This page is about the Breton language. For the author, see André Breton.

Breton (Brezhoneg) is a Celtic language spoken by some of the inhabitants of Brittany in France.

History

Breton is not thought to be a modern-day descendant of any continental Celtic language such as Gaulish, though evidently it has borrowed some features from it, but it is rather descended from insular Brythonic. The other regional language (Gallo) derives from Latin.

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 Britain and Armorica, present day Brittany. It was the language of the elite until the 12th Century. However, afterward 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. It should be noted that Old Breton has left some vocabulary which has served in the present day to produce philosophical and scientific terms in Modern Breton.

The French Monarchy never really concerned itself with the minority languages of France. The revolutionary period really started policies favoring French over the "regional" languages, more pejoratively called "patois". It was assumed that reactionary and monarchist forces favored regional languages in an attempt to keep the peasant masses underinformed. According to the defenders of the Breton language, humiliating practices geared toward stamping out Breton lingered in schools and churches until the 1960s.

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 only knew Breton, the other half being bilingual. By 1950, there were only 100,000 monolingual Bretons.

In 1925, thanks to professor Roparz Hemon, the review Gwalam came to light. During its 19 year run, it 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 took up the role of Gwalam. Other reviews came into existence and gave Breton a fairly large body of literature for a minority language.

In 1977, Diwan schools were founded in order to teach Breton by immersion. They taught thousands of young people from elementary school to high school. Another teaching method proposed was a bilingual approach, Div Yezh (two languages).

In 2004, the Asterix cartoon series was first translated into Breton, along with Gaulish. This is notable because, according to the cartoon, the village where Asterix lives appears to be in Brittany.

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

Today, Breton is the only 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 declares "The language of the Republic is French." Each year more protesters demand the repeal of this law.

The first Breton dictionary, the Catholicon, was also the first French dictionary. Edited by Jehan Lagedec in 1464, it was a trilingual work containing Breton, French and Latin. Today bilingual dictionaries directly from Breton into languages such as English, German and Spanish show the will of a new generation to gain international recognition of Breton. A monolingual dictionary also exists, defining Breton words in Breton.

Classification

Breton, along with Cornish and Welsh, is a member of the Brythonic languages, a subgroup of the Insular subgroup of the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family.

Geographic distribution

Breton is spoken mainly in Western Brittany, but also dispersed in Eastern Brittany, and in areas around the world where there are Breton emigrants.

Official status

Breton is not an official language of France, although there is some nationalistic movement and others demanding recognition, a place in the schools, media, and 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.

However, the regional and departmental authorities, in as far as they feel able, use Breton to a limited extent in signage (especially for tourism reasons). Some bilingual signage may be seen - for example city road signs in Breton towns, and one station of the Rennes metro system has signage in French and Breton. On the other hand, few shops or other private entities in Rennes have signs in Breton.

Dialects

The dialects of Breton identified by the Ethnologue are Leonard, Tregorrois, Vannetais, and Cornouaillais. There are no clear borders between those dialect areas, the language changes softly from a village to the next one.

Sounds

Grammar

Verbal Aspect

As in English and Gaelic, 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:

• Me zo o komz gant ma amezeg ("I am talking with my neighbor") ;
• Me a gomz gant ma amezeg [bep mintin] ("I talk with my neighbor [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 both Breton (Léon dialect) and Irish.

Initial consonant mutations

Breton has four initial consonant mutations: though it lacks 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.

Vocabulary

The English words dolmen and menhir have been borrowed from Breton (menhir has come via French, in Breton peulvan is used).

Writing system

Breton is written using the Latin alphabet. Breton alphabet doesn't contain the "c" letter alone, and contains a special one : "c'h", which is pronounced between the Spanish jota and a loud "H".

Examples

Visitors to Brittany may encounter words and phrases (especially on signs and posters) such as the following:

About the word "Welcome", in many places one can see signs with "Degemer mat", but actually it's a completely wrong phrase in this context, for it means "good reception". When a Breton speaker needs to say "Welcome!" to someone, he says "deut mad oc'h", "come well you(-are)".

war vor atao = always at sea

External links

• Ethnologue report for Breton (http://www.ethnologue.org/show_language.asp?code=BRT)
• Breton site including online lessons (http://www.kervarker.org/)
• Breton - English Dictionary (http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Breton-english/): from Webster's Online Dictionary (http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org) - the Rosetta Edition.