Talk:Common Brittonic/Archive 1

Article name

I think Proto-Brythonic language would be a more appropriate name for this article. That follows the customary naming of protolanguages (e.g. Proto-Celtic language, Proto-Germanic language, Proto-Indo-European language, etc.). Anyone mind? --Angr (t·c) 21:21, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I've never heard tell of a Proto-Brythonic language. Also there is no article entitled Proto-Goidelic language, so I see no point in renaming it. Anyway, my source for this article was entitled "British". Greatgavini 19:20, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

The difference is, there isn't much that can be said about Proto-Goidelic that can't be said at Primitive Irish, which unlike Proto-Brythonic is an attested language (in Ogham inscriptions). What is your source that calls the language simply "British"? --Angr (t·c) 20:36, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Source- Languages in Britain and Ireland, edited by Granville Price, 2000, ISBN 0-631-21581-6 Greatgavini 07:57, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Its described as 'Brittonic' in chapters 2 (Brittonic Phonology) and 3 (Brittonic Chronology) of Sims-Williams, Patrick (2003) The Celtic Inscriptions of Britain: phonology and chronology, c.400-1200. Oxford, Blackwell. ISBN 1-4051-0903-3 --Nantonos 12:31, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

There are some issues with a name like "Proto-Brythonic". One is that it relies on our current ignorance of British Celtic languages other than Welsh. Brythonic as a term is usually contrasted with Goidelic. There was probably more than one Celtic languages in Britain even prior to the Roman conquest, and all of them were not Goidelic. So is "Proto-Brythonic" the ancestor of these, or the single language spoken by the Romano-Britons in, say, 400 A.D.? --Saforrest 06:08, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I doubt the Romano-Britons in AD 400 spoke just one Brythonic language. There were probably several in different parts of the country, including the ancestors of Welsh, Cornish, Breton, and Cumbric (or at the very least, the ancestors of Welsh/Cumbric and Cornish/Breton), but probably also Brythonic languages in the east of what is now England that have been completely lost. Proto-Brythonic refers in principle to the ancestor language of all of these, but in practice can only be reconstructed on the basis of the surviving languages Welsh, Cornish, and Breton. Angr (talk) 06:41, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be assuming that the sole evidence of Brythonic comes from modern languages. This is not the case, as has been pointed out several times already. For example, coin evidence covers south-east England. --Nantonos 01:51, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Not just the modern languages, of course, but the attested medieval languages as well. You seem to keep thinking place names and names on coins count as attestation. User:Angr 06:31, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

The article title should definitely be changed - "British Language" is not commonly used by Celticists - "Brittonic" or "Brythonic" is preferred. Cagwinn (talk) 22:07, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Geographical range

Why does the article give a geographical distribution up to but not including the Pennines? What language was spoken north of there? Or (since the sole evidence is stated to be from coinage) does it mean that there is no coinage and thus no evidence one way or the other? --Nantonos 12:25, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I see that the article now asserts that Scottish Gaelic was spoken from the Pennines northwards. This seems extremely unlikely, given a) the history of Dalriada b) the clearly P-celtic names such as the Epidii, but maybe there are facts that I am unaware of? --Nantonos 15:39, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't know either. The article doesn't even say when "British" was spoken. Scottish Gaelic language, though, claims that Gaelic was spoken in parts of Scotland since Roman times. But the claim is unsourced, so who knows how reliable it is. --Angr (t·c) 18:26, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

What other language would be spoken north of the Pennines? --The Great Gavini ^{an post}

It is possible that Cumbric was spoken in the Pennines, but... --The Great Gavini ^{an post}

The only other thing that comes to mind is Pictish. Cumbric is supposed to be a descendant of "British", isn't it? --Angr (t·c) 10:23, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Mmmm...well, until anyone has information (and the references to back it up), it'll have to stay as Scottish Gaelic for now. --The Great Gavini ^{an post}

Cumbric is indeed, like Welsh and Breton, descended from Brittonic. Looking at the tribal names from Ptolemys Geographica, its clear that they are Brittonic (or Gallo-Brittonic, since those seem to be the same language). For example the Epidii, in Kintyre; or the Parisii, in Yorkshire. For further information, look into the Votadini and the post-Roman Kingdom of Gododdin, in Lothian. --Nantonos 21:18, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Cumbric is certainly descended from Proto-Brittonic/Proto-Brythonic, but this page doesn't make it clear that Proto-Brythonic is the language under discussion. The concept of "Gallo-Brittonic" is controversial and probably a minority view among Celticists. --Angr (t·c) 22:17, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Angr, why do you refer to it as proto anything - such names should be reserved for languages that are unattested, surely. Brittonic is clearly attested (names on coins, place names, ogam stones, an the Bath inscription). So its not clear what proto-language is being discussed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by NantonosAedui (talk • contribs) 23:43, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

