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Celtic languages

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:

Celtic languages

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Branch of the Indo-European language family spoken across a broad area of western and central Europe by the Celts in pre-Roman and Roman times, now confined to small coastal areas of northwestern Europe. Celtic can be divided into a continental group of languages (all extinct) and an insular group. Attestation of Insular Celtic begins around the time Continental Celtic fades from the scene as Celtic tongues gave way to Latin and other languages on the European continent. The Insular Celtic languages are conventionally divided into Goidelic (Irish, Manx, and Scottish Gaelic) and Brythonic (Welsh, Cornish, and Breton). Traditional Cornish was supplanted by English at the end of the 18th century. Manx, spoken on the Isle of Man, expired in the 20th century with the death of the last reputed native speaker in 1974. Both Manx and Cornish have been revived by enthusiasts, though neither can be considered community languages.

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Oxford Companion to Irish Literature:

Celtic languages

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Celtic languages, the westernmost branch of the Indo-European family, located in historical times in western and southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Northern Italy, Spain, France, and Belgium, and on the islands of Britain and Ireland. The languages in question are: from ancient times, Celtiberian in Spain and Gaulish in France and northern Italy; Gaelic, first attested in the 5th-century ogam inscriptions and surviving today as Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and (until recently) Manx; British, first attested in ogam inscriptions of the 5th and 6th cents., and surviving today as Welsh and Breton, the latter spreading from southern Britain to the Armorican peninsula in the 5th and 6th cents. Two northern varieties of British, Pictish and Cumbrian, died out in the early Middle Ages, while Cornish survived until the 18th cent. The Celtic languages are most closely related to the Italic group of languages and somewhat more remotely to the Germanic. The Celtic languages are frequently classified into q-Celtic and p-Celtic, according to whether they retained the Indo-European sound ‘q’ or changed it to ‘p’. The q-Celtic languages are Celtiberian and Gaelic. All the others are p-Celtic. For the past 2, 000 years the Celtic languages have been under pressure from the Germanic and Latin languages. In Britain and Ireland the languages survived to modern times but in an ever-decreasing geographical area.

Columbia Encyclopedia:

Celtic languages

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Celtic languages, subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. At one time, during the Hellenistic period, Celtic speech extended all the way from Britain and the Iberian Peninsula in the west across Europe to Asia Minor in the east, where a district still known as Galatia recalls the former presence there of Celtic-speaking Gauls. Later, however, in the course of the Roman conquest, Celtic speech tended to yield to Latin, and by the 5th cent. A.D. Celtic had virtually disappeared from continental Europe. Today the Celtic languages that have survived into the modern era are limited almost entirely to the British Isles and French Brittany, where these tongues are spoken by a total of about 2 million people. The Celtic subfamily is made up of three groups of languages: the Continental, the Brythonic (also called British), and the Goidelic (also called Gaelic).

Continental Celtic

Continental Celtic, which includes all Celtic idioms on the Continent with the exception of Breton, died out following the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the late 5th cent. A.D. The principal example of this group is the now extinct language Gaulish, for little remains of any other Continental Celtic tongues. Gaulish was once the language of Gaul proper (now modern France). Evidence of Gaulish is found both in words and in personal and proper names referred to by ancient Greek and Latin writers as well as in more than a hundred Gaulish inscriptions from France and N Italy (ranging in date from the 3d cent. B.C. to the 3d cent. A.D.). Coins and Greek and Latin inscriptions in Europe also preserve Celtic place-names and personal names. Yet the material as a whole is quite limited, furnishing only a number of proper names, a small vocabulary, and certain indications regarding the sounds and grammar of Gaulish and of Continental Celtic in general.

Brythonic

The Brythonic group includes Breton, Cornish, and Welsh. They are all descendants of British, the Celtic language of the ancient Britons of Caesar's day. The emergence of Welsh, Cornish, and Breton from British as separate languages probably took place during the 5th and 6th cent. A.D. and was a result of the Germanic invasions of Britain. Welsh and Breton have discarded the originally numerous Indo-European cases for the noun and use only one case. Both employ the Roman alphabet for writing. The accent in Welsh and Breton generally falls on the next-to-last syllable, with the exception of a single Breton dialect that has the accent on the last syllable.

