When many people think of the 'Celtic' language, we think of either Welsh, or Gaelic. That's it. Sure, people with a bit more knowledge can break it down a bit more (Gaelic becomes split into Irish and Scottish, and some people might even know about Manx and Cornish.) but this is the general starting point of learning about the Celts and how vastly different they all were.
In the world, we currently have six existing Celtic languages that are spoken, albeit not as widespread or fluently as I would like so see. These are:
Welsh (Cymraeg)
Brittany (Breton)
Cornish (Kernewek)
Irish (Gaeilge)
Scottish (Gaidhlig)
Manx (Gaelg)
All of these languages have their own words, phrases, and terms of speech.
But every single one descends from the same family tree.
It starts at the very (that we know of) beginning. The mark of most languages as we know them, and the hypothesised godmother of many of the world's languages we speak now:
Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
I've included a link for deeper divers who want to know more, but I'm going to break it down very quickly.
PIE is the reconstruction of what many linguists believe is the language that formed many of the modern Indo-European world's languages. Celtic being one of the surviving branches. It also included Germanic, Italic, Balto-Slavic, and Hellenic, amongst many others.
Whilst we cannot prove PIE existed, we can theorise that all these language's similarities likely stemmed from a forebearer of sorts.
Which brings us down to our next descendant:
Proto-Celtic (or, sometimes, Common Celtic)
Another reconstructionist language, though this time with a lot more definitiveness than PIE. Proto-Celtic is, as far as we are aware, the ancestor of all known Celtic languages.
Theorists believe Proto-Celtic can be traced back to the Late Bronze Age, which is a really, really long time ago. But some linguists think it may have gone further back. And by further, I mean the 13th Century BCE, back at the very beginning of the Bronze Age.
Now, we have no idea at what point Common Celtic began to develop into it's separate languages. But what we do know is that during the 1st Millennium BC, Celtic languages were widely spoken across the entirety of Europe, and even some bits of Anatolia (Asia Minor) in the area that now makes up the majority of the land of Türkiye. That's a lot of land!
When we hear of Celts now, they're often lumped in with the cultures that were destroyed by the Romans. We hear hero-worship of 'civilised' Rome and their conquering across nations, trampling savage cultures beneath them. But at one point, the Celts lived across half of the world and were rich in culture and language.
And at some point, the Common Celtic language divided into two new language 'branches'
Continental Celtic
We'll start off with the Continental Celtic languages, as unfortunately, none have survived to modern day.
And you might be thinking 'Oh, Brittany speaks Breton and that's in France, surely that's continental?'
And it would appear so at face value. But Breton descends from settlers that arrived just prior to the 6th Century AD from Britain, and therefore remains an Insular Celtic descendant. Some linguists, however, theorise Gaulish influences may still have remained in the language.
The Celtic languages spoken in this sub-group were likely some of the first heard by the Romans and the Greeks during their time exploring Europe. There were probably a lot more languages in Continental Celtic than we now know, but only a handful are recorded, and even fewer can be proven to descend from Proto-Celtic.
These languages were spoken as far as we are aware "in an area arcing from the northern half of Iberia in the west to north of Belgium, and east to the Carpathian basin and the Balkans as Noric, and in inner Anatolia (modern day Türkiye) as Galatian"
Lepontic
Lepontic is a highly debated Celtic language. Some linguists believe it may have been the first to branch off from Common Celtic, whilst others think it came from Gaulish or as a family member of the Ligurian language instead.
What we do know is that it was spoken in the southern Alps, and that it only existed in record between the 6th and 4th Century BCE. It was first absorbed by the Gaulish people, and suffered against when the Romans took control over the area it was spoken in.
Gaulish
Probably one of the more well-known languages in the Continental Celtic branch. We've all heard of the Gauls, right? Terrifying warriors that fought against the Celts? Asterix comic? No?
The Gaulish language actually divides into two sub-groups itself. The Cisalpine dialect, which was spoken in what is now Italy. And the Transalpine dialect, which was spoken in the area that became modern-day France.
As far as we know, Gaulish existed sometime from the 2nd Century BC. We have the Greeks to thank for a lot of our knowledge there, as they crossed paths with the Celts frequently. Gaulish managed to last all the way to the 6th Century AD. It was at the hands of the Roman Empire and Latinisation that Gaulish met its downfall, though some linguists think they found proof that it survived in the Swiss Alps all the way to the 10th Century.
Spoiler: You're going to find the Romans responsible for a LOT of the Celts' downfall.
Galatian
Galatian was a Celtic language spoken in Anatolia. Or, more specifically, the region of Ankara (nowadays, Ankara is the capital city of Türkiye). We know this because of writings and evidence of invasion and settlement from the Celts into Anatolia.
