Celtic languages

The Celtic languages (usually pronounced /kltk/ but 1.1 Demographics

sometimes /sltk/)[2] are descended from Proto-Celtic,
or Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo- 1.2 Mixed languages
European language family.[3] The term Celtic was rst
used to describe this language group by Edward Lhuyd Shelta, based largely on Irish with inuence from
in 1707,[4] following Paul-Yves Pezron who had already an undocumented source (some 86,000 speakers in
made the explicit link between the Celts described by 2009).[43]
[5]
classical writers and the Welsh and Breton languages.
Some forms of Welsh-Romani or Kle also com-
Modern Celtic languages are mostly spoken on the north- bined Romany itself with Welsh language and
western edge of Europe, notably in Ireland, Scotland, English language forms (extinct).[44]
Wales, Brittany, Cornwall, and the Isle of Man, and can
be found spoken on Cape Breton Island. There is also Beurla-reagaird, Highland travellers language
a substantial number of Welsh speakers in the Patagonia
area of Argentina. Some people speak Celtic languages
in the other Celtic diaspora areas of the United States,[6] 2 Classication
Canada, Australia,[7] and New Zealand.[8] In all these ar-
eas, the Celtic languages are now only spoken by minori-
ties though there are continuing eorts at revitalisation.
INDO-EUROPEAN

ANATOLIAN

Luwian Hittite Carian

Welsh is the only Celtic language not classied as en- Lycian

Lydian
Palaic
Pisidian

dangered by UNESCO. DORIAN

HELLENIC

Mycenaean AEOLIC
INDO-IRANIAN

INDO-ARYAN
Doric Attic ACHAEAN Aegean
Northwest Greek Ionic Beotian Vedic Sanskrit

During the 1st millennium BC, they were spoken across Tsakonian
Classical Greek
Koine Greek

Greek
Epic Greek
Arcado
Cypriot
Thessalian
Sanskrit

Maharashtri Gandhari
Prakrit

Shauraseni Magadhi

much of Europe, in the Iberian Peninsula, from the At-

Niya
ITALIC INSULAR INDIC Konkani Paisaci Oriya Assamese BIHARI
CELTIC Pali Bengali
LATINO-FALISCAN SABELLIC Dhivehi Marathi Halbi Chittagonian Bhojpuri

lantic and North Sea coastlines, up to the Rhine valley and

CONTINENTAL Sinhalese CENTRAL INDIC Magahi
Faliscan Oscan Vedda Maithili
Latin Umbrian Celtiberian WESTERN INDIC HINDUSTANI PAHARI
INSULAR Galatian
Classical Latin Aequian Gaulish NORTH Bhil DARDIC Hindi Urdu CENTRAL EASTERN

down the Danube valley to the Black Sea, the northern Vulgar Latin
Ecclesiastical Latin
Marsian
Volscian
GOIDELIC

Irish Gaelic
Manx Gaelic
BRYTHONIC

British
Ivernic
Lepontic
Noric Dogri
Lahnda
Potwari
Domari
Gujarati
Rajasthani
Romani
Kashmiri
Nuristani
Pashayi
Haryanvi Dakhini
Rekhta
Garhwali
Kumaoni
Nepali
Palpa

Balkan Peninsula and in central Asia Minor. The spread ROMANCE

Revived Manx

ITALO-WESTERN
Scots Gaelic Pictish

Revived Cornish
Breton
Cornish
Cumbric
Welsh
Punjabi
Sindhi

EASTERN
Shina
IRANIAN

Avestan WESTERN

to Cape Breton and Patagonia occurred in modern times.

Sardinian EASTERN ITALO-DALMATIAN
Corsican NORTH SOUTH NORTH
Logudorese Aromanian Dalmatian
Campidanese Istro-Romanian Scythian Bactrian Sogdian CASPIAN
Istriot
Megleno-Romanian Italian Khotanese
Romanian GALLO-IBERIAN Neapolitan Ossetian Khwarezmian Yaghnobi Deilami
Sassarese Saka Gilaki
IBERIAN Sicilian Sarmatian Old Persian Mazanderani
GALLIC SOUTH Shahmirzadi
Alanic Middle Persian Lurish Talysh
Aragonese Arpitan CISALPINE LANGUE D'OL OCCITAN Rhaetian Pamiri Pashto Median
Astur-Leonese Bukhori Bakhtiari
Galician-Portuguese Emilian French Catalan Friulian Sarikoli Waziri Dari Kumzari Parthian Zaza-Gorani
Mozarabic Ligurian Gallo Occitan Ladin Vanji Persian
Old Spanish Eonavian Lombard Norman Romansh Yidgha Shughni Tat Balochi Gorani
Asturian Fala Piedmontese Walloon Yazgulami Hazaragi Kurdish Zazaki
Extremaduran Ladino Galician Venetian ARMENIAN Tajik Juhuru
Leonese Spanish Portuguese
Mirandese GERMANIC Armenian
TOCHARIAN
Old Norse EAST BALTO-SLAVIC