Breton today is spoken by more than 500,000 people in Brittany, most of whom are bilingual, speaking also French. It is not surprising that Breton, unlike Welsh, has many loan words from French. Breton is by no means descended from ancient Gaulish, but rather from the Celtic dialects taken by Welsh and Cornish immigrants from the British Isles who were fleeing Germanic invasions and found refuge in Armorica (now French Brittany) in the 5th and 6th cent. A.D. Surviving literary documents in Breton go back only as far as the 15th cent., but the earlier stages of the language are known through glosses and proper names (see Breton literature).

Cornish, the Celtic language of Cornwall, has survived since the late 18th cent. only among bilingual speakers, but it experienced a minor revival in the 20th cent. Estimates of the number of fluent speakers range from a few hundred to a few thousand. Cornish proper names in manuscripts of the 10th cent. A.D. are the oldest recorded traces of the language. A number of Cornish place-names survive, and some Cornish words appear in the English spoken in Cornwall today. The Cornish language is written in the Roman alphabet. It is not noted for an outstanding literature (see Cornish literature).

Welsh (called Cymraeg or Cymric by its speakers) is the language today of over 600,000 people, chiefly in Wales (a western peninsula of Great Britain) but also in the United States and Canada, to which a number of Welsh people have migrated. Most speakers of Welsh in Great Britain also use English. The oldest extant Welsh texts are from the 8th cent. A.D. (see Welsh literature).

Goidelic

The third group of the Celtic subfamily is Goidelic, to which Irish (also called Irish Gaelic), Scots Gaelic, and Manx belong. The term Erse is used as a synonym for Irish and sometimes even for Scots Gaelic. All the modern Goidelic tongues are descendants of the ancient Celtic speech of Ireland. It is thought that the Celtic idiom first came to Ireland shortly before the Christian era. An official language of Ireland, Irish is spoken natively by approximately 75,000 people; roughly a third of Ireland's population can speak and understand it to some degree. Most speakers of Irish also use English (see Irish language).

Scots Gaelic is the tongue of about 60,000 persons in the Highlands of Scotland and an additional 3,000 in Canada. Most of these people also speak English. Gaelic speech began to reach Scotland in the late 5th cent. A.D., when it was brought by the Irish invaders of that country. However, a truly distinctive Scots Gaelic did not appear before the 13th cent. The chief difference between Scots Gaelic and Irish results from the substantial Norse influence on the former. There are four cases for the noun (nominative, genitive, dative, and vocative) in Scots Gaelic, which uses the Roman alphabet (see Gaelic literature).

Manx is a dialect of Scots Gaelic that was once spoken on the Isle of Man, but it has almost entirely died out there. First recorded in writing in the early 17th cent., Manx does not have an important literature. It is written in the Roman alphabet and shows a strong Norse influence.

Pronunciation and Grammar

The rules of pronunciation for all the Celtic languages are extremely complicated. For example, the final sound of a word frequently brings about a phonetically changed initial consonant of the next word, as in Irish fuil, "blood," but ar bhfuil, "our blood." Another example is Welsh pen, "head," but fy mhen, "my head." In order to look up a word in the dictionary, one has to be familiar with these rules of phonetic change, or mutation. There are only two genders in the Celtic languages, masculine and feminine. Words of Celtic origin that have been absorbed by English include bard, blarney, colleen, crock, dolmen, druid, glen, slogan, and whiskey. An interesting feature of Celtic languages is that in several characteristics they resemble some non-Indo-European languages. These characteristics include the absence of a present participle and the use instead of a verbal noun (found also in Egyptian and Berber), the frequent expression of agency by means of an impersonal passive construction instead of by a verbal subject in the nominative case (as in Egyptian, Berber, Basque, and some Caucasian and Eskimo languages), and the positioning of the verb at the beginning of a sentence (typical of Egyptian and Berber).

See Indo-European.

Bibliography

See H. Lewis and H. Pedersen, A Concise Comparative Celtic Grammar (1937); K. H. Jackson, Language and History in Early Britain (1953); V. E. Durkacz, The Decline of the Celtic Languages (1983); C. W. J. Withers, Gaelic in Scotland, 1698-1981 (1984).

