The Celtic languages (pronounced The origin of the various names used since classical times for the people known today as the Celts is obscure and has been controversial. In particular, aside from a first-century literary genealogy of Celtus the grandson of Bretannos by Heracles, there is no record of the term "Celt" being used in connection with the inhabitants of the /ˈkɛltɪk/, sometimes also /ˈsɛltɪk/) are descended from Proto-Celtic The Proto-Celtic language, also called Common Celtic, is the reconstructed ancestor language of all the known Celtic languages. Its lexis can be confidently reconstructed on the basis of the comparative method of historical linguistics. Proto-Celtic is an Indo-European language of the Centum group, possibly via a common Italo-Celtic stage or, or "Common Celtic", a branch of the greater Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and Southern Asia, and historically also predominant in Anatolia and Central Asia. With written attestations appearing since the Bronze Age, in the form of the Anatolian languages and Mycenaean language family A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term comes from the Tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a biological family tree or in a subsequent modification to species in a. The term "Celtic" was used to describe this language group by Edward Lhuyd Edward Lhuyd (1660 – June 30, 1709) was a Welsh naturalist, botanist, linguist, geographer and antiquary in 1707, having much earlier been used by Greek and Roman writers to describe tribes in central Gaul Gaul is a historical name used in the context of Ancient Rome in references to the region of Western Europe approximating present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. During the 1st millennium BC, they were spoken across Europe, from the Bay of Biscay The Bay of Biscay or the Cantabrian Sea is a gulf of the northeast Atlantic Ocean located south of the Celtic Sea. It lies along the western coast of France from Brest south to the Spanish border, and the northern coast of Spain west to Punta de Estaca de Bares, and is named for the Basque province of Biscay,[citation needed] in the Spanish Basque and the North Sea The North Sea is a marginal, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf. The Dover Strait and the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Sea in the north connect it to the Atlantic Ocean. It is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres (360 mi) wide, with an area of around 750,000 square kilometres (290,000 sq mi). A large part, up the Rhine The Rhine is one of the longest and most important rivers in Europe, at about 1,232 km (766 mi), with an average discharge of more than 2,000 m3/s (71,000 cu ft/s) and down the Danube The Danube is the longest river in the European Union and Europe's second longest river after the Volga to the Black Sea The Black Sea is an inland sea bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects it to the Aegean Sea region of the Mediterranean. These waters and the Upper Balkan Peninsula The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains, which run through the centre of Bulgaria into eastern Serbia. The region has a combined area of 550,000 km2 (212,000 sq mi) and a population of 55 million people.[citation needed], and into Asia Minor Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the western two-thirds of the Republic of Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, Georgia to the northeast, the Armenian Highland to the east, Mesopotamia to the southeast, the Mediterranean Sea to the south and the Aegean Sea (Galatia Ancient Galatia was an area in the highlands of central Anatolia in modern Turkey. Galatia was named for the immigrant Gauls from Thrace , who settled here and became its ruling caste in the 3rd century BC, following the Gallic invasion of the Balkans in 279 BC. It has been called the "Gallia" of the East, Roman writers calling its). Today, Celtic languages are limited to a few areas on the western fringe of Europe Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus region (Specification of borders) and the Black Sea to the southeast. Europe is bordered by the, notably Ireland Ireland (pronounced [ˈaɾlənd],; Irish: Éire, pronounced [ˈeːɾʲə] ( listen); Ulster Scots: Airlann) is the third largest island in Europe and the twentieth largest island in the world. It lies to the northwest of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland is Great Britain, separated from, the peninsula of Brittany Brittany (French: Bretagne [bʁətaɲ] ; Breton: Breizh, pronounced [brɛjs]; Gallo: Bertaèyn) is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously as a kingdom and then as a duchy, Brittany was a fief of the Kingdom of France. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain (as opposed to Great in France France (pronounced /ˈfrænts/ frantss or /ˈfrɑːnts/ frahnts; French pronunciation (help·info): [fʁɑ̃s]), officially the French Republic (French: République française, pronounced: [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a state in Western Europe with several of its overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian,, and areas of Great Britain including Wales Wales ( /ˈweɪlz/ Welsh: Cymru; pronounced [ˈkəmrɨ] (help·info)) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom, bordered by England to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. Wales has a population estimated at three million and is officially bilingual; Welsh and English have equal status, and bilingual signs are the, Scotland Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the southwest. In addition to the mainland, Scotland and Cornwall Cornwall is a ceremonial county and unitary authority of England, United Kingdom, forming the tip of the south-western peninsula of Great Britain. It is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Taken with the Isles of Scilly, Cornwall. Celtic languages are also spoken on the Isle of Man The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann (Manx: Mannin, [ˈmanɪn]), is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is represented by a Lieutenant Governor. The island is, Cape Breton Island Cape Breton Island is an island on the Atlantic coast of North America. It likely corresponds to the French word "Breton", referring to Brittany and in Patagonia Patagonia is a geographic region containing the southernmost portion of South America. Patagonia is located in Chile and Argentina; it comprises the southernmost portion of the Andes mountains to the west and south, and plateaux and low plains to the east. It excludes those portions of Antarctica claimed by both countries. East of the Andes, it. The spread to Cape Breton and Patagonia occurred in modern times. Celtic languages were spoken in Australia before federation in 1901. Some people speak Celtic languages in the other Celtic diaspora areas of the United States ^[1], Canada, Australia ^[2] and New Zealand ^[3]. In all these areas the Celtic languages are now only spoken by minorities although there are continuing efforts at revival.

