Celtic languages

SIL Ethnologue lists six living Celtic languages, of which four have retained a substantial number of native speakers. These are: the Goidelic languages (Irish and Scottish Gaelic, both descended from Middle Irish) and the Brittonic languages (Welsh and Breton, descended from Common Brittonic).{{cite web |url= http://aboutworldlanguages.com/celtic-branch |title=Celtic Branch |website=About World Languages |access-date=18 September 2017 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20170925040807/http://aboutworldlanguages.com/Celtic-Branch| archive-date=25 September 2017 |url-status=live}} The other two, Cornish (Brittonic) and Manx (Goidelic), died out in modern times{{cite book |last=Koch |first=John T. |author-link=John T. Koch |title=Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia |publisher=ABC-CLIO |date=2006 |pages=34, 365–366, 529, 973, 1053 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=f899xH_quaMC&q=Celtic+Culture:+A+Historical+Encyclopedia |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20151231222127/https://books.google.com/books?id=f899xH_quaMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Celtic+Culture:+A+Historical+Encyclopedia |archive-date=31 December 2015 |url-status=live |isbn=9781851094400}}{{cite web |title=A brief history of the Cornish language |url= http://www.magakernow.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=38590#Revival |publisher=Maga Kernow |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20081225172227/http://www.magakernow.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=38590#Revival |archive-date=25 December 2008}}{{cite book |last=Beresford Ellis |first=Peter |title=The Story of the Cornish Language |date=2005 |orig-date=1990 |publisher=Tor Mark Press |isbn=0-85025-371-3 |pages=20–22}} with their presumed last native speakers in 1777 and 1974 respectively. Revitalisation movements in the 2000s led to the reemergence of native speakers for both languages following their adoption by adults and children.{{cite web |author= |url= http://www.iomtoday.co.im/manx-language/Fockle-ny-ghaa-schoolchildren-take.3901786.jp |title=Fockle ny ghaa: schoolchildren take charge |publisher=Iomtoday.co.im |access-date=18 August 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090704115241/http://www.iomtoday.co.im/manx-language/Fockle-ny-ghaa-schoolchildren-take.3901786.jp |archive-date=4 July 2009}}{{cite news |title=South West |url= http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/uk-languages/south-west |access-date=9 February 2010 |work=TeachingEnglish.org.uk |publisher=BBC / British Council |date=2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100108190250/http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/uk-languages/south-west |archive-date=8 January 2010}} By the 21st century, there were roughly one million total speakers of Celtic languages,{{cite web |url= http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=1164-16 |title=Celtic Languages |publisher=Ethnologue |access-date=9 March 2010 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110716080137/http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=1164-16 |archive-date=16 July 2011 |url-status=live}} increasing to 1.4 million speakers by 2010.{{cite book |last=Crystal |first=David |title=The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language |date=2010 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-73650-3}}

• Beurla Reagaird, Highland travellers' language
• Shelta, based largely on Irish and Hiberno-English (some 86,000 speakers in 2009).{{cite web |url= http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=sth |title=Shelta |publisher=Ethnologue |access-date=9 March 2010 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100629003323/http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=sth |archive-date=29 June 2010 |url-status=live}}

File:Celtic language family tree.svg

File:IndoEuropeanTree.svg

File:Map of Celtic Nations-flag shades.svg, where Celtic languages are spoken today, or were spoken into the modern era:

{{legend|#009E60|Ireland (Irish)}}

{{legend|#0072C6|Scotland (Scottish Gaelic)}}

{{legend|#D3B04A|Isle of Man (Manx)}}

{{legend|red|Wales (Welsh)}}

{{legend|#FFD700|Cornwall (Cornish)}}

{{legend|black|Brittany (Breton)}}

]]

File:Bronce de Botorrita II.jpgs. The third plaque is the longest text discovered in any ancient Celtic language. However, this plaque is inscribed in Latin script.[https://books.google.com/books?id=f899xH_quaMC&dq=botorrita+ii&pg=PA233 Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia] {{Webarchive |url= https://web.archive.org/web/20170331025501/https://books.google.com/books?id=f899xH_quaMC&lpg=PA233&ots=p-RudfBy1H&dq=botorrita%20ii&pg=PA233#v=onepage&q=botorrita%20ii&f=false|date=31 March 2017}}; Koch, John T.; Vol 1, p. 233.]]