Wikipedia on Answers.com:

Celtic languages

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Celtic
Geographic
distribution:		 Formerly widespread in Europe; today British Isles, Brittany, Patagonia and Nova Scotia
Linguistic classification: Indo-European
  • Celtic
Proto-language: Proto-Celtic
Subdivisions:
ISO 639-2 and 639-5: cel

Indo-European topics
Indo-European languages (list)
Albanian · Armenian · Baltic
Celtic · Germanic · Greek
Indo-Iranian (Indo-Aryan, Iranian)
Italic · Slavic  

extinct: Anatolian · Paleo-Balkan (Dacian,
Phrygian, Thracian) · Tocharian
Proto-Indo-European language
Vocabulary · Phonology · Sound laws · Ablaut · Root · Noun · Verb
 
Indo-European language-speaking peoples
Europe: Balts · Slavs · Albanians · Italics · Celts · Germanic peoples · Greeks · Paleo-Balkans (Illyrians · Thracians · Dacians) ·

Asia: Anatolians (Hittites, Luwians)  · Armenians  · Indo-Iranians (Iranians · Indo-Aryans)  · Tocharians  
Proto-Indo-Europeans
Homeland · Society · Religion
 
Indo-European archaeology
Abashevo culture · Afanasevo culture · Andronovo culture · Baden culture · Beaker culture · Catacomb culture · Cernavodă culture · Chasséen culture · Chernoles culture · Corded Ware culture · Cucuteni-Trypillian culture · Dnieper-Donets culture · Gumelniţa-Karanovo culture · Gushi culture · Karasuk culture · Kemi Oba culture · Khvalynsk culture · Kura-Araxes culture · Lusatian culture · Kurgan · Koban · Kura-Araxes  · Shulaveri-Shomu · Colchian · Trialeti  · Maykop culture · Leyla-Tepe culture · Jar-Burial · Khojaly-Gadabay  · Middle Dnieper culture  · Narva culture · Novotitorovka culture · Poltavka culture · Potapovka culture · Samara culture  · Seroglazovo culture  · Sredny Stog culture · Srubna culture · Terramare culture · Usatovo culture · Vučedol culture  · Yamna culture
 
Indo-European studies

The Celtic or Keltic languages (usually pronounced /ˈkɛltɪk/ but sometimes /ˈsɛltɪk/[1]) are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward Lhuyd in 1707.[2]

Celtic languages are most commonly spoken on the north-western edge of Europe, notably in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall, and the Isle of Man, and can be found spoken on Cape Breton Island and in Patagonia. Some people speak Celtic languages in the other Celtic diaspora areas of the United States,[3] Canada, Australia,[4] and New Zealand.[5] In all these areas, the Celtic languages are now only spoken by minorities though there are continuing efforts at revitalization.

During the 1st millennium BC, they were spoken across Europe, in the Iberian Peninsula, from the Alantic and North Sea coastlines, up the Rhine valley and down the Danube valley to the Black Sea, the Upper Balkan Peninsula, and in Galatia in Asia Minor. The spread to Cape Breton and Patagonia occurred in modern times. Celtic languages were spoken in Australia before federation in 1901.

Contents

Living languages

SIL Ethnologue lists six "living" Celtic languages, of which four have retained a substantial number of native speakers. These are Welsh and Breton, descended from the British language, and Irish and Scottish Gaelic, descended from Old Irish.

The other two, Cornish and Manx, were spoken into modern times but later died as spoken community languages.[6][7][8] For both these languages, however, revitalization movements have led to the adoption of these languages by adults and children and produced some native speakers.[9][10]

Taken together, there were roughly one million native speakers of Celtic languages as of the 2000s.[11] In 2010, there were more than 1.4 million speakers of Celtic languages. [12]

Demographics

Language Native name Grouping Native speakers Total speakers Main area where the language is spoken Language body
Welsh Cymraeg Brythonic 450,000+ 750,000+:
— Wales: 611,000[13]
— England: 150,000[14]
— Chubut Province, Argentina: 5,000[15]		 Wales;
Chubut		 Bwrdd yr Iaith Gymraeg (though not in Chubut)
Irish Gaeilge Goidelic Estimates of fully native speakers range from 40,000 to 80,000 people.[16][17][18][19] In the republic, just over 72,000 people use Irish as a daily language outside the education system.[20] Ireland (sovereign state) 538,283, United Kingdom 95,000, USA 18,000. (Irish census figures indicate 1,738,384 with some knowledge [21][22] but a significant percentage of these know only a little Irish.)[23] Ireland Foras na Gaeilge
Breton Brezhoneg Brythonic  ? 200,000 [24] Brittany Ofis ar Brezhoneg
Scottish Gaelic Gàidhlig Goidelic 58,552 as of 2001 [25] as well as an estimated 400–1000 native speakers on Cape Breton Island[26][27] 92,400 [28] Scotland Bòrd na Gàidhlig
Cornish Kernowek Brythonic 600 [29] 3,000 [30] Cornwall Keskowethyans an Taves Kernewek
Manx Gaelg Goidelic 100,[9][31] including a small number of children who are new native speakers[32] 1,700 [33] Isle of Man Coonceil ny Gaelgey

