This article has two parts.

The first gives a quick background of Celtic languages, and the second discusses just a few of
the Internet resources available for them. Later articles will cover the various resources in more depth.
A Basic History of Celtic Languages
Many people are surprised to learn that Celtic languages are still spoken. Although they are still around, all those that are
not yet extinctIrish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Bretonare all endangered. Two good sites for information about the
status of all the Celtic languages are the UNESCO Red Book on Endangered Languages: Europe (Tapani Salminen,
1993-1999: http://www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/europe_report.html) and Christopher Gwinns website devoted to the Gaulish
language, http://members.nbci.com/gaulishweb/
Irish Gaelic, usually simply called Irish, has survived as a native language in the west of the Republic of Ireland (ire),
although it has died out in Northern Ireland. Irish speakers in Ireland are estimated to number approximately 20,000 or
less.
Scottish Gaelic is usually referred to as Gaelic and is spoken in the Western Isles of Scotland, especially the Outer
Hebrides. There are about 50,000 Gaelic speakers in Scotland.
Welsh is still spoken in Wales, especially the north and west, and even in parts of England, though it is rare there. There
are approximately total 550,000 Welsh speakers.
Breton has survived in Brittany, the northwest of France, where there are about 500,000 speakers.
Manx Gaelic was spoken on the Isle of Man and is officially extinct, as of 1974.
Cornish was spoken in Cornwall, England (the southwest part of the country) and has been extinct since around 1777.
Cumbrian was spoken in the Cumbria region, or northern England and southern Scotland. It has been extinct since
approximately the 10th century.
Gaulish was both spoken on the European Continent and has been extinct for some time, since the middle of the first
millennium.
Celtic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family. Two good sites for learning about the Celtic
language family, and the world language family tree are: http://www.krysstal.com/langfams.html and
http://members.nbci.com/gaulishweb/ There are two current main divisions within the Celtic branch: Q-Celtic and P-Celtic.
Q-Celtic refers to the Goidelic (often referred to generally as Gaelic) languages: Irish, Gaelic and Manx. P-Celtic covers
the Brythonic (British) ones: Welsh, Breton, Cornish, and Cumbrian. Gaulish is also considered a P-Celtic language,
although it is on the same level as Goidelic and Brythonic in the Celtic family tree. It is the only Continental Celtic language
mentioned here, as the others are all considered Insular Celtic (even Breton, which actually originated in Southwestern
England).
One of the fundamental facts of Celtic languages, or anyone interested in them, is that languages will not survive without
learners. There simply are not enough native speakers to guarantee endurance. The importance of learners is particularly
clear from the fact that although Manx and Cornish are both officially extinct, there are now people who claim to speak
them (or, in the case of Cornish, an artificial language derived from the original). This may seem a negative thing for
language "purists", but most people recognize that it helps to keep cultures alive. Another revealing fact is that Dublin had
the highest concentration of Irish speakers and Glasgow has a high proportion of Gaelic speakers. In both of these cases
this is largely due to the presence of academics (often learners), and the immigration of native speakers. So clearly there
is no rule that mandates speakers of Celtic languages to live in any certain area.
Celtic Language Resources on the Internet
Fortunately, despite the endangered state of Celtic languages, information about them is proliferating at lightning speed on
the Internet. There are many resources for Celtic languages offline, in the real world, and so many of the Internet
resources are merely extensions of these. For example, one of the best sources of information on Scottish Gaelic is the
website of Sabhal Mr Ostaig, the Gaelic college in Ostaig, Skye. The address is http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/beurla/ But
many of the sources are designed specifically for the Internet and use this new medium well.

