It is not long since a great parade was made of our borrowings from "Celtic"; it was very easy to give a wild guess that an obscure word was "Celtic"; and the hardihood of the guesser was often made to take the place of evidence. The fact is that there is no such language as "Celtic"; it is the name of a group of languages, including "British" or Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Manx, Gaelic, and Irish; and it is now incumbent on the etymologist to cite the exact forms in one or more of these on which he relies, so as to adduce some semblance of proof. The result has been an extraordinary shrinkage in the number of alleged Celtic words. The number, in fact, is extremely small, except in special cases. Thus we may expect to find a few Welsh words in the dialects of Cheshire, Shropshire, or Herefordshire, on the Welsh border; and a certain proportion of Gaelic words in Lowland Scotch; though we have no reliable lists of these, and it is remarkable that such words have usually been borrowed at no very early date, and sometimes quite recently. The legacy of words bequeathed to us by the ancient Britons is surprisingly small; indeed, it is very difficult to point to many clear cases. The question is considered in my _Principles of English Etymology, Series I_, pp. 443-452, to which I may refer the reader; and a list of words of (probably) Celtic origin is given in my larger _Etymological Dictionary_, ed. 1910, p. 765. It is also explained, in my _Primer of English Etymology_ that, in the fifth century, the time of Hengist's invasion, "the common language of the more educated classes among the British was Latin, which was in use as a literary language and as the language of the British Christian Church. Hence, the Low German tribes [of invaders] found no great necessity for learning ancient British; and this explains the fact, which would otherwise be extraordinary, that modern English contains but a very small Celtic element." Of the Celts that remained within the English pale, it is certain that, in a very short time, they accepted the necessity of learning Anglian or Saxon, and lost their previous language altogether. Hence, in many dialects, as for example, in the East Midland district, the amount of words of "British" origin is practically _nil_. For further remarks on this subject, see Chapter V of _Anglo-Saxon Britain_, by Grant Allen, London, n.d.