beige to me reads "Iberian" instead. Let us relabel the map or copy the color as graphics in the text. Zezen (talk) 18:08, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Indo-European etymology for Kaltoi[edit]

The IE word 'kal' is given the article as meaning 'to hide', whereas I had always understood it to mean 'to protect' as in eu-calypt (Gk: truly protected). Thus, if so, the original root for the word 'Celt' may mean to guard; ie a powerful protector.

Celts as Indo-European speakers[edit]

Kip1234,

(1) "the entire premise of Indo-European people at all is hypothetical". => wrong, this is not a premise but an hypothetical conclusion that emerged from the widely accepted demonstration that a Proto-Indo-European language existed in time. This means that there were speakers (≠ people) of this language since (a) purely constructed languages like Esperanto did not exist at that time, and (b) writing was also unknown so it could not have been a literary language like Classical Latin; on the other hand, you're right to note that concluding that a "people" spoke this language remains hypothetical (although one could point out that the linguistic geographical extent must have remained restricted; otherwise, we would observe important dialectal variations);
(2) "that only ever lived in Europe and never came close to being part of any other continent." => wrong, Celts have migrated towards Anatolia, which is not on the European continent;
(3) a clarification in terminology: "Indo-European people" (speakers of an Indo-European language) does not equal "Proto-Indo-European people" (speakers of the original (proto-) Indo-European language).
(4) "If languages pass between different peoples does that automatically mean that those peoples are part of the same category?" => yes, that's exactly the point. Culture can be transmitted to people that don't share the same genetic background. Celts are not a "race" but a cultural group. Alcaios (talk) 20:37, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Alcaios

Thanks for engaging on here. As you have just recognised (very astutely), I did not change any references to the category of Indo-European languages on the article of "celts" or "celtic people" because most modern scholars have grouped a sub-section of languages together in this way. Likewise, on the separate page of "celtic languages" I have also not modified mentions of the category of "indo-european" languages.

  • The original "Proto-Indo-European language" evolved and differed as the people who spoke it migrated to different continents. These languages have evolved and spread in much the same way as the original people who spoke it (from ONE particular area). That is why there are many similarities between Urdu, Pashtun and Arabic for instance. Are the people who speak these languages classed as a mixture of Afro-Asiatic and Indo-Europeans because they happen to speak a particular language? What "people" are they according to your logic of "indo-european people"? If you want to get involved in that debate, here's a link to get started: Hindi–Urdu controversy.
  • Indeed, there there is less than 1% genetic difference on average between the average Chinese, Japanese and Korean alone. The same research showed that in Europe alone there was a 10% genetic difference on average between the people of that continent.[1][2] There are also large/identical genetic similarities between the Han and many Vietnamese and Thai people. Yet, the Han supposedly belong to the "Sino-Tibetan" language family, the Japanese to the "Japonic language" family, the Thai to the "Kra-Dai" and Vietnamese to the "Mon–Khmer" and the Koreans to the "Koreanic". Maybe you would assert that all of these people are Mainland South-East Asian people according to your logic? I'm not sure, I can only keep up with recent scholarly interpretations. This is despite the fact that Chinese and Japanese alone are incredibly similar (using broadly the same alphabet in a similar way to most of Central and Western Europe).
  • Leaving aside the dubious linguistic categorisation of Indo-European compared to other language families, which includes an untold amount of alphabets and other fundamental linguistic differences, my basic point is that the Celtic people have no connection to India or Asia Major (and the vast majority of Asia Minor) because some scholars have argued that their languages are considered to be part of one linguistic family. The Celtic people originated in Europe, stayed in Europe (99% of them) and only survive in Europe today.
  • 4) "Celts are not a race but a cultural group." This article is about Celtic PEOPLE. Even within the wider European "race" (which I didn't actually mention) modern-day Celtic people have different genetic characteristics on average (highest prevalence of red hair being the best example) that were and are associated with people paler than all other ethnicities. Why did no Celts go further south/beyond Galacia? A large part of that was because evolution meant that they probably wouldn't have survived particularly well in these areas because of their inherent racial or genetic visible features (paler skin etc.). On this point, what if someone speaks more than one language- what "people" do they belong to according to you? A cultural group is not the most important aspect of a "people" and can even change within a generation multiple times. If you want to create a new category of cultural group to reflect the fact that the Celts have had no contact whatsoever with "Indo" people then feel free. I will eagerly await these latest feat of scholarly, linguistic and genetic interpretations and conclusions.