The type of resources available on the Internet are varied. If you are interested in learning one of the languages, it helps to
know what you are getting yourself into. See the "General Information, or Too Comprehensive to Classify" category for a
variety of useful resources. This can be particularly good if you are wanting to know about the history and development of
any or all Celtic languages.
There are also several websites that offer lessons in the various languages, many of which include soundbites so you can
actually hear it. This can be excellent if you live in a place where classes are not available. See the links in the category
Online Courses and Learning (with the specific language following), to the right, to find out more about the learning
resources on the Internet.
Besides courses, there are other resources handy for both learners and native speakers. There are several email
discussion lists in the Mailing Lists category. Practice your reading by looking at the many resources in the "Literature
and Texts" category. And of course every user of a language needs a good dictionary, and there are several useful ones
online. They are listed in the Dictionaries category.
Of course there are also many cultural and social organizations related to Celtic languages. These can be useful for many
reasons, and they are listed in the Organizations categories. They are in two different categories: either International and
National or Local. The first include groups with government support and other large organizations, although these often
have local branches. The truly local groups are generally small and more informal.
There are companies that offer learning software for sale, which can often be better than the online lessons, but are
similar in concept. Other companies sell various educational materials useful for any learner. Look in "Merchandise and
Software" for these links.
There are many print magazines and newspapers devoted to one or several of the Celtic languages. Many of these have
at least a limited online presence, so you can get a feel for the magazine or newspaper before subscribing. Even if you
don't want to subscribe, you can still find reading material in or about your chosen language. There are also several
devoted online news sites in or about a Celtic language, as well as some sites that offer streaming radio. See the "Media"
category.
The Internet is also a good source for locating short-term courses or distance-learning courses that you can complete,
sometimes for university credit. These can be found in the "Information for Offline Learning" category.

The Decline
of the Celtic
Languages
Author: Kelly Vincent
Published on: June 1,
2002
Related Subject(s): Not
Indexed

Most likely if you are interested in studying any of the Celtic languages, you are aware of the fact that all of them are
considered either endangered, as with the case of Welsh, Breton, Irish and Scottish Gaelic, or dead (and now perhaps
revived), as with Manx and Cornish. But what does this really mean? A particular area of study within the field of
sociolinguistics (which basically studies the interrelationship between languages and societies) focuses on language
death. It looks at questions such as why and how languages die, why it matters and what can and should be done about it.
An excellent starting place for considering language death is David Crystals book aptly entitled Language Death. It is
particularly convenient because he is British and therefore many of his examples come from Welsh, Irish and Scottish
Gaelic.