1 Living languages
Kuchean
Old West Norse Old East Norse Elfdalian Burgundian Turfanian BALTIC SLAVIC
Old Gutnish Crimean Gothic
Faroese Danish Gothic WEST EAST EAST
Greenlandic Swedish Vandalic
Icelandic WEST Galindan Latvian Old Novgorod Old East Slavic
Norn Prussian Lithuanian
Norwegian Old High German Old Saxon Sudovian Selonian Russian Ruthenian
Semigallian WEST SOUTH
LOW FRANCONIAN Yiddish Low German ALBANIAN Belorussian
ANGLO-FRISIAN Old West Slavic WESTERN Rusyn
WEST EAST Albanian EASTERN Ukrainian
Old East Low Franconian UPPER GERMAN LECHITIC Slovene

SIL Ethnologue lists six living Celtic languages, of Old Dutch

Dutch
Limburgish
CENTRAL GERMAN

Luxembourgish
Standard German
Alemannic
Old Frisian

North Frisian
Old English

English Polish
Old Polish
Polabian
Pomeranian
Czech-Slovak
Knaanic
Sorbian Czech
Slovak
Serbo-Croatian

Bosnian
Old Church Slavonic

Bulgarian
Church Slavonic

which four have retained a substantial number of native

Flemish Ripuarian Austro-Bavarian Saterland Frisian Scots Silesian Croatian Macedonian
Afrikaans Thuringian Swiss German Cimbrian West Frisian Yola Kashubian Serbian

speakers. These are the Gaelic languages (i.e. the Irish

language and Scottish Gaelic - both descended from Old Classication of Indo-European languages. (click to enlarge)
Irish), and the Brittonic languages (i.e. Welsh and the
Breton language - both descended from Old Brittonic). Celtic divided into various branches:
The other two, Cornish and Manx, were spoken into
modern times but later died as spoken community Lepontic, the oldest attested Celtic language (from
languages.[9][10][11] For both these languages, however, the 6th century BC).[45] Anciently spoken in
revitalisation movements have led to the adoption of these Switzerland and in Northern-Central Italy, from the
languages by adults and children and produced some na- Alps to Umbria. Coins with Lepontic inscriptions
tive speakers.[12][13] have been found in Noricum and Gallia Narbonen-
sis.[46][47][48][49]
Taken together, there were roughly one million native
speakers of Celtic languages as of the 2000s.[14] In 2010, Celtiberian, anciently spoken in the Iberian penin-
there were more than 1.4 million speakers of Celtic sula,[50] in parts of modern Aragn, Old Castile,
languages.[15] and New Castile in Spain. The relationship of

1
2 2 CLASSIFICATION

Celtiberian with Gallaecian, in the northwest of the They support the Insular Celtic hypothesis. The early
peninsula, is uncertain.[51][52] Celts were commonly associated with the archaeological
Urneld culture, the Hallstatt culture, and the La Tne
Gallaecian, anciently spoken in the former culture, though the earlier assumption of association be-
Gallaecia, northwest of the peninsula (modern tween language and culture is now considered to be less
Galicia, Asturias, northern Portugal and parts of strong.[59][60]
modern Old Castile).[53]

Gaulish languages, including Galatian and possibly

Noric. These languages were once spoken in a wide
arc from Belgium to Turkey. They are now all ex-
tinct.

Brittonic, including the living languages Breton,

Cornish, and Welsh, and the extinct languages
Cumbric and Pictish though Pictish may be a sister
language rather than a daughter of Common Brit-
tonic.[54] Before the arrival of Scotti on the Isle of
Man in the 9th century, there may have been a Brit-
tonic language in the Isle of Man.

Goidelic, including the living languages Irish, Manx,

and Scottish Gaelic.