Celtic is divided into various branches:

• Lepontic, the oldest attested Celtic language (from the 6th century BC). Anciently spoken in Switzerland and in Northern-Central Italy. Coins with Lepontic inscriptions have been found in Noricum and Gallia Narbonensis.{{cite book |last1=Percivaldi |first1=Elena |title=I Celti: una civiltà europea |date=2003 |publisher=Giunti Editore |page=82}}{{cite book |last=Stifter |first=David |title=Old Celtic Languages |date=2008 |pages=12 |url= http://www.univie.ac.at/indogermanistik/download/Stifter/oldcelt2008_1_general.pdf |access-date=19 December 2012 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20121002035607/http://www.univie.ac.at/indogermanistik/download/Stifter/oldcelt2008_1_general.pdf |archive-date=2 October 2012 |url-status=live}}MORANDI 2004, pp. 702–703, n. 277
• Celtiberian, also called Eastern or Northeastern Hispano-Celtic, spoken in the ancient Iberian Peninsula, in the eastern part of Old Castile and south of Aragon. Modern provinces: Segovia, Burgos, Soria, Guadalajara, Cuenca, Zaragoza and Teruel. The relationship of Celtiberian with Gallaecian, in northwest Iberia, is uncertain.{{cite book |last=Prósper |first=B.M. |title=Lenguas y religiones prerromanas del occidente de la península ibérica |date=2002 |publisher=Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca |isbn=84-7800-818-7 |pages=422–27}}Villar F., B. M. Prósper. (2005). Vascos, Celtas e Indoeuropeos: genes y lenguas. Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca. pgs. 333–350. {{ISBN|84-7800-530-7}}.
• Gallaecian, also known as Western or Northwestern Hispano-Celtic, anciently spoken in the northwest of the peninsula (modern Northern Portugal, and the Spanish regions of Galicia, Asturias and northwestern Castile and León)."In the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, and more specifically between the west and north Atlantic coasts and an imaginary line running north-south and linking Oviedo and Merida, there is a corpus of Latin inscriptions with particular characteristics of its own. This corpus contains some linguistic features that are clearly Celtic and others that in our opinion are not Celtic. The former we shall group, for the moment, under the label northwestern Hispano-Celtic. The latter are the same features found in well-documented contemporary inscriptions in the region occupied by the Lusitanians, and therefore belonging to the variety known as LUSITANIAN, or more broadly as GALLO-LUSITANIAN. As we have already said, we do not consider this variety to belong to the Celtic language family." Jordán Colera 2007: p.750
• Gaulish languages, including Galatian and possibly Noric. These were once spoken in a wide arc from Belgium to Turkey. They are now all extinct.
• Brittonic, spoken in Great Britain and Brittany. Including the living languages Breton, Cornish, and Welsh, and the lost Cumbric and Pictish, though Pictish may be a sister language rather than a daughter of Common Brittonic.Kenneth H. Jackson suggested that there were two Pictish languages, a pre-Indo-European one and a Pritenic Celtic one. This has been challenged by some scholars. See Katherine Forsyth's "Language in Pictland: the case against 'non-Indo-European Pictish{{' "}} {{cite web |url= http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/archive/00002081/01/languagepictland.pdf |title=Etext |access-date=20 January 2006 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060219054300/http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/archive/00002081/01/languagepictland.pdf |archive-date=19 February 2006 |url-status=live}} {{small|(27.8 MB)}}. See also the introduction by James & Taylor to the "Index of Celtic and Other Elements in W. J. Watson's 'The History of the Celtic Place-names of Scotland{{' "}} {{cite web |url= http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/institutes/sassi/spns/INDEX2INTRO.pdf |title=Etext |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060220054951/http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/institutes/sassi/spns/INDEX2INTRO.pdf |archive-date=20 February 2006}} {{small|(172 KB )}}. Compare also the treatment of Pictish in Price's The Languages of Britain (1984) with his Languages in Britain & Ireland (2000). Before the arrival of Scotti on the Isle of Man in the 9th century, there may have been a Brittonic language there. The theory of a Brittonic Ivernic language predating Goidelic speech in Ireland has been suggested, but is not widely accepted.
• Goidelic, including the extant Irish, Manx, and Scottish Gaelic.