The How and Why

A language can be considered dead when its last speaker dies, but in many respects, it is dead when it is no longer a
working language within a community. This can sometimes be as a result of community who speak a distinct language
being decimated by natural disasters, famine, war or associated emigration. The 1840s potato famine in Ireland was
definitely a factor in the decline of Irish, because the majority of people who died or emigrated from the country were rural
Irish speakers (Crystal p. 71).
More often, languages decline when another language begins to take precedence within that community, which is exactly
the circumstances with English and all of the Celtic languages except Breton, where it is French that is the dominant
language. In many cases, the dominant language replaces the minority language slowly and almost by choice, as has
happened with many Latin American immigrants in America (where the kids grow up speaking only English, although this
trend does seem to be changing some now). Why do people abandon their native languages? In most cases, the reasons
are largely economic, or even social. The Celtic languages have survived best in rural areas. Often trade and commerce
comes into the rural areas, creating a bilingual environment, where English (or French) is seen as the language of
progress. Since most parents want their children to do better than themselves, they view English or French as the key to
this improvement. This is clearly the case with Cornish and Manx, as both Cornwall and the Isle of Man absorbed a great
amount of English trade and eventually English took precedence over the other language (Durkacz p. 214).
In other cases, the dominant language is forced into decline by laws or rules forbidding their use and other aggressive
tactics to make speakers feel shame with their language. For example, as far back as the 14th century, English laws (the
Statutes of Kilkenny in 1366 and others) forbade the use of Irish by Anglo-Irish settlers in Ireland. Henry VIIIs Act of Union
(1536) specifically excluded people who spoke only Welsh from working in public offices, and the following schools that
were established taught everything in English (Durkacz p. 3). Other laws regarding Scottish Gaelic and Breton, as well as
more dealing with Irish and Welsh, created problems for the languages, especially in the 16th and 17th centuries (Durkacz
pp. 1-6).
Another way that language use is discouraged, which also has long-term consequences, is by forbidding children to speak
it in school, and punishing them if they do. In fact, some scholars believe that this is the primary reason for the decline of
the Celtic languages (see Duracz p. 214). Children were in many ways for speaking their languages. Primarily in the 19th
century, students in Wales caught speaking Welsh were often forced to wear a small board with the letters WN, for Welsh
Not, cut into it (Crystal p. 85). It would be passed around during the day, and the student wearing it at the end of the day
would be punished. There were similar practices in Ireland and Scotland even in the 20th century (Durkacz pp. 223-4).
It is not always easy to identify how to measure the endangerment of a language. Crystal points out that the actual number
of speakers isnt always a sign of the problem. With a language spoken by a very isolated community, 500 speakers might
be a reasonable number of speakers to keep the language safe from endangerment (p. 11). The key is to look at the
number of speakers of the current generation compared to the past generations. Looking at these figures in terms of Celtic
languages reveals that they are in fairly dubious circumstances. They all seem to exhibit the classic pattern of language
decline: most of the native speakers are older, and not enough young people are learning them (Durkacz p. 216). This
trend, of English (or French) replacing the native Celtic language on a generational basis was noticed by census-takers in
the 19th century (one generation is monoglot speakers in the Celtic language, the next generation becomes bilingual, and
the following generation becomes monoglot English/French speakers) (Durkacz p. 216). The numbers themselves dont
look too terrible, but in context it is clear that this trend is not reversing. Breton had 1.4 million speakers in 1905 and
possibly as few as 250,000 today (Crystal p. 13). In Scotland, throughout the 20th century, the number of Gaelic speakers
has been declining (Durkacz p. 226). There were about 67,000 Gaelic speakers in 1991, but the expected figure for the
2001 census is around 55,000 (Web of Words, Scottish Gaelic entry). In 1991, there were around 500,000 speakers of
Welsh in Wales (Web of Words, Welsh entry), but this number is also much lower than at the beginning of the century
(Durkacz p. 226). Ireland has almost 1.5 million people now who claim some knowledge of the language, but less than
400,000 of them use it regularly (Web of Words, Irish entry).
Works Cited
Crystal, David. Language Death. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002.
Durkacz, Victor Edward. The Decline of the Celtic Languages. Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers, Ltd, 1996.

Exploration Four: Language Death and Language Revival in the British Isles An interesting site with a good discussion of
the decline of the Celtic languages in the British Isles. (Part of a course.)
Mohan, Peggy. "The Linguists Burden," Biblio: A Review of Books. A review of Crystals book which disagrees heartily with
his perspective, and provides good food for thought.
Web of Words. European Bureau of Lesser-Used Languages. Statistics and information about minority languages in
Europe.

Issue 30 - Beltaine/Summer 1996

Labara - Introduction to the Celtic Languages

Part I: A Very Brief History
by Meredith Richard
Recent discussions in Keltria have focussed on the role of Celtic language in Celtic Druidism and Paganism.
The question is indeed relevant. Celtic language is considered by scholars and the modern pan-Celtic movement
to be the central, defining criterion of Celtic culture and identity, and few would deny that the chief inspirations
of Celtic Paganism and Druidism are the flower of cultures that are indeed Celtic by that definition. Yet few
who practice 'Celtic spirituality'(of whatever sort) consider Celtic language to be central to their Celtic identity.
Indeed, there is a surprising amount of confusion about the very nature of Celtic languages, which further
muddles discussion of the interrelationship of language, culture and traditional spiritualities. So, just what is a
Celtic language?
First of all, we should mention what a Celtic language is not. A popular misconception is that such types of
language as a Scots dialect, an Irish brogue or a Welsh accent are themselves Celtic languages. While these
dialects may be Celtic-influenced to a greater or lesser degree, they are not themselves Celtic languages, but
dialects and varieties of English. Celtic languages are part of the Indo-European family of languages just as
English is, but belong to an entirely different branch of this family - the Celtic branch - and are more different
from English than German or French.
Another popular misconception is that Celtic languages are confined to history - spoken by the original Druids,
yes, but today existing only in inscriptions and crumbling manuscripts, of interest only to scholars who kindly
translate all the important bits into English. The truth is quite different. Though Celtic languages indeed date
back through antiquity, Celtic languages are still living tongues whose speakers are still producing literature,
music, and art in a wide range of traditional and innovative forms which are directly and consciously part of the

