Where Did All The Celtic Languages Go? 

I speak irish with my father and friends. Go raibh maith agat!

I am probably going to try to learn some of Cornish and Irish in the future, for heritage reasons.

maybe its just our Canadian mythology, but we like to think a lot of the Celtic languages and culture was exported to eastern Canada

The Portuguese and the Spanish empires can be considered the Celtic Empires historically if you read the other comments, as someone else mentioned correctly. That is because those people were the only ones to have called themselves Celtici, Celti, Celtiati, etc, in their own proper names, in their own tribal names, and in their personal items like votive altars, combs and pans, ceramic items, and tombstones and other stelae, unlike every other so-called "Celtic-speaking tribe" in ancient times. Also, please read my other comments under your video as this video of yours continues to propagate old, outdated pseudo-scientific theories about the Celts, and those theories have very bad roots, mostly related to Nordicism and Biblicism.

I can sort of read Irish and know a couple of words and phrases. I know a few differences between Ulster and Munster dialects. But I don't actually speak the language.

ironically, 2100 years earlier, the Italians were the opressed people. they almost got wiped out by the Gallic Celts. It's your people's ability to rise up after a disastrous defeat that helped a lot, Romans just refused to give up. it's also the reason Rome defeated Carthage. History is a funny thing.

Honestly, I don't blame the Romans. That's like blaming a teething puppy for chewing your slippers. I blame the druids.

we blame the english not the italians. this is a very anglo-washed video

@@OwzFTW You do realize the majority of Celtic languages were extinct before the Anglos arrived in Britain, right?

I mean you probably also have some Celtic ancestors

There’s a great little documentary I think on yt about Welsh in Patagonia . Not sure if it’s still up tho as it’s presented by a certain Welsh newsreader who was recently exposed

I forgot about South America. Thank you.

Thank you very much for making this argument, because that exact same argument can be used to defend the position I defended in my extensive and comprehensive direct response to this video, namely that "Gallaecian" should be simply called "Celtic" for the same reason as "Romance" should be called "Italic" - "Gallaecian" refers not just to the language that the Gallaeci spoke but that all Gallaico-Lusitanian tribes spoke, and they were collectively known as Celtici as per many of their tribes and the majority of their proper names in their votive altars, tombstones and personal items. As as you said, Italic is the correct equivalent to Germanic, Slavic, and likewise Celtic instead of Gallaecians is the correct equivalent to Celtiberian and Gaulish.

I love even here I see Eurovision references!

it was my favourite from eurovision! i don't understand why it was one of the lowest voted songs :( it was so creative and mesmerising

I like listening to "Men of Harlech" in Welsh.

@@SantaFe19484 I spent a week in Harlech, I love north Wales, such a beautiful part of the world.

@@SantaFe19484 "Wait, Harlech actually exists?" - Me, two minutes ago.

In Cumberland (Northern Cumbria) they spoke a Brythonic language called Cumbric that didnt go extinct until the 12th century

They were most probably Norse not Celtic. No Celtic place names exist in that area.

So proud of their Celtishness they can't even pronounce it right. Well that's Scots for ya. Or football fans. Or Scottish football fans.

It was Celtic nationalists, not linguists who advocated for the /k/ pronunciation (because all Cs are "hard" in Welsh, and the "soft" Cs of Irish and Scottish G. are /c/, still more K-like than S-like). They were pretty successful in their pronunciation revolution and the /k/ version of the word caught on in standard English (except in sports).

And of course it's 's'lubs rather than 'k'lubs

it was /s/ up until the early 1900's when it was borrowed from the German pronunciation of the word. they in turn took it directly from the Latin pronunciation of the word (who took it from the Greeks). but when Late Latin became Old French, the 'hard' /k/ slowly morphed into the /s/ that's still used in Modern French today. so, use whichever. Celtic nationalists would declaim the /s/, but we don't even know what the original word was in Celtic languages, some even speculating that it was a label the Greeks invented when they warred with the Celts in their region. all in all, a rather academic difference that is pointlessly the cause of unneeded aggravation by people who don't even stop for a moment before getting mad about history.

@@HBon111 I'm just mad about the letter 'c' if you sound like s then look like s, if you sound like k look like k (C can stay for 'ch')

Didn't expect to get music recommendations on a language video, but I ain't complaining, lol. Cheers!

Tha mi Aimearaganach, is tha beagan Gàidhlig agam cuideachd

Is Éireannach mé agus Gaeilge Éireann tosaitheoir agam

Moron thanks to you also

Tha mi ga bruidhinn beagan a cuideachd. I'm from Nova Scotia and am learning as an adult

@@thermn8r Bualadh bos

just found his channel a few days ago. it's a great channel

Oh, interesting. I've noticed a lot of the Slavic ones, being Slavic myself (once I even browsed through the map of Germany looking for Slavic-looking names :D), I knew about some Latin ones, but never heard of the Celtic part before.

