When scholars talk about Celts, they are not talking about a particular "race", or about natives of specific regions now associated with the Celts, or about adherents of any particular religion. Nor are they making arbitrary terminological distinctions. they are talking about Celtic language speakers and their cultures.
Celtic languages are part of the Indo-European family of languages just as English is, but belong to an entirely different branch of this family - the Celtic Branch - and are more different from English than German or French.
Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic", a branch of the greater Indo-European language family.
The Celtic languages have unusual features within the Indo-European family, which may be due to greater influence from the non-Indo-European languages they displaced and/or to greater retention of archaic forms of Indo-European.
The languages spoken by the early Celts of Europe are collectively known as Continental Celtic. Some of the forms of Continental Celtic have been partially reconstructed, including Gaulish, Celtiberian and Lepontic. Evidence for these languages includes inscriptions such as the Druidic Coligny Calendar.
Insular Celtic (insular = of the islands), which is further split into the "more modern":
-Goidelic (Q-Celtic) include Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic and Manx.
-Brythonic (P-Celtic) including Welsh, Breton, and Cornish
The differences between P and Q Celtic Languages are most easily seen in the word for son, mac in Q (hard K sound) and map in P languages. P-languages have a slightly simpler structure and may be younger than the Q-languages.
Apparently, of all the world languages, Albanian is particularly closely related to Q-Celtic, such as Irish. The relationship seems more or less evident, and it wouldn't be too difficult to find some completely regular correspondences [they are pretty close]. Surely enough, all lexemes are within the basic lexics.
Also note that neither Welsh nor Breton are particularly close to Irish, therefore including Albanian into the Celtic group might in fact be reasonable.
(Please excuse the non-standard notation, the words are most in dialect - it's from Isidore Dyen's IE database from the 60s - but just enough to give you an idea.)
NOT
Albanian NUK
Irish NI
WE
Albanian NE
Breton NI
Irish INN, SINN
-> The /n/-root is present only in Italic, Welsh, Breton and Albanian. Others have /m-/ or /w-/ or similar. . .
PIE had *wei for nominative, *n.s-me- in other cases. The the *n.s part occurs in Hittite (anz-), Germanic (uns-), and OCS (ny, nasU, namU).
Also Italic, Celtic and Albanian, where by analogy it's also used in the nominative.
ONE
Albanian NJI
Breton UNAN
Irish AON
TWO
Albanian DY
Irish DO
THREE
Albanian TRE/ TRI (dialect form)
Irish TRI
WATER
(Note this rather unique coincidence in "water")
Albanian UJ
Irish UISGE
FATHER
Albanian ATI
Irish ATHAIR (Irish exhibits the Celtic loss of Indo-European p. Athair is related
to pater and father)
MAN
Albanian BURRI
Irish FEAR (The Irish is from PIE *wi:ros, and cognate with Welsh _gwr_)
-> Alb burrë is:
*wirH1-os. Alb. burrë 'ruler, warrior, husband, man; distinguished/
brave/courageous person' from *wH3r.H1-no with laryngeal hardening of
*w to *b, *-r.H1- > -ur- (cf. *gWr.H1-u > Alb gur, Watkins) and *-rn-
> -rr as regular outcome, if we assume reduced o-grade form *woiH1-
'to pursue with vigor, desire' related to *wiH1-ro (cf. also Dacian
royal name Bure-bista and maybe tribe name Li-burnoi, cf. Alb li-
gjëroj 'to discourse, orate, cf. Latin ser-mo < *ser-) Dalmatian place
name Burnum): OIr fer 'man, husband', Lat vir 'man, husband', OE wer
'man, husband' (NE werewolf), Lith vyras 'man, husband': Av vi:ra-
'man; person', Skt vi:rá- 'hero; (eminent) man, husband'. Alb i ri:
'young' from *uriH1-os (*os > ) with long stressed /í:/ due to
laryngeal and proverbial aphaeresis of unstressed initial syllable;
trim 'dare-devil, berserker; brave, lion-hearted' from prefixed and
suffixed form t-ri-m: Toch A wir 'young, fresh' (Mallory-Adams wiHxros
203.)
GRASS
Albanian BARI
Irish FEAR
-> Barí= shepherd, as collective noun from *pH2ar−i, Bareshë= shepherdess (cf. Latin pastor id. , Armenian hoviv id. ) and Bari=grass, herbage with stress in first syllable from *pH2a−ru. It must be not confused with bari=drug, medicine.
−eshë is a usual suffix for feminine gender in Albanian (bukuroshe pretty girl /from
This voicing of bilabial stop seems to belong to different chronological layer and is a result of metathesis of laryngeal. It is attested in many derivatives (see below). This impact of laryngeals in Albanian makes quite clear that Albanian language was one of the first languages that was separated from the PIE tree, whence its devilishly hard character for different linguists.
EYE (Note that this a unique Irish-Albanian isogloss not found in any
other IELs)
Albanian SYNI / SY
Irish SUIL (Long ú, súil. The other word for eye is rosc)
Note the /k-/ : /c-/ correspondence
FOUR
Albanian KATER
Irish CEATHAIR (Irish c is always pronounced as k)
-> Welsh _pedwar_ as well. Well-nigh universal in Indo-European.
