Thank you Johann as always for permissions to translate....
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This is a question that some have asked themselves after reading The True Celtic Language. Before providing answers, it is necessary to define what Celtomania meant in the 19th century.
Celtomania - Current definition
Celtomania was a craze, a literary fashion, a current of research, which developed in certain intellectual circles at the end of the 18th century and throughout the 19th century (see from the 16th century), mainly in countries where "the Celtic language" was spoken in the form of different dialects. On the literature side, François-René de Chateaubriand is cited as a writer who unintentionally contributed to its development, and with regard to the two main currents of research, archeology and linguistics will be discussed. For Marc Decimo, Celtomania is defined as the obsession to see a "Celtic" trace everywhere and, in particular, in languages, individuals, monuments or stones. [References: https://www.lespressesdureel.com/ouvrage.php? Id=2917&menu=0; https://www.lespressesdureel.com/EN/file/ouvrage/2917/extrait_pdf_2917.pdf]
Definition in the 19th century
Larousse defines the Celtoman in the following way: CELTOMANE adj.
(sèl-to-ma-ne of celte and mania).
Who has Celtomania.
The scholar Bullet was a Celtomaniac. Encyclopaedic Celtic antiquities have confused the ideas of some scholars of the last centuries. Pezron, Pelloutier, Vallancey, Court de Gébelin, Latour-d'Auvergne, Le Brigant, etc., questioned the depth of the ages to reach the discovery of the primitive language; and it is no longer Hebrew that, according to them, was spoken at the origin of the world, but pure Celtic, as it is still used today, either in Ireland or on the coasts of Lower Brittany. The mania of seeing in everything and everywhere the Celtic race, the Celtic language, and Celtic monuments has given these learned historians and philologists the qualification of Celtoman. (https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k507258/f698.item.zoom)
The main Celtomans
There are mainly linguists:
- Paul-Yves Pezron (1640-1706) a French religious, theologian and linguist. He published a work ("Antiquity of the nation and the language of the Celts") to establish the higher antiquity of the Gauls by researching which Bible character they came from (according to him, they are all the sons of Gomer, son of Japhet and grandson of Noah). By establishing linguistic comparisons, he consolidates the idea of the
common origin of Bretons and Welsh by showing that they inherited a Celtic language. – Jean-Baptiste Bullet (1699-1775) is a French theologian and historian. In his book "Memory on the Celtic language", he attacks the myth of Babel: God has dispersed his people and it is the climate that has made the speech diverge. It is necessary to look for the primitive common language from the Greek and Celtic languages that mixed to give Latin.
- Jacques Le Brigant (1720-1804), described as "prince of the Celtomans". He claims that Breton is the mother tongue of all idioms, and that, thanks to it, he is able to understand other languages. His motto was: "Celtica negatur, negatur orbis" ("Who denies the Celtia, denies the Universe"). His extremism earned him ridicule in the Parisian literary salons of his time.
- Théophile-Malo de La Tour d'Auvergne-Corret (1743-1800) to whom we owe in particular the formalisation of the words menhir and dolmen from the Low-Breton ("Gallic origins"). According to him, the Breton language would be the oldest in the world.
- Jean François Le Gonidec de Kerdaniel (1775-1838), who was a grammarian and linguist of the Breton language. With Jacques le brigant and Jacques Cambry, he was a member of the Celtic academy which lasted only nine years and gave way to the society of antique dealers of France.
- Jacques Cambry (1749-1807), writer, historian and archeologist, he founded the Celtic academy. He mistakenly thought that the megaliths were of Celtic origin! The common trait of all these people is to be excessively passionate about Celtic culture and to consider that Breton was the "mother tongue" (Breton is one of the languages of Celtic origin: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langues_celtiques.
The oldest Celtomaniacs (Pezron, Bullet, the Brigant...) add a biblical dimension to their work.
