Breton Language

Breton is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany, a large peninsula that makes up the westernmost portion of France. Long thought to be a continuation of Gaulish, an ancient Celtic language that flourished before the Roman conquest of Western Europe, Breton is now recognized primarily as a language brought to France by emigrants who left Britain before and during the Anglo-Saxon invasion that took place between the fifth and seventh centuries CE.

While Breton has never been a widely used language, its speakers have left a lasting literary legacy. Most notable among their contributions are the Breton lais, a series of writings based on Breton oral poetry that later helped to inspire the legendary tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

Today, after many years of suppression at the hands of French government officials, Breton is considered an endangered language, with only an estimated five hundred thousand active speakers. Despite its gradual decline toward extinction, Breton remains a historically significant and culturally important language.

History and Classification

The earliest roots of the Breton language stretch back to the Celtic languages once spoken throughout Gaul, an ancient land that included all of modern-day France, as well as Luxembourg, Belgium, and parts of Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy. These languages remained in use until the Romans conquered most of Gaul, at which point they were largely supplanted by Latin, the official language of the Roman government. Later, when the Roman Empire fell into decline, Anglo-Saxon raiders began to invade its northernmost territories, including the former province of Britain, starting in the early fifth century CE. In response, many Celtic-speaking Britons left their native home and resettled in a region they called Brittany, or "Little Britain," in what would eventually become western France. It was in this environment, most scholars agree, that Breton first evolved as an offshoot of British Celtic that was likely influenced to some degree by the surviving remnants of the Celtic languages formerly spoken in Gaul.

Breton is classified as part of the Brythonic family of Celtic languages, alongside Welsh and Cornish. The development of Breton as a Brythonic language reflects the close relationship shared by the religious communities of Brittany, Wales, and Cornwall in the medieval era. Religion also contributed to the development of separate dialects within the broader Breton language. Many historians believe that Breton began as a unified language that later split into four distinct dialects that were named after the dioceses of Brittany: Léonais, after the diocese of Léon; Trégorrois, after the diocese of Tréguier; Cornouaillais, after the diocese of Cornouaille; and Vannetais, after the diocese of Vannes. Today, two recognized Breton dialect groups exist: KLT, which includes Cornouaille (Kerne), Léon, and Trégor, and Vannetais.

During Brittany’s time as an autonomous duchy in the medieval period, French, which was the language of the nobility and the church hierarchy, began to take prominence over Breton. Gradually, and especially after Brittany was annexed by France in 1532, Breton’s linguistic borders began to shrink. Over the last few centuries, Breton’s decline also has been aided by the French government’s efforts to impose French as an official language. As early as the nineteenth century, leaders of France’s centralized national education system started working to eradicate Breton and other regional dialects, an effort that has effectively left Breton on the brink of extinction.

Regardless of Breton’s decline as an active language and its uncertain future, its legacy is likely to remain intact thanks to some of its early users’ literary accomplishments. The earliest known surviving text written in Breton is a series of song segments that a Breton-speaking monk added to a copy of Vincent de Beauvais’s Speculum historiale in the fourteenth century. The most remarkable Breton contribution to literature, however, are the Breton lais, written by Marie de France and others in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Although composed in French, the Breton lais, which include references to a number of Arthurian heroes, are thought to be based on oral poems once performed by Breton-speaking minstrels. Ultimately, these tales were precursors to the many famous medieval romances that later featured the exploits of the legendary King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Other known Breton texts include a passion play published in 1530 and Barsaz Breiz, a collection of folk poetry written by Hersart de la Villemarqué in 1839.

Geographic Distribution and Modern Usage

At present, the use of Breton remains isolated to Brittany. Current official estimates place the likely number of active Breton speakers at about five hundred thousand all of whom are bilingual. While some experts contend that as many as 1.2 million people understand and are capable of using Breton, less than half that number actually use it as a first language in day-to-day life. Furthermore, the future outlook for the survival of Breton appears to be even bleaker than these statistics would suggest, due to the fact that most active speakers of the language are now past the age of sixty. Fortunately, however, the extinction of Breton may not be a foregone conclusion; a concerted effort to save the language is now underway. At the forefront of this effort are the Diwan bilingual schools. Founded in the 1970s, these schools work to ensure that the youth of Brittany have the opportunity to learn Breton and keep the traditional language of their ancestors alive for generations to come.

Bibliography

"Breton." Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics. Ed. Keith Brown, et al. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2005. 129–131. Print.

"Breton." Endangered Language Alliance. 2012. Web. 27 August 2015. http://elalliance.org/projects/celtic-languages/breton/

Dalby, Andrew. "Breton." Dictionary of Languages. 1st rev. ed. London: A&C Black Publishers, 2004. 97–98. Print.

Duc, Gwenaël Le, Antone Minard, and John T. Koch. "Breton Language." The Celts: History, Life, and Culture. Ed. John T. Koch and Antone Minard. Vol. 1. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2012. 112–114. Print.