Like Gaulish, Galatian lasted. It began in what we think was the 3rd Century BCE, and closely resembled the Gaulish language. There is some evidence that it lasted until 6th Century AD, when a Christian Monk in Palestine spoke of a Galatian monk possessed by Satan. After recovering from this supposed 'possession', the monk it question could allegedly only respond to others in his native Galatian tongue. It's amazing how such a small story written in history can be absolute proof that a language persisted for so long!
Noric (?)
Sometimes named Eastern Celtic, the Noric language divides linguists on the actual nature of it's supposed existence. Only two inscriptions exist that offer proof it was spoken, one in Eastern Europe, and one in Central Europe. It is named for the region of Noricum, a Roman region, that would have existed around that same time. Both inscriptions were written in what is estimated to be the 2nd Century AD. We have no idea when Noric went extinct, if it even existed as a separate language at all.
So either Noric did not exist, or any evidence of it's existence was thoroughly erased over time. It MAY have been spoken across what is now modern day Slovenia and Austria, or even further.
Celtiberian
A unique Celtic language amongst the Continental Celtic languages, Celtiberian began in the 2nd Century BCE, when Celts invaded the Iberian Peninsula, which was then inhabited by the Iberian people. Celtiberian was a Q-Celtic language, and Ranko Matasovic stated that "Celtiberian...is almost certainly an independent branch on the Celtic genealogical tree, one that became separated from the others very early."
I'll do a full post on Q-Celtic and P-Celtic languages, and the theory behind it later!
So Celtiberian may have been one of the first to branch away from Proto-Celtic. Either way, it lasted into the 2nd Century AD, when it began to appear less and less in records as it clearly became influenced by Latin.
Those goddamned Romans at it again!
Gallaecian
A Celtic language spoken in the north-western part of Iberia by a tribe called the Callaeci. It's a complex Celtic language historically due to it's potential merging features with another language of the area during the Pre-Roman era.
We have very little information on when Gallaecian began and when it ended. We know it existed in the First Millennium CE, and have records of it showing up on a map of 300 BC Iberia as mixed in with Pre-Celtic influences.
Some theorists suggest that Gallaecian, whilst it possesses Celtic features, may more closely resemble the Lusitanian, a Indo-European Paleohispanic language. However, Lusitanian itself has many Celtic features, to the point of linguists believing it itself may be of Celtic origin. In that case, Lusitanian would be added to our list of Continental Celtic languages.
Insular Celtic
Now we move on to the second branch from Proto-Celtic. The only branch left living in the modern day: Insular Celtic.
The existence of Insular Celtic and it's descendants contrasts with the P/Q Celtic language hypothesis, though we do still use it to distinguish between them. Insular Celtic theory suggests these languages had a later common ancestor than their continental cousins, and thus maintained longer than those on the European continent, which had all went extinct by the 6th Century AD.
Insular Celtic primarily exists in the landmass of Britain and it's neighbours Ireland, Brittany, and the Isle of Man. And here we witness another branch divide.
Yes, another.
From here, Insular Celtic splits itself into newer branches. Though often characterised as two, some theorists believe a potential THIRD branch-off existed. It was put forward by Celtic specialist linguist Kenneth H.Jackson. Whilst I WILL include it in the list below, I will dedicate a different post into exploring that branch, as it's origins and history are both inconclusive and deserve their own conversation.
Fun fact: Insular Celtic, unlike Continental Celtic, shares some characteristic features with Afro-Asiatic languages. This is incredibly rare in Indo-European languages. It has created some arguments that there were Afro-Asiatic influences in Britain prior to the Celts' arrival.
Many Celticists disagree. Though the features are similar, there is almost zero evidence to bridge the gap between the two language groups. It is more possible that the characteristics are simply coincidence, and that they evolved independently.
The Insular Celtic subdivisions are as follows:
Brittonic
Brittonic is the language branch that encompasses half of the world's extant Celtic languages. It's common ancestor is Proto-Brittonic, which may have been the language spoken in Celtic Britain prior to the origins of what is now our modern-day Welsh, Cornish, and Breton.
Proto-Brittonic is thought to have developed during the 6th Century BC. It is estimated that Proto-Brittonic was spoken across the majority of Great Britain. It bore a striking resemblance to the Gaulish language, and likely appeared during a mass migration from the European lands of Gaul to the landmass of Britain.
It became partially-extinct by the 6th Century AD. I say partially, because it actually divided AGAIN into it's new descendants. These became the mother-languages of the modern day P-Celtic languages.