Celtomania in Celtic LVL
What does this book teach us, both from a literary, religious and linguistic point of view? The literary aspect Abbé Boudet tells us about Chateaubriand without putting a reference at the bottom of the page (page 159, chapter V - Celtic language). The abbot quotes this writer to describe Brittany: "Sad and lonely region, enveloped in fog, resounding from the sound of the winds, and whose rocks-bristling coasts were beaten by a wild ocean. "This sentence is extracted from the book Les martyrs (https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b86266780/f9.image#; book IX, page 298). Apparently, nothing in this sentence exalts Celticism. However, you have to read the book to realise that, a few pages later, there is a Celtic rite in which a druidess pronounces the expression "au-gui-l'an-neuf" (book IX, pages 303-305). For my part, the abbot creates here a link with sub-chapter VII-IX of The True Celtic Language entitled "the sacred guy".
The religious aspect
This aspect is very present in The True Celtic Language. A whole chapter is devoted to what the abbot calls "the Hebrew language". He concludes on page 81 that: "These examples seem to us to be sufficient to offer solid support for this assertion that the Celtic language is actually the primitive language " We can only note that Abbé Boudet is a priest "who walks in the footsteps" of the ancient religious Celtomans. The linguistic aspect Abbé Boudet quickly rejects the idea of using Breton in order to explain the Celtic language, and he explains to us why: "It is therefore certain, by some examples, that Celtic words are found in the language of the descendants of the Celts in Brittany and Languedoc; also we will not hesitate to take the test of the Languedoc dialect, to try to discover the true Celtic language spoken by our ancestors. Nevertheless, it must seem strange that we choose the Languedocian dialect rather than Breton to put us on the path..." (page 12) "The Breton language is, we believe, the true Celtic language spoken by our ancestors. That the Bretons have preserved a very considerable number of Gallic expressions is indisputable; but they have not kept this language in its purity, and it is enough to take a look at their pronouns to judge the profound alteration of their language." (page 150) Then he quotes Le Godinec and Lehuerou (Julien Marie Lehuërou 1807-1843) who fail to determine the etymology of the word Britanni. Not only does the abbot reject the work of Le Godinec, but twice in his book, he puts in advance the work of M.A. De Chevallet: "The names Breton, Irish, Scottish and Welsh are taken from the work of M. A. de Chevallet: origin and formation of the French language. Ier Vol" (note on page 12) "M.A. de Chevallet, in his magnificent work, Origin and formation of the French language, writes: ..." (pages 178-179) It should be known that in his book (page 216), M.A. De Chevallet denounces the mistakes made by the Celtomans: "The works published in the last century by Pézeron, Bullet, Le Brigant and other Celtomanes, have been the subject of a just distrust on the part of the scholars of their contemporaries, and are still today the cause of a certain discredit into which Celtic studies have fallen. Among the countless errors that are full of these works, one of the most frequent is to give for Celtic a word from another language, introduced in one of the Celtic patois, as a large number are introduced in all patois. In summary, Abbé Boudet will never refer to one of the writings published by a Celtomaniac. On the contrary, he refutes the usefulness of Breton to explain what the Celtic language is and goes so far as to "incense" Chevallet's magnificent work that explains the mistakes of the Celtomans. It is very likely that Abbé Boudet does not wish to enrol in this movement.
The place of the Celtic language in the work of Abbé Boudet
Often, people who fly over LVL Celtic think that the primary objective of this book is to demonstrate that modern English is the mother tongue, when this is not the case at all. In his preliminary observations the abbot is perfectly clear: the main object of his research concerns the cromleck: ".. .before using the language of the Tectosages to explain the meaning of the megalithic monuments of Rennes-les-Bains, the primary object of our research..." In fact, the Celtic language is the tool he puts in place in order to explain "his cromlech". Having a training in modern English, he uses this skill to achieve his goal. For this, he first seeks to justify its use, and it is for this reason that he begins by presenting two arguments. The first is falsely historical. To simplify his demonstration to the extreme, he explains that part of the Volques Tectosages (Belgian tribes, belonging to the Celtic confederation of the Kimris, who had settled in Languedoc in 300 BC), joined "their brothers" in 281 BC, in the Hercynia forest. Much later (nearly seven centuries later!), they reappeared under the name of Saxons! It was in the company of the Angles that in 416 AD, they crossed the North Sea to rescue the leader of the Bretons. After betraying this leader, they founded the Anglo-Saxon kingdom in England. A few years later, the Bretons will be driven out and will take refuge in Brittany. So, according to Boudet, the language has been preserved between these peoples (Volques and Angles/Saxons!), which means that Languedocian and modern English "are the same thing, CQFD"! The second argument, barely more convincing, is to compare a few dozen words of the Languedoc dialect with those of the Anglo-Saxon language in order to see how similar they are. Finally, he tests his hypothesis on different languages in order to verify that all this is not just the "fruit of his imagination", because as he says: ... we tried to make it reflect through the mirrors of the Hebrew, Punic, Basque and Celtic languages. The result seemed serious to us... → So how convinced was Abbé Boudet by his demonstration? Difficult to answer, but he must have at least thought that there was "a sufficient substance of truth" in everything he said, because it is true that each language contains elements of the past, then evolves over time (especially by being influenced by other languages). → Is it useful to know how convinced he was? I think not, because the first object of his research is not there. Instead of being interested in the tool, it is more useful to know what the abbot wants to do with it.
