Other major characteristics include:
- the treatment of -''m'', -''n'' as -''am'', -''an''.
- initial ''s-'' followed by a vowel was changed to ''h-''
- ---Irish ''sean'' "old", ''sior'' "long", ''samail'' "similar"
- ---Breton ''hen, hir, heñvel''
- Brythonic retains original nasals before -t
- ---Breton ''kant'' "hundred" vs. Irish ''cead''
- ''sp, sr, sv/sw'' became ''f, fr, chw''
- --- ---''swero'' "toy, game" became Welsh ''chwarae'' and Breton ''c'hoari''
- --- ---''srokna'' "nostril" became Welsh ''ffroen'' and Breton ''froen''.
- all other initial ''s-'' fell before consonants
- ---''smero'' became Welsh ''mwyar'', Breton ''mouar'' "fruit"
- ---''slemon'' became Welsh ''llyfn'', Breton ''levn'' "smooth"
- ''v'' became ''gw'' where in Goidelic it is ''f''
- --- ''vindos'' "white" became Welsh ''gwenn''
- --- ''vassos'' "servant, young man" became Welsh ''gwas''
- double plosives transformed into spirants: pp, cc, tt became f, ch (c'h), th (z) before a vowel or liquid
- ---cippus > Breton ''kef'' "tree trunk", Welsh ''cyff''
- ---cattos > Breton ''kaz'', Welsh ''cath''
- ---bucca > Breton boc'h'', W ''boch''
- single voiceless plosives and voiced ''d'', ''b'', and ''m'' in an intervocalic position became soft spirants
- ---Welsh ''dd'' ''th''[θ , ''f'' [v]
- ---Breton ''z'', ''v''
The major Brythonic languages are
Welsh and
Breton , both of which survive as community languages today. The
Cornish Language died out at the end of the eighteenth century, but attempts at reviving it started in the
20th Century and are ongoing. Also notable are the extinct language
Cumbric , and possibly the extinct
Pictish (although the late
Kenneth H. Jackson argued during the
1950s , from some of the few remaining examples of Pictish, that Pictish was a non-
Indo-European language, the majority of modern scholars of Pictish do not agree).
The family tree of the Brythonic languages is as follows:
The modern Brythonic languages are generally considered to all derive from a common ancestral language termed ''British'', ''Common Brythonic'', ''Old Brythonic'' or ''Proto-Brythonic'', which is thought to have developed from
Proto-Celtic , which was possibly introduced to
Great Britain from the
Middle Second Millennium BC (Hawkes, 1973). Brythonic languages were then spoken at least in the whole of Great Britain south of the rivers
Forth and
Clyde , though the
Isle Of Man had a Goidelic language. Northern Scotland mainly spoke
Pictish which may have been a Brythonic language. The theory has been advanced (notably by R. F. O'Rahilly) that Ireland was populated by speakers of Brythonic before being displaced by speakers of a Q-Celtic language (possibly from the Quarietii tribe of southern
France ), although the linguists Dillon and Chadwick reject this theory as being implausible.
- ''ēskos'' > ''Wysg'' river). Approximately eight hundred of these Latin loan-words have survived in the three modern Brythonic languages. ''Romano-British'' is the name for the Latinised form of the language used by Roman authors.
It is probable that during this period Common Brythonic was differentiated into at least two major dialect groups - Southwestern and Western (in addition we may posit additional dialects, ie Eastern Brythonic, spoken in what is now eastern England which have left little or no evidence). Between the end of the Roman occupation and the mid sixth century the two dialects began to diverge into recognisably separate languages, the Western into Cumbric and Welsh, and the Southwestern into
Cornish and its closely related sister language
Breton , which was carried from the south west of Great Britain to continental
Armorica . Jackson showed that a few of the dialect distinctions between West and Southwest Brythonic go back a long way. New divergencies began around AD500 but other changes which were shared occurred in the 6th century. Other common changes occurred in the seventh century onward and are possibly due to inherent tendencies. Thus the concept of a common Brythonic language ends by AD600. It is thought that substantial numbers of Britons remained in the expanding area controlled by Anglo-Saxons, but the only information on their language may be obtained from place names. Over time it is thought they gradually adopted the English language.
