The
Celtic Language Hypothesis groups the
Goidelic languages, which include
Irish ,
Manx , and
Scottish Gaelic , together with the
Brythonic languages, of which the modern ones are
Breton ,
Cornish and
Welsh .
The
Nomenclature "Insular" refers to the location of the areas where these languages have been traditionally spoken, that being the
British Isles (
Latin ''insula'' - "island"). It therefore also refers to the notion that the Brythonic and Goidelic languages
Evolved together in those islands, having a
Common Ancestor more recent than any shared with the
Continental Celtic Languages (
Celtiberian ,
Gaulish and
Lepontic among others, all of which are long
Extinct ).
The proponents of the Insular Celtic
Hypothesis point to shared innovations among Insular Celtic languages, including
Inflected Prepositions and
VSO word order. They assert that an
Etymological Partition that lumps the Brythonic languages and Gaulish (all P-Celtic) on one side and the Goidelic languages with Celtiberian (all Q-Celtic) on the other may be a superficial one, as the identical sound shift (Q to P) could have occurred independently in the predecessors of Gaulish and Brythonic.
The family tree of the Insular Celtic languages is thus as follows:
