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Gaulish was an ancient
Celtic language The Celtic languages (usually , but sometimes ) are a group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch of the Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward ...
spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the
Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediter ...
. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language of the
Celts The Celts (, see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples () are. "CELTS location: Greater Europe time period: Second millennium B.C.E. to present ancestry: Celtic a collection of Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancien ...
of
Gaul Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only during ...
(now France, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Switzerland, Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the Rhine). In a wider sense, it also comprises varieties of Celtic that were spoken across much of central Europe (" Noric"), parts of the
Balkans The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
, and
Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The ...
(" Galatian"), which are thought to have been closely related. The more divergent
Lepontic Lepontic is an ancient Alpine Celtic languageJohn T. Koch (ed.) ''Celtic culture: a historical encyclopedia'' ABC-CLIO (2005) that was spoken in parts of Rhaetia and Cisalpine Gaul (now Northern Italy) between 550 and 100 BC. Lepontic is atte ...
of Northern Italy has also sometimes been subsumed under Gaulish. Together with Lepontic and the Celtiberian spoken in the
Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula (), ** * Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica'' ** ** * french: Péninsule Ibérique * mwl, Península Eibérica * eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, def ...
, Gaulish helps form the geographic group of
Continental Celtic languages The Continental Celtic languages are the now-extinct group of the Celtic languages that were spoken on the continent of Europe and in central Anatolia, as distinguished from the Insular Celtic languages of the British Isles and Brittany. ''Contine ...
. The precise linguistic relationships among them, as well as between them and the modern
Insular Celtic languages Insular Celtic languages are the group of Celtic languages of Brittany, Great Britain, Ireland, and the Isle of Man. All surviving Celtic languages are in the Insular group, including Breton, which is spoken on continental Europe in Brittany, ...
, are uncertain and a matter of ongoing debate because of their sparse attestation. Gaulish is found in some 800 (often fragmentary) inscriptions including calendars, pottery accounts, funeral monuments, short dedications to gods, coin inscriptions, statements of ownership, and other texts, possibly
curse tablet A curse tablet ( la, tabella defixionis, defixio; el, κατάδεσμος, katadesmos) is a small tablet with a curse written on it from the Greco-Roman world. Its name originated from the Greek and Latin words for "pierce" and "bind". The tabl ...
s. Gaulish was first written in Greek script in southern France and in a variety of
Old Italic script The Old Italic scripts are a family of similar ancient writing systems used in the Italian Peninsula between about 700 and 100 BC, for various languages spoken in that time and place. The most notable member is the Etruscan alphabet, whi ...
in northern Italy. After the Roman conquest of those regions, writing shifted to
Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern I ...
. During his conquest of Gaul, Caesar reported that the Helvetii were in possession of documents in the Greek script, and all Gaulish coins used the Greek script until about 50 BC.''The European Iron Age'' by John Collis p.144 ''ff''
/ref> Gaulish in Western Europe was supplanted by
Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpa ...
and various
Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, E ...
from around the 5th century AD onward. It is thought to have gone extinct some time around the late 6th century.


Classification

It is estimated that during the
Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...
, Proto-Celtic started splitting into distinct languages, including Celtiberian and Gaulish. Due to the expansion of Celtic tribes in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, closely related forms of Celtic came to be spoken in a vast arc extending from Britain and France through the Alpine region and Pannonia in central Europe, and into parts of the
Balkans The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
and
Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The ...
. Their precise linguistic relationships are uncertain due to fragmentary evidence. The Gaulish varieties of central and eastern Europe and of Anatolia (called Noric and Galatian, respectively) are barely attested, but from what little is known of them it appears that they were quite similar to those of Gaul and can be considered dialects of a single language. Among those regions where substantial inscriptional evidence exists, three varieties are usually distinguished. *
Lepontic Lepontic is an ancient Alpine Celtic languageJohn T. Koch (ed.) ''Celtic culture: a historical encyclopedia'' ABC-CLIO (2005) that was spoken in parts of Rhaetia and Cisalpine Gaul (now Northern Italy) between 550 and 100 BC. Lepontic is atte ...
, attested from a small area on the south slopes of the
Alps The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Swi ...
, near the modern Swiss town of
Lugano Lugano (, , ; lmo, label=Ticinese dialect, Ticinese, Lugan ) is a city and municipality in Switzerland, part of the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino. It is the largest city of both Ticino and the Italian-speaking southern Switzerland. Luga ...
, is the oldest Celtic language known to have been written, with inscriptions in a variant of
Old Italic script The Old Italic scripts are a family of similar ancient writing systems used in the Italian Peninsula between about 700 and 100 BC, for various languages spoken in that time and place. The most notable member is the Etruscan alphabet, whi ...
appearing circa 600 BC. It has been described as either an "early dialect of an outlying form of Gaulish" or a separate
Continental Celtic The Continental Celtic languages are the now-extinct group of the Celtic languages that were spoken on the continent of Europe and in central Anatolia, as distinguished from the Insular Celtic languages of the British Isles and Brittany. ''Contine ...
language. * Attestations of Gaulish proper in present-day France are called "Transalpine Gaulish". Its written record begins in the 3rd century BC with inscriptions in Greek script, found mainly in the
Rhône The Rhône ( , ; wae, Rotten ; frp, Rôno ; oc, Ròse ) is a major river in France and Switzerland, rising in the Alps and flowing west and south through Lake Geneva and southeastern France before discharging into the Mediterranean Sea. At Ar ...
area of southern France, where Greek cultural influence was present via the colony of
Massilia Massalia (Greek: Μασσαλία; Latin: Massilia; modern Marseille) was an ancient Greek colony founded ca. 600 BC on the Mediterranean coast of present-day France, east of the river Rhône, by Ionian Greek settlers from Phocaea, in Western An ...
, founded circa 600 BC. After the
Roman conquest of Gaul The Gallic Wars were waged between 58 and 50 BC by the Roman general Julius Caesar against the peoples of Gaul (present-day France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland). Gallic, Germanic, and British tribes fought to defend their home ...
(58–50 BC), the writing of Gaulish shifted to
Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern I ...
. * Finally, there are a small number of inscriptions from the 2nd and 1st centuries BC in Cisalpine Gaul ( northern Italy), which share the same archaic alphabet as the Lepontic inscriptions but are found outside the Lepontic area proper. As they were written after the Gallic conquest of Cisalpine Gaul, they are usually called "
Cisalpine Gaulish The Celtic Cisalpine Gaulish inscriptions are frequently combined with the Lepontic inscriptions under the term ''Celtic language remains in northern Italy''. While it is possible that the Lepontii were autochthonous to Northern Italy since the ...
". They share some linguistic features both with Lepontic and with Transalpine Gaulish; for instance, both Lepontic and Cisalpine Gaulish simplify the consonant clusters ''-nd-'' and ''-χs-'' to ''-nn-'' and ''-ss-'' respectively, while both Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaulish replace inherited word-final ''-m'' with ''-n''. Scholars have debated to what extent the distinctive features of Lepontic reflect merely its earlier origin or a genuine genealogical split, and to what extent Cisalpine Gaulish should be seen as a continuation of Lepontic or an independent offshoot of mainstream Transalpine Gaulish. The relationship between Gaulish and the other Celtic languages is also debated. Most scholars today agree that Celtiberian was the first to branch off from other Celtic. Gaulish, situated in the centre of the Celtic language area, shares with the neighboring
Brittonic languages The Brittonic languages (also Brythonic or British Celtic; cy, ieithoedd Brythonaidd/Prydeinig; kw, yethow brythonek/predennek; br, yezhoù predenek) form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family; the other is Goidelic ...
of Britain, the change of the Indo-European
labialized Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve ...
voiceless velar stop The voiceless velar plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is k. The sound is a very ...
/kʷ/ > /p/, while both Celtiberian in the south and
Goidelic The Goidelic or Gaelic languages ( ga, teangacha Gaelacha; gd, cànanan Goidhealach; gv, çhengaghyn Gaelgagh) form one of the two groups of Insular Celtic languages, the other being the Brittonic languages. Goidelic languages historically ...
in Ireland retain /kʷ/. Taking this as the primary genealogical isogloss, some scholars divide the Celtic languages into a "
q-Celtic The Celtic languages (usually , but sometimes ) are a group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch of the Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward L ...
" group and a "
p-Celtic The Gallo-Brittonic languages, also known as the P-Celtic languages, are a subdivision of the Celtic languages of Ancient Gaul (both '' celtica'' and '' belgica'') and Celtic Britain, which share certain features. Besides common linguistic in ...
" group, in which the p-Celtic languages Gaulish and
Brittonic Brittonic or Brythonic may refer to: *Common Brittonic, or Brythonic, the Celtic language anciently spoken in Great Britain *Brittonic languages, a branch of the Celtic languages descended from Common Brittonic *Britons (Celtic people) The Br ...
form a common "Gallo-Brittonic" branch. Other scholars place more emphasis on shared innovations between Brittonic and
Goidelic The Goidelic or Gaelic languages ( ga, teangacha Gaelacha; gd, cànanan Goidhealach; gv, çhengaghyn Gaelgagh) form one of the two groups of Insular Celtic languages, the other being the Brittonic languages. Goidelic languages historically ...
and group these together as an Insular Celtic branch. discusses a composite model, in which the Continental and Insular varieties are seen as part of a
dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varie ...
, with genealogical splits and areal innovations intersecting.


