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The opening verses of the fourteenth-century Cornish play Origo Mundi. Prior to the 5th century AD, most people in Great Britain spoke a Brythonic language, but the number of these speakers declined sharply throughout the Anglo-Saxon period (between the 5th and 11th centuries), when Brythonic languages were displaced by the West Germanic dialects that are now known collectively as Old English.
The word shares a root with the Germanic word that survives in English as heath.Both descend from a root */kait-/, which developed as Common Celtic */kaito-/ > Common Brittonic and Gaulish */kɛːto-/ > Old Welsh coit > Middle and Modern Welsh coed, Old Cornish cuit > Middle Cornish co(y)s > Cornish cos, Old Breton cot, coet > Middle Breton koed > Breton koad.
The third plaque is the longest text discovered in any ancient Celtic language. However, this plaque is inscribed in Latin script. [45] Celtic is divided into various branches: Lepontic, the oldest attested Celtic language (from the 6th century BC). [46] Anciently spoken in Switzerland and in Northern-Central Italy.
During the period of their earliest attestation, the languages appear to be indistinguishable, but they gradually evolved into the Cornish and Breton languages. They evolved from the Common Brittonic formerly spoken across most of Britain and were thus related to the Welsh and Cumbric varieties spoken in Wales and the Hen Ogledd (the Old North ...
All surviving Celtic languages are in the Insular group, including Breton, which is spoken on continental Europe in Brittany, France. The Continental Celtic languages, although once widely spoken in mainland Europe and in Anatolia, [1] are extinct. Six Insular Celtic languages are extant (in all cases written and spoken) in two distinct groups:
Pictish, which became extinct around 1000 years ago, was the spoken language of the Picts in Northern Scotland. [3] Despite significant debate as to whether this language was Celtic, items such as geographical and personal names documented in the region gave evidence that this language was most closely aligned with the Brittonic branch of Celtic languages. [3]
The term is mostly used for the Celtic peoples of the isles up until the early Middle Ages, covering the British–Irish Iron Age, Roman Britain and Sub-Roman Britain. They included the Celtic Britons, the Picts, and the Gaels. The Insular Celtic languages spread throughout the islands during the Bronze Age or early Iron Age.
Brittonic *Brittonikā, Brythonic, British Celtic Geographic distribution: Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, in antiquity all of Great Britain and the Isle of Man, during the Early Middle Ages in Northern England and Southern Scotland and other western parts of Britain, Pictland, Galicia