Old Welsh/Middle Welsh/Modern Welsh
Old Welsh has at least one potential ancestor, called 'Primitive Welsh'. However, historians cannot decide what period this existed between, only that it became a complete language in the mid 6th Century AD, and had been replaced by Old Welsh by the 9th Century AD.
Old Welsh is the beginnings of the Welsh language as we know it. This and Primitive Welsh were not only spoken in Wales, but potentially the area known as Hen Ogledd, the Old North. You'll get a full post on Hen Ogledd later because I'm OBSESSED with it.
During Old Welsh, the works of Aneirin and the Book of Taliesin were written. You'll hear more about these (and especially Aneirin) in further posts.
Middle Welsh followed from the 12th to the 14th Centuries, and contain the majority of the works of the Mabinogion. Arguably, the stories in this are much, much older. Also appearing here are the manuscripts of Welsh Law. During this time, we begin to see the start of the decline in Welsh as a primary language. Whilst widely spoken in the Middle Welsh era, English had already began encroaching from the east, eating away at the population's native language.
And then we reach Modern Welsh. This is the language spoken now, and one of the most widely spoken Celtic languages in the 21st Century. Welsh is protected, classified as Wales' national language, and taught in schools. By the 20th Century, the language was in danger of becoming extinct. It is only because of the efforts of Welsh speakers and a resurge in Celtic pride that Welsh has seen an uptick in speakers. I began learning the language early this year, and it is as beautiful as it is complicated.
Old Cornish/Middle Cornish/Late Cornish/Revived Cornish
Cornish appears to have developed from the Primitive Welsh language as it's people moved further into what is now Cornwall and Devon. Old Cornish appears as it's own language sometime in the 9th Century AD, and continued well into the 13th Century. It faced opposition from the Saxons who invaded their lands from the east, reducing their lands and decreasing the popularity of Cornish as a spoken language.
It developed into Middle Cornish from the 13th to the 15th Century, peaking in popularity. However, it witnessed a decline soon after the 13th Century began. It is in Middle Cornish that we witness the bulk of surviving Cornish literature. The Ordinalia, the Beanans Meriasek and the Bewnans Ke.
It was the later Middle Cornish years that cemented the decline of Cornish language and culture. Parliament passed the Act of Uniformity in 1549, and established the English Book of Prayers as the sole form of legal worship. The problem? Many of the Cornish spoke no English, and therefore were unable to read it. This was one of many causes of rebellion in Cornwall. However, the rebellion was largely caused by economic and cultural differences, due to the Cornish being massively pushed aside in favour of Englishmen. The rebellion was out down, and the Cornish language became associated with sedition and anti-English sentiment.
Late Cornish was had much few speakers as a result. It existed from the 15th Century to the 19th. By the late 17th Century, Cornish was only found in the areas of Penwith and Kerrier. The last fluent speaker of Cornish, Dolly Pentreath, died in 1777. It's last native, but not fluent, speaker John Davey died in 1891. With them, the Cornish language became temporarily extinct.
Cornish would remain a classified extinct language until the late 19th Century to the early 20th Century. During this time, efforts were made to reconstruct the Cornish language from it's ancestors. Though many variants were created, the Cornish Language Partnership eventually elected to agree on a Standard Written Form, which came about in 2008.
It hit a new milestone in 2010 when UNESCO removed Cornish from it's list of extinct languages. And earlier this year in 2026, Cornish was granted the same level of protection as given to Welsh, Manx, Irish, and Scots Gaelic through the European Charter for National and Minority Languages.
Go Cornwall!
Old Breton/Middle Breton/Modern Breton
I'll admit, Breton is one of the few Insular Celtic languages I know very little about. It originates from the British mainland and was brought to Brittany, making it the only extant Celtic language on the European continent.
Old Breton was only spoken primarily in Lower Brittany from the 9th Century AD. Though it was originally spoken by the upper classes, it became relegated to the common class in the 12th Century as French became the language of choice amongst nobles.
By the 12th Century, it had shifted into Middle Breton. The French government cared little for the regional languages of France and left the Bretons alone for the most part. It was not until the French Revolution when policies were enacted favouring French for the government and military. To them, regional languages like Middle Breton left the poor masses uninformed and less likely to rebel against things they disagreed with.
This tone seemed to change by the time Modern Breton existed in the 17th Century. Between 1870 and the 1960s, the French government became determined to create a unified national culture- at the expense of the Bretons' own culture. The Third, Fourth, and Fifth Republics undermined Breton language, and teachers were actively encouraged to humiliate students who spoke it.
It worked. By the 21st Century, roughly 200,000 people actively spoke Breton. In 1950, it had been 1 Million. It is now classified as an Endangered Language. Most of it's speakers are over 60 years of age.
