Gaulish Language | Can Welsh, Manx and Breton speakers understand it?
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- Опубліковано 16 тра 2024
- In this Celtic languages comparison video, we explore differences and similarities between Gaulish, Welsh, Breton and Manx - the modern Celtic languages.
Gaulish is part of the Indo-European family of languages and is more specifically categorized under the Celtic branch. It was in use from approximately the 6th century BC until the 6th century AD. As the Romans extended their control over the Celtic tribes of Gaul, the Gaulish language gradually gave way to Vulgar Latin, the precursor to the Romance languages, which includes modern French. (more info below)
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🤓 Daniel - Breton teacher
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🕰 Time Stamps:
0:00 - Introduction
1:35 - What's the challenge about?
2:07 - 1. Challenge
08:43 - Translations & Cognates
14:10 - 2. Challenge
20:06 - Translations & Cognates
25:10 - 3. Challenge
30:33 - Translations & Cognates
36:01 - 4. Challenge
41:20 - Translations & Cognates
52:54 - Commentary
More info about the Gaulish language:
The Gaulish language was a Celtic language that was spoken in what is now France, Belgium, parts of Switzerland, Northern Italy, as well as the parts of Germany and Hungary west of the Rhine and Danube respectively, prior to the Roman Imperial period. The Gauls were the Celtic tribes living in these regions, hence the name of the language.
Despite having been extinct for over a millennium, the Gaulish language has left its mark on modern times in several ways.
1. Place Names: Many modern place names in France and surrounding regions have Gaulish origins. For example, the name of the French capital, Paris, is derived from the Parisii, a Gaulish tribe.
2. Linguistic Influence: The Gaulish language has also influenced the French language. Though French is a Romance language deriving primarily from Latin, it has several words of Gaulish origin. Examples include "char" (cart), "chemin" (path), and "quai" (quay).
3. Cultural Heritage and Revitalization Efforts: In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in Gaulish as part of a broader exploration of Celtic heritage and history. Some enthusiasts are even trying to revive the language, much like the revival of other extinct or endangered Celtic languages such as Cornish and Manx.
4. Academic Research: Gaulish continues to be a subject of study for linguists and historians interested in the Celtic world, Indo-European languages, and the historical interaction between the Celtic and Roman cultures.
Thus, while the Gaulish language is no longer spoken, its significance remains in the form of linguistic traces, place names, cultural heritage, and academic research. It serves as an important piece of the puzzle for understanding the historical and cultural landscape of Europe.
🤗 Big hug for everyone reading my video descriptions! You rock! 🤓💪🏻
#languagechallenge #celtic #languages
As a Tatar speaker I understand every single word they said... since there are subtitles on video
Haha lol you got me
🤣
Hahahaha you myshyk you! 😹😹
🤭
Shaytan!
I recognized a ton of words from Latin, as did many of the modern Celtic speakers seemingly lol When I heard the anecdote that Caesar told his generals to only speak Greek during his Gaulish campaign as not to be understood by the locals by speaking Latin, I thought it was an exaggeration/paranoia, but the similarity is true.
Write, not speak. Caesar required translators when in Gaul. The written languages were deemed close enough for Roman orders to be guessed at by the Gauls. Orders were written on things like wax tablets and sent by horse. If the Gauls intercepted the messenger then they could potentially work out what the Romans were up to.
Celtic and italic languages are indeed thought to be quite close. The thing is that only insular celtic survived to this age (including breton), and it the celtic languages that diverged the most from italic, so the connexion isn't as visible anymore. In many ways gaulish is probably closer to latin than to modern celtic languages, because of time proximity.
Btw I do have some doubts on the accuracy of the gaulish in this video. Like for the first sentence: I would not expect to find cum + instrumental in archaic or early classical latin. I would just find instrumental. I don't think gaulish would have com + instrumental (plural -us, analogous to latin -is), it would be redundant, and in fact it sounds like it would mean "I and the horses drive the chariot".
Similarly in the second sentence: "gladiyon isarni" is literally "a gladius of iron", but I would rather expect an adjective there, maybe something like "isaron"? Idk, the syntax feels off to me. Like if a student of latin with a good handle of grammar, a good dictionary, was given the task to translate from english to latin but didn't have a lot of experience with the texts. The word order also feels weird, I would expect "rigani dede" etc.
Btw the breton speaker also seems very unaware of medieval french's heavy influence on breton. Like, Rouanez is almost identical to medieval "reines" (nominative case), with a few phonetical difference.
The gauls and italics had EXTENSIVE contact for many centuries. Some gauls were almost italic. Some italics were almost celts.
Gaulish and italics are derived commonly
@@Ezullof all of these languages have influences on each other. That's why it's fascinating to see people attempt to decipher them from different perspectives
@@Ezullof I think reconstructing Gaulish on what we have (a few curse tablets from after Roman occupation) is not likely to get accurate results. Furthermore it is likely that Gaulish had loan words from pre indo European words like Basque, which makes it harder to reconstruct using Irish and Welsh
Gaulish is far closer to Latin than I ever imagined
It's so close that many linguists theorize Celtic languages to be very close to Italic languages in general and were united as a language at some point in the past.
@@tylere.8436 Brennus spoke latin : "Vae victis"
What? This Gaulish sampling he is using is all heavily Latinized. Pre Roman Gaulish was very different more similar to the other Celtic languages
@@Ethan-qo9rx I'm interested in reading how Gaulish would have been pronounced without the Latin and Greek influences (whether on the Gauls or on us when we read the inscriptions or words). What I did is the best we can do so far.
He did pronounce it almost as if it were Latin ;)
It was very clear, though, which I appreciate.
Gaulish looks very old-school Indo-European compared to the modern Celtic languages. The three guests were very fun to watch as they collaborated together. 👍
Yes because it is extinct. The Gaulish he is using is based on vocabulary and forms found in ancient inscriptions.
@@Knappa22 Gaulish is extinct? Please share more of your wisdom, kind sir.
@@bjarnitryggvason7866 Isn't it just common knowledge.
