Content area
Full Text
Michael Newton, ed. Celts in the Americas. Sydney: Cape Breton University Press, 2013. 376 pp., ISBN 978-1-897009-75-8: $27.95.
It is difficult to imagine a discipline in the humanities that is more widely misunderstood than Celtic Studies. Most lay people respond with something between surprise and incredulity when told that, yes indeed, Celtic languages are still spoken as mother tongues, and that they contain a full register of 21st century vocabulary: internet is rhyngrwyd in Welsh; email is riomhphost in Irish. Explanations that the word "Irish" refers not to Hiberno-English but to a language known as Irish Gaelic (known in the language as Gaeilge), to say nothing of the supplementary explanation that both Icelandic and Romanian are actually a lot closer to English than Irish is, tend to attract the same range of responses. The difficulties are compounded by the fact that all things Celtic pass in and out of fashion with some regularity, with the various iterations of trendiness sharing little except for a complete disinterest in spoken languages.
Thus the publication of the anthology Celts in the Americas, edited by Michael Newton, is a cause for rejoicing. The simple title tells part of the happy story; this is very much a new-world discussion, a direct engagement with the way that Celtic peoples have experienced mobility and integration into new nations and new states, and thus experienced modernity. Newton sets this out very concisely in his introduction. Lamenting the diminishing support for philological studies, once virtually synonymous with "Celtic Studies," he writes that "Celtic Studies could reinvigorate itself in the Americas by addressing those issues of greatest relevance and interest in this geographical and cultural context: race, ethnicity, immigration, imperialism, (post)colonialism, linguistic revitalisation, etc." (p. 12).
Moreover, the book defines "Celtic peoples," in a linguistically-centred way, a move that I applaud vigorously. Celtic...