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Introduction
Historical Background
Continental Celtic
Insular Celtic
Old Celtic (Common or Proto-)
Relationships And Early Contacts
Phonology
Grammar
Status today
Epilogue
Reference List And Further Reading
Sites Of Interest
Late additions
When the average man on the street hears about a Celtic language, his immediate reaction is: -"Language? Aren't Irish and Welsh just different dialects of English?" Good heavens, no. More and more people become interested in these languages, and at The Uppsala University one can even study a few of the vernaculars, which was not possible in bygone days, English being the lingua franca. What makes these tongues so special, and what are the differences betwixt them?
The Celtic languages originate from the Ancient Celtic, which was spoken in the Alps. During the last century BC, the Celts spread to other parts of Europe, e.g. the British Isles. After three large migrations there were Celts in:
Soon, the Celts were divided into:
Thus, Celtic tongues were spoken in the beginning of our chronology in Belgium, France, Italy, Holland, Switzerland and parts of the British Isles, Spain, Southern Germany, the western part of Czech and Austria.
Due to some lack of co-operation ability, the Celts were easily suppressed by the Germans and the Romans. In the 50's BC, Caesar won a battle in Gaul, so by that, Latin obtained a foothold. In 42 AD, in England, the Celtic gave way to the Romans, and in Bohemia and Switzerland, but to the Germans.
The Celtic languages never recovered. On the continent they became extinguished, and in the 5th century they were, by the Romans and the Germans, driven away to the British Isles and later on, to Brittany, whither some Brythonic speakers from Cornwall moved. Irish brethren introduced Celtic in Iceland in the 8th century, but were suppressed the following century by Norse Vikings.
By those means, Celtic languages are divided into two distinct branches - the Continental and the Insular.
The name for the group of languages spoken by the Galatians 500 BC - AD 500 from Gaul to Iberia to Galatia, Central France being the high settle, is Continental Celtic.
The oldest records are some hundred rock carvings from the 2nd century BC to the 1st century AD, situated in France, written with Etruscan, Greek, and Latin letters. There are also names of place and tribes, and proper names, in addition to loan words, mostly integrated into French. Since literature is missing, one can not conclude the development of the Continental Celtic nor the differences between them.
The term Insular Celtic refers to the languages of the British Isles, plus Breton in Brittany. Examples of these are found as place names and 350 ogham inscriptions from the 5th century to the 9th century in Ireland and Wales. In the 7th century the Celtic poetry started to spread by means of the scholastic missions and did also influence the entire 11th century writing, especially the English and the French. Examples of this literature are sagas, ballads and bardic tales.
The Insular Celtic languages are divided into two sub groups - the Goidelic branch and the Brythonic.
Efforts have been made to reconstruct Old Celtic, but as Continental Celtic provides quite a few records of phonology, the texts lack too much information in order to construct the grammar. The best aid should be Old Irish, being the oldest amongst Insular Celtic tongues. The structure of the language is very similar with the Indo-European, as the vowels hardly differ from the French linguist Antoine Meillet's reconstructed language. Some differences are the Celtic *í instead of *é (Irish Dia, 'God', in comparison with Latin deus) and *á instead of *ó (Old Irish dán, 'gift', in comparison with Latin dónum).
The consonants are very old too, but have some characteristics, amongst them the lacking of *p, as in Irish athair, 'father', but pater in Latin. Another peculiarity is that stops also can be aspirated. Whereas Indo-European uses *kw, a p-phoneme has been developed regarding some Celtic languages, especially the Brythonic, which is shown in this table:
| Numeral | Welsh | Cornish | Old Irish | Irish | Highland Scottish |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | pedwar | peswar | cethair | ceathir | ceithir |
| 5 | pump | pymp | cóic | cuig | cóig |
The p-q-phenomenon is found in Italic (compare the Latin quattor, 'four', with the Oscan petora), and certain linguists claim that there was an Italo-Celtic people by the end of the 21st century BC. However, the similarities are merely coincidental, e.g. the future tense in Irish (root + b + ending) and Latin (root + f + ending), or that passive verbs end with -r (previously believed to be a characteristic of Italic and Celtic, but later found in Hittite and Tocharian (both extinct).
The home of the Celts is said to be the eastern part of Middle Europe, and at least one tribe even lived in the vicinity of the Germanic tribes. The Celts are said to have had such great an influence on those, that certain words have been introduced, such as the Gothic reiki and andbahts, derived from Celtic *rígion, 'kingdom', and *am-bactos, 'officer' (compare to Swedish 'rike' and 'ämbetsman'). As for the Greeks and the Romans, who were superior to the Celts in many ways, only a few loan words regarding Celtic phenomena such as battle, transport and agriculture.
The Insular Celtic languages have a few characteristics, all of which are nowhere to be found in the other Indo-European languages. Some linguists claim that they are derived from a non-European language. The elements at first regarded as most foreign, such as the initial position of the verb in the sentence, have now proved to be a natural development of Indo-European.
The most remarkable about Insular Celtic is the aforementioned use of aspired consonants as well as normal ones. Then you find strong and weak consonants, the former being produced in the front part of the palate, and the latter in the rear part. In days of yore the hard were put in the beginning of the words, and sometimes also in consonant clusters as well. The weak were used elsewhere. In those languages where these sounds first were discovered, important changes have been made. In Irish as well as Welsh, Cornish and Breton, the strong / weak phenomenon have been changed into stop / spirant. These distinctions are in fact not so different from the weakening of consonants found in some West-European languages (compare the Welsh pader, 'one who prays' (derived from Latin pater, 'father') with Spanish padre, 'father' (derived from Latin patrem)), but in Insular Celtic they were not used only within the word, but in sentences too, so that if the word had a consonant, that would become weakened, if a word ending with a vowel preceded it. The final syllables disappeared in most languages, but remained in the Insular Celtic, which is shown in this sentence: *sindos kattos koilos, 'the slender cat' (goidelic nominative), which in Old Irish sounds in catt coel, but the genitive, however, *sindí kattí koilí, 'of the slender cat', sounds in chatt choíl, with changed initial consonants. In Toscanic we meet with the same phenomenon: porta, 'door', la forta, 'the door' and tre porte, 'three doors', derived from the Latin porta, illa porta and tres portae. As we have seen above, the weakening has spread from the word to the sentence, but this is not a Celtic characteristic, but a common one.
Another Celtic characteristic is the lacking of infinitive, otherwise found in most other tongues. Instead the verbal noun is used, not necessarily derived from the same root. This verbal noun is often followed by a genitive, either subjective or objective, depending on whether it is derived from an intransitive or a transitive verb. Thus the Old Irish sentence téit in ben, 'the woman walks', tells us that it originates techt inna mná, 'the woman's arrival', or that from marbaid in mnaí, 'he kills the woman', marbad inna mná (lais), 'the killing of the woman (by him)' can be derived. Moreover, there is also a progressive present tense, such as a-tá in ben oc techt, 'the woman is at walking', or a-tá oc marbad inna mná, 'he is killing the woman'.
The deeper you dig into a subject, the more you find of interest - and sometimes you find new information. Thanks to Steven A Culbreath, who provided the
Latest Updated: March 24, 2002
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