Scholarly handling of Celtic languages has been contentious owing to scarceness of primary source data. Some scholars (such as Cowgill 1975; McCone 1991, 1992; and Schrijver 1995) posit that the primary distinction is between Continental Celtic and Insular Celtic, arguing that the differences between the Goidelic and Brittonic languages arose after these split off from the Continental Celtic languages.{{cite news |url= http://www.digitalmedievalist.com/opinionated-celtic-faqs/celtic-languages/ |title=What are the Celtic Languages? |work=Celtic Studies Resources |access-date=18 September 2017 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20171010203551/http://www.digitalmedievalist.com/opinionated-celtic-faqs/celtic-languages/ |archive-date=10 October 2017 |url-status=live}} Other scholars (such as Schmidt 1988) make the primary distinction between P-Celtic and Q-Celtic languages based on the replacement of initial Q by initial P in some words. Most of the Gallic and Brittonic languages are P-Celtic, while the Goidelic and Hispano-Celtic (or Celtiberian) languages are Q-Celtic. The P-Celtic languages (also called Gallo-Brittonic) are sometimes seen (for example by Koch 1992) as a central innovating area as opposed to the more conservative peripheral Q-Celtic languages. According to Ranko Matasović in the introduction to his 2009 Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic: "Celtiberian ... is almost certainly an independent branch on the Celtic genealogical tree, one that became separated from the others very early."{{cite book |first=Ranko |last=Matasović |date=2009 |title=Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic |location=Leiden |publisher=Brill |page=13 |url=https://archive.org/details/EtymologicalDictionaryOfProtoCeltic |via=Internet Archive}}

The Breton language is Brittonic, not Gaulish, though there may be some input from the latter,{{cite book |last=Barbour and Carmichael |first=Stephen and Cathie |title=Language and nationalism in Europe |date=2000 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=56 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=1ixmu8Iga7gC&q=Breton%20Gaulish%20words&pg=PA56 |isbn=978-0-19-823671-9}} having been introduced from Southwestern regions of Britain in the post-Roman era and having evolved into Breton.

In the P/Q classification schema, the first language to split off from Proto-Celtic was Gaelic. It has characteristics that some scholars see as archaic, but others see as also being in the Brittonic languages (see Schmidt). In the Insular/Continental classification schema, the split of the former into Gaelic and Brittonic is seen as being late.

The distinction of Celtic into these four sub-families most likely occurred about 900 BC according to Gray & Atkinson{{cite journal |doi=10.1038/nature02029 |last1=Gray |first1=Russell D. |last2=Atkinson |first2=Quentin D. |title=Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin |journal=Nature |volume=426 |issue=6965 |pages=435–439 |date=2003 |pmid=14647380 |bibcode=2003Natur.426..435G |s2cid=42340 |url= https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:d6aef57c-ce30-40fb-8786-f64c4a70afd1}}{{cite journal |doi=10.1111/j.1096-0031.2003.tb00299.x |last1=Rexova |first1=K. |last2=Frynta |first2=D. |last3=Zrzavy |first3=J. |date=2003 |title=Cladistic analysis of languages: Indo-European classification based on lexicostatistical data |journal=Cladistics |volume=19 |issue=2 |pages=120–127 |s2cid=84085451}} but, because of estimation uncertainty, it could be any time between 1200 and 800 BC. However, they only considered Gaelic and Brythonic. A controversial paper by Forster & Toth{{cite journal |last1=Forster |first1=Peter |last2=Toth |first2=Alfred |date=2003 |title=Toward a phylogenetic chronology of ancient Gaulish, Celtic, and Indo-European |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |volume=100 |issue=15 |pages=9079–9084 |pmid=12837934 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1331158100 |pmc=166441 |bibcode=2003PNAS..100.9079F |doi-access=free}} included Gaulish and put the break-up much earlier at 3200 BC ± 1500 years. They support the Insular Celtic hypothesis. The early Celts were commonly associated with the archaeological Urnfield culture, the Hallstatt culture, and the La Tène culture, though the earlier assumption of association between language and culture is now considered to be less strong.{{cite book |last=Renfrew |first=Colin |author-link=Colin Renfrew |title=Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins |date=1987 |publisher=Jonathan Cape |location=London |isbn=0224024957}}{{cite book |last1=James |first1=Simon |title=The Atlantic Celts: Ancient People or Modern Invention? |date=1999 |publisher=British Museum Press |location=London |isbn=0714121657}}

There are legitimate scholarly arguments for both the Insular Celtic hypothesis and the P-/Q-Celtic hypothesis. Proponents of each schema dispute the accuracy and usefulness of the other's categories. However, since the 1970s the division into Insular and Continental Celtic has become the more widely held view (Cowgill 1975; McCone 1991, 1992; Schrijver 1995), but in the middle of the 1980s, the P-/Q-Celtic theory found new supporters (Lambert 1994), because of the inscription on the Larzac piece of lead (1983), the analysis of which reveals another common phonetical innovation -nm- > -nu (Gaelic {{lang|ga|ainm}} / Gaulish {{lang|xtg|anuana}}, Old Welsh {{lang|owl|enuein}} 'names'), that is less accidental than only one. The discovery of a third common innovation would allow the specialists to come to the conclusion of a Gallo-Brittonic dialect (Schmidt 1986; Fleuriot 1986).

