celtic languages - welsh and influences in swiss german?

[Proper Gander]

the other day i got a present from some welsh visitors who visited us a few days ago. it's the welsh grand slam rugby t-shirt (of 2005 naturally. the season in which they won every match, as opposed to 2006 in which they even only got a draw against italy lol)

anyway, i noticed the welsh motto in the emblem, which is "Ich Dien"
which could even be german, it's spelled the same, and i believe it has the same meaning, "I serve"

now, is that just further proof that the influence of celtic language on the toungue is still very evident?

furthermore, as i speak the swiss dialect, i realised that there are words that are not present in german, such as:

"luege" - 'to look', in german there IS a similar word which is "lugen", but it is rarely used, more common is "schauen" (lugoae spring to mind, lol)

"gumpe" - to jump, a word that is non existent in german, in german it would mean "springen". jump is in fact far more similar to "gumpe"

those are the ones that spring to mind.
it wouldn't surprise me if the swiss german dialect has strong celtic roots, it is spoken in the same fashion as welsh, with the "ch's" for example.
i lived not far away from an old celtic ruin too not long ago. (i believe it is, since it resembles the building style of the celts and is surely a couple of thousand years old)
above all, Basel was founded by celts, and the helvetians were a celtic (well, gallic to be precise, i think at least) tribe.

is there anybody who has any further info on this topic?

it would be rather interesting, for me, at least.

[Antagonist]

IIRC, the "Ich Dien" motto is from the arms of the Prince of Wales, the title given to the heir to the English throne, which is sometimes used as a symbol for Wales. I was told that it was the motto of King John of Bohemia, who died in the battle of Crecy in the Hundred Years War, and that the Prince of Wales took his motto and arms to commemorate him after the battle, or something like that...

You raise an interesting point about the origins of Switzerland though, perhaps some EB members have insights.

Antagonist

[Baldwin of Jerusalem]

Certainly sounds feasible to me. The Celts I believe are the oldest known inhabitants of Switzerland so why not.

[KingOfTheIsles]

I think it is probably more likely that those words are Germanic in origin, but whilst they survived to their current forms in both English and the Swiss German dialect, they fell out of use in standard German. From what I've read, Celtic has has very little traceable influence on English.

[Gealai]

Hm - humpeln - is a old german word and still used (south bavarian: wos humplschn soa ummar), meaning a unregular jumping caused by an injury.
I have no doubt that it as the same origin as jump and gumpe.

The swiss have a very distinct, quite conservative branch of german.

Not that almost all modern German territory was once celtic, so your thesis of a specific swiss development seems obvious.