Editing Celts (section)

==='Celtic from the Centre' theory===
Celticist Patrick Sims-Williams (2020) notes that in current scholarship, 'Celt' is primarily a linguistic label. In his 'Celtic from the Centre' theory, he argues that the proto-Celtic language did not originate in central Europe nor the Atlantic, but in-between these two regions. He suggests that it "emerged as a distinct Indo-European dialect around the [[second millennium BC]], probably somewhere in [[Gaul]] [centered in modern France]&nbsp;... whence it spread in various directions and at various speeds in the [[first millennium BC]]". Sims-Williams says this avoids the problematic idea "that Celtic was spoken over a vast area for a very long time yet somehow avoided major dialectal splits", and "it keeps Celtic fairly close to Italy, which suits the view that [[Italo-Celtic|Italic and Celtic were in some way linked]]".<ref name="Sims-Williams" />