Breton (Brezhoneg) is a Celtic language spoken by some of the inhabitants of Brittany (Breizh/Bretagne) in France. The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic" a branch of the greater Indo-European Language family. Brittany (Breizh bʁejs Bretagne; Gallo: Bertaèyn) is a former independent Celtic kingdom and Duchy, now incorporated into This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics.

History

Breton is descended from the Brythonic branch of Insular Celtic languages brought by Romano-British settlers to Brittany, perhaps from the end of the 3rd century onwards. The Brythonic languages (or Brittonic languages or British languages) form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family the other being The term Insular Celtic refers to those Celtic languages which originated in the British Isles, in contrast to the Continental Celtic languages of Romano-British culture is that of the Romanized Britons under the Roman Empire and later the Western Roman Empire, and of those exposed to Roman culture in the years Brittany (Breizh bʁejs Bretagne; Gallo: Bertaèyn) is a former independent Celtic kingdom and Duchy, now incorporated into The modern-day language most closely related to Breton is Cornish, followed by Welsh. For the Cornish-English dialect see West Country dialects and List of Cornish dialect words. Welsh ( cy Cymraeg or cy y Gymraeg, kəmˈrɑːɨɡ and {{IPA|[ə ɡəmˈrɑːɨɡ]}}, is a member of the Brythonic branch of Celtic (The other regional language of Brittany, Gallo, is a Langue d'oïl derived from Latin). A regional language is a Language spoken in an area of a Nation state, whether it be a small area a federal State or Province, or Gallo is a regional language of France. Gallo is a Romance language, one of the oïl languages. Langues d'oïl is the linguistic and historical designation of the Gallo-Romance languages originating from the northern territories of Roman Gaul, Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome.

Breton is traditionally spoken in Lower Brittany, roughly to the west of a line linking Plouha and La Roche Bernard (east of Vannes). Vannes (Gwened is a town and commune located in the Morbihan département, in Brittany, in the west of France. It comes from a language community between Great Britain and Armorica (present-day Brittany). See also Kingdom of Great Britain Great Britain (Breatainn Mhòr Prydain Fawr Breten Veur Graet Breetain is the larger of the two main islands Armorica or Aremorica is the name given in ancient times to the part of Gaul that includes the Brittany Peninsula and the territory between the It was the language of the elite until the 12th century. However, afterwards it was only the language of the people of West Brittany (Breizh Izel), and the nobility, then successively the bourgeoisie adopted French. French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people As a written language, the Duchy of Brittany used Latin, switching to French in the 15th century. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. There exists a limited tradition of Breton literature. Breton literature is the Breton language literary tradition of Brittany. Old Breton has left some vocabulary which has served in the present day to produce philosophical and scientific terms in Modern Breton. Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language

The French Monarchy never really concerned itself with the minority languages of France. There are a number of languages of France. The French language is by far the most widely spoken and the only Official language of France, but several The revolutionary period really started policies favouring French over the "regional" languages, more pejoratively called patois. The French Revolution (1789–1799 was a period of political and social upheaval in the History of France, during which the French governmental structure previously an Patois is any language that is considered nonstandard, although the term is not formally defined in Linguistics. It was assumed that reactionary and monarchist forces preferred regional languages in an attempt to keep the peasant masses under-informed. Reactionary (also reactionist) is a derogatory term usually used by the Left wing in regards to movements which oppose radical change in society and seeks a return A monarchy is a Form of government in which supreme power is actually or nominally lodged in an individual who is the Head of state, often for life or Under the Third, Fourth and Fifth republics, humiliating practices geared towards stamping out Breton language and culture prevailed in state schools until the late 1960s. Even the Catholic Church finally turned against the Breton language after the Second Vatican Council.

Today, despite the political centralization of France and the important influence of the media, Breton is still spoken as an everyday language by about 500,000 people. This is, however, down from 1. 3 million in 1930. At the beginning of the 20th century, half the population of Lower Brittany knew only Breton, the other half being bilingual. By 1950, there were only 100,000 monolingual Bretons, with even fewer nowadays. Monoglottism ( Greek monos, "alone solitary" + glotta, "tongue language" or more commonly monolingualism or unilingualism ^[1] A statistical survey^[2] performed in 1997 found around 300,000 speakers in Breizh izel, of which about 190,000 were aged 60 or over. Few of those of the 15-19 year-old age-group spoke Breton.

In 1925, thanks to Professor Roparz Hemon, the first issue appeared of the review Gwalarn. Roparz Hemon ( 18 November 1900 in Brest – 29 June 1978 in Dublin) was a Breton author and scholar of Gwalarn ("Northwesterly" was a Breton language literary journal During its 19-year run, Gwalarn tried to raise the language to the level of other great "international" languages by creating original works covering all genres and by proposing Breton translations of internationally-recognized foreign works.