History


Early period

Though Gaulish personal names written by Gauls in Greek script are attested from the region surrounding Massalia by the 3rd century BC, the first true inscriptions in Gaulish appeared in the 2nd century BC. At least 13 references to Gaulish speech and Gaulish writing can be found in Greek and Latin writers of antiquity. The word "Gaulish" (''gallicum'') as a language term is first explicitly used in the ''
Appendix Vergiliana The ''Appendix Vergiliana'' is a collection of poems traditionally ascribed as being the juvenilia (work written as a juvenile) of Virgil.Régine ChambertVergil's Epicureanism in his early poems in "Vergil, Philodemus, and the Augustans" 2003: "V ...
'' in a poem referring to Gaulish letters of the alphabet.
Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, ...
says in his ''
Commentarii de Bello Gallico ''Commentarii de Bello Gallico'' (; en, Commentaries on the Gallic War, italic=yes), also ''Bellum Gallicum'' ( en, Gallic War, italic=yes), is Julius Caesar's firsthand account of the Gallic Wars, written as a third-person narrative. In it C ...
'' of 58 BC that the Celts/Gauls and their language are separated from the neighboring Aquitani and Belgae by the rivers
Garonne The Garonne (, also , ; Occitan, Catalan, Basque, and es, Garona, ; la, Garumna or ) is a river of southwest France and northern Spain. It flows from the central Spanish Pyrenees to the Gironde estuary at the French port of Bordeaux – ...
and Seine/
Marne Marne can refer to: Places France *Marne (river), a tributary of the Seine *Marne (department), a département in northeastern France named after the river * La Marne, a commune in western France *Marne, a legislative constituency (France) Nethe ...
, respectively. Caesar relates that census accounts written in Greek script were found among the Helvetii. He also notes that as of 53 BC the Gaulish druids used the Greek alphabet for private and public transactions, with the important exception of druidic doctrines, which could only be memorised and were not allowed to be written down. According to the ''Recueil des Inscriptions Gauloises'', nearly three quarters of Gaulish inscriptions (disregarding coins) are in the Greek alphabet. Later inscriptions dating to
Roman Gaul Roman Gaul refers to GaulThe territory of Gaul roughly corresponds to modern-day France, Belgium and Luxembourg, and adjacient parts of the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany. under provincial rule in the Roman Empire from the 1st century ...
are mostly in
Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and th ...
and have been found principally in central France.Pierre-Yves Lambert, ''La langue gauloise'', éditions errance 1994.