The Brythonic languages spoken in
Scotland , the
Isle Of Man and
England began to be displaced in the 5th century through the influence of Irish, Norse and Germanic invaders. The displacement of the languages of Brythonic descent was probably complete in all of this territory (except
Cornwall and the English counties bordering Wales) by the 11th century (date of extinction in various parts of the territory is debated). Ivernic is a Brythonic language that may have been spoken in Ireland.
The principal legacy left behind in those territories from which the Brythonic languages were displaced is that of
Toponym s (place-names). There are many Brythonic place-names in lowland Scotland and in the parts of England where it is agreed that substantial Brythonic speakers remained (Brythonic names, apart from those of the former Romano-British towns, are scarce over most of England). Names derived (sometimes indirectly) from Brythonic include
London ,
Penicuik ,
Perth ,
Aberdeen ,
York ,
Dorchester ,
Dover and
Colchester . Brythonic elements found in England include ''bre-'' and ''bal-'' for hills, and
Carr for a high rocky place, while some such as
Coomb(e) for a small deep valley and
Tor for a hill are examples of Brythonic words that were borrowed into English. Others reflect the presence of Brythons, such as
Dumbarton - from the
Scottish Gaelic ''Dùn Breatainn'' meaning "Fort of the Britons", or Walton (several) meaning a 'tun' or settlement where Welsh/Brythons still lived.
It is generally accepted that linguistic effects on English were lexically rather poor aside from toponyms, consisting of a few domestic words, which may include hubbub,
Peat ,
Bucket , crock, noggin, gob (cf. Gaelic ''gob''), nook; and the dialectal term for a
Badger , i.e. ''brock'' (cf. Welsh ''broch'', and Gaelic ''broc''). Arguably, the use of
Periphrastic constructions (using
Auxiliary Verb s like ''do'' and ''be'') in the English
Verb (which is more widespread than in the other
Germanic Languages ) is traceable to Brythonic influence.
Some researchers (Filppula ''et al.'', 2001) argue that English syntax reflects more extensive Brythonic influences. For instance, in English
Tag Question s, the form of the tag depends on the verb form in the main statement (''aren't I?'', ''isn't he?'', ''won't we?'' etc). The German ''nicht wahr?'' and the French ''n'est-ce pas?'', by contrast, are fixed forms which can be used with almost any main statement. It has been claimed that the English system has been borrowed from Brythonic, since Welsh tag questions vary in almost exactly the same way. This view is far from being generally accepted, though.
Far more notable, but less well known, are the many Brythonic influences on
Scottish Gaelic . Like English, periphrastic constructions have come to the fore, but to a much greater degree. Scottish Gaelic contains a number of apparently P-Celtic loanwords, but as there is a far greater overlap in terms of Celtic vocabulary, than with English, it is not always possible to disentangle P and Q Celtic words. In particular, the word ''srath'' (anglicised as "Strath") is a native Goidelic word, but its usage appears to have been modified by the Brythonic cognate whose meaning is slightly different.
- Filppula, M., Klemola, J. and Pitkänen, H. (2001). ''The Celtic roots of English'', Studies in languages, No. 37, University of Joensuu, Faculty of Humanities, ISBN 9 5245 8164 7
- Hawkes, J. (1973). ''The first great civilizations: life in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and Egypt'', The history of human society series, London: Hutchinson, ISBN 0 09 116580 6
- Jackson, K., (1994). ''Language and history in early Britain: a chronological survey of the Brittonic languages, 1st to 12th c. A. D'', Celtic studies series, Dublin: Four Courts Press, ISBN 1 85182 140 6
