The Celtic Languages

Today's video is all about the Celtic Language family!

(Disclosure: The above link is an affiliate link, so Langfocus gets a small referral fee - at no extra cost to you)

Special thanks to Bartley Hudson for reading the Irish samples and to Tim Tatw for reading the Welsh samples.

My current Patrons include these wonderful people: Brandon Gonzalez, Guillermo Jimenez, Sidney Frattini Junior, Bennett Seacrist, Ruben Sanchez, Michael Cuomo, Eric Garland, Brian Michalowski, Sebastian Langshaw, Yixin Alfred Wang, Vadim Sobolev, Maurice Chow, Matthew Cockburn, Raymond Thomas, Simon Blanchet, Ryan Marquardt, Sky Vied, Romain Paulus, Panot, Erik Edelmann, Bennet, James Zavaleta, Ulrike Baumann, Ian Martyn, Justin Faist, Jeff Miller, Stephen Lawson, Howard Stratton, George Greene, Panthea Madjidi, Nicholas Gentry, Sergios Tsakatikas, Bruno Filippi, Sergio Tsakatikas, Qarion, Pedro Flores, Raymond Thomas, Marco Antonio Barcellos Junior, David Beitler, Rick Gerritzen, Sailcat, Mark Kemp, Éric Martin, Leo Barudi, Piotr Chmielowski, Suzanne Jacobs, Johann Goergen, Darren Rennels, Caio Fernandes, Iddo Berger, and Brent Werner for their generous Patreon support.

Music

Main:

Outro:

[Langfocus]

(it's about 30 seconds long). Thanks!

[menelise]

I was born in Wales, but was not allowed to speak or learn my own language druing the 1950s. As an adult, now living outside Wales, I have tried to learn Welsh, but find it difficult. I feel a great loss at not having my own language and instead having had to use English instead.
A significant community of Welsh speakers, including bilingual Spanish-Welsh schools, exists in Patagonia, Argentina.

[tziuriky]

I'm a Sardinian living in Ireland.. once I expressed my interest on learning Gaelic to my Irish landlord, and he got so mad that he almost insulted me, literally calling Irish Gaelic "rubbish". He went on stating that his children better don't waste time learning Irish, and that they should spend that time learning French, just in case they travel to France on holidays one day! It was really depressing! Recently, some customers in a restaurant in Cork, Ireland, complained about an employee who was speaking Gaelic, so the restaurant manager forbid all employees to speak Gaelic, despite it's the Official language of the Republic of Ireland! Sooo depressing!

[angharadhafod]

I speak Welsh.
Today I was in a pharmacy in Aberystwyth. I initially spoke to the lady behind the counter in English. Then, hearing her Welsh accent and seeing her name badge (a Welsh name), I asked her if she spoke Welsh. She did, so we continued in Welsh.
Why did I start in English? Because the previous time I had been into that pharmacy, I spoke in Welsh first. The man behind the counter said to me, in a condescending way, "Could you say that in French" (which I then did ... that's beside the point - and actually didn't help matters, as I don't think he understood that either).
Part of the problem with Welsh at the moment is not that people don't speak it, but that many of those who don't speak it also do not respect it. And that discourages its use.
A note on your figures for the number of Welsh speakers: the 508, 000 comes I think from the 1991 census. It is higher than that now.

[martagarciapuig]

Hello! I am Catalan, but I have been living in Ireland (Dublin) for two years now. Even if no one speaks Irish in Dublin, I have been studying Irish since I arrived in Ireland and I love it! I will always defend it because I think it deserves all our support. If we don't defend it, it won't survive and I don't want it to go extinct. As a native speaker of a minority language (Catalan) I am very sympathetic towards Irish gaelic. Is breá liom Gaeilge!!!

[IwanScience]

I speak Welsh, it is my first language. I do speak it outside of school. I think that being able to speak Welsh is part of my culture. It is important as it is part of my social culture and can benefit me in the sense that knowing 2 different languages will benefit my way of thinking.
I

[izoldguegan]

I'm a Breton native speaker. Thank you for your video! I have been raised in Breton and sent to a Breton school as well. I use the language in my daily life (so many parts of the Internet have been translated to Breton over the past years), with my friends and family. I do not imagine my life without this language. Even though French has became the dominating language in Brittany, the Breton language is now a reason of pride while it used to be a reason of shame during the two past centuries. I want to be optimistic, seeing the growing number of people learning the language and the development of Breton in the public spaces. The biggest threat to the Breton language is now, in my opinion, no longer the French language, but rather the way it can be taught. Teaching a language is not enough to save it (see the example of Latin). It has to live in the lives of people on a daily basis :-)

[BeefGeneral]

I'm irish and live in Australia now. I met a Breton French man and was surprised to find out he felt strong ties to Ireland and had learned some Gaeilge himself!