Living dialects

SIL Ethnologue Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, primarily to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language lists six "living" Celtic languages, of which four have retained a substantial number of native speakers. These are Irish Irish is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language only by a small minority of the Irish population but is also used as a second language by a larger and expanding minority[citation needed]. It also plays an important and Scottish Gaelic 92,400 people aged three and over in Scotland had some Gaelic language ability in 2001 with an additional 2,000 in Nova Scotia. 1,610 speakers in the United States in 2000. 822 in Australia in 2001. 669 in New Zealand in 2006, descended from the common Hiberno-Scottish Gaelic of the Early Modern period, and Welsh Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, in England by some along the Welsh border, in the Welsh immigrant colony in the Chubut Valley in Argentine Patagonia, and the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and Breton The Breton language is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany (Breizh/Bretagne), France. Breton is a Brythonic language, descended from the Celtic British language brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages. Like the other Brythonic languages, Welsh and Cornish, it is classified as an Insular Celtic, descended from the British language British or Brythonic was an ancient P-Celtic language spoken in Britain of the Roman era.

The other two, Cornish Cornish is a Brythonic Celtic language and a recognised minority language of the United Kingdom, spoken in Cornwall. The language continued to function as a community language in parts of Cornwall until the late 18th century, and a process to revive the language was started in the early 20th century, continuing to this day and Manx Manx , also known as Manx Gaelic, is a Goidelic language spoken on the Isle of Man. The last native speaker, Ned Maddrell, died in 1974, but in recent years it has been the subject of language revival efforts, and it is now the medium of education at the Bunscoill Ghaelgagh [bʊn-skolʲ ɣɪlgax], a primary school for four- to eleven-year-olds in, were extinct or near-extinct in the 20th century, and are now "living" only as the result of language revival Language revitalization, language revival or reversing language shift is the attempt by interested parties, including individuals, cultural or community groups, governments, or political authorities, to reverse the decline of a language[citation needed]. If the decline is severe, the language may be endangered, moribund, or extinct. In these cases, efforts, with a small number of children brought up as bilingual speakers.

Taken together, there were roughly one million native speakers of Celtic languages as of the 2000s.

Demographics

Mixed languages

• Shelta, a mix of the Irish, English and Romany languages (some 86,000 speakers^{[year needed]}).
• Bungi, a Métis mix of Scottish Gaelic, Cree and other languages (near-extinct).
• Some forms of Welsh-Romani also combined Romany itself with Welsh language and English language forms (extinct).

