Common Brittonic


Common Brittonic, also known as Common Brythonic, British, or Proto-Brittonic, is the reconstructed Celtic language thought to be historically spoken by the Celtic Britons in Britain and Brittany. It is the common ancestor of the later Brittonic languages.
It is a form of Insular Celtic, descended from Proto-Celtic, a theorized parent language that, by the first half of the first millennium BC, was diverging into separate dialects or languages. Evidence from early and modern Welsh shows that Common Brittonic was influenced by Latin during the Roman period, especially in terms related to the church and Christianity. By the sixth century AD, the languages of the Celtic Britons were swiftly diverging into Neo-Brittonic: Welsh, Cumbric, Cornish, Breton. Pictish may either have been a sister language or a descendant branch.
Over the next three centuries, Brittonic was replaced by Scottish Gaelic in most of Scotland, and by Old English throughout most of modern England as well as Scotland south of the Firth of Forth. Cumbric disappeared in the 12th century, and in the far south-west, Cornish probably became extinct in the 18th century, though it has since been revived. Welsh and Breton are the only daughter languages that have survived fully into the modern day.

History

Pictish and Pritenic

Pictish, which became extinct around 1000 years ago, was the spoken language of the Picts in Northern Scotland. 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. The question of the extent to which this language was distinguished, and the date of divergence, from the rest of Brittonic, was historically disputed.
Pritenic is a term coined in 1955 by Kenneth H. Jackson to describe a hypothetical Roman-era predecessor to the Pictish language. Jackson saw Pritenic as having diverged from Brittonic around the time of 75–100 AD.
The term Pritenic is controversial. In 2015, linguist Guto Rhys concluded that most proposals that Pictish diverged from Brittonic before were incorrect, questionable, or of little importance, and that a lack of evidence to distinguish Brittonic and Pictish rendered the term Pritenic "redundant".

Diversification and Neo-Brittonic

Common Brittonic vied with Latin after the Roman conquest of Britain in 43 AD, at least in major settlements. Latin words were widely borrowed by its speakers in the Romanised towns and their descendants, and later from church use.
By 500–550 AD, Common Brittonic had diverged into the Neo-Brittonic dialects: Old Welsh primarily in Wales, Old Cornish in Cornwall, Old Breton in what is now Brittany, Cumbric in Northern England and Southern Scotland, and probably Pictish in Northern Scotland.
The modern forms of Breton and Welsh are the only direct descendants of Common Brittonic to have survived fully into the 21st century. Cornish fell out of use in the 1700s but has since undergone a revival. Cumbric and Pictish are extinct and today spoken only in the form of loanwords in English, Scots, and Scottish Gaelic.

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

The early Common Brittonic vowel inventory is effectively identical to that of Proto-Celtic. and have not developed yet.
By late Common Brittonic, the New Quantity System had occurred, leading to a radical restructuring of the vowel system.
Notes:
  • One development apparently confined to the West British precursor of Welsh was the change of short pretonic and to rounded and unrounded mid central schwa vowels and respectively.

    Place names

Brittonic-derived place names are scattered across Great Britain, with many occurring in the West Country; however, some of these may be pre-Celtic. The best example is perhaps that of each Avon, which comes from the Brittonic aβon, "river". When river is preceded by the word, in the modern vein, it is tautological.

Examples of place names derived from the Brittonic languages

Examples are:
  • Avon from abonā = 'river'
  • Britain, cognate with Pritani = 'People of the Forms'
  • Cheviot from *cev- = 'ridge' and -ed, a noun suffix
  • Dover: as pre-medieval Latin did not distinguish a Spanish-style mixed - sound, the phonetic standard way of reading Dubrīs is as. It means 'water'.
  • Kent from canto- = 'border'
  • Lothian, from *Lugudũn 'Fort of Lugus'
  • Severn from Sabrina, perhaps the name of a goddess
  • Thames from Tamesis = 'dark'
  • Thanet from tan-eto- = 'bonfire', 'aflame'
  • York from Ebur-ākon = 'yew tree stand/group' via Latin Eburacum > OE Eoforwīc > Old Norse Jórvík
Basic words Tor, wikt:Special:Search/combe, bere, and hele from Brittonic are common in Devon place-names. Tautologous, hybrid word names exist in England, such as: