The name of these warlike tribes comes from the word “gall”, that is, “strong.” It is associated with the ancient root of an old language, which remains in Sanskrit – “wala” or “walya”, which has the same meaning.
The Sarmatian tribes and then the Goths remained faithful to this form and called the Gauls “walah”. The Slavs converted this word into “wlach”. The Greeks pronounced it as “Celts“, which was borrowed from them by the Romans and transformed to “Celtae”.
Finally, it took the current form, “Galli”. In addition to this name, the Gauls had one more, “Gomer”, imprinted in the biblical genealogy as the name of one of the sons of Japheth.
As a digression, it is appropriate to note the following interesting facts. Armenians, writing this word in their chronicles, turned it into “gamer”.
It could be indirectly confirmed by the Bible, where Armenians are called a tribe, which broke away from these “gomers” or “gamirs.” In Genesis (10:3) they were called “Togarmah”, the sons of Homer.
Let’s turn to Japheth’s genealogy. I must say that it is very fragmentary – it does not mention Zoroastrian peoples or Indians. The very first of the sons of Japheth is Gomer.
According to the Bible, that tribe was the most significant descendant of the family of Japheth, both in numbers and in power. In the times of Ezekiel, it still was in Jerusalem.
Thus, for the Jews, the descendants of Japheth were the Celts united with the Armenians. (“also Gomer with all its troops, and Beth Togarmah from the far north with all its troops–the many nations with you.” Ezekiel, 38:6).
Excerpt from the book: The experience of the inequality of human races in Russian