Classifications

Proto-Celtic divided into four sub-families:

• Gaulish and its close relatives Lepontic, Noric, and Galatian. These languages were once spoken in a wide arc from France to Turkey and from Belgium to northern Italy. They are now all extinct.
• Celtiberian, anciently spoken in the Iberian peninsula,^[12] in parts of modern Aragón, Old Castile, and New Castile in Spain. Lusitanian, from Southern Portugal, may also have been a Celtic language. These are now also extinct.
• Goidelic, including Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. At one time there were Irish on the coast of southwest England and on the coast of north and south Wales.
• Brythonic, including Welsh, Breton, Cornish, Cumbric, and possibly also Pictish though this may be a sister language rather than a daughter of British (Common Brythonic).^[13] Before the arrival of Scotti on the Isle of Man in the 9th century there may have been a Brythonic language in the Isle of Man^[14].

Scholarly handling of the Celtic languages has been rather argumentative owing to lack of much primary source data. Some scholars distinguish Continental Celtic and Insular Celtic, arguing that the differences between the Goidelic and Brythonic languages arose after these split off from the Continental Celtic languages. Other scholars distinguish between P-Celtic and Q-Celtic, putting most the Gaulish and Brythonic languages in the former group and the Goidelic and Celtiberian languages in the latter. The P-Celtic languages (also called Gallo-Brittonic) are sometimes seen as a central innovating area as opposed to the more conservative peripheral Q-Celtic languages.

The Breton language is Brythonic, not Gaulish, though there may be some input from the latter. When the Anglo-Saxons moved into Great Britain, several waves of the native Britons crossed the English Channel and landed in Brittany. They brought with them their Brythonic language, which evolved into Breton – still partially intelligible by modern Welsh speakers.

In the P/Q classification scheme the first language to split off from Proto-Celtic was Gaelic. It has characteristics that some scholars see as archaic but others see as also being in the Brythonic languages (see Schmidt). With the Insular/Continental classification scheme the split of the former into Gaelic and Brythonic is seen as being late.

The distinction of Celtic into these four sub-families most likely occurred about 900 BC according to Gray and Atkinson but, because of estimation uncertainty, it could be any time between 1200 and 800 BC. However, they only considered Gaelic and Brythonic. The controversial paper by Forster and Toth included Gaulish and put the break-up much earlier at 3200 BC ± 1500 years. They support the Insular Celtic hypothesis. The early Celts were commonly associated with the archaeological Urnfield culture, the Hallstatt culture, and the La Tène culture, though the earlier assumption of association between language and culture is now considered to be less strong.

There are two main competing schemata of categorization. The older scheme, argued for by Schmidt (1988) among others, links Gaulish with Brythonic in a P-Celtic node, originally leaving just Goidelic as Q-Celtic. The difference between P and Q languages is the treatment of Proto-Celtic *kʷ, which became *p in the P-Celtic languages but *k in Goidelic. An example is the Proto-Celtic verb root *kʷrin- "to buy", which became pryn- in Welsh but cren- in Old Irish. However, a classification based on a single feature is seen as risky by its critics, particularly as the sound change occurs in other language groups (Oscan and Greek).

The other scheme, defended for example by McCone (1996), links Goidelic and Brythonic together as an Insular Celtic branch, while Gaulish and Celtiberian are referred to as Continental Celtic. According to this theory, the "P-Celtic" sound change of [kʷ] to [p] occurred independently or areally. The proponents of the Insular Celtic hypothesis point to other shared innovations among Insular Celtic languages, including inflected prepositions, VSO word order, and the lenition of intervocalic [m] to [β̃], a nasalized voiced bilabial fricative (an extremely rare sound). There is, however, no assumption that the Continental Celtic languages descend from a common "Proto-Continental Celtic" ancestor. Rather, the Insular/Continental schemata usually considers Celtiberian the first branch to split from Proto-Celtic, and the remaining group would later have split into Gaulish and Insular Celtic.

There are legitimate scholarly arguments in favour of both the Insular Celtic hypothesis and the P-Celtic/Q-Celtic hypothesis. Proponents of each schema dispute the accuracy and usefulness of the other's categories. However, since the 1970s the division into Insular and Continental Celtic has become the more widely held view (Cowgill 1975; McCone 1991, 1992; Schrijver 1995).

