Discover the secrets of the Celts


Celtic languages

The Celtic languages are the languagesthe archaeological Urnfield culture, the
descended from Proto-Celtic, or "CommonHallstatt  culture,  and the La Tene culture.
Celtic", a branch of the greater
Indo-European language family. During the 1stThere are two competing schemata of
millennium BC, they were spoken acrosscategorization. One scheme, argued for by
Europe, from the Bay of Biscay and the NorthSchmidt (1988) among others, links Gaulish
Sea, up the Rhine and down the Danube to thewith Brythonic in a P-Celtic node, leaving
Black Sea and the Upper Balkan Peninsula, andGoidelic as Q-Celtic. The difference between
into Asia Minor (Galatia). Today, CelticP and Q languages is the treatment of
languages are now limited to a few areas inProto-Celtic *kw, which became *p in the
the British Isles, eastern Canada, Patagonia,P-Celtic languages but *k in Goidelic. An
scattered groups in the United States andexample is the Proto-Celtic verb root *kwrin-
Australia, and on the peninsula of Brittany"to buy", which became pryn- in Welsh but
in  France.cren-  in  Old  Irish.
Proto-Celtic apparently divided into fourThe other scheme, defended for example by
sub-families:McCone (1996), links Goidelic and Brythonic
together as an Insular Celtic branch, while
Gaulish and its close relatives, Lepontic,Gaulish and Celtiberian are referred to as
Noric and Galatian. These languages were onceContinental Celtic. According to this theory,
spoken in a wide arc from France to Turkeythe "P-Celtic" sound change of [k?] to [p]
and  from  Belgium  to  northern  Italy.occurred independently or areally. The
proponents of the Insular Celtic hypothesis
Celtiberian, anciently spoken in the Iberianpoint to other shared innovations among
peninsula, namely in the areas of modernInsular Celtic languages, including inflected
Portugal, Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria,prepositions, VSO word order, and the
Arag'n  and  Le'n.lenition of intervocalic [m] to [z], a
nasalized voiced bilabial fricative (an
Goidelic, including Irish, Scots Gaelic, andextremely rare sound). There is, however, no
Manx.assumption that the Continental Celtic
languages descend from a common
Brythonic (also called Brittonic), including"Proto-Continental Celtic" ancestor. Rather,
Welsh, Breton, Cornish, Cumbric, thethe Insular/Continental schemata usually
hypothetical Ivernic, and possibly alsoconsiders Celtiberian the first branch to
Pictish.split from Proto-Celtic, and the remaining
group would later have split into Gaulish and
Scholarly handling of the Celtic languagesInsular  Celtic.
has been rather argumentative owing to lack
of primary source data. Some scholarsThere are legitimate scholarly arguments in
distinguish Continental and Insular Celtic,favour of both the Insular Celtic hypothesis
arguing that the differences between theand the P-Celtic/Q-Celtic hypothesis.
Goidelic and Brythonic languages arose afterProponents of each schema dispute the
these split off from the Continental Celticaccuracy and usefulness of the other's
languages. Other scholars distinguishcategories. Since the realization that
P-Celtic from Q-Celtic, putting most of theCeltiberian was Q-Celtic in the 1970s, the
Continental Celtic languages in the formerdivision into Insular and Continental Celtic
group (except for Celtiberian, which isis  the  more  widespread  opinion.
Q-Celtic).
When referring only to the modern Celtic
The Breton language is Brythonic, notlanguages, since no Continental Celtic
Gaulish. When the Anglo-Saxons moved intolanguage has living descendents, "Q-Celtic"
Great Britain, some of the native Brythons oris equivalent to "Goidelic" and "P-Celtic" is
"Welsh" (from a Germanic word forequivalent  to  "Brythonic".
"foreigners") fled across the English Channel
and landed in Brittany. They brought theirWithin the Indo-European family, the Celtic
Brythonic language with them, which evolvedlanguages have sometimes been placed with the
into Breton - which is still partiallyItalic languages in a common Italo-Celtic
intelligible  with  Modern Welsh and Cornish.subfamily, a hypothesis that is now largely
discarded, in favour of the assumption of
The distinction of Celtic into these fourlanguage contact between pre-Celtic and
sub-families probably occurred about 1000 BC.pre-Italic communities.
The early Celts are commonly associated with



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