"Bale Arzur" - "Arthur's March" - Medieval Breton Ballad - Kanaouenn Brezhonek

"Arthur's March" was recorded by the Breton philologist Théodore Hersart de La Villemarqué, obtained from Mikel Floc'h, an old mountaineer of Leuc'han. The Middle-Breton verse was said to have been popularly sung as late as the 1790s during the Chouannerie, by Breton peasants as they marched to battle against French Republicans. It was adapted and first published in Barzaz Breiz ("Ballads of Brittany") in 1839, a compilation of folk songs and legends collected by La Villemarqué.
Performed by Ar Breizerien, 1974.

[@roberthudson3386]

I am a Welsh speaker, love this tune and the beautiful bagpipe playing. Trugarez!
I am fascinated by the Breton language, and while I agree with Dearthvader below that listening to Breton, to me, is fairly similar in sound to listening to French, to the extent that to my ear it's hard to tell much difference, it's interesting to read the lyrics written out with an English translation. When you do this, you can see all the cognate words with Welsh and/or Cornish and the Celtic nature of the language becomes much clearer, with common roots for many words, especially basic ones. The cognates are all over the place in this song, a few examples of the cognates between the Breton and Welsh below:
map = mab = son
tad = tad = father
holl = oll = all (though the "ll" pronunciation is different in Breton)
lavare = said / llefaru = recite
beure = bore = morning
marc'hegerien = marchogion = knights
kalon = calon = heart
lagad = llygad = eye
am = am = for
penn = pen = head
brec'h = braich = arm
laz = death / lladd = kill
krec'h - possibly crug = knoll (hill)
mamm = mam = mother
merc'h = merch = daughter
marc'h = march = horse
kazek = caseg = mare
Penn-lu = Pen y llu = "head of the army"/general
den = dyn = man
goas = gwas = lad
goad = gwaed = blood
daerou = dagrau = tears
tan = tan = fire
grouaz = gwres = heat
tri = tri = three
unan = un = one
bre = bre (old Welsh) / bryn (modern Welsh) = hill
I have also done a bit of research with Welsh dictionaires online and discovered two other cognates I didn't even know existed.
"Cad" ("gad" in this song because of the mutation grammatical rule) is apparently a word for "battle" also in Welsh. We normally use "brwydr", and I had never heard of it before, so maybe it is an old word. With that you can see how "c'hadour" would equate to "cadwr" (battler) or something like that in Welsh.
"Câr" is translated as "relation" on this website: geiriadur.uwtsd.ac.uk/ .
In this song it is written as "kar" = kin. So again this has a similar meaning, but I had never heard of this word before because we would normally use "teulu" (family) to refer to both relation and family. But it shows the common ancestors of the words. I know this is a middle Breton song so I'm curious whether it is intelligble to modern Breton speakers.
It's fascinating that as a modern day Welsh speaker I can basically understand (with a bit of research) this entire song. Understanding Breton is a bit like relearning how to play an old game from your youth you haven't played in years. You can work it out if you put the time into it!
It's great to learn about our cousins' language through music. I wish someone would create an English-Breton or Welsh-Breton duolingo!

[@balladsofhistory]

That’s one of the reasons why it was so interesting to translate, all those Brythonic cognates. Translating and listening to these songs is a great way to get acquainted with languages. However, nothing compares to actually being there and hearing it spoken amongst the locals. Glad to hear you enjoyed it. Diolch yn fawr iawn!

[@zoetropo1]

Bretons sound much more French since universal education in that language. Older Breton speakers sounded more Celtic, or even had a kind of educated West Country 'English' accent.

[@roberthudson3386]

@@zoetropo1 The Diwan schools must promote an authentic Celtic accent!

[@kanaouennoubreizh]

Hi, come on my channel if you want some breton music !

[@lupus_croatiae]

I like the best the fact that Bretons use tune of Hen Wlad fy nhadau for their anthem. In Euro 2016 , welsh national football team stayed in Brittany and people received them as cousins. I'm fascinated with your cultures although I'm Croatian and have never even been to your countries. Both cymraeg and brezhoneg are beautiful. Native breton speakers do sound more authentic.
I heard that Bretons who would find work in England and learned english there would be often asked from which part of Wales did they come from, since their accent would develop the same way. And many understood bits welsh and cornish if they had a chance to hear it.

[@noahtylerpritchett2682]

I understand some of these words as I learn Welsh. Love it

[@noahtylerpritchett2682]

Love it

[@kanaouennoubreizh]

Hi, come on my channel if you want some breton music !

[@KingMoogoe]

So cool

[@SantaFe19484]

So, Breton is a Celtic language with a French accent?

[@balladsofhistory]

Don’t necessarily hear a French accent here, though the vocabulary sounds very similar to Cornish.

[@SantaFe19484]

@@balladsofhistory I don't think I have ever heard Cornish before; it sounds a little nasal.

[@cintaratna6083]

The frankification of the accent is a problem that many breton speakers acknowledge.

[@Dearth_Vader]

The nasal vowels make it sound deceitfully french, if i was listening to a breton speaker i probably couldnt tell it apart from french except for maybe a few unmistakably celtic words

[@balladsofhistory]

​@@Dearth_Vader Perhaps I'm mistaken. One could even say Cornish is "a Celtic language with an English accent", dare I say it. The Breton vocabulary here is unmistakably Celtic (sharing numerous similarities with Cornish), with a few Latin loan words sprinkled here and there, but the nasal is a dead give away