In 1946, Al Liamm replaced Gwalarn. Other periodicals appeared and began to give Breton a fairly large body of literature for a minority language.

Sign in French and Breton in Rennes, outside a school with bilingual classes

In 1977, Diwan schools were founded to teach Breton by immersion. Diwan is a federation of Breton language -medium schools in Brittany ( France) They taught thousands of young people from elementary school to high school. They gained more and more fame due to their high level of results in school exams. Another proposed teaching method was a bilingual approach, promoted by Div Yezh ("Two Languages") in the State schools and Dihun ("Awakening") in the Catholic schools.

The Asterix comic series has been translated into Breton. The Adventures of Asterix ( French: Astérix or Astérix le Gaulois) is a series of French This is notable because, according to the comic, the Gaulish village where Asterix lives is in the Armoric peninsula, which is now Brittany. Armorica or Aremorica is the name given in ancient times to the part of Gaul that includes the Brittany Peninsula and the territory between the Some other comics have also been translated into Breton: Tintin, Spirou, Titeuf, Hägar the Horrible, Peanuts, Yakari and so on. The Adventures of Tintin (Les Aventures de Tintin is a series of Comic strips created by Belgian artist Hergé, the pen name of Georges Remi Titeuf is a comics series created by the Swiss comics creator Zep which was adapted into an animated TV series and appears in the dedicated Hägar the Horrible (sometimes referred to as simply Hagar) is the title and the name of the main character of a syndicated Comic strip Peanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday Comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M Yakari is a Franco-Belgian comic book series aimed at a younger audience written by (the Swiss Francophone) Job and illustrated

Some movies (Lancelot, Shakespeare in Love, Marion du Faouet, Sezneg) and TV series (Columbo, Perry Mason) are also broadcast in Breton. In the Arthurian legend, Sir Lancelot ( Lancelot du Lac, also Launcelot) is one of the Knights of the Round Table. Shakespeare in Love is a 1998 Romantic comedy / Drama Film. The film was directed by John Madden and co-written by playwright Perry Mason is an Emmy -winning American TV series that ran from 1957 to 1966.

Some poets, linguists, and writers who wrote in Breton, for example Yann-Ber Kalloc'h, Roparz Hemon, Anjela Duval, Pêr-Jakez Helias and Youenn Gwernig are now known internationally. Roparz Hemon ( 18 November 1900 in Brest – 29 June 1978 in Dublin) was a Breton author and scholar of Pêr-Jakez Helias (nom de plume Pierre-Jakez Hélias) was a French author poet stage actor and radio worker of Breton expression

Today, Breton is the only living Celtic language which is not recognized as an official language. The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic" a branch of the greater Indo-European Language family. The French State refuses to change the second article of the Constitution (added in 1994), which states that "the language of the Republic is French". See also Government of France The Fifth Republic is the fifth and current republican constitution of France, which was introduced on

The first Breton dictionary, the Catholicon, was also the first French dictionary. Edited by Jehan Lagadec in 1464, it was a trilingual work containing Breton, French and Latin. Today the existence of bilingual dictionaries directly from Breton into languages such as English, Dutch, German, Spanish and Welsh demonstrates the determination of a new generation to gain international recognition for Breton. There also exists a monolingual dictionary, defining Breton words in Breton.

Geographic distribution

Breton is spoken mainly in Western Brittany, but also in a more dispersed way in Eastern Brittany (where Gallo is spoken alongside Breton and French), and in areas around the world which have received Breton emigrants. Gallo is a regional language of France. Gallo is a Romance language, one of the oïl languages.

Official status

Ofis ar Brezhoneg, the Breton language agency, was set up in 1999 by the Brittany region to promote and develop the use of Breton^[3]

Breton is not an official language of France, despite pleas from autonomists and others for official recognition and for the language to be guaranteed a place in schools, the media, and other aspects of public life.

An attempt by the French government to incorporate the independent Breton-language immersion schools (called Diwan) into the state education system was blocked by the French Constitutional Council on the grounds that, as the 1992 amendment to the Constitution of the 5th Republic states that French is the language of the Republic, no other language may be used as a language of instruction in state schools. The Constitutional Council ( Conseil Constitutionnel) was established by the Constitution of the Fifth Republic on 4 October 1958 Year 1992 ( MCMXCII) was a Leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1992 Gregorian calendar) The Toubon Law states that French is the language of public education, which means that Breton-language schools do not receive funding from the state. The Toubon Law (full name law 94-665 of 4 August 1994 relating to usage of the French language) is a law of the French government mandating

Nevertheless, the regional and departmental authorities do use Breton to a very limited extent insofar as they feel able, for example in signage. Some bilingual signage may also be seen, such as street name signs in Breton towns, and one station of the Rennes metro system has signs in both French and Breton. A street name or odonym is an identifying name given to a Street. Opened on 15 March 2002, the metro in Rennes is based on Siemens Transportation Systems VAL ( véhicule automatique léger

Dialects

The dialects of Breton as identified by ethnologists are Leoneg, Tregerieg, Gwenedeg, and Kerneveg (in French, respectively: léonard, trégorrois, vannetais, and cornouaillais). Ethnology (from the Greek ἔθνος, ethnos meaning "habit custom convention" is the branch of Anthropology that compares and Trégorrois Breton is the Dialect of Breton spoken in Trégor ( Bro Dreger in Breton There are no clear borders between those dialect areas because the language varies slightly from one village to the next. Compared to the other dialects, the Gwenedeg dialect is somewhat more distinct due to several pronunciation specificities.