Scholarly handling of the Celtic languages has been rather

argumentative owing to scarceness of primary source
data. Some scholars (such as Cowgill 1975; McCone
1991, 1992; and Schrijver 1995) distinguish Continental
Celtic and Insular Celtic, arguing that the dierences
between the Goidelic and Brittonic languages arose af-
ter these split o from the Continental Celtic languages.
Other scholars (such as Schmidt 1988) distinguish be-
tween P-Celtic and Q-Celtic, putting most of the Gaul-
ish and Brittonic languages in the former group and the
Goidelic and Celtiberian languages in the latter. The P-
Celtic languages (also called Gallo-Brittonic) are some-
times seen (for example by Koch 1992) as a central inno-
vating area as opposed to the more conservative periph-
eral Q-Celtic languages.
The Breton language is Brittonic, not Gaulish, though
there may be some input from the latter,[55] having been
introduced from Southwestern regions of Britain in the
post-Roman era and having evolved into Breton still The Celtic nations, where Celtic languages are spoken today, or
partially intelligible by modern Welsh and Cornish speak- were spoken into the modern era:
ers. Ireland (Irish)
Scotland (Scottish Gaelic)
In the P/Q classication schema, the rst language to split Isle of Man (Manx)
o from Proto-Celtic was Gaelic. It has characteristics Wales (Welsh)
that some scholars see as archaic, but others see as also Cornwall (Cornish)
being in the Brittonic languages (see Schmidt). In the Brittany (Breton)
Insular/Continental classication schema, the split of the
former into Gaelic and Brittonic is seen as being late. There are legitimate scholarly arguments in favour of
The distinction of Celtic into these four sub-families most both the Insular Celtic hypothesis and the P-Celtic/Q-
likely occurred about 900 BC according to Gray and Celtic hypothesis. Proponents of each schema dispute the
Atkinson[56][57] but, because of estimation uncertainty, it accuracy and usefulness of the others categories. How-
could be any time between 1200 and 800 BC. However, ever, since the 1970s the division into Insular and Con-
they only considered Gaelic and Brythonic. The contro- tinental Celtic has become the more widely held view
versial paper by Forster and Toth[58] included Gaulish and (Cowgill 1975; McCone 1991, 1992; Schrijver 1995),
put the break-up much earlier at 3200 BC 1500 years. but in the middle of the 1980s, the P-Celtic/Q-Celtic hy-
 3

pothesis found new supporters (Lambert 1994), because Insular Celtic

of the inscription on the Larzac piece of lead (1983), the Goidelic
analysis of which reveals another common phonetical in- Brittonic
novation -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 Eska considers a division of TransalpineGoidelic
allow the specialists to come to the conclusion of a Gallo- Brittonic into Transalpine and Insular Celtic to be most
Brittonic dialect (Schmidt 1986; Fleuriot 1986). probable because of the greater number of innovations
in Insular Celtic than in P-Celtic, and because the Insu-
The interpretation of this and further evidence is still lar Celtic languages were probably not in great enough
quite contested, and the main argument in favour of In- contact for those innovations to spread as part of a
sular Celtic is connected with the development of the sprachbund. However, if they have another explanation
verbal morphology and the syntax in Irish and British (such as an SOV substratum language), then it is possible
Celtic, which Schumacher regards as convincing, while that P-Celtic is a valid clade, and the top branching would
he considers the P-Celtic/Q-Celtic division unimportant be:
and treats Gallo-Brittonic as an outdated hypothesis.[45]
Stifter arms that the Gallo-Brittonic view is out of
TransalpineGoidelicBrittonic (P-Celtic hypothe-
favour in the scholarly community as of 2008 and the
[61] sis)
Insular Celtic hypothesis widely accepted.
When referring only to the modern Celtic languages, Goidelic
since no Continental Celtic language has living descen- Gallo-Brittonic
dants, Q-Celtic is equivalent to Goidelic and P-
Transalpine Gaulish (Transalpine
Celtic is equivalent to Brittonic.
Celtic)
Within the Indo-European family, the Celtic languages Brittonic
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. 3 Characteristics
How the family tree of the Celtic languages is ordered
Although there are many dierences between the indi-
depends on which hypothesis is used:
vidual Celtic languages, they do show many family re-
semblances.
2.1 Eska (2010)
consonant mutations (Insular Celtic only)
Eska (2010)[62] evaluates the evidence as supporting the
following tree, based on shared innovations, though it is inected prepositions (Insular Celtic only)
not always clear that the innovations are not areal features. two grammatical genders (modern Insular Celtic
It seems likely that Celtiberian split o before Cisalpine only; Old Irish and the Continental languages had
Celtic, but the evidence for this is not robust. On the three genders)
other hand, the unity of Gaulish, Goidelic, and Brittonic
is reasonably secure. Schumacher (2004, p. 86) had al- a vigesimal number system (counting by twenties)
ready cautiously considered this grouping to be likely ge-
netic, based, among others, on the shared reformation Cornish hwetek ha dew ugens fty-six (liter-
of the sentence-initial, fully inecting relative pronoun ally sixteen and two twenty)
*ios, *i, *iod into an uninected enclitic particle. Eska
verbsubjectobject (VSO) word order (probably
sees Cisalpine Gaulish as more akin to Lepontic than to
Insular Celtic only)
Transalpine Gaulish.
an interplay between the subjunctive, future, imper-
Celtic fect, and habitual, to the point that some tenses and
moods have ousted others
Celtiberian ("Hispano-Celtic")
Nuclear Celtic? an impersonal or autonomous verb form serving as
a passive or intransitive
Cisalpine Celtic: Lepontic Cisalpine
Gaulish Welsh dysgaf I teach vs. dysgir is taught,
TransalpineGoidelicBrittonic (secure) one teaches
Transalpine Gaulish (Transalpine Irish minim I teach vs. mintear is taught,
Celtic) one teaches
4 4 POSSIBLE CELTIC LANGUAGES

