Breton (Breton: Brezhoneg) is a Celtic language spoken by some of the inhabitants of Brittany (Breizh) and Loire-Atlantique (historically part of Brittany) in France. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) used in spoken human language. ... Traditional coat of arms Modern flag (Gwenn-ha-du) Historical province of Brittany région of Bretagne, see Bretagne. ... Current distribution of Human Language Families Most languages are known to belong to language families. ... The Indo-European languages comprise a family of several hundred languages and dialects [1], including most of the major languages of Europe, as well as many in Southwest Asia, Central Asia and South Asia. ... The Celtic languages are the languages descended from Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, spoken by ancient and modern Celts alike. ... The Insular 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 Brythonic languages (or Brittonic languages) form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2:1998 Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 2: Alpha-3 code Twenty-two of the languages have two three-letter codes: a code for bibliographic use (ISO 639-2/B) a code for terminological use (ISO 639-2/T). ... ISO 639-3 is in process of development as an international standard for language codes. ... The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) used in spoken human language. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone = sound/voice) is the study of sounds (voice). ... Because of technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... This is a concise version of the International Phonetic Alphabet for English sounds. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The Celtic languages are the languages descended from Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, spoken by ancient and modern Celts alike. ... Traditional coat of arms Modern flag (Gwenn-ha-du) Historical province of Brittany région of Bretagne, see Bretagne. ... Loire-Atlantique (formerly Loire-Inférieure) is a département on the west coast of France named after the Loire River and the Atlantic Ocean. ...

History

Breton is not a descendant of any of the Continental Celtic languages such as Gaulish (though it may have borrowed some features from it); rather, it 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 modern-day language most closely related to Breton is Cornish, followed by Welsh. (The other regional language of Brittany, Gallo, is a Langue d'oïl derived from Latin). The Continental Celtic languages are those Celtic languages that are neither Goidelic nor Brythonic. ... Gaulish is the name given to the Celtic language that was spoken in Gaul before the Vulgar Latin of the late Roman Empire became dominant in Roman Gaul. ... The Brythonic languages (or Brittonic languages) form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family. ... The Insular 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 term Romano-British describes the romanised culture of Britannia under the rule of the Roman Empire, when Roman and Christian culture had extensively entered into the life of the native Brythonic and Pictish peoples of Britain. ... Traditional coat of arms Modern flag (Gwenn-ha-du) Historical province of Brittany région of Bretagne, see Bretagne. ... The Cornish language (in Cornish: Kernowek, Kernewek, Curnoack) is one of the Brythonic group of Celtic languages that includes Welsh, Breton, the extinct Cumbric and perhaps the hypothetical Ivernic. ... Welsh redirects here, and this article describes the Welsh language. ... A regional language is a language spoken in a part of a country - it may be a small area, a federal state or province, or a wider area. ... Gallo is a regional language of France, traditionally spoken in Eastern Brittany. ... The langue doïl language family in linguistics comprises Romance languages originating in territories now occupied by northern France, part of Belgium and the Channel Islands. ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ...

Breton is traditionally spoken in Lower Brittany, roughly to the west of a line linking Plouha and Vannes. It comes from a language community between Great Britain and Armorica (present-day Brittany). 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. As a written language, the Duchy of Brittany used Latin, switching to French in the 15th century. There exists a limited tradition of Breton literature. Old Breton has left some vocabulary which has served in the present day to produce philosophical and scientific terms in Modern Breton. In the old city centre Harbour to cathedral Vannes (Breton: Gwened) is a town and commune located in the Morbihan département, in Brittany, in the west of France. ... 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 Seine and Loire rivers, extending inland to an indeterminate point and down the Atlantic coast. ... The Duchy of Brittany was an independent state from 841 to 1532. ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ... Breton literature is the Breton language literary tradition of Brittany. ... Philosophy (from the Greek words philos and sophia meaning love of wisdom) is understood in different ways historically and by different philosophers. ...