The interpretation of this and further evidence is still quite contested, and the main argument for Insular Celtic is connected with the development of verbal morphology and the syntax in Irish and British Celtic, which Schumacher regards as convincing, while he considers the P-Celtic/Q-Celtic division unimportant and treats Gallo-Brittonic as an outdated theory.{{cite book |last1=Schumacher |first1=Stefan |last2=Schulze-Thulin |first2=Britta |last3=aan de Wiel |first3=Caroline |title=Die keltischen Primärverben. Ein vergleichendes, etymologisches und morphologisches Lexikon |date=2004 |publisher=Institut für Sprachen und Kulturen, University of Innsbruck |isbn=3-85124-692-6 |pages=84–87 |language=de}} Stifter affirms that the Gallo-Brittonic view is "out of favour" in the scholarly community as of 2008 and the Insular Celtic hypothesis "widely accepted".{{cite book |last=Stifter |first=David |title=Old Celtic Languages |date=2008 |pages=11 |url= http://www.univie.ac.at/indogermanistik/download/Stifter/oldcelt2008_1_general.pdf |access-date=19 December 2012 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20121002035607/http://www.univie.ac.at/indogermanistik/download/Stifter/oldcelt2008_1_general.pdf |archive-date=2 October 2012 |url-status=live}}

When referring only to the modern Celtic languages, since no Continental Celtic language has living descendants, "Q-Celtic" is equivalent to "Goidelic" and "P-Celtic" is equivalent to "Brittonic".

How the family tree of the Celtic languages is ordered depends on which hypothesis is used:

{{col-begin|width=50%}}

{{col-2}}

"Insular Celtic hypothesis"

{{tree list}}

• Proto-Celtic
• Continental Celtic {{extinct}}
• Celtiberian {{extinct}}
• Gallaecian {{extinct}}
• Gaulish {{extinct}}
• Insular Celtic
• Brittonic
• Goidelic

{{tree list/end}}

{{col-break}}

"P/Q-Celtic hypothesis"

{{tree list}}

• Proto-Celtic
• Q-Celtic
• Celtiberian {{extinct}}
• Gallaecian {{extinct}}
• Goidelic
• P-Celtic
• Gaulish {{extinct}}
• Brittonic

{{tree list/end}}

{{col-end}}

EskaJoseph F. Eska (2010) "The emergence of the Celtic languages". In Martin J. Ball and Nicole Müller (eds.), The Celtic languages. Routledge. {{ISBN|9781138969995}} evaluates the evidence as supporting the following tree, based on shared innovations, though it is not always clear that the innovations are not areal features. It seems likely that Celtiberian split off before Cisalpine Celtic, but the evidence for this is not robust. On the other hand, the unity of Gaulish, Goidelic, and Brittonic is reasonably secure. Schumacher (2004, p. 86) had already cautiously considered this grouping to be likely genetic, based, among others, on the shared reformation of the sentence-initial, fully inflecting relative pronoun *i̯os, *i̯ā, *i̯od into an uninflected enclitic particle. Eska sees Cisalpine Gaulish as more akin to Lepontic than to Transalpine Gaulish.

{{Tree list}}

• Celtic
• Hispano-Celtic {{extinct}}
• Celtiberian {{extinct}}
• Gallaecian {{extinct}}
• Nuclear Celtic
• Cisalpine Celtic: Lepontic → Cisalpine Gaulish {{extinct}}
• Core Celtic (secure)
• Transalpine Gaulish {{extinct}} ("Transalpine Celtic")
• Insular Celtic
• Goidelic
• Brittonic

{{Tree list/end}}

Eska considers a division of Transalpine–Goidelic–Brittonic into Transalpine and Insular Celtic to be most probable because of the greater number of innovations in Insular Celtic than in P-Celtic, and because the Insular Celtic languages were probably not in great enough contact for those innovations to spread as part of a sprachbund. However, if they have another explanation (such as an SOV substratum language), then it is possible that P-Celtic is a valid clade, and the top branching would be:

{{Tree list}}

• Core Celtic (P-Celtic hypothesis)
• Goidelic
• Gallo-Brittonic
• Transalpine Gaulish ("Transalpine Celtic") {{extinct}}
• Brittonic