The names on the coins aren't attestation of the language, because they're Latinized. Place names aren't attestation of the language either, because they're either Latinized or Anglicized or otherwise adapted. I thought all the Ogam stones in Britain were written in Primitive Irish, not a Brythonic language. What is the Bath inscription? --Angr (t·c) 23:53, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh dear. With that set of assumpions, I can see why you would draw erroneous conclusions. I started to write a well-referenced correction, then realised that it would be better in the article itself. However, briefly: (a) the language on British and Gaulish pre-conquest Celtic coinage is Celtic (Brittonic or Gaulish), not Latin. (b) Of the 371 Ogam stones in Britain, 191 are Brittonic. (c) The Bath inscription was already referred to below. I will hopefully get time to greatly expand this article in the next few weeks. --Nantonos 17:17, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Nantonos, how can you possibly conclude that Belgic A-F coins found in South East England have Celtic names. There is no writing on them apart from 3 letter short name versions of Kings. To try and build a whole British Celtic nation from 3 letters is just ludicrous. Lets have reasonable conclusions in here and not wild guesses. In any case, a King with a Celtisised name does not a Celtic speaking population make. The Normans spoke French and yet the English did not. I have a Greek name, Andrew but dont speak Greek. To establish if South East Britain spoke Celt we need real evidence not the self fulfilling prophecy of matching single place/name words to the Celtic dictionary every time one is found. There were certainly Celts living in the outer regions of England like Cumbria (and of course Cornwall), as abundant Celtic stone enscriptions have been found there, however not a single Celtic stone enscription has been found within the rest of England. Celtic Oghams are exclusive to known modern Celtic areas only, not England. That is a little known fact which appears to be overlooked. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.4.159.123 (talk) 16:17, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Since there are no references to back up this non-historical claim of Scottish Gaelic, I'm going to be bold and change it to a claim of Brythonic people up to the Great Glen, and perhaps beyond - since there are references (such as Y Gododdin) to back that up. --Nantonos 21:18, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I've been bold and removed the bit about Scottish Gaelic being spoken as far south as the Pennines. It run directly counter to all I've ever been taught; for starters, Gaelic wasn't even introduced to the island of Britain until after the Roman period, and it's attested that Strathclyde and Gododdin were British-speaking kingdoms, and Cumbric was definitely a British language. Ref. The history of the Celtic languages in the British Isles, R.L. Thompson, in Trudgill's Language in the British Isles C.U.P. (1984) pp.241-258. ISBN 0-521-28409-0 -- Arwel (talk) 02:17, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Arwel. Do you have specific page numbers in the work you just cited? --Nantonos 17:17, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Arwel is right. Just got out the other book from the library, and it says pretty much the same thing. It does say British was spoken up to the Pennines, but it also says it was spoken between the Pennines and the Scottish lowlands. It does say Gaelic was spoken north of the Pennines, but at a later stage. Mea culpa est. - Greatgavini ^{an post}

I am not aware of any evidence that suggests that there were any major differences in British between Pictland and the Solent - and that British is very very close to Gaulish. Barcud Coch (talk) 00:15, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Types of evidence

The statement that coins are the sole evidence is contradicted in the article by later mention of place-name evidence. The lead tablet from Bath would also be evidence, surely. --Nantonos 12:25, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

What lead tablet? Greatgavini 20:33, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry. An inscription on a metal pendant discovered in 1979 in Bath:

Adixovi Devina Devada Andagin Vindiorix Cvam Vnai

• Lambert, Pierre-Yves (2003) La langue gauloise. 2nd edition. Paris, Editions Errance. p.176

• Tomlin, R.S.O (1987) Was ancient British Celtic ever a written language, two texts from Roman Bath. The Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, XXXIV, pp.18-25

History: Driven?

"By 600 AD, British speakers had been driven into the Cornwall and Wales."

This is ambiguous I think. Can it be proven that the people who spoke 'British' were actually driven away? My suspicion is that the bulk of the population remained where they were, but had adopted the cultures of invaders. Recent DNA studies have shown that, for example, Anglo-Saxons make up a minority of the population of England today - much smaller in number than had been previously assumed. I suggest that this sentence be revamped to reflect this fact. --Mal 00:39, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree this needs to be expanded as it gives only one side to the centuries old academic to and fro on the fate of the native population of what later became England. Basically the options are massacre, emigration and assimilation and the academics (with propagandists cheering on the sidelines or muddying the waters!) argue over the evidence for dominance of each ingredient in the complex history of the British Isles. Currently the favoured theory is that a significant proportion of the native population survived in many parts of Britain where the British language was replaced by Old English or Gaelic. However there is evidence for a substantial population movement from South West England to Brittany carrying with them what was to become the Breton language. Emigration to Wales and Cornwall is a particularly difficult theory to prove since the immigrants would have been speaking the same language as the native population. The main new source of evidence during the past thirty years is from DNA studies.

Ref: Brythonic languages#History and origins (much of that section is relevant to this article); The History of Wales, John Davies, 1993; The Celts, John Davies, 2000.Lloffiwr 12:57, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, wish I had a time-travelling machine too... - The Great Gavini ^Ave 20:30, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Driven is now fixed; it talks about where speakers remained, without speculating about the areas where they used to speak it. --Nantonos 20:38, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Place names

This section as it stands could be taken to imply that British survives only in English place names. The ambiguity would be removed if reworded along the lines of:

Very few traces of British remain in those areas where it was replaced by Old English or Gaelic. Topographic names are its main legacy. The best example....