The French Monarchy never really concerned itself with the minority languages of France. The revolutionary period really started policies favouring French over the "regional" languages, more pejoratively called patois. It was assumed that reactionary and monarchist forces preferred regional languages in an attempt to keep the peasant masses under-informed. According to the defenders of the Breton language, humiliating practices geared towards stamping out Breton lingered in schools and churches until the 1960s. There are a number of languages of France. ... The French Revolution (1789–1799) was a pivotal period in the history of French, European and Western civilization. ... Patois, although without a formal definition in linguistics, can be used to describe a language considered as nonstandard. ... Reactionary (or reactionist) is a political epithet, generally used as a pejorative, originally applied in the context of the French Revolution to counter-revolutionaries who wished to restore the real or imagined conditions of the monarchical Ancien Régime. ... Places where monarchies maintain rule appear in blue. ...

Today, despite the political centralization of France and the important influence of the media, Breton is still spoken and understood 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.

In 1925, thanks to Professor Roparz Hemon, the first issue appeared of the review Gwalarn. 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 Rennes outside a school with bilingual classes

In 1977, Diwan schools were founded to teach Breton by immersion. They taught thousands of young people from elementary school to high school. Another proposed teaching method was a bilingual approach, Div Yezh (two languages). Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ...

In 2004, the Asterix comic series were translated into Breton and Gallo. This is notable because, according to the comic, the village where Asterix lives is in Brittany. Asterix the Gaul Asterix (French: Astérix) is a fictional character, created in 1959 as the hero of a series of French comic books (with the same title) by René Goscinny (stories) and Albert Uderzo (illustrations). ...

Some poets, linguists, and writers who wrote in Breton, for example Yann-Ber Kalloc'h, Roparz Hemon, Anjela Duval and Per-Jakez Hélias, are now known internationally.

Today, Breton is the only living Celtic language which is not recognized as an official language. The French state has refused to change the second article of the Constitution (added in 1994), which states that "the language of the Republic is French". The number of protesters demanding the repeal of this article is growing year by year. ^{[citation needed]} The Celtic languages are the languages descended from Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, spoken by ancient and modern Celts alike. ...

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. This article or section may be confusing for some readers, and should be edited to be clearer or more simplified. ...

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, traditionally spoken in Eastern Brittany. ...

Official status

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 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 Toubon Law states that French is the language of public education, which means that Breton-language schools do not receive funding from the state. A republican guard giving directions to visitors at the front entrance of the Constitutional Council The Constitutional Council (Conseil Constitutionnel) was established by the Constitution of the Fifth Republic on 4 October 1958. ... 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 the use of the French language in official government publications, advertisements, and some other contexts. ...

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. On the other hand, few shops or other private entities in Rennes have any Breton-language signs. A street name or odonym is an identifying name given to a street or road. ... Opened on March 15, 2002, the metro in Rennes is based on Siemens Transportation Systems VAL (véhicule automatique léger or light automatic vehicle) technology. ...

Dialects

The dialects of Breton as identified by ethnologists are Leoneg, Tregerieg, Gwenedeg, and Kerneveg (in French, respectively: léonard, trégorrois, vannetais, and cornouaillais). 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 several pronunciation specificities. Ethnologyis a genre of cultural anthropology and| anthropological study, involving the systematic comparison of the beliefs and practices of different societies. ... Trégorrois Breton is the dialect of Breton spoken in Trégor (Bro Dreger in Breton). ...

Sounds

In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. ... In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lips and the upper teeth, or viceversa. ... 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) of the superior teeth. ... Postalveolar (or palato-alveolar) consonants are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue between the alveolar ridge (the place of articulation for alveolar consonants) and the palate (the place of articulation for palatal consonants). ... 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). ... Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ... A labiovelar consonant is a consonant made with two blockages, one at the lips (labial) and the other at the soft palate (velar). ... Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. ... A stop or plosive or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... A nasal consonant is produced when the velum—that fleshy part of the palate near the back—is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. ... In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. ... Fricatives (or spirants) are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. ... Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and typical consonants. ... 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 sides of the tongue. ...

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. As in English, there is a distinction between the habitual form and progressive aspect: The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb defines the temporal flow (or lack thereof) in the described event or state. ... The progressive or continuous tenses of a verb are those denoting an incomplete action in progress at a specific time. ...