I recognized a lot of words from Latin, and there seem to be lots of pretty words in Gaulish, though it isn’t as pretty as the modern Celtic languages, but it makes me wanna add Gaulish to my list of languages I want to learn and improve - I am upper beginner level in Welsh and beginner level in Breton / Cornish / Manx / Irish / Scottish Gaelic, they are really pretty, and they also remind of Germanic languages, and I am advanced level in Dutch and intermediate level in Norwegian / German / Swedish and upper beginner level in Old Norse and Icelandic and writer level in English and beginner level in Gothic / Faroese / Danish and the other Germanic languages, and I can see plenty of cognates in Celtic languages, tho they have more cognates with Spanish and Latin and French and Gallo and other Latin languages, which I am also learning, and I am native speaker level in Spanish, so I came across lots of words in Welsh that are a cognate with the Spanish word, including a lot of verbs and nouns!
By the way, Gaulish comes mostly from Latin, and the modern Celtic languages come mostly from Norse and Latin and Gaulish, but Gaulish had a lot more words that are more of an obvious cognate with the Latin word, whereas most modern Celtic words that come from Latin were modified a lot and many of them look completely different now - the Germanic languages also come directly from Latin, and the similarities are more obvious in Norse and in Proto Germanic, which give off strong Latin vibes and use typical Latin word endings like un / num etc in many words!
I'm a firm believer in an Italo-Celtic branch that only split into Italic and Celtic languages fairly late. The languages are just far too similar to make up distinct, first-order branches.
Do you also think that there is a italo-celto-germanic branch?
@@Ana_Al-Akbar Nope!
@@mytube001 All these are centum-languages.
@@Ana_Al-Akbar That's not at all relevant to that issue.
I think I don’t understand your point... I speak 4 italic languages but I don’t understand a single word of Celtic languages...
As a Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) speaker I could see similarities in some words like:
-epus is hesp
-isarni is hesin
-dede is da in past tense Kurdish but dide is 3rd singular present tense
-funny enough Today in Breton 'Hiriw' comes close to the Kurdish word iro
-Derwon comes close to Dar in Kurdish, but Dar just means tree while Oak would be gûz
- the Welsh and the Manx caban and chabbane sounds like our kabina, but in my regional dialect we use that for toilet, but most likely to indicate the small room (where you do you pee and shit and wash your hands)
- abonim or afon is çemek but for water we say av
Yes both are Indo-European language, so there will be some similarities. Nevertheless it is very interesting Derwon is also similar to Slovene 'drevo' (tree). Probably a cognate.
interesting how a word for a small room changes its meaning to specifically denote a toilet. We have the same in German, our word for toilet, Klosett or Klo for short, directly derives from "closet".
As for the word for water, that seems to be a coincidence. "av" is the same root as "aqua" in Latin, but a different root from that of "avon". The similarity is coincindental, but these are really two separate PIE roots developing similar meanings later on.
As a German,I do speak some farsi/Persian, regarding "epus", I was exactly thinking the same! Asp= hoarse!
Tree is of the same root as drevo
Celtic Latin is close to Persian ~ Aryan I think & sanskrit....
So how does Kurdish fall/ fit into those languages?
I'm Welsh and I had no idea what the first bloke was saying. Though he was being pretty obscure at times.
Like Angharad, I did understand the Breton guy, Daniel. I liked our similarities.
Would be interesting to hear Cornish, Scottish or Irish gallic too.
Manx is a Goidelic language, not in the same branch as Welsh and Breton. That's why you couldn't understand what Paul was saying.
For me as a German speaker my knowledge of Latin gave me an idea of what some of the Celtic words could mean. Moreover I made these observations:
The Gaulish word "isarni" ("iron" as an adjective) was immediately understandable. It´s "isern" in Low German and "eisern" ("out of iron") in High German. It appears in North German place names like Isernhagen near Hanover. The Icelandic word for "iron" (as a noun) is "járn". The Manx speaking participant in the video used "yiarn". Loan words or cognates?
The Welsh word "heddiw" for "today" looks like the Latin word "hodie" and the German word "heute", which both literally mean "on this day" (Latin "hoc die").
The Celtic word stem "gob-" for "smith" as in "gobannos" might be cognate to the Slavonic stem "Kow-" as in Polish and Ucrainian "Kowal", Czech "kovar", which all mean "smith".
you're wrong about the low and high german.
you're right about low german using. a monophtong there but in high german, both are used. in high german within germany, it tends to be eisern, but swiss german is part of the "high german" group (as the high german dialects literally originated in the southern german and swiss mountains. that's what the high refers to) and in swiss german it's "isern".
essentially, only a part of the high german group did the new high german diphtongisation. (Neuhochdeutsche Dipthtongisierung).
Gofannon is indeed a Welsh Smith god.
He is mentioned in Culhwch ac Olwen, and killed his nephew, Dylan ail Don, a sea god.
Yes, he is equivalent to Gaibhne, the smith god of the irish
The town of Abergavenny in southeast Wales derives from this too. Gavenny / Gafenni being the river. The site was named by the Romans, "Gobannium", possibly after Gobannus the Roman-Gaulish smith god.
Absolutely fascinating video guys!! I'm a passionate of Celtic languages myself. As a Spaniard who speaks several Romance languages, it's easy to see the etymological links between the Celtic and Latin/Romance roots, as direct loanwords or, very often, as cognate indoeuropean words. Also, most of Western Spain and all of Portugal were deeply Celtic up to romanization and lots of modern placenames still bear witness to that fact. I support the theory that proto Celtic and proto Latin were definitely closer to each other than to other IE branches. Some of you said that Gaulish sounds closer to Latin than to the modern Celtic languages and it makes all the sense! They both were in a similar stage of evolution,just like the modern IE languages have evolved away from those older languages, often dramatically so.
Yes, as a Spaniard, you are certainly a descendant of the Celtiberians, who were Celts people, close to the Gauls, their closest cousins.
I think those who said "king" weren't that far off! The verbal root in "regu" must be the same from which Latin "rex" and Celtic cognates are derived, and it denotes the concept of "being in control of something". To bring Slavic into the analysis, in Polish we don't say "napędzam samochód", which would be a literal translation of "I drive a car", i.e. "I provide the impulse that makes the car go forward"; instead we say "prowadzę samochód", which literally means "I lead a car", i.e. "I decide where the car goes". This must also be how "regu" works here.