Mixed languages

Classifications

Classification of Indo-European languages. (click to enlarge)

Proto-Celtic divided into four sub-families:

  • Gaulish and its close relatives Lepontic, Noric, and Galatian. Lepontic, the oldest attested Celtic language (from the 6th century BC), is treated as a primary branch by some researchers, including Schumacher, perhaps even the first language to diverge from Proto-Celtic.[36] These languages were once spoken in a wide arc from France to Turkey and from Belgium to northern Italy. They are now all extinct[citation needed].
  • Hispano-Celtic; also extinct:[37][38]
    • Celtiberian, anciently spoken in the Iberian peninsula,[39] in parts of modern Aragón, Old Castile, and New Castile in Spain.
    • Gallaecian, anciently spoken in north-western Iberia (north-west Spain and northern Portugal). Modern Galician (a Romance language) retains a number of roots from the former Celtic language of the region. [40][41]
    • Possibly Lusitanian, from central interior Portugal and western Spain; while its precise classification is unclear, the Indo-European affinity of Lusitanian is not in doubt.
    • Possibly Tartessian, written in a script dated to c. 825 BC, from south-western Iberia (southern Portugal and south-west Spain).[42][43] The mainstream view, however, treats Tartessian as unclassified, with no obvious external relationship.[44]
  • Goidelic, including the living languages Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx.
  • Brythonic, including the living languages Welsh, Breton and Cornish and the extinct languages Cumbric and Pictish though possibly Pictish may be a sister language rather than a daughter of British (Common Brythonic).[45] 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.[46]

Scholarly handling of the Celtic languages has been rather argumentative owing to lack of much primary source data. Some scholars (such as Cowgill 1975; McCone 1991, 1992; and Schrijver 1995) 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 (such as Schmidt 1988) distinguish between P-Celtic and Q-Celtic, putting most of 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 (for example by Koch 1992) 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.[47] 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 and Cornish speakers.

In the P/Q classification schema, 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). In the Insular/Continental classification schema, 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[48][49] 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[50] 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[by whom?] to be less strong[citation needed].

The Celtic nations where most Celtic speakers are now concentrated

There are two main competing schemata of categorization. The older schema, 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 (especially the Osco-Umbrian and Greek).

The other schema, 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 nasalised voiced bilabial fricative (an extremely rare sound[citation needed]). There is, however, no assumption that the Continental Celtic languages descend from a common "Proto-Continental Celtic" ancestor. Rather, in the Insular/Continental schema, Celtiberian is usually considered to be 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), but in the middle of the 1980s, the P-Celtic/Q-Celtic hypothesis found new supporters (Lambert 1994), because of the inscription on the Larzac piece of lead (1983), the analysis of which reveals another common phonetical innovation -nm- > -nu (Gaelic ainm / Gaulish anuana, Old Welsh enuein "names"), that is less accidental than only one. The discovery of a third common innovation, would allow the specialists to come to the conclusion of a Gallo-Brythonic dialect (Schmidt 1986; Fleuriot 1986).

It must be noted that the interpretation of this and further evidence is still quite contested, and the main argument in favour of Insular Celtic is connected with the development of the verbal morphology and the syntax in Irish and British Celtic, which Schumacher regards as convincing, while he considers the P-Celtic/Q-Celtic division unimportant and treats Gallo-Brittonic as an outdated hypothesis.[36]

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:

Insular/Continental hypothesis

P-Celtic/Q-Celtic hypothesis

Characteristics of Celtic languages

 This article may be too technical for most readers to understand. Please help improve this article to make it understandable to non-experts, without removing the technical details. The talk page may contain suggestions. (March 2008)

Although there are many differences between the individual Celtic languages, they do show many family resemblances. While none of these characteristics are 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)
    • e.g. Cornish whetek ha dew ugens "fifty-six" (literally "sixteen and two twenty")
  • 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/relativisers
    • 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 (and possibly Continental Celtic) 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.

