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I feel like any article that talks about "Celts" or uses the word "Celtic" should clarify that it starts with a hard "c". Americans familiar with the basketball
by neallindsay 2y ago
I feel like any article that talks about "Celts" or uses the word "Celtic" should clarify that it starts with a hard "c". Americans familiar with the basketball team will probably pronounce it wrong otherwise.
- jimnotgym 2y agoFor a bit more fun, inside the Celtic (hard 'c') fringe, in Glasgow you will find Celtic (soft 'c') football club!
- Jtsummers 2y agoThe US is only around 5% of the global population right now, and many of us, if not most, know the correct pronunciation (for uses other than the basketball team). There's no reason to bog down articles with pandering nonsense.
- pasc1878 2y agoFor the rest of the world they will have the same problem as the Americans except they know the word from the football club Celtic which is pronounced with a soft c as well.
- neolithicum 2y agoAnd others still will not have heard of either and would think the clubs are pronounced like the historic culture
- littlestymaar 2y agoWhy should the people know how the culture is pronounced in English?! (If they knew about the culture in the first place)
- neolithicum 2y agoAs far as I know this is not obscure knowledge (where I am from)
- Xmd5a 2y agoNon-anglo celt here. Selt. Didn't know it's supposed to be pronounced kelt in english (us an uk alike). I upvote GP.
- labster 2y agoIt’s not an Anglo thing. It’s from the Greek name for the people, Κελτοί. That’s a kappa, hard K.
- like_any_other 2y agoThe correct pronunciation depends on language (German vs. Deutsch, for an extreme example), so non-English speakers could still use the wrong pronunciation when speaking English. In my own language, 'celts' sounds like 'kelts', but until now I thought the correct way to say it in English was 'selts'.
- littlestymaar 2y agoThis exactly. In French we use a soft “c” and I assumed English did the same because the only use I knew was about Larry Bird's team!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- alsetmusic 2y agoAnd then there are those of us who are history nerds who don’t even consider the possibility of pronouncing it otherwise. I think a history-based domain and a book with “history” in the title will self-select this group.
- bee_rider 2y agoIs there an actual negative association with the “Selt” pronunciation or something? It is the French version of a word, which was at times applied to the French and the Irish (among others). Maybe it can be used to celebrate their shared heritage of having to deal with English nonsense…
- DonaldFisk 2y agoIn English Celt is generally pronounced kelt nowadays. Celtic is always pronounced seltik when referring to sports teams (e.g. Celtic Football Club), but keltik otherwise, e.g. Celtic languages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celts
- caper2025 2y agoResident of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia (trans. New Scotland) here. In somewhat of an acknowledgment of this issue, we've used "Keltic". See for e.g. Keltic Lodge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keltic_Lodge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keltic_Lodge
- jimnotgym 2y agoHow the Anglo Saxon English pronounce it is not really the point. In Wales, Scotland and Ireland, the Celtic fringe, we call ourselves Kelts... the football club is a fun anomaly! That is definitely Seltic
- timeon 2y ago> Celtic Football Club Interesting, there are to "C"s here but they aren't same letter...
- ttyprintk 2y agoThe French c is French, which is the culture with the most-consistent and strongest claims to Celtic heritage. In German, it’s kelte, same sound as Irish c and Greek kappa. Maybe we should leave the distinction irrelevant. From the author himself, “ in the nineteenth century many of the scholarly breakthroughs were made by German scholars, who were recognised to be the leaders in this field. Many of them also harboured sympathy for the Celtic regions of Brittany, Ireland, and Wales, and thought they should be freed from French and English imperialism.” And that’s how the word became popular in 1930s Germany.
- littlestymaar 2y agoWhy is it pronounced like that in English? And why are the Boston Celtics pronounced differently? For thr record in French we pronounce Celtes with a soft "c".
- spookie 2y agoEnglish doesn't share the same linguistic root, so these differences are bound to appear. Well, if you take out indo-european that is.
- littlestymaar 2y ago> English doesn't share the same linguistic root. […] Well, if you take out indo-european that is. It's a bit more complex, English is half a Germanic language but also half French. But that doesn't explains why “Celtic” is pronounced differently in “Boston Celtics”.
- spookie 2y agoThat I presume is just the natural evolution of language, their origins fade away, they become culturally assimilated, and pronounced more in line with the hosts. Nothing new. But interesting nonetheless. I don't have a definitive answer but I presume it was something like that.
- bee_rider 2y agoI believe what happened is, at some point in the past we used the soft-c (I guess this is when all the sports teams were named). But more recently it was switched to hard-c, to reflect the Greek origin of the word.
- ttyprintk 2y agoI think that’s right: from 300 AD to 1700, nobody used the word. Medieval Latin dominated in the meantime, and so preferred a soft c in Celtae without an academic to insist on the k in Keltoi.
- timeon 2y ago> hard "c" So "k" (as opposed to "s")? I still find it strange that there is letter "c" in English, while not really used.
- dfawcus 2y agosure soft 'c' is used, e.g. century, celebrate, cease, certain
- emmelaich 2y agoThen again we use soft-c for e.g. Caesar and Cicero, whereas the original pronunciation would be hard. Kaiser and Kikero. I actually pronounce Celt both ways depending on the day of the week.
- padjo 2y agoIf we’re going to start accounting for the ignorance of the average American in everything we do we’re not going to get much done.