Roman period

Latin was quickly adopted by the Gaulish aristocracy after Roman conquest to maintain their elite power and influence, trilingualism in southern Gaul being noted as early as the 1st century BC. Early references to Gaulish in Gaul tend to be made in the context of problems with Greek or Latin fluency until around 400, whereas after c. 450, Gaulish begins to be mentioned in contexts where Latin has replaced "Gaulish" or "Celtic" (whatever the authors meant by those terms), though at first these only concerned the upper classes. For Galatia (Anatolia), there is no source explicitly indicating a 5th-century language replacement: *During the last quarter of the 2nd century,
Irenaeus Irenaeus (; grc-gre, Εἰρηναῖος ''Eirēnaios''; c. 130 – c. 202 AD) was a Greek bishop noted for his role in guiding and expanding Christian communities in the southern regions of present-day France and, more widely, for the dev ...
,
bishop of Lugdunum A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or offic ...
(present-day
Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan language, Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, third-largest city and Urban area (France), second-largest metropolitan area of F ...
), apologises for his inadequate Greek, being "resident among the Keltae and accustomed for the most part to use a barbarous dialect". *According to the ''Vita Sancti Symphoriani'', Symphorian of Augustodunum (present-day
Autun Autun () is a subprefecture of the Saône-et-Loire department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of central-eastern France. It was founded during the Principate era of the early Roman Empire by Emperor Augustus as Augustodunum to give a Ro ...
) was executed on 22 August 178 for his Christian faith. While he was being led to his execution, "his venerable mother admonished him from the wall assiduously and notable to all (?), saying in the Gaulish speech: Son, son, Symphorianus, think of your God!" (''uenerabilis mater sua de muro sedula et nota illum uoce Gallica monuit dicens: 'nate, nate Synforiane, mentobeto to diuo' ''). The Gaulish sentence has been transmitted in a corrupt state in the various manuscripts; as it stands, it has been reconstructed by Thurneysen. According to David Stifter (2012), *mentobeto looks like a Proto-Romance verb derived from Latin mens, mentis ‘mind’ and habere ‘to have’, and it cannot be excluded that the whole utterance is an early variant of Romance, or a mixture of Romance and Gaulish, instead of being an instance of pure Gaulish. On the other hand, ''nate'' is attested in Gaulish (for example in
Endlicher's Glossary Endlicher's Glossary ( la, De nominibus Gallicis) is a glossary composed of eighteen lines of Gaulish words, mainly to do with regional placenames, translated into Latin. There are seven surviving copies of it, with the oldest dating to the 8th c ...
), and the author of the ''Vita Sancti Symphoriani'', whether or not fluent in Gaulish, evidently expects a non-Latin language to have been spoken at the time. *The Latin author Aulus Gellius (c. 180) mentions Gaulish alongside the
Etruscan language Etruscan () was the language of the Etruscan civilization, in Italy, in the ancient region of Etruria (modern Tuscany, western Umbria, northern Latium, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Lombardy and Campania). Etruscan influenced Latin but was eventua ...
in one anecdote, indicating that his listeners had heard of these languages, but would not understand a word of either.Aulus Gellius, ''Noctes Atticae'', Extract: ''ueluti Romae nobis praesentibus uetus celebratusque homo in causis, sed repentina et quasi tumultuaria doctrina praeditus, cum apud praefectum urbi uerba faceret et dicere uellet inopi quendam miseroque uictu uiuere et furfureum panem esitare uinumque eructum et feditum potare. "hic", inquit,"eques Romanus apludam edit et flocces bibit". aspexerunt omnes qui aderant alius alium, primo tristiores turbato et requirente uoltu quidnam illud utriusque uerbi foret: post deinde, quasi nescio quid Tusce aut Gallice dixisset, uniuersi riserunt.'' "For instance in Rome in our presence, a man experienced and celebrated as a pleader, but furnished with a sudden and, as it were, hasty education, was speaking to the Prefect of the City, and wished to say that a certain man with a poor and wretched way of life ate bread from bran and drank bad and spoiled wine. 'This Roman knight', he said, 'eats apluda and drinks flocces.' All who were present looked at each other, first seriously and with an inquiring expression, wondering what the two words meant; thereupon, as if he might have said something in, I don’t know, Gaulish or Etruscan, all of them burst out laughing."(based on BLOM 2007: 183) *The ''Roman History'' by
Cassius Dio Lucius Cassius Dio (), also known as Dio Cassius ( ), was a Roman historian and senator of maternal Greek origin. He published 80 volumes of the history on ancient Rome, beginning with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy. The volumes documented the ...
(written AD 207–229) may imply that Cis- and Transalpine Gauls spoke the same language, as can be deduced from the following passages: (1) Book XIII mentions the principle that named tribes have a common government and a common speech, otherwise the population of a region is summarized by a geographic term, as in the case of the Spanish/Iberians. (2) In Books XII and XIV, Gauls between the Pyrenees and the River Po are stated to consider themselves kinsmen. (3) In Book XLVI, Cassius Dio explains that the defining difference between Cis- and Transalpine Gauls is the length of hair and the style of clothes (i.e., he does not mention any language difference), the Cisalpine Gauls having adopted shorter hair and the Roman toga at an early date (''Gallia Togata''). Potentially in contrast, Caesar described the river Rhone as a frontier between the Celts and ''provincia nostra''. *In the Digesta XXXII, 11 of Ulpian (AD 222–228) it is decreed that fideicommissa (testamentary provisions) may also be composed in Gaulish. *Writing at some point between c. AD 378 and AD 395, Latin poet and scholar
Decimus Magnus Ausonius Decimius Magnus Ausonius (; – c. 395) was a Roman poet and teacher of rhetoric from Burdigala in Aquitaine, modern Bordeaux, France. For a time he was tutor to the future emperor Gratian, who afterwards bestowed the consulship on him. ...
, from Burdigala (now
Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefect ...
), characterizes his deceased father Iulius' ability to speak Latin as ''inpromptus'', "halting, not fluent"; in Attic Greek, Iulius felt eloquent enough. This remark is sometimes taken as indicating that the first language of Iulius Ausonius (c. AD 290–378) was Gaulish, but may alternatively mean his first language was Greek. As a physician, he would have cultivated Greek as part of his professional proficiency. *In the Dialogi de Vita Martini I, 26 by Sulpicius Seuerus (AD 363–425), one of the partners in the dialogue utters the rhetorical commonplace that his deficient Latin might insult the ears of his partners. One of them answers: ''uel Celtice aut si mauis Gallice loquere dummodo Martinum loquaris'' ‘speak Celtic or, if you prefer, Gaulish, as long as you speak about Martin’. *Saint
Jerome Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is co ...
(writing in AD 386/387) remarked in a commentary on St. Paul's '' Epistle to the Galatians'' that the Belgic
Treveri The Trēverī ( Gaulish: *''Trēueroi'') were a Celtic tribe of the Belgae group who inhabited the lower valley of the Moselle from around 150 BCE, if not earlier, until their displacement by the Franks. Their domain lay within the southern fri ...
spoke almost the same language as the
Galatians Galatians may refer to: * Galatians (people) * Epistle to the Galatians, a book of the New Testament * English translation of the Greek ''Galatai'' or Latin ''Galatae'', ''Galli,'' or ''Gallograeci'' to refer to either the Galatians or the Gauls in ...
, rather than Latin. This agrees with an earlier report in AD180 by Lucian. *In an AD 474 letter to his brother-in-law,
Sidonius Apollinaris Gaius Sollius Modestus Apollinaris Sidonius, better known as Sidonius Apollinaris (5 November of an unknown year, 430 – 481/490 AD), was a poet, diplomat, and bishop. Sidonius is "the single most important surviving author from 5th-century Gaul ...
, bishop of Clermont in Auvergne, says that in his younger years, "our nobles... resolved to forsake the barbarous Celtic dialect", evidently in favour of eloquent Latin.


Middle Ages

*
Cassiodorus Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (c. 485 – c. 585), commonly known as Cassiodorus (), was a Roman statesman, renowned scholar of antiquity, and writer serving in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. ''Senator'' ...
(ca. 490–585) cites in his book Variae VIII, 12, 7 (dated 526) from a letter to king Athalaric: ''Romanum denique eloquium non suis regionibus inuenisti et ibi te Tulliana lectio disertum reddidit, ubi quondam Gallica lingua resonauit'' ‘Finally you found Roman eloquence in regions that were not originally its own; and there the reading of Cicero rendered you eloquent where once the Gaulish language resounded’ *In the 6th century
Cyril of Scythopolis Cyril of Scythopolis ( gr, Κύριλλος ὁ Σκυθοπολίτης, Kyrillos ho Skythopolitēs; – ), also known as Cyrillus Scythopolitanus, was a Christian monk, priest and Greek-language hagiographer or historian of monastic life in Pa ...
(AD 525–559) tells a story about a Galatian monk who was possessed by an evil spirit and was unable to speak, but if forced to, could speak only in Galatian. * Gregory of Tours wrote in the 6th century (c. 560–575) that a shrine in
Auvergne Auvergne (; ; oc, label= Occitan, Auvèrnhe or ) is a former administrative region in central France, comprising the four departments of Allier, Puy-de-Dôme, Cantal and Haute-Loire. Since 1 January 2016, it has been part of the new region Au ...
which "is called Vasso Galatae in the Gallic tongue" was destroyed and burnt to the ground. This quote has been held by historical linguistic scholarship to attest that Gaulish was indeed still spoken as late as the mid to late 6th century in France.