Ref: Brythonic languages#Remnants in England and Scotland; The History of Wales, John Davies, 1993

Much of the contents of the referenced section cover the same ground as the Place names section in this article.

Lloffiwr 12:54, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

The Place names translations into Celtic sound very unconvincing with the exception of Avon into River. It is universally accepted that Thames is not translatable as yet and is probably pre-Celtic so where has Tamesis come from? I have seen so many translations of Thanet that is is obvious that someone is just using a dictionary to get the nearest sounding celtic translation. For Kent why choose Cantus..border? It could also be from Canto which means 100. This is just not proper evidence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.4.135.165 (talk) 18:17, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Let's take some of those supposedly Celtic place names in detail.

Avon rivers are mainly western British, including Irish, so the word may well be Celtic. However, it is usually traced back to a PIE word meaning water, which may also have passed into Germanic languages too, for example as haven (see Scutt). Sherratt pointed out that multiple Avons often form a single trading route, so for example goods travelled from the Severn up one Avon, then overland (past Wessex's hill forts, etc), then down another Avon towards Hengistbury Head and thence towards Gaul and Rome. So translating Avon as river is debatable.

Dover makes much better sense being cognate with modern Dutch "te oever", meaning "at the shore", or Isle of Wight dialect duver, than it does being cognate with modern Welsh dwfr or modern English deep. Which is more meaningfully descriptive of a port: beach or waters?

Kent is traceable to a PIE root *kantho- meaning wheel rim. There is no good reason to believe that it passed via a Celtic language rather than via Latin or a Germanic language.

Thanet seems to have reduced Celtic apologists to desperation: tan-arth = bright island. There is no archaeological evidence for a lighthouse on Thanet, and putting one there would have been an invitation to pirates, since merchant ships went through the Wantsum channel. A far better etymology is Old English (and modern Dutch) "ten ende", meaning "at the end", or in other words Land's End or Finisterre. In rough Germanic speech that would sound to modern ears a bit like "tunut+", which a Roman scribe using his available vowels might well write as "tanatis".

Thames is cognate with lots of other rivers in NW Europe with names like Ems, Emm, Eem, Eems, Amstel, Emme, etc. The h is an irrelevant intrusion, and the initial T is easily explained as a Germanic preposition meaning "at the" or "on the". The interesting question is why the name did not stay attached to a place, like Temse and Tempsford, but got transferred onto the river.

York is discussed at length by Scutt. Its name comes from a Germanic word for boar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.19.198.248 (talk • contribs) 16:21, 3 December 2008

An interesting if controversial set of etymologies. I think the problem for explaining Kent, York, Thames being the same as Ems, etc, is that records of their names precede Germanic settlement in Britain. See - The Place-names of Roman Britain, by AFL Rivett and C. Smith (1979). So, are the alleged Germanic etymologies coincidentally similar (i.e. given after Germanic settlement but wholly independent etymologically yet coincidentally similar phonologically? Or was there extensive Germanic settlement prior to the Roman invasion? Both views would seem highly controversial. Barcud Coch (talk) 14:37, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Most of the "Germanic etymologies" given above are pure nonsense and can be safely ignored. The only interesting case is York, which is Eoforwic "boar-village" in Old English but Eboracum "parsley place" (or something like that) in Brythonic. In this case, the Celtic name is the older and was modified by folk etymology when Germanic speakers arrived; the same may have happened in other cases. I don't quite understand why some people are so desperate to de-Celticize English history, but the fact is there is no evidence at all for Germanic settlement of Britain prior to the Roman invasion, or indeed prior to the Anglo-Saxon invasion of the 5th century A.D. —Angr 18:47, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Yep, the folk etymology sounds plausible. Some of the Germanic etymologies sounded very strained to me, and I have nothing against Germanic languages by the way or placenames. England's full of them. 23:10, 23 December 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Barcudcoch (talk • contribs)

Who writes pure nonsense, Angr? No evidence for Germanic settlement .....? Tell that to the archaeologists who have documented lots of contact between early south-east England and Germanic areas on the Continent. Re-read Caesar. Try to persuade modern Belgians that the Belgae in England were Celtic not Germanic. Read the latest historical thinking about what actually happened around 450 AD. In fact there is no solid evidence for Celtic speech among the common people of south-east England, while all logic points to them being genetically and culturally linked across the North Sea.

To answer Barcud Coch, Rivett and Smith is a bit old now, and parts of their work have been overtaken by recent discoveries or re-examination of old ones. Many Latin names are taken from late sources that actually post-date 407 AD. And of course much of the Roman army in Britain was Germanic. So one must be extremely cautious in using Latin names to date the arrival of Germanic farming folk. Nevertheless, it is instructive to note that all the place names beginning with DVRO make far better sense being derived from a Germanic root (compare modern English door and through, Dutch door and dwars, etc etc) than with a Celtic/Latin root meaning fort. Has no one ever spotted that Durovernum, the Roman name of Canterbury (the crossroads of Kent) makes far better sense being cognate with modern German durchfahren or English thoroughfare than it does as the fort on the alder swamp?

