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The Celtic Languages | ||
Tags: Celtic languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| ewomahony Diglot Groupie England Joined 5580 days ago 91 posts - 115 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian, French, Afrikaans | Message 1 of 12 07 July 2010 at 1:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
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What are the Celtic Languages?
The Celtic languages are a family of languages descended from Proto-Celtic. The language family can be split into two subdivisions - Continental Celtic and Insular Celtic (further split into Brythonic and Goidelic): Continental Celtic -Celtiberean (extinct) -Galatian (extinct) -Gaulish (extinct) -Lepontic (extinct) -Noric (extinct) Insular Celtic Brythonic -British (extinct) -Breton -Cornish (extinct) -Revived Cornish -Cumbrian (extinct) -Welsh -Ivernic (extinct) -Pictish (extinct) Goidelic -Irish Gaelic -Manx Gaelic (extinct) -Revived Manx -Scottish Gaelic Where are they spoken? Nowadays, the Celtic Languages are spoken almost exclusively within the British Isles. The exceptions being Brittany (France) and expatriate communities in countries such as Canada and USA. How many people speak them? Unfortunately the number of speakers of the Celtic languages is rapidly decreasing. Only recently have languages such as Cornish and Manx Gaelic been revived from extinction. Estimates of speakers vary. Wikipedia estimates that these are the figures of speakers: Breton *200,000 **200,000 Cornish *500 **2,000 Irish Gaelic *50,000 **600 ,000 Manx Gaelic *100 **1,700 Scottish Gaelic *92,400 **92,400 Welsh *750,000 **750,000 *Native speakers, **Total speakers What do they look like? Every Celtic language is beautiful to read and listen to. Here are some phrases and proverbs in their respective languages: Breton (Brezhoneg) "Gortosit an nos ewid lavared eo bet kàer an deiz." "Wait for the night before saying that the day has been beautiful." Cornish (Kernewek) "Yma Rysrudh ogas dhe Gambron, heb mar!" "Redruth is near Camborne, of course!" Irish Gaelic (Gaeilge) "Bíonn grásta Dé idir an diallait agus an talamh." "The grace of God is found between the saddle and the ground." Manx Gaelic (Gaelg) "Te ny share dy ve boght as onneragh na dy ve berçhagh as breagagh." "Better to be poor and honest than to be rich and lying." Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) "Is fhearr na 'n t-or sgeul innse air choir." "Better than gold is a tale rightly told." Welsh (Cymraeg) "Y mae dafad ddu ym mhob praidd." "Every flock has its black sheep." Where can I learn more about these languages? Brezhoneg: http://skol.keravon.com/ http://www.kervarker.org/en/lessons_01_toc.html http://www.omniglot.com/writing/breton.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breton_grammar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breton_language Kernewek: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cornwall/connected/cornish/ http://www.cornish-language.org/english/faq.asp http://www.omniglot.com/writing/cornish.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornish_language Gaeilge: http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/irish/blas/learners/ http://www.erinsweb.com/gae_index.html http://www.omniglot.com/writing/irish.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_grammar Gaelg: http://www.learnmanx.com/ http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/manxsoc/msvol02/ http://www.omniglot.com/writing/manx.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manx_language Gàidhlig: http://www.bbc.co.uk/alba/foghlam/beag_air_bheag/ http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/gaidhlig/ionnsachadh/ http://www.omniglot.com/writing/gaelic.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Gaelic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Gaelic_grammar Cymraeg: http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/learnwelsh/ http://www.learnwelsh.org/ http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/fun/welsh/ http://www.omniglot.com/writing/welsh.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_language (Forgot to put hyperlinks in! Please copy the link and paste it into your address bar to view the link. Sorry!) I hope that this thread can be used to discuss all things Celtic, related to the languages or not! Edited by ewomahony on 07 July 2010 at 8:51pm 12 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Declan1991 Tetraglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6437 days ago 233 posts - 359 votes Speaks: English*, German, Irish, French | Message 2 of 12 07 July 2010 at 4:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
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By the way, the British Isles is a geographic term referring to Ireland, Britain and the other islands around us. While some people (a tiny minority at this stage) in Ireland refuse to accept that the British Isles has nothing to do with Great Britain, most use the term correctly.