complex tapestry of well over two thousand years of Celtic heritage, of which monoglot English speakers can
see only a tiny portion, through the very flawed and cloudy lens of translation.
Thirdly, the essential connection between language, culture, and cultural continuity through its history cannot be
overemphasized. Language is a basic (probably the basic) expression of human community. A language both
shapes and is shaped by the values and self-concepts of its community and culture. Borrowings from other
cultures will be adapted and re-interpreted in terms of the culture's worldview and conception of itself and its
history. But when a community changes its language, the result is not a development within a culture, but a
distinct cultural break. The old worldview and self-concept is lost, as well as the more obvious loss of contact
with literary and oral tradition and heritage.
Nor is language change a superficial decision or event. Many of our ancestors became English speakers under
duress, perhaps against their will or their parents' will, perhaps by so-called 'free choice' when there was no
other way for themselves and their families to prosper or even survive. The circumstances dictating the shift to
English or French were the direct results of political, economic and cultural imperialism on the part of English
or French-speaking societies; such a traumatic dispossession cannot be reversed and healed by wishful thinking
and superficial measures on the part of their descendants. Without returning to the languages, thereby reopening the door to the full spectrum of the culture's being, attempts to 'reclaim' Celtic heritage - despite
people's best intentions - are misguided. More disturbingly, denial of the central role of language sometimes
leads to the attempt to bolster claims to Celticness by appealing to the concept of 'bloodlines'; frighteningly, this
smacks of nascent racism.
When scholars talk about Celts, they are not talking about a particular 'race', or about natives of specific regions
now associated with the Celts, or about adherents of any particular religion. Nor are they making arbitrary
terminological distinctions. Recognising the essential role of language to the life and spirit of cultures, they are
talking about Celtic language speakers and their cultures1.
The first historical evidence of Celts is to be found in the writings of the ancient Greeks and Romans, who
distinguished the Celts as a separate people speaking a distinctive language. A Celtic language may be briefly
defined as any of a group of languages which are organically and directly related to the language of these
people. These Celts have been identified with the Hallstatt and La Tne cultures, Iron Age cultures of Europe
dating back through the early first millennium BCE. Rather more speculatively, attempts have been made to
identify the Celts with specific material cultures back through the early Bronze Age, but the question of the
precise origin and early spread and development of the Celtic languages, and of the entire Indo-European family
of languages itself, is disputed. The Celtic languages have unusual features within the Indo-European family,
which may be due to greater influence from the non-Indo-European languages they displaced and/or to greater
retention of archaic forms of Indo-European, but these questions also remain open.
The languages spoken by the early Celts of Europe are collectively known as Continental Celtic. Some of the
forms of Continental Celtic have been partially reconstructed, including Gaulish, Celtiberian and Lepontic.
Evidence for these languages includes inscriptions such as the Druidic Coligny Calendar, place names, Celtic
words adopted into other languages, and data from Latin and Greek accounts. For instance, the Gothic word
reiki, 'kingdom' (the source of the modern German Reich2), was borrowed from the Celtic *rgion; compare
Gaulish rix, modern Irish r, Scottish Gaelic rgh, and Manx ree,'king'; and Irish rocht, Scottish Gaelic
roghachd, Manx reeaght 'kingdom'. Latin 'beer', cerevisia, which developed into modern Spanish cerveza, was
also borrowed from Celtic and is cognate with modern Welsh cwrw. (Presumably, the Goths perceived Celtic
social organization as worthy of emulation, while the Romans merely admired their beer!) Other Continental
Celtic words were recorded directly, such as the word bardoi, recorded in classical Greek, which of course is the