Kip1234 (talk) 22:03, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

"there are many similarities between Urdu, Pashtun and Arabic for instance" => that does not make them part of the same language family, like English is not a Romance language because 2/3 of its vocabulary is from Latin/Old French. That's not how we define a language group (the systematic comparison of intra-linguistic facts that cannot be explained by chance or borrowing).
"some scholars have argued that their languages are considered to be part of one linguistic family". => are you serious? Can you provide an example of a contemporary linguist that does not state that?
"A large part of that was because evolution meant that they probably wouldn't have survived particularly well in these areas because of their inherent racial or genetic visible features (paler skin etc.)." => wow... wow... wow... are you aware that Ancient Celts were not even genetically homogeneous in Ancient times since their languages were adopted by indigenous peoples in the lands they settled or do you think that Celtic speakers exterminated and replaced all indigenous peoples in modern-day France Spain or the Balkans (and later Ireland)? You seem to equal modern Irish and Welsh with Celts.
And what does genetics have to do with that? We use genetics to understand ancient mating networks and migrations, not to make racial categorization. I use the word "race" because you clearly consider Celts as a race (e.g., "If languages pass between different peoples does that automatically mean that those peoples are part of the same category?"; "A cultural group is not the most important aspect of a "people" and can even change within a generation multiple times."). Am I reading Richard B. Spencer? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you have a Romantic and racialist vision of Celts.
"If you want to create a new category of cultural group to reflect the fact that the Celts have had no contact whatsoever with "Indo" people then feel free. I will eagerly await these latest feat of scholarly, linguistic and genetic interpretations and conclusions." => I don't get what you mean, but I can provide many examples of linguistic cognates and mythological reflexes common to Ancient Celtics and Vedic India if this is what you mean. Alcaios (talk) 22:25, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
"There are also large/identical genetic similarities between the Han and many Vietnamese and Thai people. Yet, the Han supposedly belong to the "Sino-Tibetan" language family, the Japanese to the "Japonic language" family, the Thai to the "Kra-Dai" and Vietnamese to the "Mon–Khmer" and the Koreans to the 'Koreanic'." => so what? Sicilians are genetically closer to Palestinians than Swedish. The language is not the culture, but it gives a vision of the world. If you speak English, watch English shows and your parents chose to give you an English name, for instance, you're closer to the English culture than the Irish culture, regardless of your genetic relationship with Ancient Celtic speakers. PS: Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area is a Sprachbund. You seem to confuse different concepts of historical linguistics, which makes it difficult to understand what you seek to demonstrate. Alcaios (talk)

Alcaios

Ironically, your argument for an Indo-European "people" is far more like Richard B. Spencer's than you seem to be aware. There are extensive racist arguments that support the idea of "Indo-Europeans" being racially superior to other Asian races, hence why they were (apparently) able to conquer/settle land to such a wide extent. I would like to point out that it is you bringing up "race" and then citing a racist orator to try and prove your point, whereas I would prefer it if we could stick to "ethnicities" and leave these unrelated topics out of it.