Final demise

Despite considerable Romanization of the local material culture, the Gaulish language is held to have survived and coexisted with spoken Latin during the centuries of Roman rule of Gaul. The exact time of the final extinction of Gaulish is unknown, but it is estimated to have been about the sixth century AD, after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. The language shift was uneven in its progress and shaped by sociological factors. Although there was a presence of retired veterans in colonies, these did not significantly alter the linguistic composition of Gaul's population, of which 90% was autochthonous; instead, the key Latinizing class was the coopted local elite, who sent their children to Roman schools and administered lands for Rome. In the fifth century, at the time of the Western Roman collapse, the vast majority (non-elite and predominantly rural) of the population remained Gaulish speakers, and acquired Latin as their native speech only after the demise of the Empire, as both they and the new Frankish ruling elite adopted the prestige language of their urban literate elite.Mufwene, Salikoko S. "Language birth and death." Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 33 (2004): 201-222. Page 213: "... the Romans did not colonize Europe on the settlement model... However, the local rulers, who had Romanized already, maintained Latin as the language of their administrations... (footnote) Latin was spread outside Rome largely by foreign mercenaries in Roman legions, similar to how English is spreading today as a world lingua franca significantly by nonnative speakers using it and teaching it to others.. (main) More significant is that the Roman colonies were not fully Latinized in the fifth century. When the Romans left, lower classes (the population majority) continued to use Celtic languages, especially in rural areas..." Page 214: "The protracted development of the Romance languages under the substrate influence of Celtic languages is correlated with the gradual loss of the latter, as fewer and fewer children found it useful to acquire the Celtic languages and instead acquired egional Latin.. Today the Celtic languages and other more indigenous languages similar to Basque, formerly spoken in the same territory, have vanished." Page 215: " n contrast to the Angles and Saxons who kept Germanic speech and religion the Franks surrendered their Germanic traditions, embracing the language and religion of the indigenous rulers, Latin and Catholicism." Bonnaud maintains that while Latinisation occurred earlier in Provence and in major urban centers, while Gaulish persisted longest, possibly as late as the tenth century with evidence for continued use according to Bonnaud continuing into the ninth century, in
Langres Langres () is a commune in northeastern France. It is a subprefecture of the department of Haute-Marne, in the region of Grand Est. History As the capital of the Romanized Gallic tribe known as the Lingones, it was called Andematunnum, then ...
and the surrounding regions, the regions between Clermont, Argenton and
Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefect ...
, and in
Armorica Armorica or Aremorica (Gaulish: ; br, Arvorig, ) is the name given in ancient times to the part of Gaul between the Seine and the Loire that includes the Brittany Peninsula, extending inland to an indeterminate point and down the Atlantic Coast ...
. Fleuriot, Falc'hun, and Gvozdanovic likewise maintained a late survival in Armorica and language contact of some form with the ascendant Breton language; however, it has been noted that there is little uncontroversial evidence supporting a relatively late survival specifically in
Brittany Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period ...
whereas there is uncontroversial evidence that supports the relatively late survival of Gaulish in the Swiss Alps and in regions in Central Gaul.Kerkhof, Peter Alexander (2018). "Language, law and loanwords in early medieval Gaul: language contact and studies in Gallo-Romance phonology". Page 50 Drawing from these data, which include the mapping of substrate vocabulary as evidence, Kerkhof argues that we may "tentatively" posit a survival of Gaulish speaking communities in the "at least into the sixth century" in pockets of mountainous regions of the Central Massif, the Jura, and the Swiss Alps.


Corpus


Summary of sources

According to ''Recueil des inscriptions gauloises'', more than 760 Gaulish inscriptions have been found throughout France, with the notable exception of
Aquitaine Aquitaine ( , , ; oc, Aquitània ; eu, Akitania; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Aguiéne''), archaic Guyenne or Guienne ( oc, Guiana), is a historical region of southwestern France and a former administrative region of the country. Since 1 Janu ...
, and in northern Italy. Inscriptions include short dedications, funerary monuments, proprietary statements, and expressions of human sentiments, but also some longer documents of a legal or magical-religious nature, the three longest being the
Larzac tablet The Larzac tablet is a lead curse tablet found in 1983 in the commune of L'Hospitalet-du-Larzac, Aveyron, southern France. It is now kept in the museum of Millau. It bears one of the most important inscriptions in the Gaulish language. The inscri ...
, the
Chamalières tablet The Chamalières tablet (French: Plomb de Chamalières) is a lead tablet, six by four centimeters, that was discovered in 1971 in Chamalières, France, at the Source des Roches excavation. The tablet is dated somewhere between 50 BC and 50 AD. The ...
and the Lezoux dish. The most famous Gaulish record is the
Coligny calendar The Coligny calendar is a second century Celtic calendar found in 1897 in Coligny, France. It is a lunisolar calendar with a five-year cycle of 62 months. It has been used to reconstruct the ancient Celtic calendar. The letters on the ca ...
, a fragmented bronze tablet dating from the 2nd century AD and providing the names of Celtic months over a five-year span; it is a
lunisolar calendar A lunisolar calendar is a calendar in many cultures, combining lunar calendars and solar calendars. The date of Lunisolar calendars therefore indicates both the Moon phase and the time of the solar year, that is the position of the Sun in the ...
trying to synchronize the solar year and the lunar month by inserting a thirteenth month every two and a half years. Many inscriptions are only a few words (often names) in rote phrases, and many are fragmentary. They provide some evidence for
morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines * Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts * Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...
and better evidence for personal and mythological names. Occasionally, marked surface clausal configurations provide some evidence of a more formal, or poetic, register. It is clear from the subject matter of the records that the language was in use at all levels of society. Other sources contribute to knowledge of Gaulish:
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
and
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
authors mention Gaulish words, personal and tribal names, and
toponyms Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...
. A short Gaulish-Latin vocabulary (about 20 entries headed ''De nominib sGallicis'') called "
Endlicher's Glossary Endlicher's Glossary ( la, De nominibus Gallicis) is a glossary composed of eighteen lines of Gaulish words, mainly to do with regional placenames, translated into Latin. There are seven surviving copies of it, with the oldest dating to the 8th c ...
", is preserved in a 9th-century manuscript (Öst. Nationalbibliothek, MS 89 fol. 189v). French has Gaulish loanwords. French now has about 150 to 180 words known to be of Gaulish origin, most of which concern pastoral or daily activity. If dialectal and derived words are included, the total is about 400 words. Though overall low, this is still the highest number among the
Romance languages The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...
.