Sounds

Grammar

Main article: Breton grammar

Verbal aspect

As in English and Irish, there are grammatical aspects for verbs in a particular tense, detailing whether or not an action is habitual. In Phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a Consonant articulated with both Lips The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet In Phonetics, labiodentals are Consonants articulated with the lower Lip and the upper Teeth. Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior Alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets Postalveolar consonants are Consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the Alveolar ridge, placing them a bit further back in the Palatal consonants are Consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the Hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth The term labiovelar is ambiguous It may mean labial-velar (a Consonant made at two places of articulation, one at the lips and the other at the soft Glottal consonants are Consonants articulated with the Glottis. A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the In Phonetics, a trill is a Consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the Place of articulation. Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together Approximants are speech sounds ( Phonemes) that could be regarded as intermediate between Vowels and typical Consonants In the articulation of approximants Laterals are "L"-like Consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both The grammar of the Breton language. Nouns Gender Breton has two genders masculine ( gourel) and feminine ( gwregel) English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States Irish (ga ''Gaeilge'' is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish. In Linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a Verb defines the temporal flow (or lack thereof in the described event or state As in English, there is a distinction between the habitual form and progressive aspect:

• Me zo o komz gant ma amezeg ("I am talking with my neighbour") ;
• Me a gomz gant ma amezeg [bep mintin] ("I talk with my neighbour [every morning]") ;

"Conjugated" prepositions

As in other modern Celtic languages, Breton pronouns are fused into preceding prepositions to produce a sort of "conjugated" preposition. The continuous and progressive aspects are Grammatical aspects that express incomplete action in progress at a specific time they are non-habitual imperfective The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic" a branch of the greater Indo-European Language family. In some languages an inflected preposition, or conjugated preposition, is a word formed from the contraction of a Preposition with a Personal pronoun Below are some examples in Breton, Welsh, and Irish. Welsh ( cy Cymraeg or cy y Gymraeg, kəmˈrɑːɨɡ and {{IPA|[ə ɡəmˈrɑːɨɡ]}}, is a member of the Brythonic branch of Celtic Irish (ga ''Gaeilge'' is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish. In Literary Welsh this prepositional form is often at the end of the sentence as in other Celtic languages. Interestingly, French exhibits a similar construction to indicate possession: Ce livre est à moi ("This book is mine"); à moi, literally, "to/at me" (The Gaelic languages also say "at me").

Initial consonant mutations

Breton has four initial consonant mutations: though modern Breton lost the nasal mutation of Welsh, it also has a 'hard' mutation, in which voiced stops become voiceless, and a 'mixed' mutation, which is a mixture of hard and soft mutations. Consonant mutation is the phenomenon in which a Consonant in a word is changed according to its morphological and/or syntactic environment Welsh ( cy Cymraeg or cy y Gymraeg, kəmˈrɑːɨɡ and {{IPA|[ə ɡəmˈrɑːɨɡ]}}, is a member of the Brythonic branch of Celtic

Vocabulary

• Some words passed in French and in English

The English words dolmen and menhir have been borrowed from French, which supposedly took them from Breton. A dolmen (also known as cromlech, anta, Hünengrab, Hunebed, Goindol, quoit, and portal dolmen) is a type of A menhir is a large upright Standing stone. Menhirs may be found singly as Monoliths or as part of a group of similar stones However, this is uncertain: for instance, menhir is peulvan or maen hir ("long stone"), maen sav ("straight stone") (two words : noun + adjective) in Breton. Dolmen is a misconstructed word (it should be taol-vaen). Some studies state that these words were borrowed from Cornish. For the Cornish-English dialect see West Country dialects and List of Cornish dialect words. Maen hir can be directly translated from Welsh as "long stone" (which is exactly what a Menhir / maen hir, is: a long stone).