In 1993, Breton parents were finally allowed to legally given their children Breton names.
That's right. The French had banned the people of Brittany from giving their own children native names from their culture.
With any luck, we'll see a revival in Breton as we have in the other Insular Celtic languages. Otherwise, it will likely be extinct by the 22nd Century.
Cumbric
Cumbric is an extinct Celtic language spoken during the Early Middle Ages. It was primarily found in the land that made up Hen Ogledd, which was formed in Northern England and the Southern Scottish Lowlands, as well as potentially the Yorkshire Dales. It's primary base was the Kingdom of Strathclyde, an ancient kingdom that existed in the North.
Some linguists believe Cumbric may have existed as a dialect of Old Welsh rather than it's own separate language. However, it's place-names and existing modern toponymy suggests a developed medieval language distinct from Welsh, Cornish or Breton.
Ha! Take that, Cumbric-deniers!
The dates of the Kingdom of Strathclyde, alongside evidence of Cumbric language, suggest it came about sometime in the 5th to 6th Century AD. Sadly, we have no confirmed time of existence.
We also have no confirmed date of extinction, though we can guess. Whilst most records and manuscripts show Cumbric declined as a language during the late 12th Century, historians theorise that the peasantry would have likely held onto remnants of the language, possibly into the 13th Century. What we do know is this: at some point between the years of 1200 and 1300, Cumbric became extinct as a fluent spoken language.
Whilst the idea of a Revived Cumbric sounds great on paper, in theory, its impossible. It died out too early for us to piece together a language.
Pictish (?)
I'll keep it short and sweet for this one, because Pictish is a deep dive of fucking theories that deserves its own post due to the complicated nature of it's origins.
Pictish as we know it is an extinct Brittonic language that was spoken by the Picts living in eastern and norther Scotland. The Romans feared them enough to leave them the hell alone, along with most of the Scottish tribes.
We know Pictish existed due to inscriptions in Ogham alphabet, as well as geographical and place names dotted around. It's classification as a language, however, becomes hard to understand once you look further.
Whilst some people believe it to be a Brittonic descendant, others think it came from it's own Insular Celtic branch, Pritenic. There are other theories too, which we'll go through later.
Will we ever know for certain?
Probably not.
Goidelic
Goidelic forms the second major group of Celtic languages that branched off from Insular Celtic. It's entire descending tree derives from Ireland, and slowly bled into Scotland and the Isle of Man as the Irish travelled across the sea. It was a Q-Celtic variety, quite like the Celtiberian language.
When people think of Celts, it is mostly this language family that comes to mind outside of the United Kingdom. And to be frank, it's where most of the misinformation about Celtic people comes from because of this. The continued lumping of all Celts together under one massive umbrella, as opposed to treating them as separate, individual cultures with their own gods, languages, beliefs, and people.
More on that rant later.
Goidelic took a long time to reach the three extant languages we now know as Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. From Insular Celtic, it only branched into Primitive Irish at first. The variants of Scotland and the Isle of Man did not appear until after Middle Irish.
For viewer purposes, I'll still split them according to their extant variants:
Primitive Irish/Old Irish/Middle Irish/Early Modern Irish/Irish Gaelic
The progenitor of all contemporary Gaelic languages, Primitive Irish is well documented through the use of the Ogham stones. This evidence shows it likely began in the 4th Century AD, making it the theorised oldest Insular Celtic language to date. Some estimates of surviving writings even place it as ranging from the 1st to 5th Centuries.
Primitive Irish seems to have lasted until around the 6th Century, when evidence of Old Irish seems to exist. Old Irish becomes the main language by the 7th Century. By this point, the Irish Gaels had already begun migrating to the western islands of Scotland, as well as the Isle of Man, Wales, Devon, and Cornwall. Ogham writings present in all these locations tell us so. It is this form of Irish that seems to have had the most spread across the UK as a whole.
What followed from the 10th to 12th Century AD was the evolved form, Middle Irish. There's not a lot of say about Middle Irish from a historical point of view. It changed linguistically, and did not have the same reach across the UK as Old Irish. Middle Irish was spoken across Ireland, most of Scotland, and the Isle of Man. It is from Middle Irish that Manx seems to have branched off.
It's successor from the 12th Century to approximately the 15th Century was Early Modern Irish. This was the last evolution of the Goidelic language prior to its subgroups of our contemporary Gaelic languages. It was only found in Ireland and Scotland and was the starting point for both contemporary Gaelic languages. Granted, Scottish Gaelic had already seen signs of becoming distinct from the 12th Century. However, it had yet to be standardised as a language until the 16th Century AD.