Inscriptions

Gaulish inscriptions are edited in the (R.I.G.), in four volumes: *Volume 1: Inscriptions in the
Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as w ...
, edited by Michel Lejeune (items G-1 –G-281) *Volume 2.1: Inscriptions in the
Etruscan alphabet The Etruscan alphabet was the alphabet used by the Etruscans, an ancient civilization of central and northern Italy, to write their language, from about 700 BC to sometime around 100 AD. The Etruscan alphabet derives from the Euboean alphabet u ...
(
Lepontic Lepontic is an ancient Alpine Celtic languageJohn T. Koch (ed.) ''Celtic culture: a historical encyclopedia'' ABC-CLIO (2005) that was spoken in parts of Rhaetia and Cisalpine Gaul (now Northern Italy) between 550 and 100 BC. Lepontic is atte ...
, items E-1 – E-6), and inscriptions in the Latin alphabet in stone (items l. 1 – l. 16), edited by Michel Lejeune *Volume 2.2: inscriptions in the
Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and th ...
on instruments (ceramic, lead, glass etc.), edited by Pierre-Yves Lambert (items l. 18 – l. 139) *Volume 3: The
Coligny calendar The Coligny calendar is a second century Celtic calendar found in 1897 in Coligny, France. It is a lunisolar calendar with a five-year cycle of 62 months. It has been used to reconstruct the ancient Celtic calendar. The letters on the ca ...
(73 fragments) and that of Villards-d'Héria (8 fragments), edited by Paul-Marie Duval and Georges Pinault *Volume 4: inscriptions on
Celtic coinage Celtic coinage was minted by the Celts from the late 4th century BC to the mid 1st century AD. Celtic coins were influenced by trade with and the supply of mercenaries to the Greeks, and initially copied Greek designs, especially Macedonian coi ...
, edited by Jean-Baptiste Colbert de Beaulieu and Brigitte Fischer (338 items) The longest known Gaulish text is the
Larzac tablet The Larzac tablet is a lead curse tablet found in 1983 in the commune of L'Hospitalet-du-Larzac, Aveyron, southern France. It is now kept in the museum of Millau. It bears one of the most important inscriptions in the Gaulish language. The inscri ...
, found in 1983 in
l'Hospitalet-du-Larzac L'Hospitalet-du-Larzac (; oc, L'Espitalet de Larzac) is a commune in the Aveyron department in southern France, part of the southern Massif central, incorporating part of the Larzac plateau. The economy is agricultural, notably dairy produce ...
, France. It is inscribed in
Roman cursive Roman cursive (or Latin cursive) is a form of handwriting (or a script) used in ancient Rome and to some extent into the Middle Ages. It is customarily divided into old (or ancient) cursive and new cursive. Old Roman cursive Old Roman cursiv ...
on both sides of two small sheets of lead. Probably a
curse tablet A curse tablet ( la, tabella defixionis, defixio; el, κατάδεσμος, katadesmos) is a small tablet with a curse written on it from the Greco-Roman world. Its name originated from the Greek and Latin words for "pierce" and "bind". The tabl ...
(), it clearly mentions relationships between female names, for example (Aia, daughter of Adiega... Adiega, mother of Aia) and seems to contain
incantation An incantation, a spell, a charm, an enchantment or a bewitchery, is a magical formula intended to trigger a magical effect on a person or objects. The formula can be spoken, sung or chanted. An incantation can also be performed during ceremo ...
s regarding one Severa Tertionicna and a group of women (often thought to be a rival group of witches), but the exact meaning of the text remains unclear. The Coligny calendar was found in 1897 in Coligny, France, with a statue identified as
Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...
. The calendar contains Gaulish words but Roman numerals, permitting translations such as evidently meaning days, and month. Months of 30 days were marked , "lucky", months of 29 days , "unlucky", based on comparison with Middle Welsh and , but the meaning could here also be merely descriptive, "complete" and "incomplete".Bernhard Maier: ''Lexikon der keltischen Religion und Kultur''. S. 81 f. The pottery at
La Graufesenque La Graufesenque is an archaeological site 2 km from Millau, Aveyron, France, at the confluence of the rivers Tarn and Dourbie. As Condatomagus (market of the confluent), it was famous in the Gallo-Roman period for the production of high qu ...
is our most important source for Gaulish numerals. Potters shared
furnace A furnace is a structure in which heat is produced with the help of combustion. Furnace may also refer to: Appliances Buildings * Furnace (central heating): a furnace , or a heater or boiler , used to generate heat for buildings * Boiler, used t ...
s and kept tallies inscribed in Latin cursive on ceramic plates, referring to kiln loads numbered 1 to 10: *1st ''cintus, cintuxos'' (Welsh ''cynt'' "before", ''cyntaf'' "first", Breton ''kent'' "in front" ''kentañ'' "first", Cornish ''kynsa'' "first", Old Irish ''céta'', Irish ''céad'' "first") *2nd ''allos'', ''alos'' (W ''ail'', Br ''eil'', OIr ''aile'' "other", Ir ''eile'') *3rd ''tri
ios iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...
' (W ''trydydd'', Br ''trede'', OIr ''treide'') *4th ''petuar os' (W ''pedwerydd'', Br ''pevare'') *5th ''pinpetos'' (W ''pumed'', Br ''pempet'', OIr ''cóiced'') *6th ''suexos'' (possibly mistaken for ''suextos'', but see Rezé inscription below; W ''chweched'', Br ''c'hwec'hved'', OIr ''seissed'') *7th ''sextametos'' (W ''seithfed'', Br ''seizhved'', OIr ''sechtmad'') *8th ''oxtumeto ' (W ''wythfed'', Br ''eizhved'', OIr ''ochtmad'') *9th ''namet s' (W ''nawfed'', Br ''naved'', OIr ''nómad'') *10th ''decametos'', ''decometos'' ( CIb ''dekametam'', W ''degfed'', Br ''degvet'', OIr ''dechmad'') The lead inscription from Rezé (dated to the 2nd century, at the mouth of the
Loire The Loire (, also ; ; oc, Léger, ; la, Liger) is the longest river in France and the 171st longest in the world. With a length of , it drains , more than a fifth of France's land, while its average discharge is only half that of the Rhône ...
, northwest of
La Graufesenque La Graufesenque is an archaeological site 2 km from Millau, Aveyron, France, at the confluence of the rivers Tarn and Dourbie. As Condatomagus (market of the confluent), it was famous in the Gallo-Roman period for the production of high qu ...
) is evidently an account or a calculation and contains quite different ordinals: *3rd ''trilu'' *4th ''paetrute'' *5th ''pixte'' *6th ''suexxe'', etc. Other Gaulish numerals attested in Latin inscriptions include ''*petrudecametos'' "fourteenth" (rendered as ''petrudecameto'', with Latinized dative-ablative singular ending) and ''*triconts'' "thirty" (rendered as ''tricontis'', with a Latinized ablative plural ending; compare Irish ). A Latinized phrase for a "ten-night festival of (
Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label= Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label ...
)
Grannus Grannus (also ''Granus'', '' Mogounus,'' and ''Amarcolitanus'') was a Celtic deity of classical antiquity. He was regularly identified with Apollo as Apollo Grannus and frequently worshipped in conjunction with Sirona, and sometimes with Mars and ...
", ''decamnoctiacis Granni'', is mentioned in a Latin inscription from Limoges. A similar formation is to be found in the Coligny calendar, in which mention is made of a ''trinox ..Samoni'' "three-night (festival?) of (the month of) Samonios". As is to be expected, the ancient Gaulish language was more similar to
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
than modern Celtic languages are to modern Romance languages. The ordinal numerals in Latin are ''prīmus''/''prior'', ''secundus''/''alter'' (the first form when more than two objects are counted, the second form only when two, ''alius'', like ''alter'' means "the other", the former used when more than two and the latter when only two), ''tertius'', ''quārtus'', ''quīntus'', ''sextus'', ''septimus'', ''octāvus'', ''nōnus'', and ''decimus''. A number of short inscriptions are found on spindle whorls and are among the most recent finds in the Gaulish language. Spindle whorls were apparently given to girls by their suitors and bear such inscriptions as: *''moni gnatha gabi / buððutton imon'' (RIG l. 119) "my girl, take my penis(?)" *''geneta imi / daga uimpi'' (RIG l. 120) '"I am a young girl, good (and) pretty". Inscriptions found in Switzerland are rare. The most notable inscription found in Helvetic parts is the ''
Bern zinc tablet The Bern zinc tablet or Gobannus tablet is a metal sheet found in 1984 in Bern, Switzerland. As it was only analysed after the death of the workman who had found and removed the tablet from its site, its original archaeological context can no lon ...
'', inscribed ΔΟΒΝΟΡΗΔΟ ΓΟΒΑΝΟ ΒΡΕΝΟΔΩΡ ΝΑΝΤΑΡΩΡ (''Dobnorēdo gobano brenodōr nantarōr'') and apparently dedicated to
Gobannus Gobannus (or Gobannos, the Gaulish form, sometimes Cobannus) was a Gallo-Roman smithing god. A number of statues dedicated to him are preserved, found together with a bronze cauldron dedicated to ''Deus Cobannos'', in the late 1980s and illegally ...
, the Celtic god of
metalwork Metalworking is the process of shaping and reshaping metals to create useful objects, parts, assemblies, and large scale structures. As a term it covers a wide and diverse range of processes, skills, and tools for producing objects on every scale ...
. Furthermore, there is a statue of a seated goddess with a bear,
Artio Artio (''Dea Artio'' in the Gallo-Roman religion) is a Celts, Celtic bear worship, bear goddess. Evidence of her worship has notably been found at Bern in Switzerland. Her name is derived from the Gaulish language, Gaulish word for 'bear', ''artos' ...
, found in
Muri bei Bern Muri bei Bern is a municipality in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. History Muri is first mentioned in 1180 as ''Mure'' while Gümligen appears in 1239 as ''Gumelingen'' or ''Gumlingin'' Archae ...
, with a Latin inscription DEAE ARTIONI LIVINIA SABILLINA, suggesting a Gaulish ''Artiū'' "Bear (goddess)". Some coins with Gaulish inscriptions in the Greek alphabet have also been found in Switzerland, e.g. RIG IV Nos. 92 (
Lingones The Lingones (Gaulish: 'the jumpers') were a Gallic tribe of the Iron Age and Roman periods. They dwelled in the region surrounding the present-day city of Langres, between the provinces of Gallia Lugdunensis and Gallia Belgica. Name Attes ...
) and 267 (
Leuci The Leucī (Gaulish: ''Leucoi'', 'the bright, lightning ones') were a Belgic tribe dwelling in the southern part of the modern Lorraine region during the Iron Age and the Roman period. Name They are mentioned as ''Leucos'' (acc.) by Caesar (m ...
). A sword, dating to the La Tène period, was found in
Port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as H ...
, near
Biel/Bienne , french: Biennois(e) , neighboring_municipalities= Brügg, Ipsach, Leubringen/Magglingen (''Evilard/Macolin''), Nidau, Orpund, Orvin, Pieterlen, Port, Safnern, Tüscherz-Alfermée, Vauffelin , twintowns = Iserlohn (Germany) ...
, with its blade inscribed with KORICIOC (''Korisos''), probably the name of the smith.