Conclusion
It is clear that at no time does Abbé Boudet tell us in his work that the Celtic language can be explained by Breton (dialect that is considered Celtic). On the contrary, all his demonstration consists of explaining that this Celtic language is found among the Anglo-Saxon invaders, and not among the Bretons driven out of their island. In addition, he questions the interest of using Breton and never refers to a Celtomaniac. Finally, through de Chevallet, it seems to be part of the "anti-celtoman" current. So why do some people call Boudet a Celtomaniac? I see two explanations. First, he shared with the Celtomans a real interest in Celtic culture. The abbot is undoubtedly a Celtophile. Then the word Celtoman has a pejorative character that denounces the excesses of their work, and the same is true for the work of Abbé Boudet in LVL Celtique which often seem rightly delirious to us. If his main desire was to demonstrate at all costs that modern English was Celtic LVL, then perhaps it would be necessary to invent a term of the "Anglomaniac Celtophile" genre that would be more suitable in the case of Boudet! But when we know that the abbot's primary interest is elsewhere, should we still try to give him a negative qualifier? [May 2, 2025, Jauclin]
© Merlin Delrieu, the new president of the association Terre de Rhedae, considers Boudet's book, "The true Celtic language or the cromleck of Rennes-le-Château" as a founding book in the mystery of the two Rennes. (Editor's note)
The phonetics of the Languedocian dialect
The subject of this study is "remarks on the phonetics of the Languedoc dialect," but the goal of my remarks is to better understand Abbé Boudet's true position on the subjects he addresses in The True Celtic Language. I will therefore suggest that you separate what he writes from what he actually thinks. The idea for this work came to me after listening to a debriefing on our history. In it, one of the speakers explained: "Abbé Boudet is limited in his research by several elements, including historical knowledge from the Celtic era... He still believes that it was the Celts who built the megaliths."
Ignorance of Abbé Boudet's work in general, and of The True Celtic Language in particular, can only lead to points of view that are likely to be erroneous! So, "No," in the abbé's time, people did not believe that the Celts had built the megaliths, and as far as Boudet is concerned, the problem is a little more complex. But first, let's correct this mistake, which is often made by those who skim over The True Celtic Language.
Three pages of LVL Celtique prove the opposite:→ page 161: It is interesting to understand the thinking of modern science on these monuments, a thought that Mr. Louis Figuier has perfectly rendered and translated in Primitive Man. […] Indeed, these tombs are nothing other than dolmens, or Celtic or Druidic monuments, and they do not, as was always thought, relate to historical times, that is, to the times of the Celts or the Gauls, but date back to a much earlier antiquity, for they belong to the prehistoric era of polished stone.→ page 162: It is now perfectly proven that dolmens are only tombs from the prehistoric era.→ page 164: These stone monuments, as we have already said, are no more Celtic than Druidic. The Celts, peoples who occupied part of Gaul several centuries before the Christian era, were completely innocent of megalithic constructions. They found them ready-made upon their immigration, and, no doubt, they regarded them with as much astonishment as we do. They took advantage of them when it seemed advantageous to use them.