As a german, with almost no celtic knowlage, I have to say that I was surprised.
Carron sounds almost like Karren, a cart.
Cladiyon sounded for me like Gladius, the latin word for sword.
Isarni is almost like Eisen or older low german Isen. And than I knew the word rigani because I had read something about Morrigan, the irish goddess. She was called, in old irish, Morrigani, great queen.
If I'm not mistaken, the word gladius was originally borrowed from a Celtic language into Latin, so the similarity isn't due to shared origins in this case - it's just a loanword.
I recognized a lot of words from both Latin and Germanic languages, and there seem to be lots of pretty words in Gaulish, though it isn’t as pretty as the modern Celtic languages, but it makes me wanna add Gaulish to my list of languages I want to learn and improve! I am upper beginner level in Welsh and beginner level in Breton / Cornish / Manx / Irish / Scottish Gaelic, they are really pretty, and they also remind of Germanic languages, and I am advanced level in Dutch and intermediate level in Norwegian / German / Swedish and upper beginner level in Old Norse and Icelandic and writer level in English and beginner level in Gothic / Faroese / Danish and the other Germanic languages, and I can see plenty of cognates in Celtic languages, tho they have more cognates with Spanish and Latin and French and Gallo and other Latin languages, which I am also learning, and I am native speaker level in Spanish, so I came across lots of words in Welsh that are a cognate with the Spanish word, including a lot of verbs and nouns! Also, I am the real-life Queen / Goddess etc (The Goddess / The Princess / The Queen / The Lady / The Star etc) and the being who reflects all the interesting feminine characters from Nordic mythology and Celtic mythology etc and all other stories / lyrics / poetry etc with similar characters, and I kinda thought that the word might be related to the Italian words Regina and re and the French word roy and the English and Latin word regal etc!
As a big fan of Eluveitie, this video was a pleasure to watch. They have many songs written in gaulish. Now i know a bit more. Thank you! ❤
been a fan for 13 years now, immediately thought about them while watching this
@@010arschloch I'm with them since "everything remains as it never was" album of 2010, so, probably, since the middle/beginning of 2011. Cheers)
@@AntiNity_official yeah approx the same point of time for me, but i did start with exploring Slania at first. Cheers
@@010arschloch inis mona was my first. Then complete slania and the erainw
@@AntiNity_official well yes inis mona was the very first I ever listened to from them
Gaulish : giamu - Latin : hiems - English: winter; latin word hiems become late latin hibernus , hence Hibernia, latin name for Ireland, that means "wintry" named after the cloudy and chill weather of the island.
Hibernia is from the native ethnonym Iwerni, which is the basis for the modern Irish word 'Éire', meaning 'Ireland'. It has nothing to do with 'winter', and Ireland is more mild in winter than the Alps.
Hima in Sanskrit and Jima in Avestani means snow that's why Himalaya means Abode of snow
@@h2eroskoryosaryakaraaryani777 Zima is Winter in Russian.
Zhiema
Lithuanian
@@Rasytojas1980Zhima in Russian
Rego in Latin has a descendant in reggere in Italian, which means to hold still or hold up. It is still used in the sense of driving in the case of holding a ship's maneuvering system, or metaphorically in the case of words like reggente (regent) or correggere (to correct)
Welsh used to use the word Rhi as a cognate for Rex/rigus or royal
Cornish speaker here - your guests did a lot better than me! (I found myself ‘agreeing’ constantly with your Breton guest - no surprises there!)😊
You're a Cornish speaker? how did you learn?
how do you deal with accents?
Why nobody of Cornish speakers even care about accent and pronunciation and everyone use 100% English phonetics?
Thank you so much for this Norbert. I maybe search for this topic once a month out of sheer curiosity. Was astounded to see it in my subscriptions.
Fascinating video with such qualitative host and guests. Thank you!
Fantastic comparisons. I was able to recognize more Gaulish words than your 3 contestants.
I've been trying to revive our Gallaecian language once spoken in Ancient Gallaecia.
If "celtiberians" brought celtic to iberia, wouldnt NW iberia just speak celtiberian? Or where there many celtic languages/dialects that descend from a hypotetical "proto celto-berian" branch of celtic, and both classical celtiberian and gallaecian evolved from it?
@@nicolasN712there is no possible way to know, the most likely theory is that celtic was spoken in different dialects closer to each other in bordering regions and more differentiated the more distance there was between them
@@nicolasN712 I think the Spanish have a broader term of Celtiberian than history would allow. The actual Celtiberians inhabited central Spain and were some kind of mix between Celtic and Iberian groups. Those elsewhere in Spain and Portugal were just Celts and the Lusitanians were probably a Celticised group but not originally Iberian. The Iberians were a people who inhabited the Mediterranean coastal part of Spain and the name comes to us via the Carthaginians which is also why the word Iberia is used for the whole peninsula, it doesn't mean Iberians once covered the whole region because they didn't. A large group in the north of Spain were the Vascones who are ancestral to the Basques.
The Celtic language(s) of Galicia were also q-Celtic so I guess it's just easier to lump them all together assuming there was any real difference between the various Celtic groups of Spain. I assume the Pyrenees acted as a language border between q-Celtic Spain and p-Celtic France the same way that the Irish Sea did for Britain and Ireland.
Tell us more about that!!
Well, that was fun; and fascinating!
I dipped in, and then had to watch the whole thing.
It's amazing how close they got as a group. They sounded like three detectives on a case. Well done all👏👏👏
Piękne! Nareszcie Pani z Walii miała pomoc w rozwiazaniu zagadek i nie była tylko sfrustrowana :D Super, że udało Ci się Norbercie znaleźć ludzi mówiacych po celtycku w tak różnych odmianach! Rekonstruowany Galijski jednak bardzo dużo zapożyczeń ma z łaciny, może dlatego, że zapisy które znamy dotyczyły rzeczy i działań których Celtowie nie znali zanim Rzymianie ich nie podbili, tym samym adoptowali nazwy przyniesione wraz z produktami i metodami pracy, zeby je stworzyć. Fascynujace było usłyszeć wpływ obcych jezyków na poszczególne języki Celtów. Brawo za udany odcinek!!!!