Phonology

*vowels: **short: a, e, i, o, u **long: ā, ē, ī, (ō), ū **diphthongs: ai, ei, oi, au, eu, ou # is an allophone of /k/ before /t/. *occlusives: **voiceless: p, t, k **voiced: b, d, g *resonants **nasals: m, n **liquids r, l *sibilant: s *affricate: ts *semi-vowels: w, y The diphthongs all transformed over the historical period. ''Ai'' and ''oi'' changed into long ''ī'' and ''eu'' merged with ''ou'', both becoming long ''ō''. ''Ei'' became long ''ē''. In general, long diphthongs became short diphthongs and then long vowels. Long vowels shortened before nasals in coda. Other transformations include unstressed ''i'' became ''e'', ''ln'' became ''ll'', a stop + ''s'' became ''ss'', and a nasal + velar became /ŋ/ + velar. The
lenis In linguistics, fortis and lenis ( and ; Latin for "strong" and "weak"), sometimes identified with tense and lax, are pronunciations of consonants with relatively greater and lesser energy, respectively. English has fortis consonants, such as the ...
plosives seem to have been voiceless, unlike in Latin, which distinguished lenis occlusives with a voiced realization from fortis occlusives with a voiceless realization, which caused confusions like ''Glanum'' for ''Clanum'', ''vergobretos'' for ''vercobreto'', ''Britannia'' for ''Pritannia''.


Orthography

The alphabet of
Lugano Lugano (, , ; lmo, label=Ticinese dialect, Ticinese, Lugan ) is a city and municipality in Switzerland, part of the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino. It is the largest city of both Ticino and the Italian-speaking southern Switzerland. Luga ...
used in Cisalpine Gaul for Lepontic: :AEIKLMNOPRSTΘVXZ The alphabet of Lugano does not distinguish voicing in stops: P represents /b/ or /p/, T is for /d/ or /t/, K for /g/ or /k/. Z is probably for /ts/. U /u/ and V /w/ are distinguished in only one early inscription. Θ is probably for /t/ and X for /g/ (Lejeune 1971, Solinas 1985). The Eastern Greek alphabet used in southern Gallia Narbonensis: : : is used for , for /ts/, for /u/, /ū/, /w/, and for both long and short /e/, /ē/ and /o/, /ō/ while is for short /i/ and ει for /ī/. Note that the sigma, in the Eastern Greek alphabet, is a Ϲ (
lunate sigma Sigma (; uppercase Σ, lowercase σ, lowercase in word-final position ς; grc-gre, σίγμα) is the eighteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 200. In general mathematics, uppercase Σ is used as ...
). All Greek letters were used except
phi Phi (; uppercase Φ, lowercase φ or ϕ; grc, ϕεῖ ''pheî'' ; Modern Greek: ''fi'' ) is the 21st letter of the Greek alphabet. In Archaic and Classical Greek (c. 9th century BC to 4th century BC), it represented an aspirated voicele ...
and
psi Psi, PSI or Ψ may refer to: Alphabetic letters * Psi (Greek) (Ψ, ψ), the 23rd letter of the Greek alphabet * Psi (Cyrillic) (Ѱ, ѱ), letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet, adopted from Greek Arts and entertainment * "Psi" as an abbreviatio ...
. Latin alphabet (monumental and cursive) in use in
Roman Gaul Roman Gaul refers to GaulThe territory of Gaul roughly corresponds to modern-day France, Belgium and Luxembourg, and adjacient parts of the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany. under provincial rule in the Roman Empire from the 1st century ...
: :ABCDÐEFGHIKLMNOPQRSTVXZ :abcdðefghiklmnopqrstvxz G and K are sometimes used interchangeably (especially after R). ''Ð''/''ð'', ''ds'' and ''s'' may represent /ts/ and/or /dz/. X, ''x'' is for or /ks/. Q is only used rarely (''Sequanni'', ''Equos'') and may represent an archaism (a retained *kw) or, as in Latin, an alternate spelling of ''-cu-'' (for original /kuu/, /kou/, or /kom-u/). Ð and ð are used to represent the letter (''
tau gallicum Tau gallicum ( majuscule:Ꟈ(), minuscule: ꟈ()) is a letter that was used to write the Gaulish language.Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
added four characters to represent ''tau gallicum'': * * * *