It wad during the Early Modern Irish period that we first see expansive efforts to suppress the Irish language as a whole. The Tudor dynasty wanted to subdue its Irish citizens, and did so by passing laws restricting Irish language whilst actively encouraging use of the English language. Mary I struggled to undergo an English expansion into Ireland, whilst her sister Elizabeth I allegedly expressed a desire to learn or at least understand Irish. I know which one I prefer.
In the 17th Century, Modern Irish arose. A shame it took so long, because by the 18th Century Irish Gaelic was seeing a massive decline. The Catholic Church openly preferred English to Irish, and the Anglo-Irish government put in charge oppressed the native language of it's people, largely to appease British royalty. The conquest of Ireland by the English did little to help matters. Rather, it fuelled the flames.
A resurgence of interest in Gaelic culture and language in the 19th Century brought Irish back into the fold. The Gaelic League worked to encourage use of Irish and successfully campaigned to have it taught in schools.
Nowadays, Irish is recognised as the first and national language of the Republic of Ireland. Though most government and business is conducted in English still, with a minority speaking Irish fluently, efforts continue to be made to reintroduce Irish as the primary speaking language in Ireland.
Scottish Gaelic
Prior to Gaelic, we believe the Scottish spoke a form of Brittonic. A portion of what is now Lowland Scotland comprised the Hen Ogledd, and Lothian was the potential capital of the Votadini tribe.
Gaelic arrived in Scotland in around the 4th or 5th Century AD, during the founding of the Gaelic Kingdom of Dal Riata on the west coast of Scotland. Dal Riata is now modern day Argyll. However, an archaeologist named Ewan Campbell argued that Argyll was already made up of Q-Celtic speaking people during the Iron Age, and were connected to Ireland via the sea. Either way, the Gaelic language spread throughout most of Scotland eventually.
It was in the 8th Century that Gaelic was able to move from Dal Riata and bleed into Pict territory. The Kingdom of the Picts slowly became known as the Kingdom of Alba, 'Alba' being the Gaelic word for Scotland. A slow Gaelicisation was in the process, and by the time it reached the 11th Century, Gaelic was the spoken language of the Scots, and the Pictish once spoken had largely become extinct.
So when you think about it, the Irish colonised Scotland! The more you know, right?
In the early 11th Century, Scotland was successful in conquering Lothian (which, by the way, had previously been part of England as a part of the Kingdom of Northumbria!) and gained linguistic independence from Ireland. Gaelic had already been differing from Irish Gaelic by the 8th Century, but it was in this era that it was referenced for the first time as lingua Scotia.
The Lowlands of Scotland still retained a lot of their Brittonic roots, and Gaelic never seemed to pick up in places like Ayrshire or Dumfries. In south-eastern Scotland, there is little to no evidence Scots Gaelic ever became a widely spoken language at all.
Like all Celtic languages, Scots Gaelic suffered a decline. King Malcolm III of Scotland married Princess Margaret of Wessex, the daughter of an Anglo-Saxon king. She spoke no Gaelic, brought her own Saxon peers and priests to Scotland, and gave all her children Saxon names rather than Gaelic ones. Coincidence? I think not, seeing as the English already held desires to rule Scotland.
Scotland hid a rough linguistic divide in the middle ages. Clan chiefs of the northern and western areas of Scotland continued to hold strong to their Gaelic ways. Some of those in the far west-north of Scotland spoke Norn, a Germanic language spoken in Caithness, Shetland, and Orkney. In the east and south of Scotland, a new language was taking hold: a West Germanic language called Scots. By the mid-14th Century, Scots had become the official language of the law. By the end of the 15th Century, Scotland had taken Scots as their language, referring to Gaelic speakers as 'Yrisch' i.e. Irish.
Throughout the 17th Century, efforts were made by the English to steer Scotland away from any of its languages, Gaelic included. The Statutes of Iona in 1609 required heirs of clan chiefs to be sent to Lowland Scotland to be educated in Protestant, English-speaking schools. To King James, Gaelic was a great cause of instability in Scotland. The less it was spoken, the less of an individual identity the Scottish people had.
These practises continued well into the 19th and 20th Centuries. Still, Scots Gaelic persisted, especially in the Isles and the Highlands. The Scottish Education Act of 1872 provided universal education, but failed to include Gaelic. An attempt to re-introduce Gaelic into it was met with pushback from school boards in the Highlands.
Now, Scotland is seeing more and more people attempt to reintroduce Scots Gaelic, as well as Scots, into the country. At current, it is believed to have only 20,000 to 30,000 active users and is listed as definitively endangers by UNESCO.
In 2025, Scottish Parliament introduced the Scottish Languages Act. This established both Scots and Gaelic as official languages of the country.
