Celtic languages

Celtic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages. They were spoken across western Europe in ancient times, but are now limited to a few enclaves in the British Isles and Brittany.

Celtic is traditionally split into two branches:

Continental -- Celtiberian, Gaulish, Lepontic, Noric, Galatian. These languages were once spoken on the European mainland. No member of this family is presently spoken. (Note: Breton is closely related to Cornish and is thus classified with Insular Celtic. Brittany is known to have been settled from Britain in historical times. Some elements of Breton may originate in the Continental Celtic languages, however these would have the status of borrowings, much like Gaulish borrowings in French.)
Insular -- Celtic languages spoken in the British Isles. This group is further split into:
- Q-Celtic -- Goidelic, including Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic, Manx, and Shelta
- P-Celtic -- Brythonic, including Welsh, Breton, Cornish, Cumbric, Ivernic, and possibly Pictish

The differences between P and Q languages are most easily seen in the word for son, mac in Q (hard K sound) and map in P languages. The division into "Continental" and "Insular" may not be genetically correct, since the distinction between P and Q languages is found among the "Continental" languages as well: Celtiberian is Q-Celtic, while Gaulish and the other Continental Celtic languages are P-Celtic. There is some controversy over the accuracy and usefulness of positing a Continental vs. Insular branching within the Celtic family, nonetheless the distiction is usually maintained because of its geographic usefulness. Alternatively, the Celtic languages may be seen as having two branches: Q-Celtic and P-Celtic, each with both "Continental" and "Insular" members.

Within the Indo-European family, the Celtic languages have traditionally been placed with the Italic languages in a common Celto-Italic (or Italo-Celtic) subfamily.

Table of contents

1 Characteristics of Celtic Languages
2 See also
3 References

Characteristics of Celtic Languages

Although there are many differences between the individual Celtic languages they do show many family resemblances. While none of these characteristics is necessarily unique to the Celtic languages, there are few if any other languages which possess them all. They include:

Initial consonant mutation.

Inflected prepositions.
VSO word order as standard.
Two grammatical genders.
Definite but no indefinite article.
Genitive construction by apposition.
Counting by twenties.

Examples:
Ná bac le mac an bhacaigh is ní bhacfaidh mac an bhacaigh leat.
Not pay-attention to son the beggar's and nor will-pay-attention son the beggar's to-you.

bhacaigh is the genitive of bacach. The i is the genitive inflection; the bh is a mutation.
leat is the second person form of the preposition le.
The order is VSO in the second half.

pedwar ar bymtheg ar bedwar hugain
four on fifteen on four twenties

bymtheg is a mutated form of pymtheg, which is pump five plus deg ten. Likewise, bedwar is mutated from pedwar.
The multiples of ten are deg, ugain, deg ar hugain, deugain, hanner cant, trigain, deg a thrigain, pedwar hugain, deg a phedwar ugain, cant.

References

Gray, R. and Atkinson, Q.D. 2003. Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin. Nature. 426:435-439.