Sound laws

* Gaulish changed the PIE
voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies ...
labiovelar ''kʷ'' to ''p'', a development also observed in the
Brittonic languages The Brittonic languages (also Brythonic or British Celtic; cy, ieithoedd Brythonaidd/Prydeinig; kw, yethow brythonek/predennek; br, yezhoù predenek) form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family; the other is Goidelic ...
(as well as Greek and some Italic languages like the
Osco-Umbrian languages The Osco-Umbrian, Sabellic or Sabellian languages are an extinct group of Italic languages, the Indo-European languages that were spoken in Central and Southern Italy by the Osco-Umbrians before being replaced by Latin, as the power of Ancient Rom ...
), while other Celtic languages retained the labiovelar. Thus, the Gaulish word for "son" was ''mapos'', contrasting with
Primitive Irish Primitive Irish or Archaic Irish ( ga, Gaeilge Ársa), also called Proto-Goidelic, is the oldest known form of the Goidelic languages. It is known only from fragments, mostly personal names, inscribed on stone in the ogham alphabet in Ireland ...
*''maq(q)os'' (attested genitive case ''maq(q)i''), which became ''mac'' (gen. ''mic'') in modern Irish. In modern Welsh the word ''map'', ''mab'' (or its contracted form ''ap'', ''ab'') is found in surnames. Similarly one Gaulish word for "horse" was ''epos'' (in Old Breton ''eb'' and modern
Breton Breton most often refers to: *anything associated with Brittany, and generally ** Breton people ** Breton language, a Southwestern Brittonic Celtic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken in Brittany ** Breton (horse), a breed **Ga ...
ken''eb'' "pregnant mare") while
Old Irish Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic ( sga, Goídelc, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ga, Sean-Ghaeilge; gd, Seann-Ghàidhlig; gv, Shenn Yernish or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive writt ...
has ''ech'', the modern
Irish language Irish ( Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was ...
and
Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well ...
''each'', and Manx ''egh'', all derived from
proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...
*''h₁eḱwos''. The retention or innovation of this sound does not necessarily signify a close genetic relationship between the languages; Goidelic and Brittonic are, for example, both
Insular Celtic languages Insular Celtic languages are the group of Celtic languages of Brittany, Great Britain, Ireland, and the Isle of Man. All surviving Celtic languages are in the Insular group, including Breton, which is spoken on continental Europe in Brittany, ...
and quite closely related. * The Proto-Celtic voiced labiovelar ''*gʷ'' (From PIE ''*gʷʰ'') became ''w'': *''gʷediūmi'' → ''uediiumi'' "I pray" (but Celtiberian Ku.e.z.o.n.to /gueðonto/ < *gʷʰedʰ-y-ont 'imploring, pleading', Old Irish ''guidim'', Welsh ''gweddi'' "to pray"). * PIE ''ds'', ''dz'' became /tˢ/, spelled ð: *''neds-samo'' → ''neððamon'' (cf. Irish ''nesamh'' "nearest", Welsh ''nesaf'' "next", Modern Breton ''nes'' and ''nesañ'' "next"). * PIE ''ew'' became ''eu'' or ''ou'', and later ''ō'': PIE *''tewtéh₂'' → ''teutā''/''toutā'' → ''tōtā'' "tribe" (cf. Irish ''túath'', Welsh ''tud'' "people"). *PIE ''ey'' became ''ei, ē'' and ''ī'' PIE *''treyes → treis → trī'' (cf. Irish ''trí'' "three"). * Additionally, intervocalic /st/ became the affricate ˢ(alveolar stop + voiceless alveolar stop) and intervocalic /sr/ became rand /str/ became r Finally, labial and velar stops merged into the fricative when occurring before /t/ or /s/.


Morphology

There was some areal (and genetic, see
Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
and the controversial
Italo-Celtic In historical linguistics, Italo-Celtic is a hypothetical grouping of the Italic and Celtic branches of the Indo-European language family on the basis of features shared by these two branches and no others. There is controversy about the causes o ...
hypothesis) similarity to Latin grammar, and the French historian Ferdinand Lot argued that it helped the rapid adoption of Vulgar Latin in Roman Gaul.


Noun cases

Gaulish had seven cases: the nominative,
vocative In grammar, the vocative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed, or occasionally for the noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and numer ...
,
accusative The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
, genitive, dative,
instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to inst ...
and the locative case. Greater epigraphical evidence attests common cases (nominative and accusative) and common stems (-o- and -a- stems) than for cases less frequently used in inscriptions or rarer -i-, -n- and -r- stems. The following table summarises the reconstructed endings for the words ''*toṷtā'' "tribe, people", ''*mapos'' "boy, son", ''*ṷātis'' "seer", ''*gutus'' "voice", ''*brātīr'' "brother". In some cases, a historical evolution is attested; for example, the dative singular of a-stems is ''-āi'' in the oldest inscriptions, becoming first *''-ăi'' and finally ''-ī'' as in Irish ''a''-stem nouns with attenuated (''slender'') consonants: nom. ''lámh'' "hand, arm" (cf. Gaul. ''lāmā'') and dat. ''láimh'' (< *''lāmi''; cf. Gaul. ''lāmāi'' > *''lāmăi'' > ''lāmī''). Further, the plural instrumental had begun to encroach on the dative plural (dative ''atrebo'' and ''matrebo'' vs. instrumental ''gobedbi'' and ''suiorebe''), and in the modern Insular languages, the instrumental form is known to have completely replaced the dative. For o-stems, Gaulish also innovated the pronominal ending for the nominative plural -''oi'' and genitive singular -''ī'' in place of expected -''ōs'' and -''os'' still present in Celtiberian (-''oś'', -''o''). In a-stems, the inherited genitive singular -''as'' is attested but was subsequently replaced by ''-ias'' as in Insular Celtic. The expected genitive plural -''a-om'' appears innovated as ''-anom'' (vs. Celtiberian -''aum''). There also appears to be a dialectal equivalence between -''n'' and -''m'' endings in accusative singular endings particularly, with Transalpine Gaulish favouring -''n'', and Cisalpine favouring -''m''. In genitive plurals the difference between -''n'' and -''m'' relies on the length of the preceding vowel, with longer vowels taking -''m'' over -''n'' (in the case of -''anom'' this is a result of its innovation from -''a-om'').


Verbs

Gaulish verbs have present, future, perfect, and imperfect tenses; indicative, subjunctive, optative and imperative moods; and active and passive voices. Verbs show a number of innovations as well. The Indo-European s-aorist became the Gaulish t-preterit, formed by merging an old 3rd personal singular imperfect ending -''t''- to a 3rd personal singular perfect ending -''u'' or -''e'' and subsequent affixation to all forms of the t-preterit tense. Similarly, the s-preterit is formed from the extension of -''ss'' (originally from the third person singular) and the affixation of -''it'' to the third person singular (to distinguish it as such). Third-person plurals are also marked by addition of -s in the preterit.