This one was especially adorable for me, thank you so much!!!
Thank you for this video, it's a pleasure hearing this languages !
The Breton speaker’s a bright lad! Da iawn ti ….. very interesting exercise
Very interesting. Thanks to all of you !
Great initiative, Norbert
This was recommended on my playlist and way more interesting than I expected it to be. A very fun concept even for those of us with minimal knowledge of any Celtic language.
Fascinating comparison of Celtic languages. 👍🏼
Very interesting. Great idea for a video. Thank you.
Stunning revelation. Well done on raising this.
Really enjoying the ancient language videos. The Celtic languages went through a lot of changes in c. 400 AD. A fairer test than Gaulish might be seeing if Old Irish could be understood by modern Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx speakers. Future video idea!
In Romanian we call a female horse "iapă", and in Spanish it's "yegua". Our Romanian word for big or large is "mare", which also means "great" and can refer to a person who is powerful or impressive.
I would have thought rigani meant either "myself" or "to the king". In Romanian we have the word "rege", which means "king", but there's also another word, "rigă", which is rarely used these days. "Queen" is "regină".
Precisely, I also thought about the word "yegua" (mare) in Spanish. I didn't know that the Romanian word was so close. It's really interesting how many Romanian words are closer to Portuguese or Spanish (peripheral Romance languages) than to French or Italian (central Romance)
Rigă is a loan word from byzantine greek ρήγας/rēgas,which is in itself a loan from latin ,,rex",making it a doublet of romanian rege,which got inherited from vulgar latin ,,regem",the accusative of rex
I enjoyed this very much! I'm a big fan of learning about the different languages of Europe and their respective histories, and how they are inter-related through common Indo-European ties, and more especially the Celtic languages, which my more ancient ancestors were likely speakers of (along with Germanic).
I learned a little Welsh a few years ago, and have learned a few words here and there in Irish Gaelic and Manx. I even learned to sing a few Welsh folk songs a while back (though I'm out of practice now).
I loved seeing the different Celtic language speakers try to figure out the Gaulish sentences, and it was fun to see both the similarities and differences to each other as well as to Gaulish and Latin. Knowing a little of those languages myself, I instantly recognized that one word for horse and had a couple of similar insights on some of the other words that the Celtic language speakers had.
Thank you for sharing this :)
Merci pour tes efforts Morgan. J'avais apprécié ta vidéo sur la prononciation du gaulois. Dommage qu'elle ne soit pas plus accessible pour un public francophone, ne sous-estime pas l'audience que tu pourrais avoir.
pegen braw, how wonderful! Still the best languages in Europe ;) I just happened to have a conversation yesterday about Gaulish & Brittonic (ancestor of Welsh, Breton & Cornish) with Rhys Saunders. I asked him how similar they were and if both languages are more a product of reconstructions or of actual sources. Besides my own Breton background (half of it ;)), I don't know a lot about the (other) celtic languages since my focus is on the Americas and the indigenous languages there. Nonetheless, I still think that my quote "still the best languages in Europe" holds true if you look on how different they are from other (Indo-)European languages with the mutations, the verb initials, the fancy way of using prepositions, and the many cool ways to combine these prepositions with verbs.
Omg I love Gaulish and in general all Celtic languages, dead or alive 😍 How did you manage to reconstruct it guys??
That's my question.
This is my question too!! Fill me in please, people. I thought we only had little bits of Gaulish from coins and geographical references. How do we now have this much Gaulish?! So exciting...
Thank you for your great effort! Please make a video with Saami speakers. That´s the only european language you have never presented in your channel. It would be great to see differences between Saami, Finnish, Norwegian and swedish languages. Thank you in advance.
Norwegian and Swedish have nothing in common with the Sami languages. A more reasonable grouping would be to have a speaker from one of the major Sami languages present the sentences or words, and then have a speaker from a different Sami language, a Finnish speaker and an Estonian speaker try to guess.
@@mytube001 or Karelian and Veps speakers.
@@michalbock7648
Sami are divided into three major language groups which in turn can be divided into nine Sami languages. They’re not necessarily mutually intelligible. North Sami is probably the most spoken of them in all countries. Many Sami languages are sadly on the brink of extinction.
It probably needs more effort in the Sami tv and radio news, the community, Sametinget, social media, schools, universities and translators to reach speakers who’d be willing to participate.
It’s irrelevant to bring in Swedish and Norwegian speakers. Makes no sense. Veps is probably unrealistic requiring outreach among a thousand speakers at best, in Russia, who also likely need to use a VPN (I think UA-cam is blocked in Russia) and read and understand at least good basic English plus the current effed situation in Russia.
@@AnnaKaunitz Thank you for telling me what I already know. I am a Russian citizen, born and raised in Siberia, I have got a german ancestry since my ancestors came from Germany in the late 19th century. I have got some basic german knowledge but russian language is my mother language. I served in the russian army - in Murmansk which is city in the Northern part of my country and I met one ethnic Vep and he was able to speak his language, he spoke finnish as well and understood karelian which is logic. There are like 5 000 ethnic Veps left in Russia. They live mostly in republic of Karelia. It´s possible to find these people and there are 1 000 Sami people in Russia. They predominately live in one village in Murmans region.
If there is a wish there is a way. I am writing to you from Russia and like you said there are always ways how to beat western sanctions. You don´t really think that they are working, do you? I must admit that prices have gone up in the last a few months but your situation with inflation is pretty much the same. Leave politics behind us. Well it´s possible to find all these speakers even if they live in Russia or speak Russian. There is no need knowledge of english. They can speak freely russian and it can be translated into English. The important is their knowledge of Veps, Karelian and Sami (Northern accent which you have mentioned in your comment above).