However, you are definitely not "reading Richard B. Spencer", largely because you were the one who brought race into it. Ethnicities/Peoples are not just the languages that they may speak or even the cultures that they may have, nor the category of linguistic family that SOME scholars have asserted. Your comparative method of grouping languages should mean that Japanese, Han Chinese, Koreans, (probably Vietnamese as well) are all definitively part of the same "people" but because this has been vigorously opposed by scholars and politicians this has not been done so. That's why there's the classification of "East Asian languages" or wait, is it "Sinitic Languages"? Does this language (and ethnic categorisation according to you) include Tibetic languages/ethnicities or the Bai languages/ethnicity? Oh, but the "Sino-Tibetan" language categorisation must mean that they are all the same ethnicity/people, even though the comparative method shows that Tibetan and Han Chinese are less related than the vast majority of all other East Asian people's languages. Now there's some confusion over the similarity of Turkic languages and East Asian- are they all Altaic languages? My point is to show that linguistic families are subjective according to different linguists and appears to be changing pretty frequently according to whom you speak.

Leaving aside your complete lack of consistency on this matter, which I could go into further with Urdu/Pashtun/Arabic etc. of conflating ethnicities/peoples with language grouping and scholarship, I will try and make it more specific to the Proto-Indian-Aryan people/language. First of all, there are no written records for the existence of this language and there could be plenty of other factors that might have influenced similarities between modern-day "Indo" languages and "Aryan/European languages". Do you know that Greek and Sanscrit are commonly cited to prove the similarity of larger "European" and "Indian" languages, but that Alexander the Great conquered much of Asia Minor and Major before eventually stopping just shy of modern-day India. Do you think that this extremely short-term migration created a new "people" or might just have influenced some aspects of these languages? The fact that there are no written records seems to mean that linguistic scholars (not ethnographic or demographic scholars) who were the first to propose this (according to you) ethnic grouping have relied upon these modern-day similarities to extrapolate their theory and have it accepted as fact. How does the (seemingly separate) existence of a Proto-Turkic Language (and people) fit into this argument of Proto-Indo-European people?

Leaving aside the purely linguistic categorisation and comparison that you seem to have adopted (which has inconsistencies anyway) and seems to forget that people and languages can move temporarily (that probably does not constitute the creation of new ethnicities/peoples each time), where does this end? If the first people came from Africa, are all subsequent ethnicities/peoples that came into being in different parts of the world considered African? You seem to also forget that there is no proven place as to where the Proto-Indo-European language actually supposedly first originated from: the Kurgan Hypothesis (the one you seem to have gone with) argues the steppes of the Black Sea, Gamkrelidze and Ivanov argue Anatolia, the Indigenous Aryans model seems to argue for the Indus Valley and then there seem to be other slightly different variations that would argue for other places in Eurasia to name but a few.

Frankly, I see that you've been active on other pages like Slavs and Germanic Peoples and in Indo-Aryan peoples and I may soon start questioning this in a similar manner to other ethnicities: Han Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Turkic Peoples, Muhajir that appear to have been grouped together/classified on a radically different basis. I will eagerly await the arbitrarily-selective arguments that will allow certain ethnicities to be classified in certain ways whilst demanding that others are grouped together in a different manner.

Kip1234 (talk) 14:11, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Folks, WP:TLDR (Is this becoming Talk:Germanic languages, part 2?). And sick to see editors implicitly comparing e.o. to Richard Spencer. That's a toxic insult.

Just looking at the edit summaries, I agree with Kip1234 here. If "Indo-European peoples" means "ethnic groups speaking Indo-European languages", as Alcaios suggests, then let's say exactly this, e.g. in following manner:

"The Celts are a collection of European peoples identified by their use of languages of the Celtic branch of the Indo-European languages."

"Indo-European peoples" is a weasel expression. Using it, we create a shady ambiguity as if we wanted to suggest that these contemporary ethnic groups have more in common than just their linguistic affiliation, i.e. if we didn't know they spoke languages of the same language family, we could still define a bundle of shared cultural features that unites them to the exclusion of other ethnic groups. And this is of course nonsense, not just for "Indo-European peoples", but even also for "Romance peoples" (which I gladly supported to be deleted in an AfD), "Modern Germanic peoples" and so on ad nauseam (anyone for Talk:Ugric peoples? I mean except for the racialist sockmaster Sprayitchyo?). I could open another round for "The Celts were...", but I won't.