no innitives, replaced by a quasi-nominal verb form bymtheg is a mutated form of pymtheg, which is
called the verbal noun or verbnoun pump (ve) plus deg (ten). Likewise, phedwar
is a mutated form of pedwar.
frequent use of vowel mutation as a morphological
device, e.g. formation of plurals, verbal stems, etc. The multiples of ten are deg, ugain, deg ar hugain,
deugain, hanner cant, trigain, deg a thrigain, pedwar
use of preverbal particles to signal either subordina- ugain, deg a phedwar ugain, cant.*
tion or illocutionary force of the following clause

mutation-distinguished subordina- 3.1 Comparison table

tors/relativisers
particles for negation, interrogation, and occa- 3.2 Examples
sionally for armative declarations
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
inxed pronouns positioned between particles and
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and
verbs
rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and
lack of simple verb for the imperfective have should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
process, with possession conveyed by a composite
structure, usually BE + preposition Irish: Saolatear na daoine uile saor agus comhio-
nann ina ndnit agus ina gcearta. T bua an rasin
Cornish yma kath dhymm I have a cat, liter- agus an choinsiasa acu agus dld iad fin d'iompar
ally there is a cat to me de mheon brithreachas i leith a chile.
use of periphrastic constructions to express verbal Manx: Ta dagh ooilley pheiagh ruggit seyr as cor-
tense, voice, or aspectual distinctions rym ayns ard-cheim as kiartyn. Ren Jee feoiltaghey
resoon as cooinsheanse orroo as by chair daue ym-
distinction by function of the two versions of BE myrkey ry cheilley myr braaraghyn.
verbs traditionally labelled substantive (or existen-
tial) and copula Scottish Gaelic: Tha gach uile dhuine air a bhre-
ith saor agus co-ionnan ann an urram 's ann an
bifurcated demonstrative structure cirichean. Tha iad air am breith le reusan is le co-
gais agus mar sin bu chir dhaibh a bhith be nam
suxed pronominal supplements, called conrming
measg fhin ann an spiorad brthaireil.
or supplementary pronouns
Breton: Dieub ha par en o dellezegezh hag o gwirio
use of singulars and/or special forms of counted eo ganet an holl dud. Poell ha skiant zo dezho ha
nouns, and use of a singulative sux to make sin- dleout a reont beva an eil gant egile en ur spered a
gular forms from plurals, where older singulars have genvreudeuriezh.
disappeared
Cornish: Genys frank ha par yw oll tus an bys yn
Examples: aga dynita hag yn aga gwiryow. Enduys yns gans
(Irish) N bac le mac an bhacaigh is n bhacfaidh mac an reson ha kowses hag y tal dhedha omdhon an eyl orth
bhacaigh leat. y gila yn spyrys a vrederedh.
(Literal translation) Don't bother with son the beggars
Welsh: Genir pawb yn rhydd ac yn gydradd 'i gi-
and not will-bother son the beggars with-you.
lydd mewn urddas a hawliau. Fe'u cynysgaeddir
rheswm a chydwybod, a dylai pawb ymddwyn y naill
bhacaigh is the genitive of bacach. The igh the result at y llall mewn ysbryd cymodlon.
of aection; the bh is the lenited form of b.

leat is the second person singular inected form of

the preposition le.
4 Possible Celtic languages
The order is verbsubjectobject (VSO) in the sec- It has been suggested that several poorly-documented lan-
ond half. Compare this to English or French (and guages may possibly have been Celtic.
possibly Continental Celtic) which are normally
subjectverbobject in word order. Camunic is an extinct language which was spoken
in the rst millennium BC in the Valcamonica and
(Welsh) pedwar ar bymtheg a phedwar ugain Valtellina valleys of the Central Alps. It has most
(literally) four on fteen and four twenties recently been proposed to be a Celtic language.[63]
 5

