Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

20 Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race
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on Italy to be vanquished by Marius at the close of the second
century. The ancient Greek geographers prior to Pytheas know
nothing of them, and assign all the territories now known as
Germanic to various Celtic tribes.
The explanation given by de Jubainville, and based by him
on various philological considerations, is that the Germans were
a subject people, comparable to those “un-free tribes” who
existed in Gaul and in ancient Ireland. They lived under the
Celtic dominion, and had no independent political existence.
De Jubainville finds that all the words connected with law and
government and war which are common both to the Celtic and
Teutonic languages were borrowed by the latter from the former.
Chief among them are the words represented by the modern
German Reich, empire, Amt, office, and the Gothic reiks, a king,
all of which are of unquestioned Celtic origin. De Jubainville
also numbers among loan words from Celtic the words Bann, an
order; Frei, free; Geisel, a hostage; Erbe, an inheritance; Werth,
value; Weih, sacred; Magus, a slave (Gothic); Wini, a wife (Old
High German); Skalks, Schalk, a slave (Gothic); Hathu, battle
(Old German); Helith, Held, a hero, from the same root as the
word Celt; Heer, an army (Celtic choris); Sieg, victory; Beute,
booty; Burg, a castle; and many others.
The etymological history of some of these words is interesting.
Amt, for instance, that word of so much significance in
modern German administration, goes back to an ancient Celtic
ambhactos, which is compounded of the words ambi, about,
and actos, a past participle derived from the Celtic root AG,
meaning to act. Now ambi descends from the primitive Indo-
European mbhi, where the initial m is a kind of vowel, afterwards
represented in Sanscrit by a. This m vowel became n in those
Germanic words which derive directly from the primitive Indo-
European tongue. But the word which is now represented by amt
appears in its earliest Germanic form as ambaht, thus making
plain its descent from the Celtic ambhactos.