{{Tree list/end}}

Within the Indo-European family, the Celtic languages have sometimes been placed with the Italic languages in a common Italo-Celtic subfamily. This hypothesis fell somewhat out of favour after reexamination by American linguist Calvert Watkins in 1966.Watkins, Calvert, "Italo-Celtic Revisited". In: {{cite book |title=Ancient Indo-European dialects |editor-last=Birnbaum |editor-first=Henrik |editor2=Puhvel, Jaan |date=1966 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |oclc=716409 |pages=29–50}} Irrespectively, some scholars such as Ringe, Warnow and Taylor and many others have argued in favour of an Italo-Celtic grouping in 21st century theses.{{cite journal |last1=Ringe |first1=Don |last2=Warnow |first2=Tandy |last3=Taylor |first3=Ann |title=Indo-European and Computational Cladistics |journal=Transactions of the Philological Society |date=March 2002 |volume=100 |issue=1 |pages=59–129 |doi=10.1111/1467-968X.00091 |citeseerx=10.1.1.139.6014 |url= https://www.cs.rice.edu/~nakhleh/CPHL/RWT02.pdf |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060222105246/http://www.cs.rice.edu/%7Enakhleh/CPHL/RWT02.pdf |archive-date=22 February 2006 |url-status=live |access-date=12 May 2019}}

Although there are many differences between the individual Celtic languages, they do show many family resemblances.

• consonant mutations (Insular Celtic only)
• inflected prepositions (Insular Celtic only)
• two grammatical genders (modern Insular Celtic only; Old Irish and the Continental languages had three genders, although Gaulish may have merged the neuter and masculine in its later forms){{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=3cHdQC1cXLEC&pg=PA222 |title=The Celts: History, Life, and Culture |last1=Koch |first1=John T. |author1-link=John T. Koch |last2=Minard |first2=Antone |date=2012 |publisher=Bloomsbury |isbn=978-1-59884-964-6}}{{citation needed|date=September 2012}}
• a vigesimal number system (counting by twenties)
• Cornish {{lang|kw|hwetek ha dew ugens}} "fifty-six" (literally "sixteen and two twenty")
• verb–subject–object (VSO) word order (probably Insular Celtic only)
• an interplay between the subjunctive, future, imperfect, and habitual, to the point that some tenses and moods have ousted others
• an impersonal or autonomous verb form serving as a passive or intransitive
• Welsh {{lang|cy|dysgaf}} "I teach" vs. {{lang|cy|dysgir}} "is taught, one teaches"
• Irish {{lang|ga|múinim}} "I teach" vs. {{lang|ga|múintear}} "is taught, one teaches"
• no infinitives, replaced by a quasi-nominal verb form called the verbal noun or verbnoun
• frequent use of vowel mutation as a morphological device, e.g. formation of plurals, verbal stems, etc.
• use of preverbal particles to signal either subordination or illocutionary force of the following clause
• mutation-distinguished subordinators/relativisers
• particles for negation, interrogation, and occasionally for affirmative declarations
• pronouns positioned between particles and verbs
• lack of simple verb for the imperfective "have" process, with possession conveyed by a composite structure, usually BE + preposition
• Cornish {{lang|kw|Yma kath dhymm}} "I have a cat", literally "there is a cat to me"
• Welsh {{lang|cy|Mae cath gyda fi}} "I have a cat", literally "a cat is with me"
• Irish {{lang|ga|Tá cat agam}} "I have a cat", literally "there is a cat at me"
• use of periphrastic constructions to express verbal tense, voice, or aspectual distinctions
• distinction by function of the two versions of BE verbs traditionally labelled substantive (or existential) and copula
• bifurcated demonstrative structure
• suffixed pronominal supplements, called confirming or supplementary pronouns
• use of singulars or special forms of counted nouns, and use of a singulative suffix to make singular forms from plurals, where older singulars have disappeared

Examples:

: {{langx|ga|Ná bac le mac an bhacaigh is ní bhacfaidh mac an bhacaigh leat.}}

: (Literal translation) Do not bother with son the beggar's and not will-bother son the beggar's with-you.

:* {{lang|ga|bhacaigh}} is the genitive of {{lang|ga|bacach}}. The {{lang|ga|igh}} the result of affection; the {{vr|bh}} is the lenited form of {{vr|b}}.

:* {{lang|ga|leat}} is the second person singular inflected form of the preposition {{lang|ga|le}}.

:* The order is verb–subject–object (VSO) in the second half. Compare this to English or French (and possibly Continental Celtic) which are normally subject–verb–object in word order.