plural of the word which survived almost unchanged in every Celtic language, and was adopted by English as
'bard'. Sadly, Continental Celtic languages died out with the dominance of Rome in the first few centuries CE,
leaving only the languages spoken in Britain and Ireland - Insular Celtic, from which the modern Celtic
languages developed.
Insular Celtic is of two types: Goedelic and Brythonic, often called Q-Celtic and P-Celtic. The latter distinction
refers to a sound-shift common to members of these groups. The Indo-European consonant *kw developed into
a k-sound in Q-Celtic (or Goedelic) languages, which was once spelled with a q. In the P-Celtic (or Brythonic)
languages, it became a p-sound. This can be seen in the various Celtic words meaning 'son' - in the Q-Celtic
group, we have maq(q)i ('son of') in the highly archaic form of Old Irish found in ogham inscriptions, and
mac(c) in Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx, while among the P-Celts we find map or mab in Welsh, Cornish and
Breton (as can be discerned in the Mabinogi and the name-element ap or ab, 'son of'); and the name of the
Gaulish divine youth, Maponos. Of the two groups, Goedelic languages are the more archaic, retaining more
features of the ancient Celtic language from which all Celtic languages developed.
When and how Celtic languages first were spoken in Britain and Ireland is not known with certainty3. One
suggestion is that the first Celts probably arrived in the beginning of the first millenium BCE, speaking a form
of Celtic that probably had more Goidelic-like features than Brythonic. Linguistic evidence suggests that
perhaps by the middle of the first millenium BCE, Brythonic-speakers may have become dominant in both
Britain and Ireland, whereupon Goidelic eventually re-asserted itself over Ireland. Certainly by the time these
islands entered history as we know it, Goedelic was dominant in Ireland, while Brythonic was dominant in
Britain. These two branches gave rise to the six modern Celtic languages, three in the Goedelic (Q-Celtic)
group: Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx; and three in the Brythonic (P-Celtic) group: Welsh, Cornish and Breton.
Turning to Irish (Gaeilge) first, much of the early information on ancient Irish comes from the ogham
inscriptions of the first through sixth centuries CE, most of which use a particularly archaic form of the
language. The process of writing down the rich oral tradition of early Irish culture began around the fifth
century CE, although the earliest surviving manuscripts date back only to about the ninth or tenth century. Here
are preserved treasures like the Tin B Cuailnge and the stories of the Tuatha D Danaan. But by the
seventeenth century, the conquering English had consolidated their power in Ireland. With the destruction of the
native nobility and learned classes, Irish became the language of an oppressed people. In the nineteenth century,
the Great Famine dealt a nearly fatal blow. Thousands of Irish speakers died, thousands more were forced to
leave Ireland, and much of the remaining Irish- speaking population fell prey to the propanganda of the English
-- that their horrific plight was their own fault, the natural result of clinging to their backward language, culture,
and customs.
With the establishment of the Republic of Ireland, Irish gained official support; constitutionally, it is the nation's
first official language. In reality, very little effort has been committed to its revival. According to the latest
census, about a million people, a third of the population of the Republic, speak Irish, but probably less than ten
percent are actually fluent, probably less than half of those use Irish on a day-to-day basis, and fewer still ,
perhaps 30,000, live where Irish is the community's main tongue (the Gaeltachta). As a healthy living
language, Irish is still greatly endangered.
Scottish Gaelic, or Gidhlig, was planted on British soil by colonists from Ireland in the late fourth and fifth
centuries CE, who established the kingdom of Dl Riada. The structure of the language was influenced by the
Brythonic then spoken in the area. Until the seventeenth century, Irish and Scottish Gaelic shared the same
literary language, and little was written in Scottish Gaelic itself. Scottish Gaelic was never the sole language of
all of modern-day Scotland, although there were indeed Gaelic-speaking kingdoms and Celtic influence was felt

