Were Celtic people closer to Germans or Latins?

Question

Were Celtic people physically closer to Germanic people or Latin people?

I mean, were Celts mostly tall, blond, pale skined with blue-greenish eyes like Northern Europeans(typical Germans)?

Or were they mostly medium height, brunet to darker hair, darker skined and eyes stuff like Southern Europeans(typical Latins)?

Answer 1

I'm pretty sure they're Germanic. Yeah, because the Roman Empire only got as far as Scotland.

Answer 2

Linguistically, Celtic languages are more closely related to Italian and other romance languages than they are to Germanic languages.

If you want to know what Celtic people look like, look at Irish, Scottish, French, Welsh, and many English people. Dead pale, usually blue or green eyes, not particularly tall, hair color ranging from brown to red to sandy/blond.

Answer 3

Although the Celts were a diverse group of tribes that originated in Central Europe and eventually spread as far west as Ireland and the Iberian Peninsula, as far east as Central Anatolia (Asia Minor), and as far north as Scotland, the Celts were neither Roman nor Germanic.  

The Greeks called the barbarians of Central Europe "Keltoi", and during the classical period of Greek and Rome,  Celtic culture stayed north of the Alps.   However, slightly before the dawn of the common era, Celtic tribes gradually spread westward into modern France and the British Isles, southwest into Iberia, southward into northern Italy, and eastward through Central Europe into the Balkans and Asia Minor; the Galatians of New Testament fame, for example, were Celts.  

From the time of Julius Caesar, however, as the result of Roman pressure, Celts found themselves pushed back from northern Italy and subdued and Romanized in Gaul (modern-day France), as described by Julius Caesar in his "Gallic Wars".  During the third century AD, Germanic tribes called the Alamanni ran the Celts out of southern Germany.  



Eventually, stronger, more organized armies swept the Celts to the fringes of Europe:  Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Brittany.  The majority of the inhabitants in the British Isles today can find DNA evidence of this retreat since many of their genetic ancestors came from the Iberian peninsula.  Ole!

P. S.  As for the Celts' appearance, different eye witnesses from Greece and Rome describe different-looking peoples:  

---Diodorus claimed Gauls were tall and fair with loud voices and piercing eyes.  

---Tacitus identified the Caledonni of Scotland as having reddish hair and long loose limbs.  

---The Romans noted that the Silurians of Wales as swarthy with  dark curly hair.  

---Virgil, finally, gives an idealized view of the Celts, although he doesn't identify from whence these Celts comes, "Golden is their hair, and golden their garb.  They are resplendent in their striped cloaks and their milk-white necks are circled with gold."

Answer 4

Closer to German, for sure.

Answer 5

Pretty good answer here: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th...

Anyone who's ever been to Ireland or Wales can confirm what this guy says.

Relevant part:

----- Original Message -----

From: "Steve Williamson" <[e-mail]>

To: <[e-mail]>

Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2004 12:03 AM

Subject: Re: [DNA] Celtic DNA and Physical Traits

> The people who today and in the past spoke Celtic

> languages have always been a diverse group

> genetically. There is no one "set" of "Celtic"

> physical traits.

>

> The earliest peoples of the western fringe of Europe

> were apparently (based on several DNA studies) most

> closely related to the Basques, and note Basque is not

> only not a Celtic language, but not even

> Indo-European. Linguists have long noted a North

> African (Hamitic) substratum in the Celtic languages,

> which suggests that the original 'R1b/Basque'

> population of the "Celtic Fringe" (as it's called)

> spoke languages related to Berber & Egyptian.

>

> The Roman historian Tacitus described the peoples of

> the British Isles as quite diverse. The Welsh he

> likened to the Spanish because of their dark

> appearance (think of how dark some Welsh are,

> Catherine Zeta-Jones, Tom Jones, etc...), the Picts to

> the Germans because of their stocky build and red

> hair. Recall also that the modern-day English are

> descended from the Britons, who spoke a Celtic

> language too, now extinct, and those Celtic languages

> of the British Isles were imposed on Britain & Ireland

> by a warrior elite from the Continent, just as

> Anglo-Saxon and then Norman French later was.

>

> The "Celts" are now, and have always been, as diverse

> as other European groups. Most of the current native

> speakers of the Celtic languages, whose numbers

> decline with every year, are fair-skinned brunettes,

> some a bit darker than others, some as pale as it

> gets, some tall, some short, some round-faced, some

> long-faced...

>

> Steve Williamson

>

Answer 6

The Celts were probably more Germanic than Latin origin,

the Romans were obviously Latin and the Celts were quite unlike them.

The people we call Celts gradually infiltrated Britain  between about 500 and 100 B.C. There was probably never a Celtic invasion, they were so fragmented and given to fighting among themselves that the idea of a concerted invasion would have been ludicrous.

The Celts were a group of peoples loosely tied by similar language, religion, and culture. They were not centrally governed, and were as happy to fight each other as any non-Celt. They were warriors, living for the glory of battle. They introduced iron working to the British Isles.

Edit :

The word Keltoi, or ‘Celt’, was coined more than 2,500 years ago to describe a tribe of people at the head of the river Danube in what is now central Germany. According to classical writers, they were barbaric and primitive.

http://www.channel4.com/history/microsit...