Ligurian was spoken in Northern Mediterranean Hayes Scullard argues that Rhaetian was also a
Coast straddling South-east French and North-west Celtic language.[76]
Italian coasts, including parts of Tuscany, Elba is-
land and Corsica. Xavier Delamarre argues that Tartessian, spoken in the south-west of the Iberia
Ligurian was a Celtic language, similar to, but not Peninsula.[77] Tartessian is known by 95 inscriptions
the same as Gaulish.[64] The Ligurian-Celtic ques- with the longest having 82 readable signs.[67][78][79]
tion is also discussed by Barruol (1999). Ancient John T. Koch argues that Tartessian was also a Celtic
Ligurian is either listed as Celtic (epigraphic),[65] or language.[79]
Para-Celtic (onomastic).[47]

Lusitanian was spoken in the area between the 5 See also

Douro and Tagus rivers of western Iberia (a re-
gion straddling the present border of Portugal and
Celts
Spain). It is known from only ve inscriptions and
various place names.[66] It is an Indo-European lan- Celts (modern)
guage and some scholars have proposed that it may
be a para-Celtic language, which evolved along- A Swadesh list of the modern Celtic languages
side Celtic and/or formed a dialect continuum or
sprachbund with Tartessian and Gallaecian. This is Celtic Congress
tied to a theory of an Iberian origin for the Celtic
Celtic League (political organisation)
languages.[66][67][68]
Continental Celtic languages
It is also possible that the Q-Celtic languages
alone, including Goidelic, originated in west- Italo-Celtic
ern Iberia (a theory that was rst put forward by Language families and languages
Edward Lhuyd in 1707) and/or shared a com-
mon linguistic ancestor with Lusitanian.[69]
Secondary evidence for this hypothesis has
been found in research by biological scientist, 6 Notes
who have identied (rstly) deep-rooted simi-
larities in human DNA found precisely in both [1] Nordho, Sebastian; Hammarstrm, Harald; Forkel,
the former Lusitania and Ireland,[70][71] and; Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). Celtic.
Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolution-
(secondly) the so-called "Lusitanian distribu-
ary Anthropology.
tion" of animals and plants unique to western
Iberia and Ireland. Both of these phenom- [2] American Heritage Dictionary. Celtic: kel-tik, sel. Dic-
ena are now generally believed to have resulted tionary.reference.com. Retrieved 19 August 2011.
from human emigration from Iberia to Ireland,
during the late Paleolithic or early Mesolithic [3] The Celtic languages:an overview, Donald MacAulay, The
eras.[72] Celtic Languages, ed. Donald MacAulay, (Cambridge
University Press, 1992), 3.
Other scholars, see greater linguistic anities
between Lusitanian, proto-Italic and Old Eu- [4] Cunlie, Barry W. 2003. The Celts: a very short introduc-
ropean.[73][74] tion. pg.48

[5] The Celts, Alice Roberts, (Heron Books 2015)

Pictish was for a long time thought to be a pre-
Celtic, non-Indo-European language of Scotland. [6] Language by State Scottish Gaelic on Modern Lan-
Some believe it was an Insular Celtic language al- guage Association website. Retrieved 27 December 2007
lied to the P-Celtic language Brittonic (descendants [7] Languages Spoken At Home from Australian Govern-
Welsh, Cornish, Cumbric, Breton).[75] ment Oce of Multicultural Interests website. Retrieved
27 December 2007; G. Leitner, Australias Many Voices:
Rhaetian was spoken in central parts of present- Australian English--The National Language, 2004, pg. 74
day Switzerland, Tyrol in Austria, and the Alpine
regions of northeastern Italy. It is documented by a [8] Languages Spoken:Total Responses from Statistics New
limited number of short inscriptions (found through Zealand website. Retrieved 5 August 2008
Northern Italy and Western Austria) in two variants
[9] Koch, John T. (2006). Celtic Culture: A Historical Ency-
of the Etruscan alphabet. Its linguistic categoriza-
clopedia. ABC-CLIO. pp. 34, 365366, 529, 973, 1053.
tion is not clearly established, and it presents a con- Retrieved 15 June 2010.
fusing mixture of what appear to be Etruscan, Indo-
European, and uncertain other elements. Howard [10] A brief history of the Cornish language. Maga Kernow.
6 6 NOTES

[11] Beresford Ellis, Peter (1990, 1998, 2005). The Story of [28] Central Statistics Oce. Population Aged 3 Years and
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MB). See also the introduction by James & Taylor to the v=onepage&q=edward%20lhuyd%20lusitanian%
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