Celts and Teutons

By Ronald A. Perry, Assoc. Professor UTP / Licenciatura en Ingls / 2011

Celts and Germanic Tribes in Europe

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pre-roman_iron_age_(map).PNGRegions inhabited by Germanic (Teutonic) Tribes

A few hundred years before the Christian era groups of people migrated to the areas shown in red. They belonged to many different tribes: Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, Danes, Geats, Teutons, Goths, etc. but it is common to refer to all of them as Germanic Tribes. The term Teutons is also used. They were never subject to the Roman Empire; therefore they retained their pagan Germanic religion even after the Roman Empire adopted Christianity. They also retained their Proto-Germanic language. Each tribe spoke a different variety of this language, but they were in close contact with one another and probably understood one anothers dialects with little difficulty.

During the 6th century of the Christian era most of the Germanic tribes that lived in what is today Germany converted to Christianity and adopted European civilization. But the tribes to the North the inhabitants of what is today Denmark, Norway and Sweden retained their Pagan religion and their savage way of life. The inhabitants of Christian Europe referred to these people as Danes, Vikings, or Northmen. We refer to their language as Norse even though it is closely related to the Proto-German spoken by Christianized tribes that had become absorbed into European Christian civilization. Beginning about 800 A.D. groups of Vikings began to attack the coasts of England, Scotland, Ireland and France. The part of France that was conquered by the Normans (a French word meaning Northmen or Vikings) is still called Normandy. Eventually these Viking people converted to Christianity and became part of the general population of Europe.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~irlkik/ihm/celts.htmRegions inhabited by Germanic (Teutonic) Tribes

About the time that the Germanic tribes were migrating to northern Europe, another group of Indo-Europeans started to settle the central and western part of Europe. These were the Celts (pronounced /kelts/). After occupying what are today France and Spain, they crossed the English channel to Britain. At this time, other Indo-Europeans the Hellenes and Latins were establishing their city-states in the southern part of Europe, on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Eventually, the Romans conquered an empire that included the lands occupied by the Celts. Later, when the Roman Empire became Christian, the Celts abandoned their polytheistic religion and adopted Christianity. In France and in many other parts of continental Europe, the native people also adopted the Latin language of Rome, so that in time the varieties of Latin spoken in different regions evolved into what are today Spanish, French and Italian. But in Britain most of the natives retained their own Celtic language. After Roman legions withdrew in the early 5th century, Britain was invaded by the Germanic tribes of North-eastern Europe. Those Celts who survived these invasions escaped to the mountainous regions of Scotland and Wales and to the island of Ireland. In this way, the Germanic language known as Old English came to dominate England, and the Celtic language evolved into the Scots Gaelic, Welsh and Irish languages that are still spoken in some parts of Britain.

http://www.google.com.co/imgres?imgurl=http://www.shoreline.edu/seanrody/celts/celtic%2520maps/Prerome.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.shoreline.edu/seanrody/celts/outline2.htm&h=423&w=547&sz=13&tbnid=--9RmdnJ5KaWGM:&tbnh=103&tbnw=133&prev=/images%3Fq%3DCelts,%2Bmaps&zoom=1&hl=es&usg=__WmSTsY-qsYE-znboBwuUvoBSVtU=&sa=X&ei=d0x0TN_xDcL6lwf82YDICA&ved=0CB8Q9QEwAgEurope about 300 B.C. (when the Greek and Roman Civilizations were developing)

Europe and the Roman Empire. Note that the Germanic Tribes

are called Goths The Celts living in France are called Gauls.

Europe in 500 A.D. (after the disintegration of the Roman Empire)

Notice that the Angles and Saxons occupy what is today England.