@@michalbock7648 The issue would be a lack of common language to begin with. English is often used (just like in this video) to give the several speakers a common basis to fall back on when discussing the languages at play. As pointed out, with all the requirements needed for such a video, the chances are slim.
Дякую за відео! 💙💛
Вдачі та всього найкращого!
I wonder if having a Cornish speaker would have filled in a gap between the Breton and Welsh speaker. You could see once the Breton speaker started speaking a lot of bells started ringing for the Welsh speaker. Was very impressed with the Manx speaker
What struck me which none of them seemed to get was that Eti, etsi and so on in Gaulish reminds me of one of the two halves of 'to be' in Cornish which is bos / yma. Yma (there is) is conjugated in the past: esen, eses, esa, esen, esewgh, present: esov, esos, yma, eson, esowgh. I don't know what these would be in welsh or breton.
I'll give you all the sentences: Y lewyav karr ledan gans mergh* grev.
An gwav eus passys** an gov a ros kledha horn dhe'n Vyghternes.***
Hedhyw y helghyas tri badh**** krev y'n koos
Yma derwen y'n kres, ynter an avon***** gwynn ha'n krow koth.
*Ebel is foal
**could also use diwettha to match the Welsh and Breton
***Ruvanes is also a word for queen but in less common use.
****Hogh is pig, badh is specifically boar, mogh also means pigs in general but I don't come across it much.
***** avon is a modern re-entry into Cornish which did have at one stage but appears in middle and late C as 'Awon' I beleive more commonly just 'Dowr' ('water' is used for rivers in cornwall).
I have heard that the Celts language was closer to Latin back in Roman times. It seem it's very true.
Thanks.
Interesting that so many of these Gaulish words either sound or look similar across all the Celtic languages! Here’s a selection of Irish translations:
Litawon - leathan
Nertomarus - neart (strong), mór (big, large)
Carron - carr
Rigani - banríon
Gobannos - gabha dubh
Isarni - iarann
Giamu - geimhreadh
Moccus - muc
Sindiu - Inniú
Caitu - coill
Derwon - doire
Enter - idir
Mediu - meán (mean, i.e. the statistical average of something)
Abonim - abhainn
Senim - sean
Tegim - teach
Yes, it's amazing how the old Celtic connection is still to be seen
Doesn't "gabha dubh" mean "smith black", in which case is this a literal rendering of the English "blacksmith" into Irish? I ask because we don't bother with the "black" bit in Welsh, and just use "gof" (smith) on its own. We could have settled on "gof ddu" (smith black), I suppose, but I've never seen or heard it being used.
@@ftumschk You're right; to be honest, I don't distinguish between smith and blacksmith, especially since the example was about a smith giving a sword to someone. "Gabha" by itself means smith, but to me we're talking about a blacksmith in this example which is why I translated it that way. As far as I know, the word "smith" in English is originally a contraction of the word "blacksmith", although I'm happy to be corrected on that.
@@andrewbollard5701 As the English word "smith" is related to/derived from the Germanic "Schmied", I'd guess that the "black-" prefix was added later.
Which is related to Polish adjective "śniady" (swarthy)
When I hear/read Dutch as a dane I also get a lot of cognates from other languages like English, German and French. But I am always surprised how similar Dutch is do danish.
We are Germanic brothers forever ❤
Based on my knowledge of Scottish Gaelic, Old Gaelic and Latin I was able to work out more than I expected.
Balcus is cognate with Balc in Old/Middle Gaelic which means strong. Balor is called "Balc Beimon" (strong striker).
I am curious how you learned the language, given that there are very limited inscriptions and written sources. It was reconstructed I guess?
I would have to think it’s mainly reconstructed. Most of what I’ve learned is essentially my own reconstruction from my own sources which is why I thought a couple words sounded funny when he said them.
(Also granted I’m not fluent)
@@celtofcanaanesurix2245
Do you have a dictionary of reconstructed Gaulish?
@@mercianthane2503 You can work to an extent from Matasovic's Dictionary of Proto-Celtic with Gaulish-specific changes such as kw->p and so forth, but the grammar is going to be hellish for you because we are still working on that, and it is very unlike a modern Celtic language. To say 'I want to make a big sword' in Gaulish would be 'cladion maron cobriu-mi urgeton-io'. Whilst the pronoun for the verb is usually postposited behind it, there is free word order so 'big sword' can go wherever, 'make' needs a verb-noun whose form I've had to guess at with cross-lingual evidence from Hittite, and because it is in a dependent clause, the verb-noun needs a relative pronoun attached to it. And that's a very simple sentence. I had to read a 300 page thesis to get an idea of how the subjunctive works, which is basically 'infix -s- before the verb ending, not to be confused with -si-, which would be the future tense'.
This was great, please do another one. I'm amazed how my Welsh is so similar to all these other old languages.
Great video!
Fascinating!!!
where can I find a book or site on Gaulish grammar and the best accumulation of accurate words and reconstructions?
41:35 in Lithuanian
, Etsi - esi or esti is pretty much direct translation to (there is),
senim - seni, sena (old)
My boyfriend is a historical reenactor (hope this is the term in English 😅) for the Celts of Northern Italy (north-west, more specifically), and he was able to recognise quite a few words because they use whatever they can find in documents and inscriptions for their Celtic names 😅 for instance, he's Kentu Milos (a hundred animals, I believe). He was just slightly puzzled by boar, as he has a friend who's called Torco, supposedly boar (originally Torcoceto, as in boar of the forest or something like that).
You got the English term for it correct. Moccus meaning boar rather than a pig surprised me
Xavier Delamarre in his dictionary gives moccus as "pig, boar" and turcos as "male pig, boar".
I consider either words as synonyms if one means to talk about wild boars.
@@Gaisowiros turcos would be cognate with modern Welsh 'twrch' which can mean boar and is also seen in the word 'twrch daear' (earth hog = mole) but also Twrch Trwyth - the legendary boar in the Mabinogi mythology. Tyrchu means to dig or burrow in Welsh too.
the Breton TOURC'H still means BOAR, Male pig
@@Gaisowiros I mean, you can consider all you want, but ultimately what matters is the source and context for each word. This isn't a conlang, if we know of these words, it's because they appear somewhere, and it's important.
i requested this video years ago! hope i had some influence in the decision but i doubt it!