• 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. Below are some examples in Breton, Welsh, and Irish. Interestingly, French exhibits a similar construction to indicate possession: Le livre, c'est à moi ("The book is mine"); à moi, literally, "to me". The Celtic languages are the languages descended from Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, spoken by ancient and modern Celts alike. ... Welsh redirects here, and this article describes the Welsh language. ...

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 redirects here, and this article describes the Welsh language. ...

Vocabulary

The English words dolmen and menhir have been borrowed from French, which supposedly took them from Breton. However, this is uncertain: for instance, menhir is peulvan, maen-hir, maen-sav in Breton, and dolmen is a misconstructed word (it should be taol-vaen). Some studies state that these words were borrowed from Cornish. Maen Hir can be directly translated from Welsh as "long stone" (which is exactly what a Menhir/maenhir, is: a long stone). It has been suggested that Portal dolmen be merged into this article or section. ... A menhir is a large, single upright standing stone (monolith or megalith), of prehistoric European origin. ... The Cornish language (in Cornish: Kernowek, Kernewek, Curnoack) is one of the Brythonic group of Celtic languages that includes Welsh, Breton, the extinct Cumbric and perhaps the hypothetical Ivernic. ...

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. After centuries of orthography calqued on the French model, in the 1830s Le Gonidec created a modern phonetic system. Text of the Oaths The Oaths of Strasbourg (Modern French: les serments de Strasbourg, Modern German: die Straßburger Eide) is the name by which we know the pledges of allegiance taken in 842 by Louis the German, son of Louis the Pious, and ruler of the eastern Frankish kingdom... This article or section contains information that has not been verified and thus might not be reliable. ...

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. 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. Cornouaille is an historic region in Brittany, in northwest France. ...

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. This digraph also provides an alternate name for the orthography: Zedacheg i.e. ZH-ish. zh is a digraph found in many languages. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...

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 has been fixed a new standard orthography. 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 OU 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 OU. The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ...

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 OU they are written as voiced but represented as voiceless before suffixes: braz big, brasoh bigger. In phonetics, an obstruent is a consonant sound formed by obstructing the airway. ... Sandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries. ...

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 both orthographies:

Examples

Bilingual signage in Quimper. 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: Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1037x1120, 741 KB) Directional road signs, bilingual in French and Breton, in the city of Kemper (Quimper) in Brittany Photo taken by Man vyi with Canon PowerShot A40 on 14/10/2003 File links The following pages link to this file... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1037x1120, 741 KB) Directional road signs, bilingual in French and Breton, in the city of Kemper (Quimper) in Brittany Photo taken by Man vyi with Canon PowerShot A40 on 14/10/2003 File links The following pages link to this file... Quimper (Kemper in Breton, Corspotium in Latin) is a commune of Brittany in northwestern France. ...

Kevrenn an Arvorig here with dancer Bro ar Ster Goz A bagad is a Breton band, composed of biniou (Breton bagpipes), bombardes and snare drums. ...

See also

Breton language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Breton language

• Swadesh list of Breton words

Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1058x1058, 477 KB) aa Wikipedia logo, version 1058px square, no text Wikipedia logo by Nohat (concept by Paullusmagnus); compare Wikipedia File links The following pages link to this file: Arabic language Talk:Anarcho-capitalism Talk:Algorithm Talk:Anno Domini Talk:The... Wikipedia is a multilingual, Web-based free content encyclopedia project. ... Image File history File links Commons-logo. ... Wikimedia Commons logo by Reid Beels The Wikimedia Commons (also called Commons or Wikicommons) is a repository of free content images, sound and other multimedia files. ... Swadesh list of 207 words in English and Breton. ...

External links

• Breton site including online lessons
• Breton site with learners' forum and lessons (mostly in French with some English)
• The Breton Language
• 100 Words relating to the internet in Breton
• Bretagne Réunie
• BLOG BREIZH - Blog of information about Brittany with some very interesting articles about Breton language
• A Taste of Breton Verse