LANGUAGE

The old languages still spoken in the Atlantic Celtic lands are related to one another, though they are not all as closely related as once believed. The current view among linguists is that historically there are two families of Celtic languages. The Q-Celtic family, known as Goidelic, has a western Gaelic branch from which Irish is descended and an eastern Gaelic branch from which Scottish Gaelic and Manx Gaelic are descended. Then there is a P-Celtic family, known as Brittonic, with a northern Brittonic branch from which Welsh developed and a southern Brittonic branch from which Cornish and Breton are descended. This division may help to explain why Welsh-speakers cannot understand Gaelic-speakers.

The “Q” and “P” families were first identified in the early eighteenth century by Edward Lhuyd. Q-Celtic is recognized from the presence of the “Q” sound in the word Mac, “son of” P-Celtic has the “P” sound in the corresponding position: M<3p. This “P/Q” exchange is found in other words as well.

The relationship between the Cornish and Breton languages is the closest. This is explained by the exodus of Britons, via Cornwall, in the Dark Ages, as they were driven out by the advancing Anglo-Saxons. These British relugees fled westward through southern Britain to Cornwall, then crossed to Brittany in considerable numbers, and they took their language with them.

In the Middle Ages, Scotland was divided culturally between Highlands and Lowlands. The Highlanders spoke Gaelic (Irish “Celtic” or Erse), while the Lowlanders spoke Scots, which was a Germanic language close to English. This difference was perhaps a legacy of the Anglo-Saxon colonization of the Scottish Lowlands in the Dark Ages.

In the late 1980s Professor Colin Renfrew put forward the view that Celtic speech evolved from its Indo-European ancestor in the British Isles and the adjacent continent at some time after 4000 BC. Professor Renfrew believes that the Celtic language was not taken to Britain at all, but developed in situ. This is very much in line with the general view emerging of Celtic culture as a whole.

Much of what was passed on to others was learned by listening. Little was written down {See Writing). There were nevertheless the means to write. The Ogham alphabet was made of combinations of short and long marks, often chipped along fhe edges of stones. If was an ideal mefhod for recording someone’s name on a gravestone. Ogham was widely used in southern Ireland, and more than 900 examples have been found in Britain and Ireland as a whole.

It is widely believed that the Celtic language was completely wiped out in England, but there are many surviving Celtic place-names. For a long time after the Anglo-Saxon colonization period (about AD 400-700), Celtic and Anglo-Saxon names existed side by side. Sometimes it is the Celtic name rather than the English name that we know today. The Cotswold Windmsh River had an English name, Dikler, which died out as late as the sixteenth century; we now call the river by its older Celtic name, even though it has (or had) an Anglo-Saxon name. The Cotswold Hills take their name from a Celtic word and an Anglo-Saxon word. Cuda was a goddess of the Dobunni tribe; wold was the Anglo-Saxon word for a wooded upland.

In the Roman occupation and the post-Roman period, Celtic kings and princes thought it smart to use Latin. Grave markers from the fifth and sixth centuries are often inscribed in Latin. A gravestone at Penmacho in North Wales reads CARAVSIVS HIC lACIT IN HOC CONGERIES LAPIDVM, “Here Hes Carausius in this heap of stones.”

LEARNING

Celtic society was highly stmctured and it allowed for the cultivation of learning and literature. There were professional classes who were responsible for their maintenance: the Druids, the bards, and a third order between them, known in Ireland as “the poets.”

In Ireland by the seventh century AD the Druids had disappeared, as they bore the brunt of the Church’s opposition, and the intermediate group, known as the filidh, were the sole inheritors of the druidic tradition. The filidh managed to establish a remarkable modus vivendi with the Church that enabled the two authorities to continue running side by side and were therefore able to maintain many of their ancient kmctions. The Irish bards suffered an eclipse too, as they limped on with a reputation as irferior rhymers.

In Wales, it was again the poets, or filidh, who emerged from the clash with Christianity in a position of strength, or at least with an enhanced and dignified reputation. Confiasingly, the Welsh equivalents of the filidh were called bards.

According to Julius Caesar’s description, the Druids in Gad were teachers and disciples of learning. They distrusted the written word, committing vast amounts of poetry to memory. Caesar said the period of study necessary to become a Drdd lasted 20 years. Similarly in Ireland, it took at least seven years to qualify for the filidh.

We know the Drdds had views abod the size and nature of the umverse, but unfortunately we do not know what those views were.