As a Mexican 🇲🇽 I was amazed by how I catched some words. Like carron = carro, epus = hípico (related to horses), cladiyon = gladio = (roman sword), rigani = rey, reina (king, queen)... etc. Then he said that Gaulish is influenced by Latin, that's why.
These words aren't influenced by Latin, they are just related indo-european words. Also I think "gladius" is a loanword from Celtic.
Not only English out of Germanic languages necessarily :) In Norwegian, we have "kjerre," a cognate with "car."
It generally means "cart" or "chariot," but it can also refer to cars, often old or worn down. Sometimes it's even used about new ones in an affectionate kind of way (e.g. by car enthusiasts).
With that kind of reconstructed language, you can't even be ENTIRELY sure that someone who spoke the language in question - in this case Gaulish - would be able to understand. If you could revive someone in the present. But it's still fun
Are there any suggestions on where I can seek out material for learning the Gaulish language?..
Many of the Gaulish words seem to go directly back to indo-european: Epus - ekwos, Rigani - regeina, senim - seneks, cladyon - kladjos, isarni - isarnom, derwon - deru (wooden might actually be derwon)
I had never heard these three Celtic languages and I was very curious to listen, especially WELSH.
Centuries before the Roman conquest of what is now Spain and Portugal, the Iberian Peninsula was practically dominated by the Celts, and as a Spaniard I now understand the great link between Latin and the Celtic languages. Thanks for the video!
Love to see some of the less widespread languages featured here 🤩
In Welsh 'car' ("automobile") comes from English, which ultimately comes from Gaulish, but we also have the native 'car llusg', namely a wheel-less cart or sled.
this is amazing.
'Siaxsou' is maybe cognate with 'jiboez' (linked to jiboesed, hunted), but how you get from xs to B I do not know!
Excellente vidéo ! Y avait-il des mutations en gaulois comme dans toutes les langues celtiques modernes ? J'en vois au moins une : Bos --> tarVos (qui a donné Taureau en français). Un exemple similaire en breton : kazh --> targazh. "An targazh" signifie donc "le matou", rien à voir avec une bouteille de gaz 🙂
About the similarities with Latin, an important thing must be remembered: Latin and Gaulish were spoken more than two thousands years ago, so they had less time to differentiate from the common Indo-European source. It's why Latin and ancient Greek are also a good help for the study of ancient Indo-European languages that never met after the split, like Hittite or Sanskrit.
Greek and Latin help not only with the roots, but with the grammar too: Gaulish retains most of the Indo-European desinences that in late stages mostly disappeared, be it for Celtic languages or German or Romance ones.
This is a very important thing to take into account especially when you consider the Gaulish and Latin had only been different languages for about 1000 years while they were spoken, while Irish and Welsh have been different languages for about 2000 years as of now
Also, gaulish and latin were practically neighbours. They influenced each other. Modern insular celtic languages are not only separated from gaulish by 2000 years, but also by geography. Breton was influenced a lot by medieval french later on so quite funnily it had some retrospective latin influence from there.
Ancient Greek and Sanskrit probably met somewhere along the Indus River in the 4th century BC.
It's like how I read Hittite sometimes and go 'ah, their constructions are so Celtic-looking!' and then have to tell myself 'no kidding, smart guy, they haven't trimmed off all the excess grammar yet'.
@@waltroskoh8650 Not Sanskrit, and not Ancient Greek. By that time the Indian vernaculars had already become Prakrit, and Sanskrit was reserved for literary uses only, and the Greek used by Alexander the Great's army was early Koine. Unless the Indian guys were quoting ancient texts and the Greek guys were all a bunch of old men and sticklers for grammar, Koine met Ashokan Prakrit along the Indus River.
Treis very close to swedish "tre" too. Funny and interesting. Love this kind of videos!
It is pretty chilling to imagine why in all mentioned languages, a "bad house" changed its meaning to a "house" in general, whereas a "good house" disappeared altogether.
man, economy so bad even people in the past can't afford proper housing.
4:07 ebol would involve a diminutive suffix -l.
Epus = like foal, but _not_ diminutive.
The host mentioned that most Western European languages have a cognate word voor "carron", but the subtitles included a correction saying that this only applied to English. Actually, in Dutch "kar" kan refer to several objects with wheels, such as cars, carts and trolleys (sometimes paired with another noun or adjective, e.g. "bolderkar" which means handcart).
In French too we have that.
A ’’wheel charriot maker’’ is literally a «carron» in French.
I'm really surprised I guessed the carron com (...) epus (and fell on that rule/ruler as in king trap with regu lol) without knowing a lick of celtic beyond very basic "survival" tier scottish gaelic!
These videos should be used as a blueprint for exercises used in comparative linguistics classes, reading theory on "Celto-italic" or even having two sentences side-by-side with underscored cognates is one thing, but doing the "legwork" and noticing them yourself gives a sense, a feeling, for it.
Really helps you appreciate why authors of fringe and disproven theories fight so vehemently, and often communicate in unsavory ways, with their opponents
Actually you weren't so wrong with regu... it's cognate with Latin rego, that means to rule, to guide and has the same root of rex 😉
I don’t know where he gets regu as “I drive”. To me that looks like it should mean something like I rule or I measure
@@celtofcanaanesurix2245 Might have been an English translation mistake on my end along with some liberty taken: Delamarre p. 256 "regu: je dirige, j'oriente" Here I took "orienter" as synonym of "conduire". In French, one can say "conduire" for a group of people as well as for a vehicle. So I did a calque of French that's hard to justify for English "drive" I must admit.
"I drive" in Gaulish could be *redu, but it's not attested. All the words I've used for the 4 sentences are attested, however.
