John Thomas Koch^[1]FLSW (born 1953) is an American academic, historian, and linguist who specializes inCeltic studies, especially prehistory, and the early Middle Ages.^[2] He is the editor of the five-volumeCeltic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia (2006, ABC Clio). He is perhaps best known as the leading proponent of theCeltic from the West hypothesis.

He is a graduate ofHarvard University, where he was awarded the degrees ofMA andPhD in Celtic Languages and Literatures in 1983 and 1985, respectively. He has also pursued studies atJesus College, Oxford, and theUniversity of Wales, Aberystwyth.^[2] He has taught Celtic Studies at Harvard University andBoston College.^[2]

Since 1998, he has been senior research fellow orreader at theCentre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, University of Wales, where he has supervised a research project called Celtic Languages and Cultural Identity,^[2] the output of which includes the five-volumeCeltic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia (2006), andAn Atlas for Celtic Studies (2007).

He has published widely on aspects of early Irish andWelsh language, literature and history. His works includeThe Celtic Heroic Age (first published in 1994, 4th edition in 2003), in collaboration withJohn Carey;The Gododdin of Aneirin (1997), an edition, translation and discussion of the early Welsh poemY Gododdin; and numerous articles published in books and journals. A grammar ofOld Welsh and a book on the historicalTaliesin are in the works.^[2]

In 2007, John Koch received a personal chair at theUniversity of Wales.^[3]

In 2011, Koch was elected aFellow of the Learned Society of Wales.^[4]

Koch supervises (as senior fellow and project leader) the Ancient Britain and the Atlantic Zone Project (coveringIreland,Armorica, and theIberian Peninsula) at theUniversity of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies.^[5] In 2008, Koch gave the O'Donnell Lecture at Aberystwyth University titledPeople called Keltoi, theLa Tène Style, and ancient Celtic languages: the threefold Celts in the light of geography.^[6][7] In 2009, Koch published a paper,^[8] later that year developed into a book,Tartessian: Celtic from the Southwest at the Dawn of History, detailing how theTartessian language may have been the earliest directly attested Celtic language with the Tartessian written script used in the inscriptions based on a version of aPhoenician script in use around 825 BC. This was followed byTartessian 2: Preliminaries to Historical Phonology in 2011, focused on the Mesas do Castelinho inscription.

Koch has been a leading proponent of theCeltic from the West hypothesis, the idea that theCeltic languages originated as a branch of theIndo-European languages not in the upperDanube valley, from where they radiated westward, but rather that they arose in a part ofAtlantic Europe, includingSouthwestern Europe (WesternFrance and Northern and WesternIberian Peninsula), as a combination of a language descendant fromProto-Indo-European and nativePre-Indo-European languages (related toAquitanian, ancestor ofProto-Basque language,Iberian, and other unattested languages).

From there (in this scenario) they spread east to SouthCentral Europe, including thePannonian Basin, where early forms of theProto-Italic already would have been developing independently fromProto-Indo-European.^[9] This language or languages also influenced earlyPre-Proto-Germanic, the direct ancestor ofProto-Germanic, but not yet a fully Germanic proto-language, (possibly located in the southern coast of theBaltic Sea or other place of NorthCentral Europe) and contributed to its rifting from theBalto-Slavic/Indo-Iraniandialect continuum (in the westernCorded Ware Culture area).^[10]

This idea, the subject of threeedited volumes in a series by Koch andBarry Cunliffe calledCeltic from the West (2012–2016), is controversial.

• 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 978-1-78570-227-3.
• Cunedda, Cynan, Cadwallon, Cynddylan: Four Welsh Poems and Britain 383–655.University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies. 2013.ISBN 978-1-907029-13-4.
• 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 978-1-84217-529-3.
• Tartessian: Celtic from the Southwest at the Dawn of History. Celtic Studies Publications series (2nd ed.). Oxbow Books. 2013 [2009].ISBN 978-1-891271-17-5.
• Co-editor:Celtic from the West: Alternative Perspectives from Archaeology, Genetics, Language and Literature. Celtic Studies Publications series. Oxbow Books. 2012.ISBN 978-1-84217-475-3.
• Co-author:The Celts: History, Life, and Culture. ABC-CLIO. 2012.ISBN 978-1-59884-964-6 (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 978-1-907029-07-3.
• 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 978-1-84217-309-1.
• EditorCeltic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara and Oxford:ABC-CLIO. 2006.ISBN 1-85109-440-7. E-book:ISBN 185-1094458 (4 vols.).
• Co-editor:The Celtic Heroic Age. Celtic Studies Publications series (4th ed.). Oxbow Books. 2003 [2002].ISBN 978-1-891271-04-5. 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 978-1-891271-01-4.
• The Gododdin of Aneirin: Text and Context from Dark-Age North Britain. Celtic Studies Publications series. Oxbow Books. 1997.ISBN 978-0-7083-1374-9.
• Co-editor:Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium Volume II.Harvard University. 1982.

• Personal webpageArchived 2018-05-24 at theWayback Machine, University of Wales.

• Harvard University alumni
• Celtic studies scholars
• Living people
• Alumni of the University of Wales
• Alumni of Jesus College, Oxford
• Boston College faculty
• Harvard University faculty
• Fellows of the Learned Society of Wales
• 1953 births

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• Year of birth missing (living people)