Manx
I'm afraid to say Manx is also another one of the Insular Celtic languages I had little knowledge of prior to researching for this post. Whilst I've known people from the Isle of Man, they've all only spoken English.
It is believed that a Brittonic language may have been spoken on the Isle of Man prior to the arrival of Irish missionaries. If there was, we have no idea what it sounded or looked like. The name for the island itself is heavily linked to gods from both Goidelic and Brittonic culture. Manannan mac Lir is the Irish version, whilst the Welsh have Manawydan fab Llyr. In both cultures, he is a god of the sea and king of the Otherworld, as well as the son of Lir/Llyr.
In other words, it's the same god with slight alterations as Insular Celtic split. You'll see this a lot on further posts and I'll be doing some comparisons on the different pantheons.
But both remain the same in one way: Manawydan/Manannan is the eponymous god of the Isle of Man. Or, he is named after the island. One of these is definitely true.
Manx descends primarily from Primitive Irish over all other forms of Irish language evolution. We know this because Ogham script is found all over the Isle of Man, whilst Old Irish used Latin and there are no extant examples on the island.
In the 9th Century, the Isle of Man was conquered by Viking Norsemen. Peculiarly, this did not mean the island spoke Norse. Rather, the Norsemen here and around the Irish Sea acclimated and began speaking Gaelic. These Norse-Gaels had little cultural impact on the language, though some words stuck around.
The Manx came under Scottish rule in the 13th Century, but did not stay that way. Rather, they bounced between Scotland and England until 1405, when the Stanley family took feudal possession of the island. Until this point, Linguists believe Gaelic may have been the only language spoken. The introduction of the Stanleys brought Anglo-Norman and then the English language to Manx shores.
It was between the 15th and 20th Centuries that Manx greatly diverged from Scottish and Irish Gaelic. Like all other Celtic nations, the use of Manx was suppressed by legislation demanding all education be provided for in English. The 19th Century saw English overtake Manx as the primary language of the island.
By the mid-20th Century, only a few native speakers of Manx existed, and all of them elderly. The last speaker was a man named Ned Maddrell, who died in December 1974. Following this, an effort to revive the language was made. The Manx Language Unit formed in 1992, solely designed to combat the death of their native language. Even the Irish pitched in, with the Irish Folklore Commission sending recording equipment to capture partially-fluent speakers on tape. From here, they were able to reconstruct the language.
Despite there being hundreds of Manx speakers on the island, UNESCO attempted to declare it extinct in 2009. The backlash was immense enough that they were forced to retract this as list it as Critically Endangered instead.
Manx is currently taught as a second language in all of the island's primary and secondary schools. It is also recognised under the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages. Despite this, Manx is still not officially recognised by any Government.
I believe that in the next 10 years or so, the Manx people will attempt to gain the same recognition that their Celtic brethren of Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Cornwall have. Here's to hoping.
Pritenic (?)
When it's updated I'll provide a link here to a follow-up post!
I don't have much to say on the Pritenic branch currently. I've included a link regardless, but there's not a lot to go on.
Researchers believe it may have existed and been the ancestor of Pictish, rather than Proto-Brittonic. This is due to unique and distinctive linguistic features found in Pictish that cannot be found in Brittonic.
Linguist Alan G. James suggested that Cumbric, rather than a solely Brittonic language, was a hybrid language born from both Brittonic and Pritenic influences. Indeed, the language was a P-Celtic language and bore a striking resemblance to the languages of the Gauls, especially in it's names.
I intend to further research into this before adding more!
If you want an idea what more authentic oldschool hacking language sounds like, there is an absolutely ANCIENT webpage called the Jargon File (seems to have been updated from the early 80s up through 2004), aka the New Hacker’s Dictionary, that kept a record. It’s not far from Gibson’s idea but if anything it sounds even dorkier, peppered with coding terms and prehistoric memes
one of the funniest things I see people say about "standard english" btw is californians who are like "yeah basically all american english speakers speak the same way so it makes sense to call that 'standard american english'" because you know they only perceive it that way because californian english has like every single vowel merger simultaneously so they can't tell the difference between other american english varieties. they're fish who don't know they're wet
There are so many fucking different American accents where the people who have them love to go "oh I've just got a generic American accent!" and NO YOU DO NOT, and THAT ISN'T A THING.
Can you please, pretty-please do a "3 linguistics papers to read" about neopronouns? I'd love to get some academic perspectives on them! :)
Ooh, yes, I can do this!
Three papers to read about neopronouns
The first one I'm linking is by Em Miltersen from 2016, which I am highlighting because the data comes specifically from tumblr!
