john T.

Koc
John T. Koch is an American academic, historian and linguist who specializes in Celtic studies,
especially prehistory and the early Middle Ages.[1] He is the editor of the five-volume Celtic
Culture. A Historical Encyclopedia (2006, ABC Clio). He is perhaps best known as the leading
proponent of the Celtic from the West hypothesis.

Career
He is a graduate of Harvard University, where he was awarded the degrees of MA and PhD in
Celtic Languages and Literatures in 1983 and 1985, respectively. He has also pursued studies at
Jesus College, Oxford, and the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.[1] He has taught Celtic Studies at
Harvard University and Boston College.[1]
Since 1998, he has been senior research fellow or reader at the Centre for Advanced Welsh and
Celtic Studies, University of Wales, where he has supervised a research project called Celtic
Languages and Cultural Identity,[1] the output of which includes the five-volume Celtic Culture: A
Historical Encyclopedia (2006), and An Atlas for Celtic Studies (2007).
He has published widely on aspects of early Irish and Welsh language, literature and history. His
works include The Celtic Heroic Age (first published in 1994, 4th edition in 2003), in collaboration
with John Carey; The Gododdin of Aneirin (1997), an edition, translation and discussion of the early
Welsh poem Y Gododdin; and numerous articles published in books and journals. A grammar of Old
Welsh and a book on the historical Taliesin are in the works.[1]
In 2007, John Koch received a personal chair at the University of Wales.[2]
Koch supervises (as senior fellow and project leader) the Ancient Britain and the Atlantic Zone
Project (covering Ireland, Armorica, and the Iberian Peninsula) at the University of Wales Centre
for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies.[3] In 2008, Koch gave the O'Donnell Lecture at
Aberystwyth University titled People called Keltoi, the La Tène Style, and ancient Celtic
languages: the threefold Celts in the light of geography.[4][5] In 2009, Koch published a paper,[6]
later that year developed into a book, Tartessian: Celtic from the Southwest at the Dawn of History,
detailing how the Tartessian language may have been the earliest directly attested Celtic language
with the Tartessian written script used in the inscriptions based on a version of a Phoenician script
in use around 825 BC. This was followed by Tartessian 2: Preliminaries to Historical Phonology in
2011, focused on the Mesas do Castelinho inscription.

Ideas
Koch has been a leading proponent of the Celtic from the West hypothesis, the idea that the Celtic
languages originated as a branch of the Indo-European languages not in Eastern Europe, from
where they radiated westward, but rather that they arose in Iberia (modern Spain and Portugal)
among the Celtiberians and neighboring peoples as a combination of Proto-Indo-European and
native non-Indo-European Paleohispanic languages (related to Basque), with some Phoenician
influence. From there (in this scenario) they spread east to what was later Gaul (modern France,
Germany, and surrounding areas), where early forms of the Italic and Germanic languages already
would have been developing independently from Proto-Indo-European. This idea, the subject of
three edited volumes in a series by Koch and Barry Cunliffe called Celtic from the West (2012–
2016), is controversial.

Published books
• Co-editor: Celtic from the West 3: Atlantic Europe in the Metal Ages ― Questions of Shared
Language. Celtic Studies Publications series. Oxbow Books. 2016. ISBN .
• Cunedda, Cynan, Cadwallon, Cynddylan: Four Welsh Poems and Britain 383–655.
University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies. 2013. ISBN .
• Co-editor: Celtic from the West 2: Rethinking the Bronze Age and the Arrival of Indo-
European in Atlantic Europe. Celtic Studies Publications series. Oxbow Books. 2013.
ISBN  .
• Tartessian: Celtic from the Southwest at the Dawn of History. Celtic Studies Publications
series (2nd ed.). Oxbow Books. 2013 [2009]. ISBN .
• Co-editor: Celtic from the West: Alternative Perspectives from Archaeology, Genetics,
Language and Literature. Celtic Studies Publications series. Oxbow Books. 2012. ISBN .
• Co-author: The Celts: History, Life, and Culture. ABC-CLIO. 2012. ISBN  (2 vols.).
• Tartessian 2: The Inscription of Mesas do Castelinho – ro and the Verbal Complex –
Preliminaries to Historical Phonology. Celtic Studies Publications series. Oxbow Books.
2011. ISBN  .
• An Atlas for Celtic Studies: Archaeology and Names in Ancient Europe and Early Medieval
Ireland, Britain, and Brittany. Celtic Studies Publications series. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
2007. ISBN  .
• Editor Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara and Oxford: ABC-CLIO.
2006. ISBN  . E-book: ISBN 185-1094458 (4 vols.).
• Co-editor: The Celtic Heroic Age. Celtic Studies Publications series (4th ed.). Oxbow
Books. 2003 [2002]. ISBN . Additional volume: ISBN 978-1891271090 (2 vols.).
• Co-editor: The Inscriptions of Early Medieval Brittany - Les inscriptions de la Bretagne du
Haut Moyen Âge. University of Aberystwyth. 2000.
• Co-editor: Ildanach Ildirech: A Festschrift for Proinsias Mac Cana. Celtic Studies
Publications series. Oxbow Books. 1999. ISBN .
• The Gododdin of Aneirin: Text and Context from Dark-Age North Britain. Celtic Studies
Publications series. Oxbow Books. 1997. ISBN .
• Co-editor: Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium Volume II. Harvard University.
1982.

References
1.
• Koch, John T., ed. (2006). "About the editor". Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia.
Santa Barbara, Denver, and Oxford: ABC-CLIO.
• Koch, John T. (31 July 1999). "Professor John T. Koch MA, PhD, FLSW". Wales.ac.uk.
University of Wales. Archived from the original on 24 May 2018. Retrieved 30 July 2018.
Official bio.
 • "Ancient Britain and the Atlantic Zone Project". Wales.ac.uk. University of Wales. Archived
from the original on 8 July 2010. Retrieved 11 May 2010.
• "O'Donnell Lecture". Aber News. Aberystwyth University. May 2008. Archived from the
original on 25 January 2009. Retrieved 30 July 2018 – via Aber.ac.uk.
• Koch, John T. "O'Donnell Lectures 2008: Appendix A" (PDF). Aber.ac.uk. Archived (PDF)
from the original on 7 October 2010. Retrieved 30 July 2018.
6. Koch, John T. (2009). "A Case for Tartessian as a Celtic Language" (PDF). Acta
Palaeohispanica. Aberystwyth University. X (9): 339–351. ISSN 1578-5386. Archived
(PDF) from the original on 24 March 2010. Retrieved 17 May 2010.

External links
• Personal webpage, University of Wales.