: {{langx|cy|pedwar ar bymtheg a phedwar ugain}}

: (Literally) four on fifteen and four twenties

:* {{lang|cy|bymtheg}} is a mutated form of {{lang|cy|pymtheg}}, which is {{lang|cy|pump}} ("five") plus {{lang|cy|deg}} ("ten"). Likewise, {{lang|cy|phedwar}} is a mutated form of {{lang|cy|pedwar}}.

:* The multiples of ten are {{lang|cy|deg, ugain, deg ar hugain, deugain, hanner cant, trigain, deg a thrigain, pedwar ugain, deg a phedwar ugain, cant}}.

The lexical similarity between the different Celtic languages is apparent in their core vocabulary, especially in terms of actual pronunciation. Moreover, the phonetic differences between languages are often the product of regular sound change (i.e. lenition of {{IPA|/b/}} into {{IPA|/v/}} or Ø).

The table below has words in the modern languages that were inherited direct from Proto-Celtic, as well as a few old borrowings from Latin that made their way into all the daughter languages. There is often a closer match between Welsh, Breton and Cornish on the one hand and Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx on the other. For a fuller list of comparisons, see the Swadesh list for Celtic.

^{† Borrowings from Latin.}

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

• {{langx|ga|Saolaítear gach duine den chine daonna saor agus comhionann i ndínit agus i gcearta. Tá bua an réasúin agus an choinsiasa acu agus ba cheart dóibh gníomhú i dtreo a chéile i spiorad an bhráithreachais.}}
• {{langx|gv|Ta dagh ooilley pheiagh ruggit seyr as corrym ayns ard-cheim as kiartyn. Ren Jee feoiltaghey resoon as cooinsheanse orroo as by chair daue ymmyrkey ry cheilley myr braaraghyn.}}
• {{langx|gd|Tha gach uile dhuine air a bhreith saor agus co-ionnan ann an urram 's ann an còirichean. Tha iad air am breith le reusan is le cogais agus mar sin bu chòir dhaibh a bhith beò nam measg fhèin ann an spiorad bràthaireil.}}
• {{langx|br|Dieub ha par en o dellezegezh hag o gwirioù eo ganet an holl dud. Poell ha skiant zo dezho ha dleout a reont bevañ an eil gant egile en ur spered a genvreudeuriezh.}}
• {{langx|kw|Genys frank ha par yw oll tus an bys yn aga dynita hag yn aga gwiryow. Enduys yns gans reson ha kowses hag y tal dhedha omdhon an eyl orth y gila yn spyrys a vrederedh.}}
• {{langx|cy|Genir pawb yn rhydd ac yn gydradd â'i gilydd mewn urddas a hawliau. Fe'u cynysgaeddir â rheswm a chydwybod, a dylai pawb ymddwyn y naill at y llall mewn ysbryd cymodlon.}}

Several poorly-documented languages may have been Celtic.