However, I fully understand that one might think that the abbot did not support this thesis because, for this example, he told us on page 164: The opinion of modern science concerning dolmens differs strangely from the ideas aroused by the interpretation of the names borne by the large stones…In fact, after giving the stick to beat himself with (the megaliths have no Celtic origin), the abbot does not question the opinion of modern science, but he evades any confrontation of ideas by very simply noting "that this differs strangely" from the interpretation he gives us of the names! So did Boudet really believe all the nonsense found in his work and that modern English was the original language? This study will not provide a definitive answer, and everyone will form their own opinion, but it is by highlighting some contradictions encountered in his writings that we can gain a more accurate picture.
In "Remarks on Phonetics," we will discuss the letter "H" as well as a location in the cromlech, so I will begin by recalling what the abbot says about it in The True Celtic Language.
The Letter "H" in The True Celtic Language
As we have just seen, the essential source of information used by the abbot on this subject is Louis Figuier's book, "Primitive Man" (he will also use Henri Martin's "History of France"). In any case, three important words will be presented first, using the authors' spelling:– cromlecH (page 163, then crom leckh on page 166)– neimheidH (pages 25 and 166)– menHir (pages 163 and 156). Then, in the rest of the book, these three words will lose the letter "H" to become:– cromleck (57 occurrences)– neimheid (39 occurrences)– ménir (46 occurrences)The word crom-leckh is an invention of the abbot (In his "Histoire de France," H. Martin writes the words lekh and crom-lekh on page 48). The case of "ménir" is particularly interesting because a search on Gallica for this word tells us that before 1900, there were 235 documents using the word "menhir" for a single "beni ménir" present in a newspaper from Tlemencen! In fact, the spelling "ménir" is a pure invention of the abbot. If the abbot's intention is really to explain to us that modern English is the mother of all languages, and that there is a cromlech in Rennes-les-Bains, then what interest does he have in removing the letters "H" from these words when it would have been easier to keep the spelling proposed by the authors without inventing another?
Le Cardaoussel and the Coural stream in The True Celtic Language
Le Cardaoussel (located northeast of the Boudet map) and LavalDieu (located opposite, that is, southwest of the map) are the only places indicated on the Boudet map that will be ignored in the LVL text, and which therefore do not benefit from an "English translation." As with all Celtic LVL words containing spelling errors, it is necessary to identify the type of error, if possible: typographical error, different spelling accepted at the time, other hypotheses, etc.
Currently, the word Cardaussel is used on all geographical maps, but during the abbot's time, the Serres schoolteacher who conducted the survey proposed in 1887 by Julien Sacaze did indeed propose both spellings, so there is no mystery surrounding this name! The Coural stream is mentioned on page 243; it is currently known as Coudal. This was also the case on the general staff maps (1820-1866)...
... as well as in the Sacaze survey conducted by the schoolteacher from Rennes-les-Bains.
The abbot did indeed intentionally transform this stream name in The True Celtic Language, just as he did in the "Remarks on the Languedoc Dialect." On the map, other transformations raise questions, I'll mention just two: to the northeast, the Dous stream becomes the Coume stream, and the opposite end, to the southwest, the Coume-sourde stream becomes the Dead Man's stream. So how does changing these stream names, found in this northeast/southwest direction, explain why modern English is the mother of all languages, and why there is a cromlech in Rennes-les-Bains?
Regarding Edmond Boudet's map, we recommend the studies by Lucain and Rudy, as well as Philippe Brunel's DVD on "The Secrets of Razès," where he discusses Boudet's secrets! (Editor's note: see also). Remarks on the Languedoc dialect - Study by Abbé Henri Boudet published in the Mémoires de la Société des arts et des sciences de Carcassonne, 1894, Part II, pages 42 to 65; pdf 117/492.
The subject of the "Languedoc dialect" was raised as early as page 17 of LVL Celtique, but you will quickly notice that the method and point of view are completely different, to the point of wondering if these two writings come from the same person. However, at the time of LVL Celtique, the abbé had the same references; the work of François Bopp (LVL Celtique, page 10) was already mentioned there. In this new work, Languedocian is essentially compared to Latin, and this Languedocian has indeed been influenced by some Germanic words, but there is almost no mention of Modern English in any of the words studied. It's a linguistic work in which each category of letters is clearly distinguished: vowels on the one hand, then consonants, which he logically classifies as guttural, dental, labial, sibilant, and liquid. The texts of LVL Celtique and "Les Remarques sur le Languedocien" seem so different in both content and style that they challenge us and force us to question what Boudet really thought!