And, as for folk etymology, I have no objection to an in-depth examination of the relative plausibilities of ALL the "Celtic" roots offered in south-east England versus their Germanic alternatives. Let's take Dover in a bit more depth. Over is a well-attested Old English word meaning riverbank or seashore, with cognates in other Germanic languages (Ufer in German, Oever in Dutch, etc). Most languages have lots of place names that start with some form of "the" or "at the", an initial D seems to have been retained in Duver in the Isle of Wight, and a Roman scribe might easily not recognise the D as part of the core noun. The very essence of the port of Dover is to be a riverbank or seashore at the foot of cliffs, and near there Caesar beached a lot of ships, so Portus Dubris, the seashore port makes historical sense. Then there are places like Wendover that make better sense for their particular topographical situations parsed as Germanic (wend-over) than as Celtic, or Andover that a Dutch speaker would recognise as Aan de Oever.

My core point is that the logic offered for a Celtic south-east England is circular. Because people believed in the idea they constructed an intellectual framework to sustain the idea. When examined critically, the whole dogma turns out to have feet of clay. Take Kent. Its derivation from an ancient linguistic root is uncontroversial; there are cognate words with a sense of edge, rim or corner in most indo-european language families. The question is: who gave the name to the edge of England? As far as I am aware, the idea that the name-givers were Celts is an unsupported assumption. That may be true, or it may not, but the word Kent should not be used to argue what language Kentish people spoke. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.19.193.217 (talk) 00:14, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Contact between SE England and Germanic peoples on the continent of course in no way implies that the people in SE England themselves were Germanic speakers. As for the Belgae, the evidence of whether they were Celtic or Germanic is inconclusive, and unless a lengthy inscription (i.e. more than just names) is found in their language, the issue will probably never be solved. But even if they were Germanic, so what? They were on the continent, not in Britain, and the evidence for Germanic languages in Britain before the 5th century AD is completely and utterly nonexistent. (We had this discussion several months ago - I begged you over and over to provide some scrap of evidence for the presence of a Germanic language in Britain before the 5th century, and all you could come up with was one gold coin that probably didn't even originate in Britain.) Your fanciful "etymologies" just prove your woeful ignorance of both Celtic and Germanic linguistics; for example, you have to use modern Dutch rather than Old English to "argue" for a Germanic root of Dover, since no form of the Old English definite article had a "d" in it. The Latin name "Dubris" also shows that the vowel was [u], not [o], but the Germanic word for "riverbank" had a long ō in it, not an [u] (the change of ō to [u:] happened centuries later, and independently in German, Dutch, and English); but the Brythonic word for "water" did have [u]. "Dubris" also shows that the consonant in the middle of the word was [b], but the Germanic word for "riverbank" had [f] in it, not [b], as proved by German "Ufer" (intervocalic [f] and [b] merged as [v] in both English and Dutch, but were kept distinct in German); the Brythonic word for "water", on the other hand, originally had [b] (which later became [v] in Welsh). And finally, "Dubris" shows that there was no vowel between the "b" and the "r", but the Germanic root for "riverbank" was *ōfer- with an [e] between the [f] and the [r]; the Brythonic word for "water", on the other hand, was *dubro- with no consonant between the [b] and the [r]. In short, the only sound that "Dubris" has in common with a Germanic phrase meaning "the riverbank" is the [r]; but the first four sounds are a one-to-one perfect match with the Brythonic word for "water". You call the logic offered for a Celtic south-east England "circular", but it isn't; it's simple inductive reasoning. The vast majority of attested place names and proper names from England from before the 5th century are demonstrably Celtic; no attested place names and proper names from England from before the 5th century are even plausibly Germanic; therefore, the simplest conclusion to draw is that the people there spoke a Celtic language, not a Germanic one. Does the evidence prove conclusively that the people must have been Celtic-speaking? No, of course not; as we discussed last time around, it is logically possible that there were Germanic speakers in SE England who used Celtic personal and place names because they were more prestigious (just as Dravidian speakers in south India use names from the linguistically unrelated Sanskrit and Korean speakers use names from the linguistically unrelated Chinese), but in the absence of any direct evidence indicating the presence of a Germanic language, Occam's razor shaves away that possibility and leaves the hypothesis that the people were Celtic speakers as the only sensible conclusion. —Angr 01:40, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Language extinction in table

This should read:

developed into Early Welsh & Early Cornish by the 7th century

see references on talk page for Old Welsh and Brythonic languages. Lloffiwr 13:00, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Texts written about the language

Very little is known about British, as there are no written texts in Britain about the language