Comparison table

Welsh Cornish Breton Irish Scottish Gaelic Manx English
gwenynen gwenenen gwenanenn beach seillean, beach shellan bee
cadair kador kador cathaoir cathair caair chair
caws keus keuz cáis càis(e) caashey cheese
tu fas, tu allan yn-mes er-maez amuigh a-muigh mooie outside
cwympo kodha kouezhañ tit(im) tuit(eam) tuitt(ym) (to) fall
gafr gaver gavr gabhar gobhar goayr goat
tŷ chi ti teach, tigh taigh thie house
gwefus gweus gweuz liopa bile, lip meill lip (anatomical)
aber aber aber inbhear inbhir inver mouth of a river, estuary
rhif, nifer niver niver uimhir àireamh earroo number
gellygen, peren peren perenn piorra peur/piar peear pear
ysgol skol skol scoil sgoil scoill school
ysmygu megi mogediñ tobac a chaitheamh smocadh toghtaney/smookal (to) smoke
seren steren steredenn réalta reul rollage star
heddiw hedhyw hiziv inniu an-diugh jiu today
chwibanu hwibana c'hwibanat feadaíl fead fed (to) whistle
chwarel mengleudh mengleuz cairéal coireall, cuaraidh quarral quarry
llawn leun leun lán làn lane full
arian arhans arc'hant airgead airgead argid silver
arian mona, arhans moneiz airgead airgead argid money

Examples

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

  • Scottish Gaelic: Tha gach uile dhuine air a bhreth saor agus co-ionnan ann an urram 's ann an còirichean. Tha iad air am breth le reusan is le cogais agus mar sin bu chòir dhaibh a bhith beò nam measg fhein ann an spiorad bràthaireil.
  • Irish: Saolaítear na daoine uile saor agus comhionann ina ndínit agus ina gcearta. Tá bua an réasúin agus an choinsiasa acu agus dlíd iad féin d'iompar de mheon bráithreachais i leith a chéile.
  • Manx: Ta dagh ooilley pheiagh ruggit seyr as corrym ayns ard-cheim as kiartyn. Ren Jee feoiltaghey resoon as cooinsheanse orroo as by chair daue ymmyrkey ry cheilley myr braaraghyn.
  • Welsh: Genir pawb yn rhydd ac yn gydradd â'i gilydd mewn urddas a hawliau. Fe'u cynysgaeddir â rheswm a chydwybod, a dylai pawb ymddwyn y naill at y llall mewn ysbryd cymodlon.
  • Cornish: Pub den oll yw genys frank ha kehaval yn dynita ha gwiryow. Yth yns i enduys gans reson ha cowses hag y tal dhedhans gwul dhe udn orth y gila yn spyrys a vredereth.
  • Breton: Dieub ha par en o dellezegezh hag o gwirioù eo ganet an holl dud. Poell ha skiant zo dezho ha dleout a reont bevañ an eil gant egile en ur spered a genvreudeuriezh.

