Common Brittonic

This article is about an ancestral Celtic language. For the group of languages descended from it, see Brittonic languages.
Common Brittonic
*Brittonikā[1]
RegionGreat Britain
EthnicityBritons
Erac. 6th century BC to mid-6th century AD[2]
Developed into Old Welsh, Cumbric, Cornish, Breton and probably Pictish[3]
Language codes
ISO 639-3–
brit
GlottologNone
Linguasphere50-AB

Common Brittonic (Welsh: Brythoneg; Cornish: Brythonek; Breton: Predeneg), also known as British, Common Brythonic, or Proto-Brittonic,[4][5] is a Celtic language historically spoken in Britain and Brittany from which evolved the later and modern Brittonic languages.

It is a form of Insular Celtic, descended from Proto-Celtic, a theorized parent language that, by the first half of the first millennium BC, was diverging into separate dialects or languages.[6][7][8][9] Pictish is linked, likely as a sister language or a descendant branch.[10][11][12]

Evidence from early and modern Welsh shows that Common Brittonic was significantly influenced by Latin during the Roman period, especially in terms related to the church and Christianity.[13] By the sixth century AD, the languages of the Celtic Britons were rapidly diverging into Neo-Brittonic: Welsh, Cumbric, Cornish, Breton, and possibly the Pictish language.

Over the next three centuries, Brittonic was replaced by Scottish Gaelic in most of Scotland, and by Old English (from which descend Modern English and Scots) throughout most of modern England as well as Scotland south of the Firth of Forth.[14] Cumbric disappeared in the 12th century,[14] and in the far south-west, Cornish probably became extinct in the 18th century, though its use has since been revived.[15][a] O'Rahilly's historical model suggests a Brittonic language in Ireland before the introduction of the Goidelic languages, but this view has not found wide acceptance.[17] Welsh and Breton are the only daughter languages that have survived fully into the modern day.

  1. ^ Schrijver, Peter (1995). Studies in British Celtic historical phonology. Leiden studies in Indo-european. Amsterdam Atlanta (Ga.): Rodopi. p. 45. ISBN 978-90-5183-820-6.
  2. ^ Common Brittonic at MultiTree on the Linguist List
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference UGlas was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Eska, Joseph F. (2019-12-01). "The evolution of proto-Brit. *-/lth/ in Welsh". Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie. 66 (1): 75–82. doi:10.1515/zcph-2019-0003. ISSN 1865-889X. S2CID 212726410.
  5. ^ Sims-Williams, Patrick (November 1984). "The Double System of Verbal Inflexion in Old Irish". Transactions of the Philological Society. 82 (1): 138–201. doi:10.1111/j.1467-968X.1984.tb01211.x. ISSN 0079-1636.
  6. ^ Henderson, Jon C. (2007). The Atlantic Iron Age: Settlement and Identity in the First Millennium BC. Routledge. pp. 292–295. ISBN 9780415436427.
  7. ^ Sims-Williams, Patrick (2007). Studies on Celtic Languages before the Year 1000. CMCS. p. 1.
  8. ^ Koch, John T. (2006). Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 1455.
  9. ^ Eska, Joseph (2008). "Continental Celtic". In Woodard, Roger (ed.). The Ancient Languages of Europe. Cambridge.
  10. ^ Forsyth, Katherine (2006). Koch, John T. (ed.). Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. pp. 1444, 1447.
  11. ^ Forsyth, Katherine (1997). Language in Pictland: The case against "non-Indo-European Pictish". Utrecht: de Keltische Draak. p. 27.
  12. ^ Jackson, Kenneth H. (1955). "The Pictish Language". In Wainwright, F. T. (ed.). The Problem of the Picts. Edinburgh: Nelson. pp. 129–166.
  13. ^ Lewis, H. (1943). Yr Elfen Ladin yn yr Iaith Gymraeg. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
  14. ^ a b Nicolaisen, W. F. H. Scottish Place Names. p. 131.
  15. ^ Tanner, Marcus (2004). The last of the Celts. Yale University Press. p. 225. ISBN 0300104642.
  16. ^ Ferdinand, Siarl (2018). "The Promotion of Cornish in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly: Attitudes towards the Language and Recommendations for Policy". Studia Celtica Fennica. 19: 107–130. doi:10.33353/scf.79496.
  17. ^ O'Rahilly, Thomas (1964). Early Irish history and mythology. School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. ISBN 0-901282-29-4.


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