I suspect this was edited from "there are no texts in the language" or some such. Regardless, the claim that there are no texts written in Britain about the language is probably wrong; its likely that there are mediaeval glosses that comment on some British words. --Nantonos 20:36, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, the question is, do we have anything written about the British language? What exactly do the Greek and Latin texts say? Do they just give names? Do they gloss a few words (e.g. "the Britanni call a fort a dunum")? How do we know that the language the Greek and Latin authors are describing is the same language as the one that evolved into the modern Brythonic languages? Angr/talk 20:48, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Known British words

I could not find most of the listed words anywhere else on the Internet. I was wondering where those words came from (besides the ones on the pendant). --Narfil Palùrfalas 20:16, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Some of them are reconstructed from attested Brythonic (Welsh, Cornish, Breton) words; others are found as elements in place or personal names. Others may have just been made up for this article, I suspect. User:Angr 07:19, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I wondered. . . --Narfil Palùrfalas 01:16, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh wow, what a mess. Someone is going to have to go through and check every single one of these? In all seriousness, would it not be better to delete the lot and re-add a little paragraph with a few examples cited from a definite source? Telsa (talk) 20:52, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Clean slate would be best, no? Angus McLellan (Talk) 21:55, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

You mean, delete the lot? Fine by me, but is there nothing salvageable at all? Telsa (talk) 12:56, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that the assumption is made that Celtic was spoken in South East England. We have no proof. So then someone gets a dictionary and matches all the place names to the nearest Celtic word. Its just nonesense.--92.4.135.165 (talk) 18:19, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

There's no real doubt that Celtic was spoken in southeast England before the Anglo-Saxons arrived in the 5th century. The problem is just that we have extremely little direct evidence of it. —Angr 18:32, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Brythonic language in Ireland

Angr and I seem to have a difference of opinion as to whether or not a variant of Brythonic was spoken in Ireland.

I added the region to the introductory paragraph in light of the fact that some of the same tribes are found in both islands (Great Britain and Ireland). It is not beyond reason, in my opinion, to deduce that the people of these tribes who were found to exist on both islands are likely to have spoken the same language.

I do understand Angr's point of view in that this should be verified (as per WP policy). I know that Wikipedia itself should not be used as a source, but I'd like to use examples from it for discussion purposes here.

To start with, the article Brythonic languages suggests that the name Brittonic (later modified to Brythonic) had its roots in the Welsh (Brythonic) word Prettanic (Prydien). We know that historians such as Diodorus Siculus referred to the islands as the Pretannic Isles. We also know that Ptolemy listed the names of tribes that were found to be living on the island of Ireland, including the Damnoni (cognate to the Dumnoni), the Brigantes, the Fir Bolg (Belgae) and other Belgic tribes.

I think it would be safe to assume that these Belgic tribes and other Brythonic-speaking tribes which the islands were named after, spoke the same language as they did when they made their various ways across the Irish Sea and the North Channel etc, from Albion, to settle in Ivernia.

I would be interested to know if there is specific evidence that would suggest that Brythonic was never spoken in Ireland. --Setanta747 (talk) 01:28, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, of course you can't prove a negative, but it seems to me you're making a lot of assumptions. The fact that the islands were called the Pretannic Isles hardly proves anything considering that to this day they're called the British Isles even though no one there except the Welsh and a handful of Cornish revivalists speak Brythonic languages. The same for groups called Damnoni, Brigantes, and Fir Bolg - even if their names are cognate to known Brythonic words, that doesn't prove they were Brythonic speakers themselves. More later, I have to go to work now. —Angr 04:30, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Basically, this article is about the barely attested ancestor of the known Brythonic languages: Welsh, Breton, Cornish, and Cumbric. Even if we could be 100% certain that non-Goidelic Insular Celts lived in Ireland (and we can't), we don't know anything at all about their language. It could be (and the geographic distance makes it highly probable) a sister language to the language of Roman Britain rather than being the same language. It could be some third branch of Proto-Insular Celtic, neither Goidelic nor Brythonic. The tribal names you mention aren't terribly compelling - the word "brigant-" is in Goidelic too, in the name Brigit/Brighid/Bríd. How do we know Damnoni is cognate to Dumnoni? Superficial similarity? Assuming Dumnoni comes from *dubno- "depth, water", why did the u become an a? Considering the Belgic tribes probably weren't Brythonic (certainly attested Gaulish has no shared innovations in common with Brythonic but the sound change k^w > p, and even that isn't exceptionless in Gaulish), why should the word Bolg of Fir Bolg imply that the Fir Bolg were Brythonic? And again, why would the e become an o? And even if these names really are cognates of each other, that doesn't really prove anything more than that the Damnoni, Brigantes, Fir Bolg, etc., were Celts. Nothing about these names is obligatorily Brythonic as opposed to some other branch of Celtic. So to reiterate, I still have seen no compelling evidence (and certainly no published sources) that the language discussed in this article – the Celtic language of Roman Britain (basically England and Wales), attested directly in only a handful of names and otherwise known only in the form of the reconstructed ancestor of Welsh, Breton, and Cornish – was ever spoken in Ireland. —Angr 19:17, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Etymology of York

The article, as it is currently written, claims: "# York from ebor-acon = "place of yew trees" (indirectly)"

I've always been taught/believed that York was an anglification of Norse "Jorvik". The Roman name was Eboracum; it's easier to see how that would have been a latinization of "Ebor-acon".