@@8Hshan The German city Trier is named after the Gallic speaking Treveri tribe. I read somewhere that they were still speaking Gallic close to the fall of the West-Roman Empire.

Same as Welsh. The (Welsh not) was practiced until 1940's. People were beaten for speaking the language until then

Yaaaaawn. Its always the fault of the English. Blah blah blah

​@@user-wp6om9sc5rAs it is often said, the Cornish language did not die, it was murdered.

@@jboss1073 Not directly related to my comment but thank you for the input. I was under the impression that the three theories on the origins of Celtic cultures were still debated, but I don't know much about the academics surrounding the issue. Is it one of those where it technically is still debated but academia is very much trending towards the third theory?

He mentioned that the reason for the decline was the British empire.. its not an in depth video about Irish history. Most people know enough about the British empire to infer what may have happened. Did you actually watch until the end of the video?

@@marcuskennedy709they just wanted to screech about something tbh

@@jboss1073 Excellent paper. One of the problems with both Cunliffe and Gray and Atkinson is that they're not linguists. Dates prior to 6th century BCE are entirely hypothetical, with the additional problem that the corpus is very small and the inscriptions fragmentary and like Tartessian, often impossible to decipher. He mentions some of the problems with reconstructed proto-languages. While I don't agree with all of his points, it's a better model.

@@saracellucci176 nope. All theories are still being hotly debated. Without evidence it's nigh on impossible to put anything to bed.

I suspect that he is referring to the oldest EVIDENCE, as in documentation to the outside world, of a Celtic language being spoken in Ireland. There was almost no peaceful contact between Ireland and the other British Isles, with the Irish regarded as pirates and slavers by their neighbors, until the 4th-5th century AD. What happened then? A young man, a Romanized Celtic Briton (NOT AN ENGLISHMAN), was captured by Irish pirates and enslaved by the Irish. A few years later, he escaped, came home, and decided to become a priest (Rome was predominantly Christian at this time). After graduating and being ordained, he went back to Ireland and converted the Irish, and when he died there of old age, after many successful years as a bishop, he was made a saint. Many people in the centuries since, including our RU-vid presenter, have been named after him: Patrick (or Patricia, for girls). So obviously, the Irish had been SPEAKING Gaelic for a long time, most likely as long as the Britons were speaking Common Britannic, but before Patrick, nobody outside Ireland CARED what language they spoke.

@@allanrichardson1468 absolutely, Patrick cannot possibly have been English, because England hadn't been invented. King Arthur, despite being a fictitious character also could not have been English. He was notably not keen on Saxons. Linguists tend to think Irish was the more archaic of the two, that doesn't necessarily mean older, but almost certainly contemporary with Brythonic. The earliest attested Welsh is 8th century - all we really know about Iron Age Britons comes from archaeology. Caesar is unreliable.

The Saxon invasions into Romano Briton land was backed by Gaels from Ireland who invaded from the other side

@@user-ze8yy8jg1fNo, it wasnt lol

@@Fatasha776 yes it was I'm irish ill tell you our history not a foreigner telling me

@@Fatasha776 is that why saxon catholics use irish art ? Is that why welsh coastal settlements are gaelic ? Is that why Scotland exists? Isle of man? All named after irish during the gaelic expansion after the fall of the roman empire

It's prounced "gal-ick" not "gah-lick" which is just how the word "garlic" is pronounced (in a non rhotic accent of course)

Also, would I be wrong to assume that the term "Gaelic" or "Gallic" has a direct connection to "Gaul" or "Gaulish" or should I say "Gaulic"?

​@@PiousMoltarGaul is actually a Germanic name which was only applied to the area after Rome fell, and is not etymologically related to Gallia, its name during antiquity. Gaul comes from *Walhaz, like Wales, Wallonia, Wallachia etc. Old French had a tendency to replace the initial W- in Frankish loan words with an initial Gu-: hence guerre / war, garde / ward, Pays de Galles / Wales. Gael supposedly comes from Brythonic *Guoidel, meaning wild man, pirate, something along those lines. Maybe it is also related to Gallia?

This. The Romans let Gauls continue to speak their native language for as long as they occupied the land, it's the just the administration was done in Latin.

Interesting how the they ended up Latin or Romance speaking if the Romans didnt push their language/ culture

A few words do not a Celtic language make. Those people need to get over themselves.

The language is like a link between Portuguese and Spanish 2 languages that are already very similar its hard to tell Galician apart .even Catalan sounds more unique and has more unique words.

​@@jboss1073I have Irish, Scottish, and English (average Englishman is genetically 2/3 Brythonic) ancestry. Yet I was born and raised in America, never left the country, and (currently) speak only English. Am I still a Celt?