Syntax


Word order

Most Gaulish sentences seem to consist of a subject–verb–object word order: :: Some, however, have patterns such as
verb–subject–object A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...
(as in living Insular Celtic languages) or with the verb last. The latter can be seen as a survival from an earlier stage in the language, very much like the more archaic
Celtiberian language Celtiberian or Northeastern Hispano-Celtic is an extinct Indo-European language of the Celtic branch spoken by the Celtiberians in an area of the Iberian Peninsula between the headwaters of the Douro, Tagus, Júcar and Turia rivers and the Ebr ...
. Sentences with the verb first can be interpreted, however, as indicating a special purpose, such as an imperative, emphasis, contrast, and so on. Also, the verb may contain or be next to an enclitic pronoun or with "and" or "but", etc. According to J. F. Eska, Gaulish was certainly not a
verb-second In syntax, verb-second (V2) word order is a sentence structure in which the finite verb of a sentence or a clause is placed in the clause's second position, so that the verb is preceded by a single word or group of words (a single constituen ...
language, as the following shows: :: Whenever there is a pronoun object element, it is next to the verb, as per Vendryes' Restriction. The general Celtic grammar shows Wackernagel's Rule, so putting the verb at the beginning of the clause or sentence. As in Old Irish and traditional literary Welsh, the verb can be preceded by a particle with no real meaning by itself but originally used to make the utterance easier. :: :: According to Eska's model, Vendryes' Restriction is believed to have played a large role in the development of Insular Celtic verb-subject-object word order. Other authorities such as
John T. Koch John T. Koch is an American academic, historian and linguist who specializes in Celtic studies, especially prehistory and the early Middle Ages. He is the editor of the five-volume ''Celtic Culture. A Historical Encyclopedia'' (2006, ABC Clio). He ...
, dispute that interpretation. Considering that Gaulish is not a verb-final language, it is not surprising to find other "head-initial" features: *Genitives follow their head nouns: :: *The unmarked position for adjectives is after their head nouns: :: *Prepositional phrases have the preposition, naturally, first: :: *Passive clauses: ::


Subordination

Subordinate clauses follow the main clause and have an uninflected element (''jo'') to show the subordinate clause. This is attached to the first verb of the subordinate clause. :: ''Jo'' is also used in relative clauses and to construct the equivalent of THAT-clauses :: This element is found residually in the Insular Celtic languages and appears as an independent inflected relative pronoun in Celtiberian, thus: *Welsh **modern ''sydd'' "which is" ← Middle Welsh ''yssyd'' ← *''esti-jo'' **vs. Welsh ''ys'' "is" ← *''esti'' *Irish **Old Irish relative ''cartae'' "they love" ← *''caront-jo'' *Celtiberian ** masc. nom. sing. ''ioś'', masc. dat. sing. ''iomui'', fem. acc. plural ''iaś''


Clitics

Gaulish had object pronouns that infixed inside a word: :: Disjunctive pronouns also occur as clitics: ''mi, tu, id''. They act like the emphasizing particles known as ''notae augentes'' in the Insular Celtic languages. :: :: Clitic doubling is also found (along with left dislocation), when a noun antecedent referring to an inanimate object is nonetheless grammatically
animate Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anima ...
. (There is a similar construction in Old Irish.)


Modern usage

In an interview, Swiss
folk metal Folk metal is a fusion genre of heavy metal music and traditional folk music that developed in Europe during the 1990s. It is characterised by the widespread use of folk instruments and, to a lesser extent, traditional singing styles (for exampl ...
band
Eluveitie Eluveitie ( ; )Chrigel Glanzmann: "...According to current research, it is pronounced in Bernese German as, i.e. ''"Elvèyti"''. But I don't know if this is correct. The gods know that.:: Metalist Magazine :: Interviews :: Eluveitie is a Swiss f ...
said that some of their songs are written in a reconstructed form of Gaulish. The band asks scientists for help in writing songs in the language. The name of the band comes from graffiti on a vessel from
Mantua Mantua ( ; it, Mantova ; Lombard and la, Mantua) is a city and '' comune'' in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the province of the same name. In 2016, Mantua was designated as the Italian Capital of Culture. In 2017, it was named as the Eur ...
(c. 300 BC). The
inscription Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the w ...
in Etruscan letters reads ''eluveitie,'' which has been interpreted as the
Etruscan __NOTOC__ Etruscan may refer to: Ancient civilization *The Etruscan language, an extinct language in ancient Italy *Something derived from or related to the Etruscan civilization **Etruscan architecture **Etruscan art **Etruscan cities ** Etrusca ...
form of the Celtic ''(h)elvetios'' ("the Helvetian"), presumably referring to a man of
Helvetian Helvetia () is the female national personification of Switzerland, officially ''Confoederatio Helvetica,'' the Swiss Confederation. The allegory is typically pictured in a flowing gown, with a spear and a shield emblazoned with the Swiss flag ...
descent living in Mantua.


See also

*
Italo-Celtic In historical linguistics, Italo-Celtic is a hypothetical grouping of the Italic and Celtic branches of the Indo-European language family on the basis of features shared by these two branches and no others. There is controversy about the causes o ...
*
Lepontic language Lepontic is an ancient Alpine Celtic languageJohn T. Koch (ed.) ''Celtic culture: a historical encyclopedia'' ABC-CLIO (2005) that was spoken in parts of Rhaetia and Cisalpine Gaul (now Northern Italy) between 550 and 100 BC. Lepontic is atte ...
*
Celtiberian language Celtiberian or Northeastern Hispano-Celtic is an extinct Indo-European language of the Celtic branch spoken by the Celtiberians in an area of the Iberian Peninsula between the headwaters of the Douro, Tagus, Júcar and Turia rivers and the Ebr ...
* Languages of France *
List of English words of Gaulish origin A list of English Language words derived from the Celtic Gaulish language, entering English via Old Frankish or Vulgar Latin and Old French ; ambassador : from Old French ''embassadeur'', from Latin ''ambactus'', from Gaulish ''*ambactos'', "serv ...
*
List of French words of Gaulish origin The Gaulish language, and presumably its many dialects and closely allied sister languages, left a few hundred words in French and many more in nearby Romance languages, i.e. Franco-Provençal (Eastern France and Western Switzerland), Occitan (S ...


References


Citations


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * . * . * * * * ''Recueil des inscriptions gauloises'' (XLVe supplément à «GALLIA»). ed. Paul-Marie Duval et al. 4 vols. Paris: CNRS, 1985–2002. * * * * * * * *


Further reading

* Beck, Noémie. "Celtic Divine Names Related to Gaulish and British Population Groups." In: ''Théonymie Celtique, Cultes, Interpretatio - Keltische Theonymie, Kulte, Interpretatio''. Edited by Hofeneder, Andreas and De Bernardo Stempel, Patrizia, by Hainzmann, Manfred and Mathieu, Nicolas. Wein: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2013. 51-72. www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv8mdn28.7. * Hamp, Eric P. "Gaulish ordinals and their history". In: ''Études Celtiques'', vol. 38, 2012. pp. 131–135. OI: https://doi.org/10.3406/ecelt.2012.2349 ww.persee.fr/doc/ecelt_0373-1928_2012_num_38_1_2349* Lambert, Pierre-Yves. "Le Statut Du Théonyme Gaulois." In Théonymie Celtique, Cultes, Interpretatio - Keltische Theonymie, Kulte, Interpretatio, edited by Hofeneder Andreas and De Bernardo Stempel Patrizia, by Hainzmann Manfred and Mathieu Nicolas, 113-24. Wein: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2013. www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv8mdn28.11. * * Mullen, Alex; Darasse, Coline Ruiz. "Gaulish". In: ''Palaeohispanica: revista sobre lenguas y culturas de la Hispania antigua'' n. 20 (2020): pp. 749–783. DOI: 10.36707/palaeohispanica.v0i20.383 * Witczak, Krzysztof Tomasz. "Gaulish SUIOREBE ‘with two sisters’", Lingua Posnaniensis 57, 2: 59–62, doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/linpo-2015-0011


External links


L.A. Curchin, "Gaulish language"
* Langues et écriture en Gaule Romaine by Hélène Chew of the Musée des Antiquités Nationales

{{Authority control Extinct languages of Europe Languages attested from the 3rd century BC Languages extinct in the 6th century Subject–verb–object languages