everywhere. But by the eleventh century, power and influence was in the hands of Anglo-Normans, and the
Gaels were soon marginalised; after their defeat at Culloden in 1746, their language and customs were
proscribed. The Highland Clearances drained more Gaels from Scotland. Today, about 65,000 speak Gaelic in
Scotland - less than 2% of the population, and a 15,000 drop in the last ten years. Scotland's history as a multilinguistic nation has meant that Scottish Gaelic has not been a focus of national identity, and has lacked the
support that such a focus can bring. While Scottish Gaelic remains the language of well-defined rural
communities, and public support has been somewhat increasing, the lack of educational and government
support, together with persisting social and economic stigma, is likely to lead to further decline.
Manx, or Gailck, is the Celtic language of the Isle of Man. It is likely that here, as in Scotland, the native Irish
colonists arrived around the fifth century CE and found a principally Brythonic-speaking population. The Irish
colonists' language became dominant on the island and remained so until the tenth century; Man then was ruled
by Scandinavia for a few centuries, and Norse left its mark on the language. For a short period thereafter,
control of Man passed to Scotland, but from the fifteenth century onwards, Man belonged to England and as
usual, the imposition of Anglo-centric laws, education, and socio-economic structure led to the decline of this
Celtic language (which due to enforced isolation from Scotland and Ireland and other influences had by now
become a fully independent language). The last native speaker of Manx died in 1974. However, attempts to
revive the language are gaining support, and there are several hundred Manx speakers today.
At the time of the Roman invasion, most inhabitants of Britain were speakers of Brythonic, soon to develop into
Welsh, Cymraeg. (One group that may have been an exception was the Picts, in what is now Scotland. Until
rather recently, it was believed that the Picts were a surviving non-Indo-European culture that had become only
partly Celticised at the period for which we have evidence. However, it is now gaining general acceptance that
the Picts had been P-Celts who had become Gaelicized.) When the Romans left Britain, they left in their wake
Romanized Celts and some influences on Brythonic. The true threat to Brythonic language, however, came with
the Anglo-Saxon invaders in the fifth and sixth centuries CE, who soon occupied the eastern part of Britain. It
was also at this time that the Welsh poets Taliesin and Aneurin were practicing their arts not in present-day
Wales but in what is now southern Scotland, which was still thoroughly Brythonic at the time. However, the
oldest manuscripts of Welsh we have, those that include the Mabinogion and the earliest Welsh poetry, date
back only to about the twelfth century.
As the Anglo-Saxons pressed their invasions farther and farther across Britain, the Welsh were pushed west, into
present day Wales. When in the sixth and seventh centuries the Anglo- Saxons had penetrated as far as the
Severn and Dee Rivers, cutting off Cornwall from the rest of Celtic Britain, the language spoken in Cornwall
began to diverge from Welsh, becoming Cornish, Kernewek. It was also due to pressure from Anglo-Saxon
invasions that British refugees fled to Europe. Here they settled in Armorica, and their language also began to
diverge from Welsh, becoming Breton, Brezhoneg, as their land became Brittany. (It has been suggested that
Breton is a direct descendant from Gaulish, but Breton is far too similar to Welsh and Cornish especially to
support this idea.) Some migrants settled farther south, in Galicia (in Spain); they left their mark on the local
culture, but Celtic language did not survive very long there.
Welsh was experiencing further pressure to the north. Gaelic-speakers were spreading over the west of Scotland,
while Anglo-Saxons were invading what was soon to become Lowland Scotland and the north of England. A
Brythonic language called Cumbrian, apparently very similar to Welsh, survived in the latter area until about the
tenth century. Wales came under English control in 1282 with the murder of Llewelyn ap Gruffydd, the last
native prince of Wales4; and with the Acts of Union in the sixteenth century, Wales was annexed to England and
Welsh was scheduled to be "utterly extirp'd". Fortunately, the rural majority remained Welsh-speaking until the
last century, when Welsh lost ground rapidly, partially due to the Industrial Revolution's effects, a major influx