@@jboss1073 Irish, Scottish, and Brythonic peoples ARE Celts and therefore I am a Celt. We ARE descended from the ancient Celts of central western Europe. Also, Gaels are not Brythonic but Goidelic (they came to Ireland from Iberia, not Britain).

@@nifelheirn The point is twofold: many like include Galicia among the seven culturally Celtic nations regardless of language, due to the style of architecture found at ancient settlements and even much shared DNA; and that the few remaining bits of Celtic vocabulary are more like 'leftover words' than strictly loanwords.

It seems the earliest *written* evidence is from around 400AD. So I think he mistakenly assumed that's when Celtic languages started being spoken there. But it's more likely it had already been spoken for centuries, they just didn't start writing until much later.

Also Celtic didn't spread to Ireland from Britain, as this frustratingly Anglocentric narrator assumes. It, and other Celtic cultural influences, spread to both islands from the mainland at the same time.

Celts arrived in Ireland in about 700-900bc. They have been there for close to 3000 years.

@@jboss1073 @jboss1073 "no celtic languages survived in the region long term into the present day after the Roman empire" is more specific indeed.

I'm from Galicia, and the Celtic cultura is more than prominent

@@peterjungmann6057 And the names Wales (Galles in French/Italian) Wallonia (in Belgium) and Gallia/Gaul/Gaule (the name of Celtic France) are related and comes from the same root apparently

Its present in North eastern Spain too. Not just in the North West. Places like Deba, Nervión etc in the basque country are Celtic Etymologically. And there are plenty of examples in Burgos, Soria, Navarre etc...

@@IZANtheMASTER The Bagpipe is not Celtic culture. Just because they play bagpipes doesnt mean they are/were celtic. There's a lot of so called "Celtic Culture" element that we associate today that arent celtic but a romantization of them. So what you see as "Celtic" in Galicia might not at all be so. Galicians in fact were pre-celtic peoples ruled by a celtic elite. And Galicia is the region in Spain with the highest Arabic/berber DNA.

No it's mandatory in primary and secondary school

Q-Celtic was likely the language of the Indo-Europeans who settled in Britain and Ireland around 2500 BC. Modern Irish people are largely descended from those Indo-Europeans. It’s very likely the Modern Irish language is descended from an Indo-European Q-Celtic language spoken by those settlers.

@@jboss1073 yeah I read some thought it was. Well I love Astérix et Obélix! Just kidding. 😅

It's not about being easy, a language can usually be simplified in use to still be perfectly communicative in an utilitarian sense, yet much easier to speak. It's about popularity and importance. If all the administration around is done in a language X, then even if the vast majority of population natively speaks language Y, all those who deal with the administration more often will learn X. All the ambitious ones, who'd like to participate in the administration, will learn X. Scholars, traders will learn X. Some royal court and a bunch of nobles speaking a different language is not enough to undermine the position of another, native language, but if basically every organised part of civilisation one lives in uses a different language, then that might just be enough to start the process.

Gallic is still a term used to describe frenchness. Probably because genetics prove that France still has huge Gaulish DNA

The word for France in Greek remains γαλλια 😊

His surname is Breton - 'ker' means homestead or village in Breton.

It’s pronunciation. Both are with a c Just one is soft one is not. We do not use the Greek spelling in this alphabet

Unfortunately that is all outdated and no longer considered true in academia. Please read the pivotal paper by Patrick Sims-Williams entitled "An alternative to Celtic from the West and Celtic from the East" - it goes through the entire review of why "Celtic" is not associated with Hallstatt and La Tene. Hence, to answer your question, no, Romansch is not partly Celtic nor influenced by it. However, the Rhaetians who are some of the ancestors of the Romansch did speak a language that we nowadays call "Celtic". However, they would not have called their language "Celtic" but simply "Rhaetic" as languages before the 19th century concept of kulturgruppe were named after their people, and not the other way around.

@@jboss1073 Thanks for the great Answer, i will definitely read that Paper. It's always interesting when certain Theories change with new Insights no matter the Topic!

There are still Turks in Galatia (the region around Ankara) today with some genetic heritage from the Galatians. I once met a young lady from Ankara here in America (she was married to a Black American; I’m sure their children are beautiful) who could pass for Irish, with the fair, freckled skin and bright red hair. But she was undoubtedly Turkish; she had met her husband when he was sent to Turkey with the Peace Corps. [For the benefit of people who are not familiar with the Peace Corps, it is (was? I heard that Trump abolished it, or tried to) a U S government agency founded during the Kennedy administration, which sent American volunteers to live among people in developing countries and help them develop their economies. President Carter’s mother had previously been a nurse in the Peace Corps.]

Your ancestors never called themselves Celts.