When referring only to the modern Celtic languages, since no Continental Celtic language has living descendants, "Q-Celtic" is equivalent to "Goidelic" and "P-Celtic" is equivalent to "Brythonic".

Within the Indo-European family, the Celtic languages have sometimes been placed with the Italic languages in a common Italo-Celtic subfamily, a hypothesis that is now largely discarded, in favour of the assumption of language contact between pre-Celtic and pre-Italic communities.

How the family tree of the Celtic languages is ordered depends on which hypothesis is used:

Characteristics of Celtic languages

Although there are many differences between the individual Celtic languages, they do show many family resemblances. While none of these characteristics is necessarily unique to the Celtic languages, there are few if any other languages which possess them all. They include:

• consonant mutations (Insular Celtic only)
• inflected prepositions (Insular Celtic only)
• two grammatical genders (modern Insular Celtic only; Old Irish and the Continental languages had three genders)
• a vigesimal number system (counting by twenties)
• verb-subject-object (VSO) word order (probably Insular Celtic only)
• an interplay between the subjunctive, future, imperfect, and habitual, to the point that some tenses and moods have ousted others
• an impersonal or autonomous verb form serving as a passive or intransitive
  • Welsh dysgaf "I teach" vs. dysgir "is taught, one teaches", Irish "déanaim" "I do/make" vs. "déantar" "is done"
• no infinitives, replaced by a quasi-nominal verb form called the verbal noun or verbnoun
• frequent use of vowel mutation as a morphological device, e.g. formation of plurals, verbal stems, etc.
• use of preverbal particles to signal either subordination or illocutionary force of the following clause
  • mutation-distinguished subordinators/relativizers
  • particles for negation, interrogation, and occasionally for affirmative declarations
• infixed pronouns positioned between particles and verbs
• lack of simple verb for the imperfective "have" process, with possession conveyed by a composite structure, usually BE + preposition
  • Cornish yma kath dhymm "I have a cat", literally "there is a cat to me"
• use of periphrastic phrases to express verbal tense, voice, or aspectual distinctions
• distinction by function of the two versions of BE verbs traditionally labelled substantive (or existential) and copula
• bifurcated demonstrative structure
• suffixed pronominal supplements, called confirming or supplementary pronouns
• use of singulars and/or special forms of counted nouns, and use of a singulative suffix to make singular forms from plurals, where older singulars have disappeared

Examples: (Irish) Ná bac le mac an bhacaigh is ní bhacfaidh mac an bhacaigh leat. (Literal translation) Don't bother with son the beggar's and not will-bother son the beggar's with-you.

• bhacaigh is the genitive of bacach. The igh the result of affection; the bh is the lenited form of b.
• leat is the second person singular inflected form of the preposition le.
• The order is verb subject object (VSO) in the second half - compare this to English or French which are normally Subject Verb Object in word order.

(Welsh) pedwar ar bymtheg a phedwar ugain (literally) four on fifteen and four twenties

• bymtheg is a mutated form of pymtheg, which is pump ("five") plus deg ("ten"). Likewise, phedwar is a mutated form of pedwar.
• The multiples of ten are deg, ugain, deg ar hugain, deugain, hanner cant, trigain, deg a thrigain, pedwar ugain, deg a phedwar ugain, cant.

