Brythonic languages
| Brythonic | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution: | Brittany Wales Cornwall Cumbria Scotland |
| Linguistic classification: | Indo-European
|
| Subdivisions: | |
The Brythonic languages are a language family of the Celtic languages. They are spoken in Brittany, Wales and Cornwall. While going extinct in the rest of the British Isles, the (recognised) regions include: Cumbria and Scotland, while still debated, Common Brittonic[1] was widely spoken across England.
There are three Brythonic languages:
And three extinct languages
Native speakers[change | change source]
Cornish (Kernowek) is an extinct language.[2][3] A Cornish revival movement introduced the language to 557 people. Cornish is mainly a L2 (second language) for most, if not all, Cornish speakers.
Breton (Brezhoneg) is spoken mostly in Brittany,[4] With small communities of speakers in North-West regional France, although it is "severely endangered" .
Welsh (Cymraeg) is spoken by around 20% of the total population of Wales. Welsh has over 700,000 speakers in the whole of the United Kingdom. Welsh and English are both official languages in Wales.
- Pictish: extinct by the twelfth century AD. It is not clear whether it was a Brythonic Language.
- Common Brittonic fell out of common use by the 6th century A.D after forming into: old welsh, Cumbric, Cornish and (Perhaps) Pictish.
References[change | change source]
- ↑ "WikiVisually.com". wikivisually.com. Retrieved 2018-06-15.
- ↑ "THE HISTORY OF THE CORNISH LANGUAGE". CelticLife International. Retrieved 8 March 2018.
- ↑ Parry, John (1946). "The Revival of Cornish: An Dasserghyans Kernewek". PMLA. 61 (1). Modern Language Association: 258–268. doi:10.2307/459233. JSTOR 459233. S2CID 163898565.
- ↑ UNESCO Atlas of the World's languages in danger.