Notes

  1. ^ "American Heritage Dictionary. Celtic: kel-tik, sel". Dictionary.reference.com. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/celtic. Retrieved 2011-08-19. 
  2. ^ Cunliffe, Barry W. 2003. The Celts: a very short introduction. P.48
  3. ^ "Language by State – Scottish Gaelic" on Modern Language Association website. Retrieved 27 December 2007
  4. ^ "Languages Spoken At Home" from Australian Government Office of Multicultural Interests website. Retrieved 27 December 2007
  5. ^ Languages Spoken:Total Responses from Statistics New Zealand website. Retrieved 5 August 2008
  6. ^ Koch, John T. (2006). Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. pp. 34, 365–366, 529, 973, 1053. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=f899xH_quaMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Celtic+Culture:+A+Historical+Encyclopedia#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 15 June 2010. 
  7. ^ "A brief history of the Cornish language". Maga Kernow. http://www.magakernow.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=38590#Revival. 
  8. ^ Beresford Ellis, Peter (1990, 1998, 2005). The Story of the Cornish Language. Tor Mark Press. pp. 20–22. ISBN 0-85025-371-3. 
  9. ^ a b Published on Thu 20 15 Mar:54:30 GMT 2008. "Fockle ny ghaa: schoolchildren take charge". Iomtoday.co.im. http://www.iomtoday.co.im/manx-language/Fockle-ny-ghaa-schoolchildren-take.3901786.jp. Retrieved 2011-08-19. 
  10. ^ "'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. 
  11. ^ "Celtic Languages". Ethnologue. http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=1164-16. Retrieved 9 March 2010. 
  12. ^ Crystal, David (2010). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521736503. 
  13. ^ "2004 Welsh Language Use Survey: the report – Welsh Language Board". http://www.byig-wlb.org.uk/english/publications/publications/332.doc. Retrieved 2010-05-23. 
  14. ^ United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. "Refworld | World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples – United Kingdom : Welsh". UNHCR. http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/topic,463af2212,488f25df2,49749c8cc,0.html. Retrieved 2010-05-23. 
  15. ^ "h2g2 – Y Wladfa – The Welsh in Patagonia". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1163503. Retrieved 2010-05-23. 
  16. ^ "| Irish Examiner". Archives.tcm.ie. 2004-11-24. http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2004/11/24/story517225942.asp. Retrieved 2011-08-19. 
  17. ^ Christina Bratt Paulston. Linguistic Minorities in Multilingual Settings: Implications for Language Policies. J. Benjamins Pub. Co. p. 81. ISBN 1556193475. 
  18. ^ Pierce, David (2000). Irish Writing in the Twentieth Century. Cork University Press. p. 1140. ISBN 1859182089. 
  19. ^ Ó hÉallaithe, Donncha (1999). Cuisle. 
  20. ^ http://www.cso.ie/census/census2006results/volume_9/volume_9_press_release.pdf
  21. ^ "Beyond 20/20 WDS – Table View". Beyond2020.cso.ie. 2007-07-16. http://beyond2020.cso.ie/Census/TableViewer/tableView.aspx?ReportId=75607. Retrieved 2011-08-19. 
  22. ^ NISRA (2005-04-14). "language". Nisranew.nisra.gov.uk. http://www.nisranew.nisra.gov.uk/census/Census2001Output/UnivariateTables/uv_tables1.html#irish. Retrieved 2011-08-19. 
  23. ^ Colin H. Williams (1991). Linguistic minorities, society, and territory:. p. 21. 
  24. ^ 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.
  25. ^ "UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, 2010". Unesco.org. http://www.unesco.org/culture/languages-atlas/en/atlasmap/language-id-411.html. Retrieved 2011-08-19. 
  26. ^ "CHIN/RCIP – Festivities". Virtualmuseum.ca. 1999-04-19. http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/Exhibitions/Festiva1/en/uccb/cont2/index.html. Retrieved 2011-08-19. 
  27. ^ "de beste bron van informatie over highlandclearances. Deze website is te koop!". highlandclearances.info. http://www.highlandclearances.info/clearances/postclearances_influenceabroad_canada.htm. Retrieved 2011-08-19. 
  28. ^ "Mixed report on Gaelic language". BBC News. 2005-10-10. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/scotland/4326424.stm. Retrieved 2011-08-19. 
  29. ^ some 600 children brought up as bilingual native speakers (2003 estimate, SIL Ethnologue).
  30. ^ 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. 
  31. ^ "Anyone here speak Jersey?". Independent.co.uk. 2002-04-11. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/anyone-here-speak-jersey-657175.html. Retrieved 2011-08-19. 
  32. ^ "Documentation for ISO 639 identifier: glv". Sil.org. 2008-01-14. http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=glv. Retrieved 2011-08-19. 
  33. ^ "2006 Official Census, Isle of Man". Gov.im. 2006-04-23. http://www.gov.im/treasury/economic/census/2006/. Retrieved 2011-08-19. 
  34. ^ "Shelta". Ethnologue. http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=sth. Retrieved 9 March 2010. 