Miltersen, E. H. (2016). Nounself pronouns: 3rd person personal pronouns as identity expression. Journal of Language Works-Sprogvidenskabeligt Studentertidsskrift, 1(1), 37-62. Open access to the paper here
Next, a very short paper by Rose et al., 2023, which is just looking at whether people even find neopronouns acceptable / grammatical:
Rose, E., Winig, M., Nash, J., Roepke, K., & Conrod, K. (2023). Variation in acceptability of neologistic English pronouns. Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America, 8(1), 5526-5526. Open access paper is here
And then finally, I'd recommend this super cool paper by Laura Hekanaho, 2022, looking at the metalinguistic commentary and ways people talk about neopronouns - overlaps a bit with Rose et al.'s paper, but goes into much greater depth:
Hekanaho, L. (2022). A thematic analysis of attitudes towards English nonbinary pronouns. Journal of language and sexuality, 11(2), 190-216. Author's copy of the paper here
One thing about neopronouns is that there's comparatively little linguistics research published about them, and what does exist is very focused on English. Part of this is because the ways neopronouns are cropping up in English speech communities (especially online) are different than in other language communities, and the other part of the reason is that they're just super rare -- best estimates of how many people use neopronouns are very very low (the US Trans Census and the Gender Census report numbers <10%, and that's out of only trans people), and their appearance in every day language appears to be very rare.
What this means (frustratingly! and I hope this is changing!) is that at best neopronouns are mentioned in footnotes of linguistics articles and books about other stuff. There's also Dennis Baron's 2020 book, What's Your Pronoun, which is a really thorough documentation of historical attempts to coin gender-neutral pronouns in English... but Baron kind of comes to the conclusion that singular 'they' has 'won' the competition, and that none of the neopronouns he tracks have become mainstream.
Anyways, my personal opinion as a linguist is that I get frustrated with linguists who dismiss neopronouns because they're rare. Just because something's rare doesn't mean it's not a part of the language, and therefore a real part of the phenomenon we've decided to study! Devil's hole pupfish of english, tbh.
(Previous "3 papers to read" post was "3 papers to read about singular 'they'." If you like these posts, you can request a topic in linguistics and I'll do my best to recommend 3 open-access published papers to read!)
the three linguistics papers to read about singular they (morphosyntax)
Bjorkman, B. M. (2017). Singular they and the syntactic representation of gender in English. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, 2(1). Open access link
Konnelly, L., & Cowper, E. (2020). Gender diversity and morphosyntax: An account of singular they. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, 5(1). open access link
Conrod, K. (2022). Abolishing gender on D. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique, 67(3), 216-241. Open access link
in chronological order because these papers are all basically responding to each other; this papers focus on the (morpho)syntax and semantics of english singular 'they' referring to specific people (like they/them pronoun-users).
if you like posts like this, let me know! i'll give "three linguistics papers to read about (topic)" every once in a while based on interest
i'm getting real tired of this position wherein precise description and technical language serves as some sort of sinister authoritarian impulse. like way to launder anti intellectualism
Actually this is a lie and all linguists flirt (platonically or otherwise) by drawing and interacting with complicated-looking diagrams in front of people who don't understand them.
You know, I've seen manuscript abbreviations that looked like text-speak, but hand-drawing emojis to stand in for the word ceann (head) in a passage about Cú Chulainn being beheaded is taking that all to a new level
(The line from another manuscript: "Is ann sin d'éirgedar datha aille iongantacha do cheann Choingculoinn")
Manuscript is RIA 23 H 10, Oidheadh Con Culainn, written in 1808.
He just keeps doing it. Every time somebody gets beheaded in this text, the word "ceann" gets replaced with 😐 And a lot of people get beheaded in this text (thanks Conall), so this happens a lot.
I think a fun way to have he/she pronouns would be by helping other avoid the ambiguous antecedent problem and taking on the pronouns that are less represented in the current group.
while nouns do carry a risk of cases, PLEASE do not dismiss a verb bite. depending on species, they can carry inflection (such as conjugation, as anon mentioned) or worse: derivation.
100% agree! Remember, you may not see symptoms of inflection right away, but the early stages aren't usually physical -- there are a lot of aspects to watch out for. If you experience mood swings, or start feeling tense, those can be early signs.