The origin of vik (cognate with OE wic) is obvious (it's a geographical suffix referring to a bay or estuary). The article does say the derivation was indirect, however: Maybe the 'jor' part of the name can be traced back somehow? If so, seeing the derivation and a source would be good. -Stian (talk) 14:30, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I heard it was Eboracum - the place of cow parsley "efwr" in modern Welsh. The ending -acum is well attested in Britain and Gaul. Efrog in Welsh. Barcud Coch (talk) 00:18, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I always heard it was from Jorvik too; I have never heard anyone suggest that York comes from the Roman name Eboracum, and I don't think any of the sources would suggest it. Eboracum>Jorvik doesn't work. Therefore I propose removing the line on York. Edorix (talk) 20:47, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Norse Jórvík and Old English Eoforwīc both come from Eboracum, modified by folk etymology. +Angr 21:03, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Jorvik was the Danish adaptation of Angl-Saxon Eoforwic, which was, in turn, an adaptation of the Romano-Britisg place name Eburacum (*Eburacon in Brittonic, "Place of the Yew Trees"). This is the standard etymology of the name today and not controversial in the slightestCagwinn (talk) 21:11, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Might be worth mentioning that in the article. I'm sure I'm not the only one who was unable to see how York could came from Eburacon. Just a clause mentioning (via Old Norse "Jorvik", via Old English "Eoforwic") or something like that.109.128.160.63 (talk) 18:57, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Just to clear things up, I'm going to add "via Latin Eburacum > OE Eoforwic > ON Jorvik" to the article. If anyone has a problem with this they can delete it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.48.42.244 (talk) 23:39, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Why assume that Celtic was spoken in all of England?

There is a tacit assumption that Celtic was spoken all over pre-Roman Britain. And yet this section itself offers not a single written word of evidence. Barely a celtic word is carried into English despite the fact that DNA proves that the pre-Roman inhabitants are overwhelming the same people living there today. Something does not add up. Steven Oppenheimer and many other eminent scientists and historians are of the opinion that proto-English already existed in parts of England before and during the Roman occupation, particularly the South Eastern "Saxon Shore" as described by the Romans. The Anglo Saxon Chronicles refers to 5 separate peoples living in Britain in 448, the English, Scots, Welsh Picts and Latins indicating 5 separate languages in Britian. Who were the Britons? Could have been the proto-English, we dont know. Linguists like Vennemann etc believe that English split off from Germanic far earlier than 550AD at least by 300BC as that was the date of the High German Consonant Shift. I think its ok to speculate that Celt MAY have been spoken in for example Kent but please dont assume it. --92.4.135.165 (talk) 18:38, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

It's not true that there's not a single written word evidence. There's not huge amounts of evidence, but there are clearly Celtic names written on coins from Roman times, and the placenames from the time are also clearly Celtic. DNA evidence doesn't tell us anything at all about language, so please dismiss that from your mind. There is no linguistic evidence for Germanic languages in Britain before the mid-5th century, and even if Vennemann still had any credibility left in the linguistic community (he doesn't), saying when proto-English branched off doesn't say where it was spoken at the time. Basically, all available linguistic evidence points to Celtic being spoken throughout England, Wales, and southern Scotland at least (Pictish was probably Celtic, but might not have been) until the Anglo-Saxons arrived. (Latin of course was spoken there too, which is why there are so many Latin loanwords in Welsh, but it doesn't seem to have ever displaced the native Celtic languages.) —Angr 19:00, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

The Coins you speak of are the A-F Belgic coins which originate from Germanic Belgica. Many believe that a Celtic Elite ruled the polyglot Germanic Belgae(who today speak Flemish similar to English) hence the half German/Celtic names found on coins etc. It is a generally accepted fact that the Belgae ruled Southern England from at least 250BC. Steven Oppenheimer believes that in some South East counties, probably Kent for example, Germanic Belgic was commonly spoken which became modern English as it merged with Anglian (A norse language). Tacitus stated that the language North and South of the Channel differed but little. He could have been referring to the Belgae and Kent, which are the nearest points to each other.

With regard to linguistic evidence, are you certain that the evidence points to Celtic in all England? If that is so, then why is there barely a shred of Celtic in English? After all, DNA has proven that the original inhabitants were not genocidedly wiped out. Now if you are saying all the "English" once spoke Celtic then how is it possible they now speak English and barely a single word of Celt was carried through? Its a huge paradox which is not adequately explained via the old traditional history which needs a rethink. Francis Pryor and Simon James are others who agree.--92.5.242.220 (talk) 09:30, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't say there's barely a shred of Celtic in English. Many linguists believe Celtic has left significant syntactic and morphological effects on English, even though the lexical effect is small. But even if there is hardly any Celtic influence on English, saying that Kent was already Germanic-speaking during the Roman era doesn't explain it. —Angr 10:05, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