Yet, on two occasions, Abbé Boudet "goes off the rails"
:→ The aspirated guttural "H" (page 50)
The aspirated letter "H" can soften into a "C," the abbé explains, and he cites as an example the name of the Coural stream, which has its origins in the Latin verb Curro, which itself, by Grimm's law, corresponds to the English "Hurry!" Here we go again, Abbé Boudet relapses... He goes on to explain that the words Card-aoussel and Car-cassonne are terms whose first element seems to refer to the English Hard. (Hard is defined only once in LVL Celtique on page 201; its definition follows that of the remarkable double error Head-Heed on the previous page).
In one sentence, he contradicts without any further explanation what he stated in LVL Celtique on page 223 at the end of Chapter VI: This city could therefore have been a warehouse for construction timber; nevertheless, as it was also the market for the sale of swords and axes made by the Atacini, this latter motive weighed especially heavily in the balance of the Gallic Neimheid, and earned it the name Carcassonne, cark, care, worry, – axe, axe, – to own (ôn), to possess. In a few years, "hard" (painful, difficult) replaced "cark" (care, worry). Note that other important words from LVL Celtic, concerning the letter "H" will follow: Hall, Hallow, and especially Hew. This is therefore a new contradiction that should concern us. (For information, the notion of "haste" and "precipitation" is found in the definitions of the English verbs Rash and Haste in The True Celtic Language. In the subchapters relating to the map, that is, VII-I and VIII-I, we find them associated with three lieux: les roulers, la rajole and la scar(r)ajols).→ The very last remark at the bottom of the page
We can read: It might not be pointless to mention the exchange that labials make with dentals in the following words: Baloun "valley", Lat. Vallis "valley", Eng. Dale "valley"Berbo "verbiage", Lat. Verbum "parole", Eng. Word "parole"Herbo "grass", Lat. Herba "grass", Eng. Wort "grass"Barbo "Barbe", Lat. Barba "barb", Eng. Bard "barb"Cerf "deer", Lat. Cervus "deer", Eng. Hart "deer"Cap. "head", Lat. Caput "head", Eng. Head
If the first example is an exchange between a labial "B" and a dental "D," what are we to make of the second and third examples? We're looking for the exchange in the fourth (otherwise, the English for "beard" is "beard" and not bard*, which means something else), but we're certain that the last two relate to the abbot's previous slip-up where the letter "H" is exchanged with another guttural, the letter "C."
Finally, Abbot Boudet concludes with the word "head" = "Head*," which is found in several important definitions of Celtic LVL.
* bard: In Celtic civilization, the bard belongs to the tripartite priestly class of druids, which consists of "theologian druids," ovates, and bards. "Head" and "bard" allude to a key page of Celtic LVL: page 170: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KUk4JcMji7m8JS5V-Kco77vTOMN-C1SR/view!
In conclusion to The True Celtic Language
To exclude all these contradictions, these reversals, these name changes is to miss the opportunity to understand what Abbé Boudet really thought. Try the following simple experiment: ask a friend or family member to try to determine the etymology of the word "Locmariaguer" (Celtic LVL, page 156). Chances are, in less than a minute, they will identify the word "maria," and perhaps even associate it with the word for the Virgin Mary. So do you seriously think that a renowned abbot for his intelligence didn't notice this, and that he seriously believed that this village was a Celtic place dating back to BC, meaning "lake that prevents hunters"?
If the abbot is convinced that Modern English is the primitive language, then why choose an example that goes against his religious beliefs, and whose stupidity can be so easily demonstrated? Wouldn't it have been wiser to avoid this example?
To conclude, is The True Celtic Language "coded"?
Everyone can think what they want, but to try to answer it, long, rigorous, and serious work on this book will be more useful than any ability to solve logic problems: even my best TS students were unable to perform well on a specialised topic having simply skimmed the wording. As I announced in the introduction, this study doesn't give you "The" right answer, but I remain convinced that it will allow you to ask yourself the right questions.