Notes

1. ^ "Language by State - Scottish Gaelic" on Modern Language Association website. Retrieved 27 December 2007
2. ^ "Languages Spoken At Home" from Australian Government Office of Multicultural Interests website. Retrieved 27 December 2007
3. ^ Languages Spoken:Total Responses from Statistics New Zealand website. Retrieved 5 August 2008
4. ^ ^{a b} The French census of 2001 recorded about 270,000 speakers, with a yearly decline of about 10,000 speakers. The site oui au breton estimates a number of about 200,000 speakers as of 2008.
5. ^ BBC News: Mixed report on Gaelic language
6. ^ some 500 children brought up as bilingual native speakers (2003 estimate, SIL Ethnologue).
7. ^ s About 2,000 fluent speakers. "'South West:TeachingEnglish:British Council:BBC". BBC/British Council website (BBC). 2010. http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/uk-languages/south-west. Retrieved 2010-02-09.
8. ^ Anyone here speak Jersey?
9. ^ Fockle ny ghaa: schoolchildren take charge
10. ^ Documentation for ISO 639 identifier: glv
11. ^ 2006 Official Census, Isle of Man
12. ^ Ethnographic Map of Pre-Roman Iberia (circa 200 B.C.)
13. ^ Kenneth H. Jackson suggested that there were two Pictish languages, a pre-Indo-European one and a Pretenic Celtic one. This has been challenged by some scholars. See Katherine Forsyth's "Language in Pictland : the case against 'non-Indo-European Pictish'" EtextPDF (27.8 MiB). See also the introduction by James & Taylor to the "Index of Celtic and Other Elements in W.J.Watson's 'The History of the Celtic Place-names of Scotland'" EtextPDF (172 KiB). Compare also the treatment of Pictish in Price's The Languages of Britain (1984) with his Languages in Britain & Ireland (2000).
14. ^ Kenneth Jackson used the term "Brittonic" for the form of the British language after the changes in the 6th century.

See also

• A Swadesh list of the modern Celtic languages
• Language families and languages
• Celtic League (political organisation)
• Celtic Congress

References

• Ball, Martin J. & James Fife (ed.) (1993). The Celtic Languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415010357.
• Borsley, Robert D. & Ian Roberts (ed.) (1996). The Syntax of the Celtic Languages: A Comparative Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521481600.
• Cowgill, Warren (1975). "The origins of the Insular Celtic conjunct and absolute verbal endings". in H. Rix (ed.). Flexion und Wortbildung: Akten der V. Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft, Regensburg, 9.–14. September 1973. Wiesbaden: Reichert. pp. 40–70. ISBN 3-920153-40-5.
• Celtic Linguistics, 1700-1850 (2000). London; New York: Routledge. 8 vol.s comprising 15 texts originally published between 1706 and 1844.
• Forster, Peter and Toth, Alfred. Towards a phylogenetic chronology of ancient Gaulish, Celtic and Indo-European PNAS Vol 100/13, July 22, 2003.
• Gray, Russell and Atkinson, Quintin. Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin Nature Vol 426, 27 Nov 2003.
• Hindley, Reg (1990). The Death of the Irish Language: A Qualified Obituary. London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415043395.
• Lewis, Henry & Holger Pedersen (1989). A Concise Comparative Celtic Grammar. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 3525261020.
• McCone, Kim (1991). "The PIE stops and syllabic nasals in Celtic". Studia Celtica Japonica 4: 37–69.
• McCone, Kim (1992). "Relative Chronologie: Keltisch". in R. Beekes, A. Lubotsky, and J. Weitenberg (eds.). Rekonstruktion und relative Chronologie: Akten Der VIII. Fachtagung Der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft, Leiden, 31. August–4. September 1987. Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck. pp. 12–39. ISBN 3-85124-613-6.
• McCone, K. (1996). Towards a Relative Chronology of Ancient and Medieval Celtic Sound Change. Maynooth: Department of Old and Middle Irish, St. Patrick's College. ISBN 0-901519-40-5.
• Russell, Paul (1995). An Introduction to the Celtic Languages. London; New York: Longman. ISBN 0582100828.
• Schmidt, K. H. (1988). "On the reconstruction of Proto-Celtic". in G. W. MacLennan. Proceedings of the First North American Congress of Celtic Studies, Ottawa 1986. Ottawa: Chair of Celtic Studies. pp. 231–48. ISBN 0-09-693260-0.
• Schrijver, Peter (1995). Studies in British Celtic historical phonology. Amsterdam: Rodopi. ISBN 90-5183-820-4.

External links

• Aberdeen University Celtic Department
• Ethnologue report for Celtic languages
• "Labara: An Introduction to the Celtic Languages", by Meredith Richard
• Celts and Celtic Languages

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