The Celtic word count is approximately 5, which is on a par with Indian word count. I can get references if you wish. If you choose to ignore Vennemann there are a host of other eminent linguists like Hans Kuhn etc who believe that English split from German far earlier than 500AD odd. The general feeling is that some form of proto-English could already have been spoken in Southern England pre-Romans. English is a third latin. This overwhelming amount can not be fully explained as coming in via the tiny Norman Elites. After all the majority farmers dont really learn their language from lords and the Normans certainly did not generaly inter-marry with the lowly locals. Latin absorbed by Welsh is entirely different to the Latin that was absorbed by English. Cornwall was indeed Celtic and was ruled by the English for over a thousand years and Cornish easily hung on for almost all that time. So why no Celtic speakers ever recorded in England (apart from Cornwall and Cumbria)? The jury is still out on this.--92.4.140.179 (talk) 10:40, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, as I said, the lexical contribution is small, but many linguists believe Celtic had greater influence in the syntax and morphology. As for the coins, according to An Atlas for Celtic Studies by John T. Koch (ISBN 978-1-84217-309-1, pp. 147–48), in addition to the Gallo-Belgic coins in southeast England there are coins from the same area with Celtic names on them like "Aθθedomaros" (c. 40–c. 30 BC), "Dubnovellaunos" (c. 30–c. 25 BC), "Tasciovanos" (c. 25–c. 10 BC), "RUIIS/DIAS/ANDOCOS" (c. 10 BC–c. AD 10), and "Cunobelinos" (c. AD 10–43). It's true that southeast Britain has a paucity of Celtic inscriptions compared to other parts of the British Isles, but it's not as if there are Germanic inscriptions, placenames, or names on coins either until the Anglo-Saxon invasion in around 450. And of course English was differentiated from High German well before the 5th century AD, but it wasn't differentiated from Frisian earlier than that! —Angr 17:25, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Certainly the apparent Celtic sounding King name may show an affinity or link with Celtic culture by the Elite but it certainly doesn't indicate what the general populous spoke. After all members of the modern royal family had German names, and many European royal families had English names through Victoria. There is actually a wealth of English toponymy in comparison to the clear paucity of Celtic. The classic example is how the 'bury' which means fort, was used for forts which had existed in pre-roman times eg Bradbury, Timsbury etc. The old English word of Mere is commonly used to describe the most remote lake. These would generally have kept Celtic names if the occupants had been Celts. Your own example of Dubvellaunos is contentious. Dubno is apparently derived from Celtic Deep ie underworld. However Deep is an English word. The Breton/Welsh/Irish equivalents are Don/Dwfn/Domhain. Compare that to the Frisian/Norse/Dutch of djip/diupr/diep. It would appear to be more likely an English/Germanic word. Vellaunus is Celtic for Chief, so it may indicate hybridisation, cultural mergance within the Elites only. The idea of an all Celtic Britain was founded by George Buchanan in 1582 on the assumption of a Celtic genocide by the Anglo-Saxons. Recent archaeology and DNA have disproved that so a rethink is needed. Respected archaeologist Win Scutt has a web page at http://www.archaeology.ws/upperthames.html which highlights many discrepancies in the traditional all Celtic idea.

--92.5.254.116 (talk) 13:43, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Of course there's lots of English toponymy now; the question is, was the English/Germanic toponymy already in place by 450? And while the fact that kings/chiefs had Celtic names doesn't unambiguously prove they were all Celtic speaking (I can add another example to yours: Dravidian speakers in South India very often have names of Sanskrit origin), the total absence of Germanic personal names, place names, and inscriptions does not exactly encourage the hypothesis that there were Germanic speakers around. The dubno- element is unambiguously Celtic, precisely because it has b rather than p and because it has the -no- extension which is lacking in Germanic. But the word has come to mean "world" as well (both Welsh dwfn and Irish domhan can mean "world"), and "chief of the world" (dubno-vellaunos) is exactly the sort of thing Celtic rulers would call themselves (cf. Cingetorix "hero-king" and Vercingetorix "super-hero-king"). And the fact that archaeological and DNA evidence indicates there was no genocide of Celts in southeast England still doesn't imply that Germanic speakers must have been there centuries earlier than the conventional wisdom has it; that's simply a non sequitur. —Angr 14:22, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

The lack of Germanic inscriptions is precisely what is expected if they were an uneducated underclass. The proliferation of Celtic inscriptions would be expected if there were Celts due to the proliferation of Celtic inscriptions in places like Wales Cornwall and Cumbria by the culturally advanced Celts. The South East must have been the most educated of all and yet..no Celt inscriptions. Odd. (See Celtic Inscribed Stone Project) There is of course a wealth of English old Toponymy and its too easy for Celtisists to simply say they are all post 450. Compare to clear a paucity of Celtic. ( And yet Australia and America have a wealth of aboriginal toponymy despite the historic genocides. And there are no records of chief names in aboriginal, eg Sitting Bull is English. )