19th century ideologists tried to divide Europe (and the rest of the world) by setting up linguistically-based ethnic demarcation lines, according to which e.g. Bavarians are supposed to be more closely "related" to Icelanders than to Bohemians. The most asinine example is Turanism, based on an obsolete linguistic proposal.

I strongly suggest not to use "Indo-European" for anything else than the languange family and things pertaining to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-Europeans. FWIW, Indo-European peoples redirects to Proto-Indo-Europeans, and that's a good thing, because Indo-European peoples aren't a thing. –Austronesier (talk) 16:00, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Austronesier

Hi, Austronesier I appreciate a slightly more objective perspective that realises I am not doing this on the basis of some ethnic nationalist identity. I do not oppose the grouping of certain languages in this way but as most people know people and languages aren't the same.

I am very confused as to the abritary grouping of ethnic groups based on a relatively recent linguistic argument that has been applied to some (Celts, Slavs, Germanic Peoples and possibly "Indo-Aryans") but ignores others such as Turkic Peoples (which should actually be "Turkic-SPEAKING peoples", Muhajir people and more. I am also very conscious of this being very inconsistently applied to a whole host of ethnic groups and linguistic groups in East Asia and South-East Asia and have personal experience of significant opposition on these pages that imply or state that they are much more closely genetically related languages, people and cultures.

I have not changed any reference to a Proto-Indo-European language (even though no written records of it actually exist) because I am not a linguistic scholar and that is a separate topic to ethnic groups. I would also suggest that categorising Slavs and Germanic Peoples as "Indo-European peoples" should be changed for the same reasons as above. Otherwise, all East Asian and South-East Asian ethnic groups would have to be changed, as would a significant percentage of groups in the Middle East and South Asia and probably quite a few in Africa as well. This is going to create an almighty battle but I would suggest the easier option is for Alcaios to differentiate between languages and ethnic groups. Likewise, where does this end? Technically the first people came from Africa, so does that mean that all ethnic groups should be described as African?

It initially started off as a geographic correction, as the Celtic ethnic group has never been anywhere close to "Indo" regions, but I then corrected this to include reference to a small part of the Middle East. Ethnic groups are not just determined by the languages that they speak. I speak Chinese and rudimentary Japanese, so does that mean that me or my descendants will be Anglo-Celtic-Sino-Tibetan-Japonic? It's inconsistently applied and makes no logical sense to conflate ethnic groups and linguistic similarities in this way.

It gets even shadier when it's revealed that the main evidence that this is based on is the fact that Sanscrit is similar to some European languages (most notably Greek, which is not Celtic). This completely ignores historical invasions and migrations that may have influenced these similarities (Alexander the Great is one of the most obvious links/possible explanations).

Please let me know if you think that Germanic Peoples and Slavs should also be changed. By the way, I found it amusing that his argument for the existence of Indo-European people is far more racially inflammatory than mine -just ask the Dravidian peoples (which again should be Dravidian-SPEAKING peoples or slightly corrected.

Regards,

Kip1234 (talk) 16:45, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@Kip1234: "I am not a linguistic scholar" No need to stress that, it perfectly shows in your musings that the similarities between Sanskrit and Greek may have been influenced by historical invasions and migrations (Alexander the Great etc.). You don't have to be a linguistic scholar in order not to state something like that. I agree with your basic point that ethnicity and linguistic affiliations are two things, but I'm afraid the rest of your arguments don't serve well for the purpose of advancing that point. –Austronesier (talk) 16:59, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

:@Austronesier:

Fair enough, but I have seen the comparative method between Greek and Sanscrit being extrapolated to then prove the existence of Indo-European "People", rather than a hypothetical Proto-Indo-European language that may be the origin for many incredibly different and distinctive languages. Do you not see how the comparative method for Japanese, Chinese, Korean etc. has definitely not been extrapolated to categorise all of these ethnic groups together on their articles (and other such examples)? Following on from that, why are Slavs and Germanic Peoples also considered to be Indo-European PEOPLES on their articles in this manner? My basic point is that pages should also be changed. I would suggest something more like: "Celts are a group of overwhelmingly European (European for Germanic Peoples and Eurasian for Slavs) that lived over .......(wherever), who are commonly grouped together by Celtic/Germanic/Slavic languages, cultural similarities and relatively distinctive physical features. Celtic/Germanic/Slavic languages are considered by many to be Indo-European languages by virtue of the comparative method, which has prompted discussion over the existence of Indo-European people."