@@Gaisowiros This seems to be another example of us not knowing what even such a common IE root meant in Gaulish. Matasović 2009 gives it as "extend, stretch, straighten", and its attested descendants have to do with rising up (cf. Grk ορέγω "extend"). Besides, the only attestation of it in Gaulish (as _reguc_ ) might not even be related to this root, but to Middle Irish _ric, riged_ "fore-arm"; although Old Irish also has _-riga_ apparently meaning "will go". Henri's 1984 article on the Chamalières inscription (available on Persée) translates it as "I straighten". Basically, there's no certainty even about such basic things when it comes to a language as poorly attested as Gaulish. The interpretation "conduire" appears to be based mainly on the verb's meaning in Latin.
Great video 👍🏻, please make a video if modern Spanish speakers can understand Old Spanish. 😀😀
Diddorol iawn. As a Welsh speaker I found this very interesting. Didn't expect to understand so much - nothing at the beginning, but it became clearer as the 3 helped each another. Epus also gave us the mountain range, Epynt in southern Wales. Gobannos - Abergavenny a town in Wales has the residue of the 'gabanos', it's developed into gof. Moch is plural for pig in Welsh, singular is mochyn, so 'tri mochyn' would be correct in modern Welsh. When Welsh developed from Brythonic we seem to have forgotten which words were singular and plural, so an -yn was added (which is a diminutive suffix or implies singular), so mochyn, pysgodyn (pysgod in plurar) etc.
So why is Y Fenni the Welsh name for Abergavenny?
@@markadams6497 "Y Fenni" means nothing in Welsh, but is instead an abbreviated colloquial form of what was once "Aber Gofenni" ("mouth of the river Gofenni"). Truncating place-names happens quite often in colloquial Welsh, as in "I went to the Bont to do some shopping", which could refer to Pontypridd/Pontardawe/etc, or "I was born in the Ceiber" (short for "Penrhiwceiber").
@@ftumschk We do the same thing in Australian English, for example, "I come from Newie", which usually refers to Newcastle, but could also refer to many other places.
11:07 As a speaker of Dutch, German, and Swedish, I would like to also mention that all of those have a word related to (and I think ultimately from!) Gaulish _carron_: NL _kar_ (c), DE _Karre_ (f), and SV _kärra_ (c). In all of these languages, they mean cart or barrow though (though at least the Dutch one but I think also the German one is also colloquially used for cars), and they derive their word for car from automobile in some way (NL _auto_ (c), DE _Auto_ (n), and SV _bil_ (c)).
Kärra in Swedish is also used colloquially for car
And Kar in Afrikaans is also used colloquially for car.
@@pedalersrant1977 These words are all loan words, ultimately from the Latin word(of Gaulish origin). The closest cognate in Germanic languages is "horse"(g. Ross, sw. russ, d. ros).
"Karre" in German is a colloquial term specifically for an old, rusty, shitty, run-down vehicle.
It's generally accepted by historical linguists that there's an Italo-Celtic branch, similar to the Balto-Slavic one, since Proto-Celtic and Proto-Italic were actually quite similar to one another, certainly more similar than either is to Proto-Germanic for example.
Romans were originally celts as italic tribes
Old irish has a lot of similarities with Latin but there wasn't too much mixing uts just because both languages come from proto indo European like sanskrit
Would there be a way to get an idea of what Lepontic would sound, using modern remains of celtic languages? I'd like to know better about my country 🇨🇭
Also, if I am not mistaken, " gineta" means girl in gaulish....well, in portuguese( spoken in southern Brazil), we say " ginete" for a lad.
The gaulish - latin influence used in the film made me wonder of the brittonic language under roman rule . Is anything known of that . Was there the same Latin influence on brittonic celtic as there was on gaulish under roman rule .
In the first sentence, we have "regu", "I lead, drive" cognate to Latin rex, regnum (king, to reign) etc, "litawon" cognate to Latin plenus (full), "carron" was explained in the discussion as was "com"; "marus" could be related to "more", "epus" of course is "equus" (horse). For "nerto" I have no idea. These are all guesses of mine, interesting topic.
Litawon is cognate to Greek platus (flat) (PIE pléth₂us). Latin plenus is PIE pl̥h₁nós. In Breton, it is ledan and leun, completely different words.
As a Welsh speaker I got nertomarus epos - which in Welsh cognate would be ebol nerthfawr. Also got com, cognate with Welsh cyf.
I got litawon - llydan after it was explained.
My ancestors come from Brittany. But strangely enough, I am more attracted to gaulish than breton.
Anyway, it is such a pleasure to see my celtic cousins talking about gaulish. Of course, french mainly inherited from latin. But is seems to be also subtle : Jacques Lacroix wrote a book about gaulish (« Les irréductibles mots gaulois dans la langue française ») and he discovered that the quantity of words that french language inherited from gaulish language was quite underestimated. He said there were like 1000 words in french language that have gaulish roots. And these words are not useless ones : these are everyday words like ambassadeur, bataille, crème, bac, brasserie, charger, chemin, creuser, corne, drap, encombrer, gaillard, galette, grève, jambe, lance, mégot, mine, mouton, petit, quai, raie, rayure, roc, rocher, sapin, saumon, souche, souiller, tonne, tonneau, trancher, trou, troc, truand, valet, vassal, virer, virevolter... And so many others.
I would say that french is the most celtic romance language.
Thank you for all that interesting content !
And here isy question: what gaulish do you learning? There is two gaulish language: old and modern. Old gaulish is a type of gaulish that people in France spoke in 6 century. And modern gaulish is a type of gaulish that we speak today. In 21 we just revived an old gaulish language, and added new words from other celtic languages for some new things like computer, fridge, radio, etc.
There are many sites for modern gaulish, but I don't find any places where you can learn old Gaulish. And what about you?
@@Edarnon_Brodie
Bonjour !
I did not know there was a revival of gaulish, thank you for this piece of information. If you have some content about it, I would be delighted to read it.
If I'm right and if I understood what you wrote, I'm talking about old gaulish but also about methods that compare celtic languages in order to check if a word has gaulish roots (partially or totally). That is how Jacques Lacroix (the author that I mentionned) has worked on gaulish words in french language.
In the last decades, we have been knowing more and more about gaulish and Gauls. There are still missing pieces but we have been improving our knowledge about gaulish (and Celts, more generally speaking). If you have something to share, that will be a pleasure !
