Monday, June 23, 2003, 15:50 GMT
The ancestor of the present Celtic languages is believed to have come into existence in central Europe early in the last pre-Christian millennium. Like others of the language groups of Europe and southern Asia - the descendants of Teutonic, Slavonic, Italic and Sanscrit among them - Celtic evolved from the common ancestor known as Indo-European. On the European mainland there were probably at least four forms of Celtic - the Gaulish of France, the Lepontic of northern Italy, the Celt-Iberian of Spain and the language of the Celts of the Danube basin and of Anatolia. All these languages are now extinct although it is believed that elements of the Celtic of north-western Gaul can be traced in Breton.
By the opening of the Christian era, the scant evidence suggests that there were two forms of insular Celtic - the Godelic of Ireland and the Brythonic of Britain - the latter a language which had close affinities with Gaulish. (The forms are often known as Q-Celtic and P-Celtic.) By the fifth century AD, Brythonic had developed two forms, the western and the south-western. South-western Brythonic developed into Cornish; in addition, as a result of migration from Britain to Brittany, it is the main formative element of Breton.
Western Brythonic developed into Welsh which was spoken not only in Wales but also in the Brythonic kingdoms of Elmet in the Pennines, Rheged in Cumbria and Dumfries, Strathclyde in the Clyde Valley and the lands of the Votadini along the Firth of Forth, this language slightly differed from Welsh (Cymraeg) of Wales and became (Cumbric), or Cumbrian.
As a result of colonisation by the Irish, Irish became the language of communities in Cornwall, Devon, Western Somerset and in south-west and north-west Wales, but these communities proved to be short lived. Northerly migration by the Irish had more permanent linguistic consequences for it gave rise to the Manx of the Isle of Man and the Gaelic of the Scottish islands and Highlands.
Cornish ceased to have native speakers in the late 18th century as did Manx in the 1970s. Of the four other Celtic languages, there are no precise statistics about the number of Breton speakers for the French government refuses to conduct linguistic censuses in Brittany.
It is believed, however, that there are about 450,000 Breton speakers although, because of slippage between the generations, the number is declining rapidly. Up to a million of the inhabitants of Ireland claim to have some knowledge of Irish, but the communities in which it is the everyday language have a population of only about 30,000. There are about 80,000 speakers of Gaelic in Scotland. Thus, at the opening of the twenty-first century, Welsh, which has some 550,000 speakers in Wales and large numbers in England and with a higher status than its fellows, is the strongest and the best-placed of the Celtic languages.
By the opening of the Christian era, the scant evidence suggests that there were two forms of insular Celtic - the Godelic of Ireland and the Brythonic of Britain - the latter a language which had close affinities with Gaulish. (The forms are often known as Q-Celtic and P-Celtic.) By the fifth century AD, Brythonic had developed two forms, the western and the south-western. South-western Brythonic developed into Cornish; in addition, as a result of migration from Britain to Brittany, it is the main formative element of Breton.
Western Brythonic developed into Welsh which was spoken not only in Wales but also in the Brythonic kingdoms of Elmet in the Pennines, Rheged in Cumbria and Dumfries, Strathclyde in the Clyde Valley and the lands of the Votadini along the Firth of Forth, this language slightly differed from Welsh (Cymraeg) of Wales and became (Cumbric), or Cumbrian.
As a result of colonisation by the Irish, Irish became the language of communities in Cornwall, Devon, Western Somerset and in south-west and north-west Wales, but these communities proved to be short lived. Northerly migration by the Irish had more permanent linguistic consequences for it gave rise to the Manx of the Isle of Man and the Gaelic of the Scottish islands and Highlands.
Cornish ceased to have native speakers in the late 18th century as did Manx in the 1970s. Of the four other Celtic languages, there are no precise statistics about the number of Breton speakers for the French government refuses to conduct linguistic censuses in Brittany.
It is believed, however, that there are about 450,000 Breton speakers although, because of slippage between the generations, the number is declining rapidly. Up to a million of the inhabitants of Ireland claim to have some knowledge of Irish, but the communities in which it is the everyday language have a population of only about 30,000. There are about 80,000 speakers of Gaelic in Scotland. Thus, at the opening of the twenty-first century, Welsh, which has some 550,000 speakers in Wales and large numbers in England and with a higher status than its fellows, is the strongest and the best-placed of the Celtic languages.