It's a far clearer distinction in line with other ethnic groups articles that I have seen.

Basically not arguing Ethnolinguistic groups and ethnic groups to be the same thing.

Kip1234 (talk) 17:17, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@Austronesier:,
I'm glad to see that you tolerate such racialist thinking as This article is about Celtic PEOPLE. Even within the wider European "race" (which I didn't actually mention) modern-day Celtic people have different genetic characteristics on average (highest prevalence of red hair being the best example) that were and are associated with people paler than all other ethnicities. Why did no Celts go further south/beyond Galacia? A large part of that was because evolution meant that they probably wouldn't have survived particularly well in these areas because of their inherent racial or genetic visible features (paler skin etc.). Africans living in Europe will appreciate that they won't "survive particularly well" due the colour of their skin. This is wrong anyway since humans adapt over the generations to their environment. Alcaios (talk) 17:22, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
PS: The definition of "Celts" according to Drinkwater: A name applied by ancient writers to a population group occupying lands mainly north of the Mediterranean region from Galicia in the west to Galatia in the east. (Its application to the Welsh, the Scots, and the Irish is modern.) Their unity is recognizable by common speech and common artistic traditions. Alcaios (talk) 17:27, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
@Alcaios: I'm glad to see that you tolerate such racialist thinking, I don't. WP:AGF, wtf! I just happened to stick to the topic. –Austronesier (talk) 17:38, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
This is full of linguistic revisionism Austronesier (e.g., some scholars have argued that their languages are considered to be part of one linguistic family whereas virtually all linguists are stating that), so it seems that you haven't read the messages and rather focused on my provocative comparison with Spencer. But anyway, let's forget this petty feud. Kip1234 please accept my apologies regarding the comparison with Spencer. You're certainly a racialist, but there is no evidence that you are a supremacist so it was a libel. I withdraw this statement.
Other examples of linguistic revisionism: Do you know that Greek and Sanscrit are commonly cited to prove the similarity of larger "European" and "Indian" languages (no, we use the systematic comparison of linguistic facts between several languages to classify them within the same family) – the Indigenous Aryans model seems to argue for the Indus Valley and then there seem to be other slightly different variations that would argue for other places in Eurasia to name but a few. (so now the IAT is just a theory among other theories) – Your comparative method of grouping languages should mean that Japanese, Han Chinese, Koreans, (probably Vietnamese as well) are all definitively part of the same "people" (they don't even belong to the same language family), It gets even shadier when it's revealed that the main evidence that this is based on is the fact that Sanscrit is similar to some European languages (most notably Greek, which is not Celtic). This completely ignores historical invasions and migrations that may have influenced these similarities (yes, systematic linguistic similarities between Old Irish and Sanskrit can certainly be explained by Alexander's conquest) etc. Alcaios (talk) 17:54, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
Now that we can start on a clean slate, let's stick to Drinkwater's definition: "Celts are population group [or: peoples] defined by common languages and artistic traditions." Alcaios (talk) 17:45, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
PS: the argument that the Proto-Indo-European-language, which has been reconstructed based upon systematic linguistic similarities, with sound changes explained by sound laws in a predictive manner, is somehow contestable because there is not written record would be the equivalent of saying to an astrophysicist that the Big Bang didn't happen because the event has been reconstructed based upon observations of the current state and evolution of the Universe. Alcaios (talk) 18:10, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

::@Alcaios:

− − So you accept that your theory for the origin of a Proto-Indo-European language is just one of many then? The comparative method hasn't been applied consistently and the similarities between Greek and Sanscrit (as well as Latin) ARE commonly cited to prove the existence of a wider Indo-European language and people.[3] [4]

Once again you are confusing races and ethnic groups, stop it. There is no evidence that I am a "racialist" or have "racialist thinking", merely that I have pointed out that the Celts were/are an ethnic group within one particular area. As I have previously pointed out, the existence of "Indo-European people" is a historically far more racist argument than pointing out that the Celts were an ethnic group within Europe, as this has been used to assert allegations of racial supremacy. I also pointed out that in 1000 years BC being very pale-skinned likely meant that you wouldn't have been able to survive and reproduce very well in hotter climates, which is why Celtic populations are overwhelmingly found in (and still are within Europe) although yes this has changed considerably since the Industrial Revolution.

In my opinion, you are confusing Ethnolinguistic groups and ethnic groups, somewhat like calling someone a racial supremacist/racist because they don't agree with your definition of "people". Can you please answer how the Turkic peoples and their separate Proto-Turkic Language fits into your model?

Don't apologise by making another Personal Attack against me, even if we disagree. You have committed libel again and I will consider how to proceed.

Kip1234 (talk) 18:17, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

  1. ^ "Source Two".
  2. ^ "European and East Asian Genetic Differences Range".
  3. ^ "Greek Sanscrit Similarities Indo-European Language and People 1".
  4. ^ "Celtic to Latin/Greek to Sanskrit".
There are 3 main theories on the PIE homeland (rather 2 now since the Anatolian hyp. has been falsified), and IAT is not one of them. Read: Proto-Indo-European homeland.
We don't reconstruct PIE by comparing Ancient Greek and Sanskrit only (btw we have written record of both languages way before Alexander's conquest). Read: Comparative method (the sub-section /principles/ in particular).
Stop with your argument that "in 1000 years BC being very pale-skinned likely meant that you wouldn't have been able to survive and reproduce very well". Humans have migrated and adapted to their environment since the first migration out of Africa ca. 75K BC.
You are accusing me of conflating terms while you have repeatedly proven with pseudo-arguments that you don't understand historical linguistics. I wouldn't dare debating people on General relativity for instance, it would be ridiculous.
I think we can close this discussion now and adapt the lede to Drinkwater's definition. I'm losing my time answering your nonsensical arguments.
PS: my account is being DDOSed so I can't log in or edit any longer 92.184.117.181 (talk) 18:53, 11 June 2020 (UTC) (not a DDOS, global technical issue with the platform)
PS2: don't edit or alter my messages. 92.184.117.181 (talk) 19:05, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Alcaios

Just notifying you that I have requested administrative action because of some of the language that you have used. I have recorded all of these remarks with screenshots.

Kip1234 (talk) 19:26, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Kip1234, you don't need to take screenshots, everything is stored in the history of edits. Alcaios (talk) 19:28, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Would have just saved me some effort if revisions had been made.

Kip1234 (talk) 19:33, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@Kip1234: Make use of the time then gained through saving your efforts to get acquainted with comparative linguistics.
@Alcaios: The Drinkwater definition is a good working base. I like their formulation "common speech", which elegantly avoids the question until when the Celts spoke mutually intelligible dialects. The famous Jerome passage suggests that the Continental lects were at least recognizably similar until the late Classical era. –Austronesier (talk) 19:59, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@Austronesier:

Hi,

I would recommend more specific examples on the comparative linguistics to show the application of the various methodologies. It might mean that people who are acquainted with it are less likely to apply comparisons selectively, misinterpret or equate differing languages/language families. Maybe a section on different theories as well.