4:58 So, "com nertomarus epus" would after this explanation by Daniel likely mean "with big-strengthed horses" = "with very strong horses"
As to "carron" it's probably a genitive plural of the Celtic word which in Latin is "carrus" = car, cart.
Or it could even be accusative plural? -ons -> -on?
"I conduct litawon carts with very strong horses"
Regu = Latin rego, which in cart contexts means "conduct" or "drive" ...
So that's why I got the car, with and horses (Spanish speaker). Literally carro, con and equino I guess. Strangely similar. I thought I wasn't going to understand a single thing...
@@LobyDobster Latin, which is Q-Italic, has:
rego largum carrum cum fortibus equis
Differences:
* cum has ablative instead of accusative
* largum for litawon
* fortes for nertomarus
Carron is accusative singular of carros here, and nertomarus, while it looks like accusative plural, -us is also the instrumental plural of -os words. I can't remember if we talked about it in the video, I might have said accusative plural. If so, my bad!
This Latinized Gaulish uses Latin verbs and nouns and has no Celtic articles
@@Ethan-qo9rx I am sorry, but where do you get it from that :
a) two languages never share verbs and nouns, particularly if they are both counted as Indo-European?
b) Celtic always had articles? Irish and Welsh seem to have different articles.
So strange laguages and their orthography vs pronunciation... simply amazing and difficult as hell :D
When I heard "Gobannos", I was thinking of Polish "Kabanos", which is a really thin pork-sausage basically. It can taste either very good or very bad depending on the type and the crispiness. I'm Polish so I'd know. :D Norbert, ty tez myslales o kabanosie w tym momencie? XD XD XD
As a portuguese native speaker, and knowing that actually all portuguese words come from latin( sure except for those that had came from arabic, greek, suevi and visigothic ones), I could had a better understanding of gaulish words than those people from celtic nations. Gaulish sounds much like latin and the words realy looks like some sort of a very proximity towards latin.
Unrelated to the video but in the new Legend of Zelda game "Tears of the Kingdom", you can find stone tablets that can be translated by an NPC in game. The translations look similar (to my completely untrained eye) to some kind of old english style writing (although using the modern alphabet). Would you consider looking at it and maybe making a video about it?
After reading this comment I just spent a while googling this to try to find a picture because you got me curious, but I can't find any examples
@@yourmum69_420 The quest is called "Messages from an ancient era". The tablets themselves don't have the text on them, but when the NPC translates them he tells you the "old hyrulian" version first, then his interpretation of the text.
In the second sentence I recognized the words "dede" that sounds like in italian "diede" that means "it gave to..." and "cladyon" is in latin "gladius" or in italian "gladio" that is the short sword for the romans. And we can find it in the word "gladiator" or "gladiatore" in italian. Very interesting things to me. Thank you for the video.
I read somewhere that the italic and Celtic branches of Indo European were sister branches. This really demonstrates that very well with Gaulish. Very similar to Latin.
11:07 In German we have Karren (cart in english) which probably is also related to that. At least colloquially it can also be used for a car as well.
Is the word cladiyon maybe related to claymore? it sounded like that to me
"Big sword" : Big (more - mòr ) + sword (clay - I dont know the scottish gaelicy spelling but said approximately "clave")
@@Allan_son Ooooh got it, thanks! Really interesting! I'm just proud i recognized a single word lol
Angharad is a beautiful name! Is it related to Ingrid? (Ingiríðr in Old Norse)
They both mean the same thing.
The s->h change (or vice versa) can also seen in (classic) Greek.
Also spanish
@@beyurzelf Spanish also changes an f into an h. The same as in Gascon if I remember correctly.
They have a beautiful process. Agharad and Daniel suss out the beginning, and Paul finishes it off.
Interesting! As a native speaker of the Romanian language, I can say that there are many words that I find similar to those in Romanian.
I understood a whole three words!
Derwon -> дерево
Etsi / esti -> есть
Dede -> дай
lol without surprises, knowing Russian doesn't help understanding Gaulish!
interesting how she said siaxsou reminded her of Saxon was the wrong timeline. If I remember correctly Saxon also referred to a type of knife so it a round about way it is related.
senim= latin senior?, we have in spanish the word "senil" that means "of the old person, or people". "senile" in english.
Does Breton have many French loanwords? In „me gondui“ I can‘t help but see ‚conduire‘.
I was surprised about the closeness of the words for iron, which relate to such distant languages as north Germanic and Swiss German.
Same with sword. The celtic words are clearly cognate to Latin "gladius". It kinda makes sense that the new technologies of the age have similar words in all languages.
Yes, Breton has a lot of French loanwords. Breton even kept French words from ancient French that are no more in use in modern French.
Just a thought, would the Etruscan clan (son) be a cognate of (with?) Scottish Gaelic clann?
I love the fact that trough the video, the word "Breton" was spelled with any vowel in the subtitles 😆 I saw braton, bruton and broton hahaha
This was so cool. Makes Gwyneth understood toe me now for such a beautiful name.
Crazy realization, that Eiichiro Oda Sensei probably borrrowed cognate of Gaulic Gobannos for "smith" and remodeled it a surname "Gaban" for the fiction character 'Scopper Gaban' of the manga and anime series 'One Piece'. That fictional name says Copper Smith. Language is a heck of thing.
epus reminded me the word hyppos (horse) in greek, are they related?
@Ecolinguist
One little thing I'd like to point out which could be helpful is that Roman Latin is technically incapable of recognising soft fricatives like modern "v" the soft "th" or the grinding "gh" (IPA gamma) sounds. If you think about it, only F, S, H and the Greek derivatives PH, TH, and CH actually feature in Latin, and V wasn't separate into U/V/W like today and was a W or U sound.
A Gallo-Roman transliteration of B and D for "vee" and "soft th" and the omission of "gh" with a semivowel glide. A VERY similar change affects Modern Greek - beta delta and gamma have mutated into "v", "th" and "y" sounds respectively.
This explains why so many of the letters B, D, and G in the tentative Gaulish examples shown seem to be "vee" or "soft th" "w" or vowel continuations in modern Celtic languages.