Where did you find that proverb for Irish? It's quite obscure compared to many extremely common ones. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ewomahony Diglot Groupie England Joined 5580 days ago 91 posts - 115 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian, French, Afrikaans | Message 3 of 12 07 July 2010 at 8:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
Amended.
I asked a cousin of mine who is Irish. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6009 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 4 of 12 11 July 2010 at 11:26am | IP Logged | |||||
Don't forget the Welsh in Patagonia. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| zyz Newbie United States Joined 5334 days ago 19 posts - 28 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Latin, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit | Message 5 of 12 13 July 2010 at 9:57am | IP Logged | |||||
I'm always bewildered when I hear about small immigrant language communities in South America. I know, like, intellectually that a bunch of people immigrated and some of them happened to be from European backwaters bearing obscure regional languages, but still. I'm probably going for an old Gaelic language once I've got Sanskrit more under control. Old Irish has the most literature, right? But Welsh has the Mabinogion. And I've always had a sort of weird fascination with Brittany. I suspect it'll come down to which I can find materials for. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6009 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 6 of 12 13 July 2010 at 11:25am | IP Logged | |||||
Oh, what a nice word. "Backwaters". So positive, so inclusive, so open-minded. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tyr Senior Member Sweden Joined 5780 days ago 316 posts - 384 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish | Message 7 of 12 13 July 2010 at 12:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'd disagree the numbers of Celtic speakers are declining. Except of course for Breton (darn French. They're historically as bad as the nazis in a purely inguistic sense :P)
Welsh is going through a huge upsurge, its the healthiest its been for centuries and is infiltrating to some extent even areas that have been English speaking before Wales was incorporated. Scottish Gaelic has always been a lot more of a minority fringe language than Welsh but nonetheless the Scottish nationalists are pushing it pretty hard all over the place- that the greater part of modern Scottish national identiy come from the Angles is neither here nor there. And the Irish...well its just mad how many young Irish speak Irish so they can have little private conversations with each other. Its been pushed pretty hard in schools as it has been for years however with the new rich Irish its sticking more than it ever has before. And Cornish...well its been created. Its got more speakers now (some) than it did a hundred years back. I hear Manx is also being reconstructed and revived quite a lot Backwaters may give you dodgy connotations but it is a fairly accurate term. The places where the celtic languages survived are the places which were out of the way and where the people didn't really need to learn English to get anywhere in life (as they generally couldn't get anywhere in life with living as remote as they did). 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6009 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 8 of 12 13 July 2010 at 3:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
Your information is wrong -- the nationalists have never "pushed" Gaelic anywhere, and as a minority government have no power to do so. All the legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament with regards to the Gaelic language (and previously by the Scottish Office of the UK parliament) has received wide cross party support. The provision for Gaelic Medium Education was first made by a Conservative Government at Westminster. The Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act was passed under a coalition government between the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats. (And as previously stated, these received significant cross-party support.) In fact, the SNP has done very little of note with respect to Gaelic, short of recognise it as part of Scotland's heritage. As most members of the SNP are not Gaelic speakers themselves, they're hardly going to define "Scottishness" as something that is alien to themselves! In fact, Gaelic is more of a problem to the SNP than a political banner -- anything they do that favours Gaelic, however small and insignificant it may be, gets painted as nationalist fantasising. In fact, even when Labour-run councils put up Gaelic signs as they promised to do in implementing Labour's Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act, this is still painted as nationalism-gone-mad. Gaelic is not a vote-winner and never has been, so even now when it is at its most visible, it's still being incredibly badly served. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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