Thanks,

Kip1234 (talk) 20:10, 11 June 2020 (UTC) Struck out comments by blocked sock–Austronesier (talk) 07:36, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Just read a handbook on comparative linguistics. The current scientific consensus is that Proto-Indo-European existed in time, which implies that there were speakers of this language. The part that is debated is whether we can conclude that there was a PIE people or not. There is no serious scientist who argues that there was no PIE language and or PIE speakers. There are no "various methodologies" and linguists don't apply it "selectively". This is the foundation of historical linguists: you compare linguistic facts within a system of correspondences. As A. Meillet said : "Every linguistic fact is part of a whole in which everything is connected to everything else. One detail must not be linked to another detail, but one linguistic system to another." Alcaios (talk) 22:56, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Changing the lead per Drinkwater[edit]

@Alcaios: Now that the sock has been blocked, we can proceed without further disruption with your earlier proposal. –Austronesier (talk) 07:48, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@Austronesier: I didn't expect a ban. In any case, I'll avoid making such comparisons when engaging with another editor in the future. Krakkos has adapted and sourced the lede. The denomination "Indo-European people" has been sourced too, but I concede that this is difficult to draw a line: the same debate has occurred on Germanic peoples (are Jamaicans and modern Irish, who speak a Germanic language, Germanic peoples?) Alcaios (talk) 11:41, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
@Alcaios: Yeah, Krakkos sure has these source up his sleeve. You will find just as many sources (or maybe even more) that do not call the Celts "Indo-European people" (e.g. Drinkwater). And it's not just about obvious cases like Jamaicans, it's about this 19th-century POV that linguistic affiliation is a primary token to characterize and classify an ethnic group. Again, my favorite example, is there any non-linguistic reason to classify Bavarians in a group that contains Icelanders, but not Bohemians? I'd gladly find a consensus with you to adopt the Drinkwater defintion for the lede instead tacitly accepting a drive-by cite bombing. :)
As for the other matter, I didn't expect a ban either. But look at it that way: if you already notice there's Randy in Boise in front of you, you can bet on it they won't be capable to communicate by exchanging reasonable arguments, but will jump on every piece of bait that you and I are "dumb" enough to set out (you by making the Spencer comparison, me by scolding you in front of them for that just because I was too lazy to look what actually has been said). –Austronesier (talk) 13:03, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
@Austronesier: You're right, Ancient Greeks did not consider themselves part of the same cultural group as Keltoi, Germani or Persians. That said, the denomination "Indo-European people" can be relevant to a certain point, especially when referring to pre-literate societies that have maintained strong similarities with the (reconstructed) PIE societal and religious concepts.
The main arguments for classifying ethnic groups according to languages are the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis (I support a weak or limited version of it) and Linguistic determinism (which is too radical to be a reasonable proposition in my view). That said, even though language is a main component of a culture/identity, it remains only one aspect among many others.
The article ethnic group provides this quote from People & Bailey (2010): In essence, an ethnic group is a named social category of people based on perceptions of shared social experience or one's ancestors' experiences. Members of the ethnic group see themselves as sharing cultural traditions and history that distinguish them from other groups. I think that this a reasonable definition.
Perhaps: Celts were an Indo-European people ===> Celts were an Indo-European-speaking people. What do you think Krakkos? Alcaios (talk) 13:38, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
Per WP:GOODDEF, Wikipedia should define its concepts by "giving a statement of essential properties or distinguishing characteristics of the concept". As far as i know, most sources, including John F. Drinkwater, consider speaking Celtic languages to be the primary characteristic of the Celts. In his monumental Celtic Culture (2006), John T. Koch identifies Celtic languages as the "defining criterion" of all things Celtic.[1] Celtic languages are Indo-European, and i assume this is the reason why Celtic studies scholars such as Proinsias Mac Cana define Celts as "Indo-European people".[2] In my opinion, limiting them to merely being an "Indo-European-speaking people" is somewhat misleading, as their religion, law and other cultural traditions were also at least partially derived from an earlier Indo-European root. Having said that, i agree that the lead has potential for improvement, particularly with regards to trimming its size and detail. Krakkos (talk) 18:36, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