It might be due to a different way of interaction. The colonial empires usually strictly divided the colonising from the colonised people, and most of the colonised people might have had little reason and possibilities to learn the language of the colonial administration - they'd likely have to stay in the colony anyway, and wouldn't become part of the colonial administration. In the Roman Empire this was different, I think - the conquered nations weren't as much of "naturally lesser" people, more like just Roman subject of a lower, but upgradable, status (note that I'm not saying if that resulted in better or worse treatment or conditions for them). And to upgrade that status one had to become a full Roman citizen, which, I guess, necessitated learning Latin anyway. So anyone COULD theoretically aspire to the higher status of the overlord empire's citizen, so there was a reason to learn Latin, look Latin, behave Latin. Also being more or less free people (in an antique sense at least), not slaves, those people in the Roman Empire could have had more reasons to interact with the Roman officials than people in the colonial empires with their colonial officials, and so, again, reasons to know Latin. Those people could have been traders, trading with land far enough that they'd use a different language, except... both were under the Roman rule, so Latin was an obvious choice again. Let that work for some 4 to 6 centuries, and you have the effect. Although I expect that some remnants of the Celtic languages might have still been in use by the time the Western Roman Empire fell, but already as insignificant minority languages, and so they died out too.

@@8Hshan thanks a lot,that is a good explanation

Old Latin was very similar to Celtic languages, they seperated around 10BC (Proto Italo-Celtic), so it would be quite easy for Celtic speakers in 1AD to learn Latin

I'm not Irish and I'd love to see a revival of Irish. In the past 100 years, too many languages were oppressed and are now at near extension. Why should Ireland not want their own language back and keep the oppressors language instead? Just get both instead! Also, being bilingual makes it much easier to learn a third, fourth or fifth language.

I’m in the Isle of Man and our language is really having a resurgence. My nephew attends a Manx speaking school . It’s brilliant to see so many kids and adults learning it . There are even foreign parents and kids learning so they will all be tri lingual!! ❤

@@littlemy1773 go h-iontach. I met two Manx learners in Spain in 2019. A couple, He was Manx, she was Spanish. We spoke Manx and Irish to one another really slowly for a wee bit. We could understand one another. He was on a Spanish language learning holiday as was I. Language lovers having fun. The best of luck to the Manx school. Sláinte a chara agus Aigh vie ort.

Why were you so against it, and why are people like this? A majority of people in the world speak more than 1 language.

Because it's a Brythonic language, in the same group as Welsh and Cornish.

Agree. While British Latin may have been more dominant in certain parts of the Roman province than others, it is certainly not the case that Brythonic was pushed out of what would become England during Roman times. There were numerous Brythonic kingdoms in the area after the Roman withdrawal, such as Elmet in what's now West Yorkshire, Dumnonia in Devon and Somerset, and Rheged in (probably) Cumbria. The Wessex king list begins with a bunch of decidedly Brythonic names like Cerdic and Cynric, and there were British speakers in places like the Wash and Cumbria well into the Middle Ages. I think it's much more likely that Brythonic was still the main language in most places when the Romans left, except possibly around East Anglia and Kent, where few Brythonic place names still survive.

Yeah, that's what I've lerant. Common Breton would've been the common lamguage in Roman Britannia. The withdrawal happned because of the Anglo-Saxons.

You're absolutely correct, this is one badly researched video

Yeah Roman Latin didn’t take over in Celtic speaking areas Our Irish even carries roman words like Druid Irish draoi is Roman druida all meaning oak wood. A lot of our mythology and old Gaelic history uses Irish words that come from Latin due to the history being written by others and not us who did not write. Even a lot of continental Celtic gods are Roman inspired and make no sense in the old Celtic alphabets but have stems to Latin. So there was just mixing no form of replacement If the maker of the video wants to see what replacement looks like start with the British attack on Celtic language and culture

Moghrey mie. Manxie here waking to the news that we have seemingly moved overnight 👀😂

Yeah, I think he wanted to center the words on where they're spoken, not thinking about the fact that the speech bubble shape is pointing elsewhere

Except in Britain where everyone pretty much kept speaking Celtic until the Anglo-Saxons turned up.

They were in a permanent state of war

Lol. Using the word harmony here is really stretching it far from most meaning that we would usually recognize. They were tribes that had a culture that had little to no similarity with what we value as "harmony" now. Just the warrior culture, bloodthirsty aggressivity and human sacrifices should give some clues about that "harmony".

@@PiousMoltar yma o hyd

Yes you are right. The video is incorrect.

They spoke a brethonic, when the Anglo-Saxons invaded the language was driven westwards to become Cornish and Welsh.

Soft c comes from northern celts hard c comes from southern celts It was the difference in alphabets and pronunciation

At least we have welsh, breton and other languages. Actually, you can speak gaulish and celtiberian if you want. It was very easy to reconstruct thet languages.