  35. ^ "ROMLEX: Romani dialects". Romani.uni-graz.at. http://romani.uni-graz.at/romlex/dialects.xml. Retrieved 2011-08-19. 
  36. ^ a b Schumacher, Stefan; Schulze-Thulin, Britta; aan de Wiel, Caroline (2004) (in German). Die keltischen Primärverben. Ein vergleichendes, etymologisches und morphologisches Lexikon. Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachen und Kulturen der Universität Innsbruck. pp. 84–87. ISBN 3-85124-692-6. 
  37. ^ Cólera, Carlos Jordán (16 March 2007). "The Celts in the Iberian Peninsula:Celtiberian". e-Keltoi 6: 749–750. http://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_17/jordan_6_17.pdf. Retrieved 16 June 2010. 
  38. ^ Koch, John T. (2006). Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 481. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=f899xH_quaMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Celtic+Culture:+A+Historical+Encyclopedia#v=snippet&q=hispano-celtic&f=false. 
  39. ^ "Ethnographic Map of Pre-Roman Iberia (circa 200 B.C.)". Arkeotavira.com. http://www.arkeotavira.com/Mapas/Iberia/Populi.htm. Retrieved 2011-08-19. 
  40. ^ Prósper, B. M. (2002). Lenguas y religiones prerromanas del occidente de la península ibérica. Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca. pp. 422–427. ISBN 84-7800-818-7. 
  41. ^ Villar F., B. M. Prósper. (2005). Váscos, Celtas e Indoeuropeos: genes y lenguas. Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca. pp. 333–350. ISBN 84-7800-530-7.
  42. ^ a b c Koch, John T (2010). Celtic from the West Chapter 9: Paradigm Shift? Interpreting Tartessian as Celtic. Oxbow Books, Oxford, UK. pp. 187–295. ISBN 978-1-84217-410-4. 
  43. ^ a b c Koch, John T (2011). Tartessian 2: The Inscription of Mesas do Castelinho ro and the Verbal Complex. Preliminaries to Historical Phonology. Oxbow Books, Oxford, UK. pp. 1–198. ISBN 978-1-907029-07-3. http://www.oxbowbooks.com/bookinfo.cfm/ID/91450//Location/Oxbow. 
  44. ^ Broderick, George (2010). "Die vorrömischen Sprachen auf der iberischen Halbinsel". In Hinrichs, Uwe (in German). Das Handbuch der Eurolinguistik (1st ed.). Wiesbaden, Germany: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 304–305. ISBN 3447059281. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=3VDH7oKtViYC&pg=PA305&lpg=PA305&dq=LOGORO+Tartessische+Inschriften+Die+vorr%C3%B6mischen+Sprachen+auf+der+iberischen#v=onepage&q&f=false. 
  45. ^ Kenneth H. Jackson suggested that there were two Pictish languages, a pre-Indo-European one and a Pritenic 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 MB). 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 KB). Compare also the treatment of Pictish in Price's The Languages of Britain (1984) with his Languages in Britain & Ireland (2000).
  46. ^ Kenneth Jackson used the term "Brittonic" for the form of the British language after the changes in the 6th century.
  47. ^ Barbour and Carmichael, Stephen and Cathie (2000). Language and nationalism in Europe. Oxford University Press. p. 56. ISBN 9780198236719. http://books.google.com/?id=1ixmu8Iga7gC&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=Breton+Gaulish+words&q=Breton%20Gaulish%20words. 
  48. ^ Gray and Atkinson, RD; Atkinson, QD (2003). "Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin". Nature 426 (6965): 435–439. Bibcode 2003Natur.426..435G. doi:10.1038/nature02029. PMID 14647380. 
  49. ^ Rexova, K.; Frynta, D and Zrzavy, J. (2003). "Cladistic analysis of languages: Indo-European classification based on lexicostatistical data". Cladistics 19 (2): 120–127. doi:10.1111/j.1096-0031.2003.tb00299.x. 
  50. ^ Forster, Peter; Toth, Alfred (2003). Toward a phylogenetic chronology of ancient Gaulish, Celtic, and Indo-European. The National Academy of Sciences. 

See also

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. 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 vols comprising 15 texts originally published between 1706 and 1844.
  • Forster, Peter; Toth, Alfred (July 2003). "Toward a phylogenetic chronology of ancient Gaulish, Celtic, and Indo-European". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 100 (15): 9079–84. doi:10.1073/pnas.1331158100. PMC 166441. PMID 12837934. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/pmidlookup?view=long&pmid=12837934. 
  • Gray, Russell D.; Atkinson, Quintin D. (November 2003). "Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin". Nature 426 (6965): 435–9. Bibcode 2003Natur.426..435G. doi:10.1038/nature02029. PMID 14647380. 
  • Hindley, Reg (1990). The Death of the Irish Language: A Qualified Obituary. 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. 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. 
  • Schumacher, Stefan; Schulze-Thulin, Britta; aan de Wiel, Caroline (2004) (in German). Die keltischen Primärverben. Ein vergleichendes, etymologisches und morphologisches Lexikon. Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachen und Kulturen der Universität Innsbruck. ISBN 3-85124-692-6. 

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