• Ancient Belgian
• Camunic is an extinct language spoken in the first millennium BC in the Val Camonica and Valtellina valleys of the Central Alps. It has recently been proposed that it was a Celtic language.{{cite journal |last1=Markey |first1=Thomas |title=Shared Symbolics, Genre Diffusion, Token Perception and Late Literacy in North-Western Europe |journal=NOWELE: North-Western European Language Evolution |date=2008 |volume=54-55 |pages=5–62 |publisher=NOWELE |doi=10.1075/nowele.54-55.01mar}}
• Ivernic
• Ligurian, on the Northern Mediterranean Coast straddling the southeast French and northwest Italian coasts, including parts of Tuscany, Elba and Corsica. Xavier Delamarre argues that Ligurian was a Celtic language similar to Gaulish.{{cite web |url= http://www.celtnet.org.uk/gods_v/vasio.html |title=Celtic Gods: The Gaulish and Ligurian god, Vasio (He who is given Libation) |access-date=4 March 2015 |url-status=usurped |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130518143426/http://www.celtnet.org.uk/gods_v/vasio.html |archive-date=18 May 2013}} The Ligurian-Celtic question is also discussed by Barruol (1999). Ancient Ligurian is listed as either Celtic (epigraphic),{{cite book |last=Kruta |first=Venceslas |title=The Celts |date=1991 |publisher=Thames and Hudson |pages=54}} or Para-Celtic (onomastic).{{cite book |last=Kruta |first=Venceslas |title=The Celts |date=1991 |publisher=Thames and Hudson |pages=55}}
• Lusitanian, spoken in the area between the Douro and Tagus rivers of western Iberia (a region straddling the present border of Portugal and Spain). Known from only five inscriptions and various place names. It is an Indo-European language and some scholars have proposed that it may be a para-Celtic language that evolved alongside Celtic or formed a dialect continuum or sprachbund with Tartessian and Gallaecian. This is tied to a theory of an Iberian origin for the Celtic languages.{{cite book |last=Wodtko |first=Dagmar S |title=Celtic from the West Chapter 11: The Problem of Lusitanian |date=2010 |publisher=Oxbow Books |location=Oxford |isbn=978-1-84217-410-4 |pages=360–361}}{{cite journal |last=Ballester |first=X. |title="Páramo" o del problema del la */p/ en celtoide |journal=Studi Celtici |date=2004 |volume=3 |pages=45–56}} It is also possible that the Q-Celtic languages alone, including Goidelic, originated in western Iberia (a theory that was first put forward by Edward Lhuyd in 1707) or shared a common linguistic ancestor with Lusitanian.[https://books.google.com/books?id=fDYyBwAAQBAJ&dq=edward+lhuyd+lusitanian+celtic&pg=PA8 Unity in Diversity, Volume 2: Cultural and Linguistic Markers of the Concept] Editors: Sabine Asmus and Barbara Braid. Google Books. Secondary evidence for this hypothesis has been found in research by biological scientists, who have identified (1) deep-rooted similarities in human DNA found precisely in both the former Lusitania and Ireland,{{cite journal |last1=Hill |first1=E. W. |last2=Jobling |first2=M. A. |last3=Bradley |first3=D. G. |date=2000 |title=Y chromosome variation and Irish origins |journal=Nature |volume=404 |issue=6776 |pages=351–352 |doi=10.1038/35006158 |pmid=10746711 |bibcode=2000Natur.404..351H |s2cid=4414538}}{{cite journal |last1=McEvoy |first1=B. |last2=Richards |first2=M. |last3=Forster |first3=P. |last4=Bradley |first4=D. G. |date=2004 |title=The longue durée of genetic ancestry: multiple genetic marker systems and Celtic origins on the Atlantic facade of Europe |journal=Am. J. Hum. Genet. |volume=75 |issue=4 |pages=693–702 |doi=10.1086/424697 |pmid=15309688 |pmc=1182057}} and; (2) the so-called "Lusitanian distribution" of animals and plants unique to western Iberia and Ireland. Both phenomena are now generally thought to have resulted from human emigration from Iberia to Ireland, in the late Paleolithic or early Mesolithic eras.{{cite journal |last1=Masheretti |first1=S. |last2=Rogatcheva |first2=M. B. |last3=Gündüz |first3=I. |last4=Fredga |first4=K. |last5=Searle |first5=J. B. |date=2003 |title=How did pygmy shrews colonize Ireland? Clues from a phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial cytochrome b sequences |journal=Proc. R. Soc. B |volume=270 |issue=1524 |pages=1593–1599 |doi=10.1098/rspb.2003.2406 |pmc=1691416 |pmid=12908980}} Other scholars see greater linguistic affinities between Lusitanian, Old Gallo-Italic (particularly with Ligurian) and Old European.{{cite book |last1=Villar |first1=Francisco |title=Indoeuropeos y no indoeuropeos en la Hispania Prerromana |date=2000 |publisher=Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca |location=Salamanca |isbn=84-7800-968-X |edition=1st |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=G7zC8UCvmo0C |language=es |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20151231222127/https://books.google.com/books?id=G7zC8UCvmo0C |archive-date=31 December 2015 |url-status=live}}The inscription of Cabeço das Fráguas revisited. Lusitanian and Alteuropäisch populations in the West of the Iberian Peninsula Transactions of the Philological Society vol. 97 (2003) Prominent modern linguists such as Ellis Evans, believe Gallaecian-Lusitanian was in fact one same language (not separate languages) of the "P" Celtic variant.[https://ilg.usc.es/agon/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Callaica_Nomina.pdf Callaica_Nomina] {{Webarchive |url= https://web.archive.org/web/20200930005923/https://ilg.usc.es/agon/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Callaica_Nomina.pdf |date=30 September 2020 }} ilg.usc.es{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=f899xH_quaMC&q=Evans+lusitanian+celt+linguist&pg=PA484 |title=Celtic Culture: A-Celti |date=2006 |isbn=9781851094400 |last1=Koch |first1=John T. |author-link=John T. Koch |publisher=Bloomsbury}}
• Rhaetic, spoken in central Switzerland, Tyrol in Austria, and the Alpine regions of northeast Italy. Documented by a limited number of short inscriptions (found through Northern Italy and Western Austria) in two variants of the Etruscan alphabet. Its linguistic categorisation is not clearly established, and it presents a confusing mixture of what appear to be Etruscan, Indo-European, and uncertain other elements. Howard Hayes Scullard argues that Rhaetian was also a Celtic language.{{cite book |last1=Scullard |first1=HH |title=The Etruscan Cities and Rome |url= https://archive.org/details/etruscancitiesro0000scul |url-access=registration |date=1967 |publisher=Cornell University Press |location=Ithaca, NY |isbn=9780801403736}}
• Tartessian, spoken in the southwest of the Iberia Peninsula (mainly southern Portugal and southwest Spain).{{cite book |last=Koch |first=John T. |author-link=John T. Koch |title=Celtic from the West Chapter 9: Paradigm Shift? Interpreting Tartessian as Celtic |date=2010 |publisher=Oxbow Books |location=Oxford |isbn=978-1-84217-410-4 |pages=292–293}} Tartessian is known by 95 inscriptions, with the longest having 82 readable signs.{{cite book |last=Cunliffe |first=Barry |title=The Celts – A Very Short Introduction – see figure 7 |date=2003 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-19-280418-9 |pages=51–52}}{{cite journal |last=Cólera |first=Carlos Jordán |title=The Celts in the Iberian Peninsula:Celtiberian |journal=E-Keltoi |date=16 March 2007 |volume=6 |pages=749–750 |url= http://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_17/jordan_6_17.pdf |access-date=16 June 2010 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110624081159/http://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_17/jordan_6_17.pdf |archive-date=24 June 2011 |url-status=dead}}{{cite book |last=Koch |first=John T. |author-link=John T. Koch |title=Tartessian 2: The Inscription of Mesas do Castelinho ro and the Verbal Complex. Preliminaries to Historical Phonology |date=2011 |url= http://www.oxbowbooks.com/bookinfo.cfm/ID/91450//Location/Oxbow |publisher=Oxbow Books |location=Oxford |isbn=978-1-907029-07-3 |pages=1–198 |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110723195518/http://www.oxbowbooks.com/bookinfo.cfm/ID/91450//Location/Oxbow |archive-date=23 July 2011}} John T. Koch argues that Tartessian was also a Celtic language.