"etymologynerd" is at it again and this time i do feel i have to say something. the disability advocates have it covered on addressing the impact, but there's also a serious problem with the linguistics.
in a video shared on may 16, adam aleksic begins by saying: "i think we have to accept the fact that the 'r-word' [retard/retarded] is permanently coming back and it's functionally changed meanings to no longer directly refer to disabled people."
this first sentence alone betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of language change in several points.
this word never went away. what we're seeing now is an attempt at re-normalization by people who sense that they will not be socially punished by openly using this term.
we actually don't have to "accept" its return to mainstream use. for decades, disability advocates have worked to inform the public of the harm caused by casual use of this term. the harm has not disappeared, and neither will this advocacy and its impacts.
now i'm just mad. how tf does it NOT refer to disabled people? the entire point of a pejorative term is that it negatively invokes comparison to a person, group, etc. the assertion that the r-word has changed meanings is categorically false. at most, its primary context has changed from clinical to casually pejorative, but the insult fundamentally rests upon the original reference.
he goes on to refer to the "euphemism treadmill," another concept he misrepresents by extending the metaphor to say that terms which have been sufficiently distanced from their original reference are no longer pejorative. to quote: "...once we sufficiently distance a word from its historical usage, it stops taking on the same offensive power and just becomes colloquial instead."
which... what? what the fuck is he talking about? the words he uses as examples – idiot, imbecile, and moron – are definitely still offensive, if perhaps less impactful. "just becomes colloquial instead" is a nonsense phrase. are offensive words not colloquial? the only english word that comes to mind as having changed so much in definition as to no longer be offensive is "nice," which has been shifting in meaning for more than 700 years and was never a weaponized clinical term.
he ends by saying, "it is undeniably true that the people who are afraid to say the r-word right now are going to get old and die out, while younger generations keep saying it with no knowledge of where it came from." again, fundamentally misunderstanding language change in society over time. it rests on the assumption that we're all going to start or re-start using this slur and never have a conversation about its harms, which just completely ignores both the abovementioned disability advocacy and the fact that people tell each other not to use offensive words. you think i'm just not gonna teach my kids that using slurs is bad??
the whole video is devoid of both empathy and an understanding of long-term semantic change.
tl;dr etymologynerd is wrong, we do NOT "have to accept that the 'r-word' is coming back," and we all need to read more crip linguistics.
after continuing to stew about this during my lunch break, i'd also like to point out that framing this sort of thing as "inevitable" is some fascist bullshit.
LORD HELP ME I ACCIDENTALLY DELETED THE REBLOG. anyway,
this is to apologize for using the phrase "devoid of empathy." it was a bad choice on my part because i framed the lack of empathy as malicious, which dehumanizes and demonizes people who lack empathy as part of their neurotype.
if i'd thought through those implications, i should have said something like "the video is devoid of care or respect for the disabled community."
Today we were talking about how words can mean different things to different communities, and that people outside the community wouldn't understand. Like how a non-poker player wouldn't understand poker jargon the way other poker players would. Anyway, then my professor said he was gonna show us his "favourite example" and wrote a single word on the board that gave me instant psychic damage: beta.
Apparently sport climbers use this word with a meaning of "technique, method." But for a horrifying, horrifying second there was the possibility in my mind that we were gonna talk about ABO in my fucking linguistics class
Professor Betas Georg, who writes 50k omegaverse fics during office hours, boldy wrote "beta" on the board while observing which of his students went dead. still.
After Palestinian content was restricted or removed from Instagram and Facebook, social media users developed a crafty method of altering Arabic script.
Social media users who have reported shadow banning and AI restrictions of Palestinian content on platforms like Facebook and Instagram have found an ingenious way to elude these censorial algorithms. In recent days, an increasing number of Arabic-speaking users online have been reverting to at least a thousand-year-old version of the language, which eliminates all dots (diacritics) from the modern alphabet.
As recently revealed by BuzzFeed News, Instagram has removed posts and blocked hashtags related to Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, one of Islam’s holiest sites, because it was deemed as a “terrorist organization” by the company’s moderation system. When trying to share footage of the Israeli raid on the mosque earlier this month, Instagram users said that their posts were restricted from view or removed entirely. Facebook, which owns Instagram, called the removals “enforcement errors” in response to complaints by dismayed employees. However, Israeli officials have announced that the country works closely with Facebook to monitor and remove “inflammatory content” (from Israel’s perspective) on the platform.
…Those who are interested in converting Arabic text to the dotless script can do so on the website www.dotless.app. But how long will it take before Facebook’s programmers develop an algorithm to identify the ancient script?
“Of course, it is only a matter of time before the automated systems also understand dotless Arabic script,” an article on the website Arabic for Nerds says. “But there are many other possibilities,” the article suggests. “Dialects in non-uniform transcription, for example, are still difficult for computers.”
Fun fact: the word Algorithm itself originates from Arabic, named after the 9th-century mathematician Abu Ja‘far Muhammad ibn Musa, who was more commonly known as al-Khwarizmi.