The '/k-/ : /c-/' correspondence reflects derivation from PIE *kW.
Welsh /pedwar/, Germanic /fidwor/ sound like a far cry from /
ceathair/. That's why I say Q-Celtic, not P-Celtic.)
FOOT, LEG
Albanian KAMA
Irish COS
BARK (of tree)
Albanian KUJA
Irish COIRT
WHEN
Albanian KUR
Irish CATHAIN
-> "Cathain" is interrogative, as "WHEN" and as "KUR".
WHO
Albanian KUSH
Irish CIA
(WHERE and WHO are 'wh- words' - the initial consonant descends from PIE *kW, as in English. Cé, actually, in modern Irish. Cia is probably Classical Irish. )
WHERE
Albanian KU / CKA (dialect form)
Irish CA
-> Cá, actually, and it does not mean just "where", but also "what" or
"which", in some of the dialects.
WORM
Albanian KRYMI
Irish CRUIMH (PEIST) (Cruimh, crumhóg, péist. Note: /d-/ : /cr-/)
TREE
Albanian DRUNI
Irish CRANN
Celtic DRUID
(But /cran/ and /druni, druja/ seem to be a particularly close match)
EARTH
Albanian DHEU
Irish CRE (Cré. Cré means earth as in clay. There are also the words talamh and
ithir.)
BURN
Albanian DJEG
Irish DOGHADH (Dóghadh, or in new orthography dó)
-> Cf. Breton /devin/, Latin /foveo/, Wakhi /thau/, they're all different to some extent. Only Lith. /degti/ is sufficiently close. Tocharian /tsak/ is also
close, but Tocharian seems related to the Italo-Celtic (or a broader)
group in several ways, so there's a good reason for it to be close.
DRY
Albanian THAT
Irish TIRIM
FISH
Albanian PESHKU (dial. PISK)
Breton PESK
Irish IASC
Note /d-/ : /d-/ : /l-/ (Albanian : Breton : Irish)
Only Italic and Germanic languages have */pesk/. Indo-Iranian had */masi/ while Balto-Slavic had */zuvis/ which effectively excludes both of them, since */pesk/ is an innovation limited to Western Europe.
Irish "iasc" exhibits the Celtic loss of "p-", and it is of course related to piscis and fish. The Breton word is a loan from Latin.
HAND
Albanian DORA
Breton DORN
Irish LAMH
TALK/ SPEECH
Albanian LLAFOS
Welsh LLAFAR (utterance, speech)
Irish LABHAIR (to speak)
Breton LAVAR (word, utterance)
DAY
Albanian DITA
Welsh DYDD
Irish LA
-> Lá: However, weekdays begin with the old word dé: Dé Luain = Monday, Dé Máirt = Tuesday, Dé Céadaoin = Wednesday, Déardaoin = Thursday, Dé hAoine = Friday, Dé Sathairn = Saturday, Dé Domhnaigh = Sunday.
WIFE
Albanian GRUJA
Breton GWREG
NAME
(Note the loss of PIE /n-/)
Albanian EMAN
Irish AINM
COLD
Albanian FTOFT
Irish FUAR
DOG
Albanian KJENI/ QENI (GEN)
Breton KI
Irish GADHAR (Dillon-Ó Cróinín's )
-> The other literary Irish word for "dog" is "Cú", which is related to Breton "ki", Welsh "ci", and Latin "canis". "Madadh" and "madra" are the preferred words further north - "gadhar" is above all Munster Irish. Only /k-/ instances count here that leaves us with the "Kentum" languages which are bound to Western Europe.
LOUSE
Irish MIOL
Albanian MORR
NOSE
Breton NOZ
Albanian NATA
Irish OIDHCHE
STAR
Irish REALT
Albanian YLLI
WHITE
Irish BAN
Albanian BARDH
BELLY
Albanian BARKU / BEL
Irish BOLG
Also note the infuence in Greek of the word FLOWER:
Albanian LULE
Greek D LOULOUDI
SEA
Albanian DETI
Greek K THALASSA
TONGUE
Albanian GJUHENA
Greek K GLOSSA
And, the Indo-Aryan influence:
SNOW
Hindi BERPH
Persian BARF
Albanian BORA
Albanian is not close to any group in the East. It is a "Kentum"-type language located somewhere within the Western European habitat and language.
Also, there seems to be roughly the same distance in Irish-Albanian-Welsh (and possibly Latin) rows, while other European Kentum languages like Germanic and ancient Greek stand a little aside. Because we have (once again):
uisce-uit-dwr-*unda (Umbran "uttor")
athar-ati-tad-pater
suil-syni-llygad-oculis
croidhe-zamber-calon-cordis
teanga-gjuxena-tafod-lengua
ceathair-kater-pedwor-quattur
ainm-ember-enw-nomen
On this basis, Albanian seems to go either into the Celtic or into Italo-Celtic supergroup. And, such innovations as uisce/uit < *uidwr(?) and suil/suni < *ocsulis (?), morr/miol (louse), ainm/ember/enw < *onomen seem to brand Albanian and Irish (and possibly Welsh) as a group which apparently had a single source at one time.
Also note that the Celtic languages should not be viewed in the same manner as the Germanic or Slavic group whose members are closely related to each other, but rather as a supergroup whose members are considerably distinct