of English-speakers, economic pressure to learn English, and English-only education and media. Other
influences damped the influence of English through this period including the ironic role played by Welsh
Methodism, which helped ensure the language's survival while discouraging many old Welsh customs and the
continuity of the literary tradition, lent vigor by the romantic fantasies of our old friend Iolo Morganwg. Today,
about half a million people, 20% of the population, speak Welsh, and activists have achieved a significant
improvements in the official status of the language. The future of Welsh is far from assured however, a
particular threat is the unstemmed flow of English incomers who damage both the linguistic and economic
situations in the communities to which they move.
Further south, Cornwall had been annexed by the English in the tenth century, and by the end of the eleventh the
ruling class was entirely Anglo-Norman. However, the language continued to be spoken and writings survive,
particularly of medieval religious drama. The language died out at the end of the eighteenth century, but like
Manx, it is now experiencing a revival. About 500 people speak Cornish today, some of whom now speak it as
the ordinary language of the home; children are being brought up with Cornish as a mother tongue again.
In Brittany, the last Breton-speaking ruler died in 1084 and thenceforth the language became limited to the
common people. However, it was through Breton bards that the tales of Arthur came to the attention of the
Norman French and into the consciousness of Western Europe. Brittany was annexed by France in 1532, but
maintained some autonomy, including its own parliament, until France abolished the Breton Parliament in 1790
and attempted to assimilate Brittany completely. Under the centralist control of Paris, attacks on Breton were
fierce. Since France does not officially recognise Breton, there are no census figures, but it is estimated that
there are 600,000 - 800,000 speakers, the largest Celtic-speaking population among the Six Nations. However,
the rural elderly make up a large proportion of Breton-speakers, and the French government has been
consistently hostile to Breton communities and the language. During the French Occupation in World War II, a
handful of militant Bretons sought collaboration with the Germans, which later became France's excuse to crush
the entire Breton movement. The executions, jailings, deprivation of civil rights, and bans on the language
ended only with the efforts of Welsh journalists who exposed the attempted cultural genocide to the world.
Unless drastic measures are taken soon, Breton is likely to suffer a life-threatening blow in the next ten or
twenty years as the majority of today's speakers die.
The Celtic languages today are at a turning point. They are the collective works of art of a group of cultures of
unmatched beauty and imaginative power, the medium and matrix of great mythologies and literatures, a
people's thoughts and dreams, beliefs and prayers, joy and pain. But just as the imperialist, state dominated
cultures of Europe have not been kind to religions not under their centralized control, these States have not been
kind to the Celts, conquering them, impoverishing them, and convincing them that their languages, cultures, and
customs were the cause of their misfortunes, primitive anachronisms to be clung to only at the price of
powerlessness, poverty, and even death. Their efforts may culminate soon in the end of the history of Celtic
languages, the final chapter of over two thousand years of Celtic culture.
The fight for the survival of the Celtic cultures is happening now; every bit of support is critical. Meanwhile, the
cultural imperialists foster the idea that Celtic languages (and all minority languages) are superficial
irrelevancies; that culture is independent of language, a wilful blindness whose corollary is the lie that the
imperialist culture and worldview is reality; and that if something cannot be said in an imperial tongue it doesn't
exist, let alone could be worth saying, knowing or experiencing. Do we accept this indoctrination passively and
consent to the death of Celtia, or challenge it? This choice belongs to each of us who claim to love her.
Next issue:

Labara - Part 2 : " Introduction to the Celtic Languages Part II: Structure and Worldview "
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