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Celtic Languages

Celtic languages
Region Ireland , Scotland , Wales , Cornwall , Brittany , historically, much of Central Europe and Western
Classification by family
Language codes
ISO 639-2 cel
ISO 639-5 cel
IETF cel
change Consult the documentation of the model
Map of the Celtic languages today
Map of Celtic expansion from the Iron Age and Antiquity
In red: the modern Celtic countries. In other words, regions which retain traces of medieval and modern Celtic language, but not necessarily a Celtic language alive.

The Celtic languages are a group of Indo-European languages split into two branches (mainland and island).

Among the Celtic languages spoken today, and after recognition in July 2002 the Cornish as a minority language by the authorities of the United Kingdom , the Breton language , spoken in France with 300 000 people, remains the only Celtic language still spoken to do have no official status in the cultural area.

Summary

Continental Celtic

The languages of this group were spoken on the European continent. All are now extinct or assimilated. The group included:

Insular Celtic

Main article: Celtic languages island.

The languages of this group are all from Great Britain and Ireland. There are two subgroups:

Group Gaelic (or Goidelic)

These three languages are derived from Old Irish , a major literary idiom, spoken between the eighth century and the tenth century ).

It was mentioned sometimes Shelta (the language of nomadic Irish) ( Irish Travellers ) as a Celtic language, but this connection is improper: indeed, it is true that the vocabulary of this language has a strong background from the Irish The grammar of this language is based on English; this makes for rather a Germanic language with strong Gaelic lexical intake.

Group Brythonic

The Brythonic languages (the term coined in the nineteenth century) are derived from the Breton language spoken in ancient the island of Britain by Britons , even before the Roman conquest until the Saxon invasion , and its fragmentation into several dialects, then languages, a little on the model of Latin and Romance languages.

Brythonic languages are generally reduced to three:

  • the Welsh national language of Wales , in the early Middle Ages as they spoke Old Welsh forms elsewhere in the British Isles
  • the Cornish language , spoken as Community Cornwall until the late eighteenth century (this language was considered extinct, but it is experiencing a revival these days);
  • the Breton , the language of Britain , a close cousin of Cornish - so it is classified as Insular Celtic language. Although a historical influence of the Gallic on the Breton is possible, we can not really prove it.

But do not forget:

Other cases are cited by experts:

  • based on an assumption of TF O'Rahilly , the Ivern in Leinster in Ireland, spoke in ancient times;
  • the Gallic now sometimes classified within a supra-Gallo-Brythonic group ( Fleuriot Leon , Pierre-Yves Lambert );
  • the Pictish , if indeed there was only one language Pictish, is also considered by some researchers (others see it as a pre-Celtic language is not Indo-European) as a Brythonic language, but the question is still very controversial. However it is much more likely that it indeed a Brythonic Celtic language. The Welsh also called the Pictish Brithwr.

Taxonomy of Celtic languages

The diagram above is only a possibility Taxonomy. The division of modern Celtic languages into two categories, Gaelic and Brythonic, is certain. But a number Celtics defends a hypothesis that the Brythonic and Gaulish constitute a separate group (P-Celtic languages), leaving the Celtiberian Gaelic and Celtic in a group-Q. This classification is based primarily on the treatment of * k w inherited from the Indo-European : Celtic-P in this phoneme becomes / p /, while in Q-Celtic remains / k w /. Illustrates this difference by the words for "head": penn in Breton, Irish Ceann (note where c / k /).

Opponents of the hypothesis that insular Celtic meet the changing k w / w / is rather superficial and would not prevent in any case the understanding. They consider the deeper features of insular Celtic: prepositions flexed , the consonant changes to syntax or the VSO (see below). An important substrate Afro-Asiatic (Iberian, Berber) has also been proposed by John Morris-Jones to explain the peculiar evolution of insular Celtic, which was supported by several other linguists known (Julius Pokorny, Heinrich Wagner, Orin Gensler ). Shisha-Halevy and Theo Vennemann continued with other work on this.

It was once ranked the Celtic languages with the Italic languages in a family known as Italo-Celtic for various reasons of proximity (using endings pronominal inflections in the nominal theme , for example). However, the taxonomy is now disputed Features of modern Celtic languages

Although there is considerable diversity within the Celtic languages, there are various common traits that distinguish them from neighboring languages:

For example:

  • N mac tray the year bhacaigh IS n bhacfaidh mac bhacaigh leat year (this sentence in Irish is also a tongue twister ).
  • Word for word with no bother son the beggar and not bother son the beggar with yourself.
  • Translation: "Do not bother son the beggar's son and the beggar does not take it with you. "

Notes:


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