Orthography

The first Breton texts, contained in the Leyde manuscript, were written at the end of the 8th century: fifty years prior to the Strasbourg Oaths, considered to be the earliest example of French. The Oaths of Strasbourg ( Modern French: les serments de Strasbourg, Modern German: die Straßburger Eide, Latin Sacramenta French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people After centuries of orthography calqued on the French model, in the 1830s Le Gonidec created a modern phonetic system. In Linguistics, a calque (kælk or loan translation is a Word or Phrase borrowed from another Language by Literal, word-for-word

During the early years of the 20th century, a group of writers known as Emglev ar Skrivanerien elaborated and reformed Le Gonidec's system, making it more suitable as a super-dialectal representation of the dialects of Cornouaille, Leon and Trégor. Cornouaille is an historic region in Brittany, in northwest France. This KLT (from Kernev, Leon and Treger, the Breton names for Cornouaille, Leon and Trégor) orthography was established in 1911. At the same time writers using the more divergent Vannetais dialect developed a system also based on that of Le Gonidec to represent their dialect.

Following proposals made during the 1920s, the KLT and Vannetais orthographies were merged in 1941 to create an orthographic system which could represent all four dialects. One of the most salient features of this Peurunvan wholly unified orthography was the inclusion of the <zh> digraph, which represents a /h/ in Vannetais which corresponds to a /z/ in the KLT dialects. Zh is a Digraph consisting of the letters Z and H. This digraph represents the Voiced postalveolar fricative ( like the This digraph also provides an alternate name for the orthography: Zedacheg i. A digraph, bigraph, or digram is a pair of characters used to write one Phoneme (distinct sound or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond e. ZH-ish.

In 1955 a new orthography was proposed by François Falc'hun and the group Emgleo Breiz, which had the aim of using a set of graphemes closer to the conventions of French. This Orthographie Universitaire ("University Orthography", known in Breton as Skolveurieg) was given official recognition by the French authorities as the "official orthography of Breton in French education". This orthography was met with strong opposition and is largely only used by the magazine Brud Nevez and the publishing house Emgléo Breiz.

Between 1971 and 1974 a new standard orthography has been devised - the etrerannyezhel or interdialectale. This system is based on derivation of the words.

Today the majority of writers continue to use the Peurunvan orthography, including most Breton-language schools.

Differences between Skolveurieg and Peurunvan

Both orthographies make use of the Latin alphabet, with the supplemental signs â, ê, î, ñ, ô, û, ù, ü, and é which is used only in Skolveurieg.

Differences between the two systems are particularly noticeable in word endings. In Peurunvan final obstruents which are devoiced in absolute final position and voiced in sandhi before voiced sounds are represented by a grapheme indicating a voiceless sound. In Phonetics, articulation may be divided into two large classes obstruents and Sonorants An obstruent is a Consonant sound formed by Sandhi ( Sanskrit saṃdhi sa संधि "joining" is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at Morpheme In OU they are written as voiced but represented as voiceless before suffixes: braz big, brasoh bigger.

In addition, Peurunvan maintains the KLT convention which distinguishes noun/adjective pairs with nouns written with a final voiced consonant and adjectives with a voiceless one. There is, however, no distinction in pronunciation, e. g. brezhoneg Breton language vs. brezhonek Breton (adj).

Some examples of words in the different orthographies:

Examples

Bilingual signage in Quimper/Kemper. Quimper ( Breton: Kemper, Latin: Corspotium) is a commune and capital of the Finistère department in Note the use of the word ti in the Breton for police station and tourist office, plus the variant da bep lec'h for all directions.

Visitors to Brittany may encounter words and phrases (especially on signs and posters) such as the following:

See also

• List of Celtic language media
• Armorica
• Armoricani
• Julian Maunoir, 17th. Chouchen ( Breton chouchenn) is an Alcoholic beverage popular in Brittany, France. The list below contains information on the different types of media available in the Celtic languages. Armorica or Aremorica is the name given in ancient times to the part of Gaul that includes the Brittany Peninsula and the territory between the The Armoricani were a tribe in the area now called Brittany. They inhabited the area in the Iron Age, though there is plenty of evidence of earlier settlement Blessed Julien (Julian Maunoir SJ, ("Juluan Maner" in Breton) known as the "Apostle of Brittany " was born in France in 1606 century Breton language orthographer

External links

• Breton site including online lessons
• Breton site with learners' forum and lessons (mostly in French with some English)
• 100 Words relating to the internet in Breton
• Amsez Wask Breizh News in breton language from agence bretagne presse
• Bretagne Réunie
• BLOG BREIZH - Blog of information about Brittany with some very interesting articles about Breton language
• A Taste of Breton Verse
• Irish and Breton language with Japanese translation incl. pronunciation sound files
• http://www.logosdictionary.com/pls/dictionary/new_dictionary.index_p A multilingual dictionary containing many Breton words alongside those of other languages
• The Official Breton Language website
• Entry at Omniglot

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Ethnologue report for language code:bre
2. ^ Fañch Broudic, Qui parle breton aujourd'hui? Qui le parlera demain? Brest: Brud Nevez, 1999
3. ^ Ofis ar Brezhoneg