what is a celt

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Nature

A Celt can refer to two different things: a tool and a group of people.

  • Celt (tool): In archaeology, a celt is a long, thin, prehistoric, stone or bronze tool similar to an adze, hoe, or axe. It was used for felling trees and woodworking).

  • Celt (people): In current scholarship, "Celt" primarily refers to "speakers of Celtic languages" rather than to a single ethnic group. The name Celt was not used for at least 1,000 years, and nobody called themselves Celts or "Celtic" until about 1700, after the word Celtic was rediscovered in classical texts. It was applied for the first time to the distinctive culture, history, traditions, and language of the modern Celtic nations – Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, and the Isle of Man.

It is important to note that the two meanings of Celt are not related to each other. The tool is named after a copyists error in many medieval manuscript copies of Job 19:24 in the Latin Vulgate Bible, which became enshrined in the authoritative Sixto-Clementine printed edition of 1592. Where all earlier versions have vel certe (the Latin for but surely), the Sixto-Clementine has vel celte. The Hebrew has לעד (lā‘aḏ) at this point, which means forever).