[lokstreet]

I come from Brittany. I understand few cornish or welsh words because our own celtic languages have similar brythonic roots. For exemple, to say "Merry Christmas" in Brittany, we say "Nedeleg Laouen". In Cornwall it say "Nadelik Lowen" and in Wales it say "Nadolig Llawen". We have to fight to keep our languages alive.
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇮🇪🇮🇲Celtic United🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿==➕

[imladris]

I am a native Welsh speaker from North Wales. All of my family and most of my local community speak Welsh. I find it very valuable to speak Welsh because it's a vital part of my life, the community I live in and the history of Wales. "Cenedl heb iaith yw cenedl heb galon" (A nation without a launguage is a nation without a heart). I very much hope the Welsh language survives and thrives in the years to come and that we'll meet the goal of a million Welsh seakers by 2050 set out by the Welsh government.

[HeavenlyEchoVirus]

Unfortunately it isn't that these languages are simply "dying off." They were actively suppressed for centuries, along with all sorts of cultural practices, and people were punished for using their own languages. Even now, the culture is such that these languages are often put down, and the difficulty in trying to use them more broadly helps reinforce the original colonial attempt to wipe them out. It is really a lot like the policies in Canada that tried to totally wipe out First Nations languages and cultures.
Language really influences how we see and understand the world, which is why languages become targets for those who want to control others.

[JohnMacbeth]

I'm Cornish, can say it's being taught in schools again here thankfully.

[stiofanocathmhaoil]

I'm a fluent Irish speaker from Belfast and I speak Irish everyday outside the education system.

[gruffhuwsfilms]

I speak welsh and speak it with my family and most lf my friends. It is definately one of the most valuable things we have in Wales (Cymru)🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿.

[JVFNAF]

Hey! I'm from Brittany (Bretagne in French). Very true, even my grandparents don't speak Breton for the simple reason they were forbidden to do so ever since school. It was considered as a "dirty" or "peasant" language. Plus, French Republic has always shitted on regional languages since the Revolution, because "the only language of the Republic is French"! Yeah, the Declaration of Men's Rights quickly was thrown to the trash. All of my family is from Brittany yet (as far as I know) only one cousin of mine speaks it. We now have Diwan schools, bilingual road signs and regional TV&radio channels but everyone speaks in French.

[naamashang]

I speak Scottish Gaelic and was a bit disappointed that there were no examples of it in the video, but I so thoroughly enjoyed it! I am not a native speaker, but am passionate about it and plan to move to Scotland in order to help the wonderful people who are keeping the language alive. I also plan on helping to establish a Braille code in Scottish Gaelic. Even within the 2 language groups, intelligibility is limited when listening to spoken language, but is better when reading. I do hope we continue our efforts to keep those beautiful, endangered languages alive.

[stevealferenc]

When I travelled to Llanfairengogogoch in 2010, the whole town was speaking Welsh, everyone on the streets of all ages, and English was only used when we approached them in English.

[abelsanchezbechur]

In the Patagonia, Argentina, there's an important community of Welsh speakers, they came some centuries ago

[johndeclan]

Haven’t seen many Scots in the comments so here’s my take: I speak English as my first language and speak almost fluent Scottish Gaelic. I am aware that in the Highlands and Hebrides it is quite common to speak Gaelic but living in a large(ish) city, where most of the Scottish population is, I truly never hear it around. Scottish Gaelic truly is a beautiful language and it deeply disheartens me to see it die out. If the government does not even try to save it, it is already dead

[jesssdouglasss]

I live in Wales and I speak Welsh every day with huge pride. Welsh is my mother tongue. I speak it at home with my parents and siblings. I speak it with my friends in and outside of school. My hope is to go to university to study through the medium of Welsh. I don’t feel my English is the best as I rarely speak it. However, I hear it all the time. I.e. the wider community, the media, tv, social media etc. It’s my privilege to speak Welsh and I feel, as many Welsh speakers do, it is my duty to look after it as so many generations of my family have despite all the obstacles they had to face. You might want to google ‘the Welsh Not’ as 1 example. Diolch yn fawr.