• Ogham
• Celts
• Celts (modern)
• A Swadesh list of the modern Celtic languages
• Celtic Congress
• Celtic League
• Continental Celtic languages
• Italo-Celtic
• Language family

{{reflist|30em}}

{{refbegin}}

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{{refend}}

• {{Cite journal |last=Markey |first=Thomas L. |date=2006 |title=Early Celticity in Slovenia and at Rhaetic Magrè (Schio) |journal=Linguistica |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=145–72 |doi=10.4312/linguistica.46.1.145-172 |doi-access=free}}.
• {{Cite journal |last=Sims-Williams |first=Patrick |title=An Alternative to 'Celtic from the East' and 'Celtic from the West' |journal=Cambridge Archaeological Journal |volume=30 |issue=3 |date=2020 |pages=511–29 |doi=10.1017/S0959774320000098 |s2cid=216484936 |doi-access=free |hdl=2160/317fdc72-f7ad-4a66-8335-db8f5d911437 |hdl-access=free}}.
• {{Cite journal |last=Stifter |first=David |title=The early Celtic epigraphic evidence and early literacy in Germanic languages |journal=NOWELE: North-Western European Language Evolution |volume=73 |issue=1 |date=Apr 2020 |pages=123–152 |issn=0108-8416 |doi=10.1075/nowele.00037.sti |s2cid=219024967 |url= http://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/12914/1/Stifter}}

{{sisterlinks|d=Q25293|s=Portal:Celtic languages|c=category:Celtic languages|b=Category:Languages of Europe|v=Category:Celtic languages|voy=no|m=no|mw=no|n=no|wikt=Category:Celtic languages|q=no}}

• [http://www.abdn.ac.uk/celtic Aberdeen University Celtic Department] {{Webarchive |url= https://web.archive.org/web/20081208012252/http://www.abdn.ac.uk/celtic |date=8 December 2008 }}
• [http://www.summerlands.com/crossroads/celticlanguage/labara1.html "Labara: An Introduction to the Celtic Languages", by Meredith Richard]
• [http://www.breizh.net/icdbl/saozg/Celtic_Languages.pdf Celts and Celtic Languages] (PDF)

{{Celtic languages|state=expanded}}

{{Celts}}

{{Indo-European languages}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Celtic languages}}