did anyone else know that the French and northern Italians are descended from the Celts? i remembered hearing this before and i just looked it up and can't find much information on how accurate it is.

I always thought Celtic referred to the ancestors of modern British people (as well as Irish and Scottish). when i think of Celtic, i think of the Boston Celtics basketball team, and therefore Irish. i remember recently learning about it also when studying the United Kingdom and Ireland in Social Studies at school. i didn't know it had anything to do with France or Italy at all. i read that northern Italy was part of a region in ancient times called Cisalpine Gaul, which was inhabited by Gaulish (Celtic) tribes, but does that make modern northern Italians descended from them?

any additional information would be helpful. :wave:

did anyone else know that the French and northern Italians are descended from the Celts? i remembered hearing this before and i just looked it up and can't find much information on how accurate it is.

I always thought Celtic referred to the ancestors of modern British people (as well as Irish and Scottish). when i think of Celtic, i think of the Boston Celtics basketball team, and therefore Irish. i remember recently learning about it also when studying the United Kingdom and Ireland in Social Studies at school. i didn't know it had anything to do with France or Italy at all. i read that northern Italy was part of a region in ancient times called Cisalpine Gaul, which was inhabited by Gaulish (Celtic) tribes, but does that make modern northern Italians descended from them?

any additional information would be helpful. :wave:
Hmmm....interesting find. I didn't know about that either.

Oh wow, that's cool. I'm half Italian but I'm pretty sure all of my Italian ancestors are from southern Italy.

me too. i'm half Italian and i think it's all Sicilian, so i probably have some Arab heritage like a lot of Sicilians do.

here's some additional information on the Celtic influence in Italy:

Cisalpine Gaul
Latin Gallia Cisalpina, in ancient Roman times, that part of northern Italy between the Apennines and the Alps settled by Celtic tribes. Rome conquered the Celts between 224 and 220 BC, extending its northeastern frontier to the Julian Alps.

When Hannibal invaded Italy in 218 BC, the Celts joined his forces, and Rome thereby lost this territory. It was recovered, however, during the final conquest of the Celtic Insubres and Boii between 198 and 191 BC. In 42 BC the province was incorporated into Italy.

I myself have always thought that the Celts were strictly the Irish, Scots and Welsh. I always will.....

and the English are descended from a variety of groups but there's Celtic influence in Cornwall, one of the regions in southwest England.

Thats cool :D

OMG I misread thist herad name I tohught Celts said Cats LOL I looked too fast

Where France is, used to be Gaul (Celtic people). 'France' comes from the Franks, one of the early, unified and 'civilized' Germanic groups. So France has both Celtic and Germanic backgrounds. Northern Italy was under the Franks, too--and even Sicily for a time, I believe. Sicilians do have Arabic, Greek, Phoenician and Spanish influence, but interestingly a lot of Norman influence, which is a combination of Viking and northern French. William the Conqueror's brother, or relative, Roger, invaded Sicily around the time William invaded England at the Battle of Hastings. Sicily has been a crossroads and melting pot for millenia. My statistics may not be that accurate; you can check out the particulars yourself. I've just pieced together bits and pieces of what I've read.

yeah, and northern Italy was also part of Gaul too. there was Transalpine Gaul (what is now France) and Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy/Lombardia), so that part of Italy has Celtic background too. but also the Romans conquered Gaul so France also has Roman/Latin background too. the Romans seemed to have influenced a lot of areas. Romania was also a Roman colony (notice the name) and the Romanian language is a Romance language similar to Italian.

What about southern Italy, though...not Sicily? I'm curious to who they influenced from.