@Krakkos: Indeed, "John T. Koch identifies Celtic languages as the defining criterion of all things Celtic". But instead of stringing this information into a SYNTH-chain of arguments, we'd better have a look at Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia itself. In this work, the Celtic people are not even once called an "Indo-European people", in fact, the term "Indo-European people" only appears once on 2,128 pages in the entry Gwened (p.820) ("Veneti was also the name of a non-Celtic but Indo-European people in northern Italy"). We should follow the practice of WP:BESTSOURCES in not over-emphasizing things that are not emphasized in those sources either. –Austronesier (talk) 19:00, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
PS: I'm not AL, so I don't feel strongly about it :) Content-building starts with the lead, but does not die with a not yet fully perfect one. –Austronesier (talk) 19:04, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
@Alcaios: The quote from People & Bailey (2010) is good and works well for individual ethnic groups, and sometimes even clusters of ethnic groups who are either aware of sharing cultural traditions and history beyond the individual group level, or are perceived as similar by their neighbors (the ancient Keltoi and Germani seem to fall somewhere between latter two models). NB: when I say "aware", I don't mean science-based constructs that are socialized by ideologists. An interesting case of a self-identifying cluster are the Iroquois, where inclusion only partially overlapped with the linguistic grouping.
If we seriously wanted to apply the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis and Linguistic determinism here (which are retroactive arguments for classifying ethnic groups according to languages, since the concept is older), typological features IMO would be the proper classifaction markers rather than genealogical affiliation. E.g. I would except lack of an infinitive and the existence of a definite article in Bulgarian as part of the Balkan sprachbund to have a stronger Sapir–Whorfian impact than inherited features shared with Slavic sister languages.
"The denomination "Indo-European people" can be relevant to a certain point, especially when referring to pre-literate societies that have maintained strong similarities with the (reconstructed) PIE societal and religious concepts" That's of course a good point, especially where societal and religious concepts are still denoted by cognate words meaning the same thing. The question remains about how much primacy is given to this when we look at the culture of an ancient population in its entirety. For the Romans, Celts and Aquitanians were barbarians alike, and we will never know whether Celts perceived their Italic neighbors as more akin than the Aquitanians. –Austronesier (talk) 14:30, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
I would also stress the limits of my argument (The denomination "Indo-European people" can be relevant to a certain point, especially when referring to pre-literate societies that have maintained strong similarities with the (reconstructed) PIE societal and religious concepts"). PIE concepts themselves are identifiable because they have been retained in several attested traditions. It could turned into a form of circular reasoning if not applied carefully. Alcaios (talk) 14:45, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
@Alcaios: I agree about the potential of circularity. But I also admit that retained Indo-European cultural elements are defining insofar as they are identifiable, whereas cultural elements not tracable to the Proto-Indo-Europeans are mostly unidentifiable (in the case of the Celts). It is certainly safer to base a definition on identifiable features rather than on unidentifiable ones that could maximally be given the "wastebasket label" pre-Indo-European. In linguistics, it is much easier: extreme cases of language-mixing aside, as long as the core vocabulary is identifiably IE, the languages remains IE, regardless of how much non-IE elements it has absorbed. But once we leave linguistics: what is the "cultural core", and how do we quantify the degree of the "IE-ness" of that "cultural core" in order to say that it is still predominantly IE...? –Austronesier (talk) 19:29, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
@Austronesier: that is difficult to say. Even if a particular concept can be found in many attested traditions, this does not necessarily mean that it was "central" to PIE speakers. It just means that it has been generally preserved. Perhaps I-E speakers did not simply need or dit not find the opportunity to replace this concept with a new one.
That said, one argument may be the extent and transversality of a concept (how deeply it is integrated in the different cultures). The PIE idea of 'fame' (*ḱléwos), for instance, is attested in the poetic formulas, myths, personal names, etc. of many traditions. This is a stronger case for a central PIE concept that just simply observing the preservation of this root in the lexicons. Alcaios (talk) 19:55, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
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