Celtic languages

Celtic languages are the languages descended from Proto-Celtic, both those spoken by the ancient Celts, and those used by their modern descendants, the Irish, Manx, Scots, Welsh, Cornish and Bretons. The Celtic languages are classified as a branch of the greater Indo-European language family. They were spoken across western Europe during the 1st millennium BC, but are now limited to a few enclaves in the British Isles, western Canada, Patagonia, scattered groups in the United States and Australia, and on the peninsula of Brittany in France.

Classification

There are two competing schemata of categorization. The traditional scheme

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links Gaulish with Brythonic in a P-Celtic node, leaving Goidelic as Q-Celtic. The difference between P and Q languages is the treatment of Proto-Celtic *kw, which became *p in the P-Celtic languages but *k in Goidelic. An example is the Proto-Celtic verb root *kwrin- "to buy", which became pryn- in Welsh but cren- in Old Irish.

Related Topics:
Proto-Celtic - Old Irish

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With the discovery of the Botorrita tablets in the 1970s, it became clear that the Celtiberian language, about which virtually nothing was known previously, is also Q-Celtic. This gave rise to the alternative schema linking Goidelic and Brythonic together as an Insular Celtic branch, and Gaulish and Celtiberian as Continental Celtic. According to this system, the development from Q to P might have occurred independently or areally. The proponents of the Insular Celtic hypothesis point to other shared innovations among Insular Celtic languages, including inflected prepositions, VSO word order, and the lenition of intervocalic {{IPA|}} to {{IPA|}}, a nasalized voiced bilabial fricative (an extremely rare sound). There is, however, no assumption that the Continental Celtic languages descend from a common "Proto-Continental Celtic" ancestor. Rather, Celtiberian is usually considered the first branch to split from Proto-Celtic, and the remaining group would later have split into Gaulish and Insular Celtic.

Related Topics:
Botorrita tablet - 1970s - Celtiberian language - Insular Celtic - Continental Celtic - Nasalized - Voiced bilabial fricative

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There are legitimate scholarly arguments in favour of both the Insular Celtic hypothesis and the P-Celtic hypothesis. Proponents of each schema dispute the accuracy and usefulness of the other's categories. Since the realization that Celtiberian is Q-Celtic in the 1970s, the division into Insular and Continental Celtic is the more widespread opinion.

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It should, however, be remembered that this dispute is purely academic in that they concern the relationship between modern-day groups of languages and groups that are now extinct. No serious authority disputes that the Celtic languages spoken at present divide into Goidelic and Brythonic clusters. When referring only to the modern Celtic languages, 'Q-Celtic' and 'P-Celtic' may be taken as synonymous with Goidelic and Brythonic, respectively (although this terminology usually implies acceptance of the overall P-Celtic hypothesis).

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Within the Indo-European family, the Celtic languages have sometimes been placed with the Italic languages in a common Italo-Celtic subfamily, a hypothesis that is now largely obsolete.

Related Topics:
Indo-European - Italic languages - Italo-Celtic

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The family tree of the Celtic languages (assuming the Insular Celtic hypothesis) is thus as follows:

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• Proto-Celtic, ancestral to:
• Continental Celtic (probably not a genetic group)
• Gaulish and the closely related
• Lepontic
• Galatian
• Celtiberian
• Insular Celtic
• Goidelic
• Primitive Irish, ancestral to:
• Old Irish, ancestral to:
• Middle Irish, ancestral to:
• Irish
• Scottish Gaelic
• Manx
• Brythonic
• Cumbric
• Pictish (possibly)
• Middle Welsh, ancestral to:
• Welsh
• Southwestern Brythonic, ancestral to:
• Breton
• Cornish