The main point of new DNA evidence was that it strengthed the archaeological evidence of no genocide. Before DNA the weight of opinion was still in favour of a Celtic genocide. DNA changed all that within only the last 10 years. The assumption was previously made of an all Celtic England, so it was only natural that no evidence of Proto-English was thought of let alone sought after. It needs a rethink. Should we just accept the opinions of older historians like Buchanan? Can we really ignore the opinions of modern scientists/historians like Steven Oppenheimer, Francis Pryor, Simon James, Collis, Win Scutt, Kuhn, Dyen etc etc? --92.4.21.2 (talk) 08:03, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

If there is significant scholarship (i.e. published, peer-reviewed books and articles) arguing that Germanic speakers in Britain already before the mid-5th century, then of course that info can be added to the encyclopedia, as long as it's adequately sourced and is clearly presented as being a new view that has not yet found scholarly consensus. However, this article, which is about the Celtic language that definitely was spoken in Britain (even if it wasn't spoken as exclusively as the traditional thinking would have it), would not be the right place to add that info. Roman Britain might be a more appropriate place. —Angr 18:15, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

For peer-reviewed, significant scholarship see the article "Kentish Place Names -- were they ever Celtic?" by Goormachtigh and Durham, now in press in Archaeologica Cantiana. Bottom line = Germanic roots better or as good as Celtic for ALL allegedly Celtic names (current or Roman) in Kent. For some specifics, see my comments above under place names. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.19.198.248 (talk • contribs) 16:21, 3 December 2008

I don't think this attempt will ever be peer reviewed and I don't have the space here to point out all of it's mistakes. It's a bold effort by a couple of enthusiastic but bumbling amateurs who have little to no knowledge of the history of either Celtic or Germanic languages. Paul S (talk) 22:03, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Contradiction

This article says that "British" evolved into "Common Brythonic" in or after Roman times. But the article on Brythonic languages posits "Common Brythonic as the ancestor of the whole family, including Pictish. Which is the usual convention? --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 10:43, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

The usual convention is that there's no difference between the two. The "British language" described in this article is essentially Proto-Brythonic (or Common Brythonic), the only difference being that protolanguages by definition are unattested, while British is (just barely) attested. —Angr 11:23, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Vindiorix pendant

Sorry if I'm putting this in the wrong place. I'm not convinced by the translation given for the text on the tin pendant found in 1979 with the Brythonic text on it. "Andagin" is clearly not a name like the others. It looks like an accusative to me, from knowledge of Greek. As for Uindiorix, I'm convinced he's the subject. "I, Vindiorix, cuamenai." (or cuam unai). I was thinking of writing a new article for this pendant to go into more detail about the possibilities. Edorix (talk) 18:30, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Original research is not permitted on Wikipedia. If your translation is published in a reputable, peer-reviewed journal, then you could cite it as an alternate version.Cagwinn (talk) 20:13, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Huh. :p Okay, sorry. Edorix (talk) 20:39, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

The sentence is not British but Germanic

Adixoui Deiana Deieda Andagin Uindiorix cuamiinai : this sentence should be read as

Adik swi Deiana, Deieda, Andagin, Uindiorix, cwamen nai

(all has been checked in my dictionary for first names) :

Adik [German first name for a male, short for Adelrik = '[rik of] adel = noble] swi (sich = himself), rik means ruled region and is still to be find in bishopric.
Deie-ana [diet = people + ana = arn- = eagle , female),
Deie-da [diet + da = day , female],
Andegen [anto, anda = anger, courage + gan = walk in courage, male],
Windy [wende, to wind, to change] + rics
kwamian = kwamen (came)
nai = near. 'near' was originally the second degree of comparison, the comparative. Therefore: 'na' or 'nai' means 'here'.

That sounds very Germanic for me.... a sort of Killroy was here .. a souvenir for the two couples.
Adik self & [his] Deieana and Deieda & Andagen came here.

This supposed proof of existence of a British language is not even close to a Celtic language.

The whole British language thing is a hoax. (Michael042 (talk) 13:20, 29 August 2012 (UTC))

First off, your interpretation appears to contradict the two cited sources. Do you have any sources to back up your claim? This is what matters on Wikipedia. Beyond this, however, the British language is certainly not a hoax, unless you think Welsh and Breton evolved from the ether.--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:36, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Looking through User:Michael042's contribs and user page, he seems to be a supporter of an idiosyncratic theory that all Celtic placenames both in Britain and on the Continent are actually Germanic; the only sources he ever cites are ones he wrote himself. See the thread #Why assume that Celtic was spoken in all of England? above. Angr (talk) 16:43, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Everything that Michael042 wrote above is not only wrong, it's bizarre!Cagwinn (talk) 19:13, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Briton language

Shouldn't it be just called Briton? Briton (King Arthur) -> Breton, Cornish, Welsh, you know. This way it's too similar to British English. And Anglo-Saxon in general. unsigned comment added by 89.72.140.93

I think it should be called "Brittonic" - the term for the language used by most modern Celticists. Cagwinn (talk) 16:18, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree. This article has fairly convoluted move history, and has covered different things at different times.Cúchullain ^t/c 17:26, 19 November 2012 (UTC)