Breton language
Breton is a Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family, spoken in Brittany.
Breton was brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages, making it an Insular Celtic language. It is closely related to the Continental Celtic Gaulish language, which was spoken in pre-Roman Gaul. Breton is most closely related to Cornish, another Southwestern Brittonic language. Welsh and the extinct Cumbric, both Western Brittonic languages, are more distantly related.
The other regional language of Brittany, Gallo, is a Romance language descended from Latin. As a langue d'oïl, Gallo is a close relative of standard French. Neither Gallo nor Breton are nationally recognized by the French state.
Having declined from more than 1 million speakers around 1950 to about 200,000 in the first decade of the 21st century, Breton is classified as "severely endangered" by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. However, the number of children attending bilingual classes has risen 33% between 2006 and 2012 to 14,709.
History and status
Breton is spoken in Lower Brittany, roughly to the west of a line linking Plouha and La Roche-Bernard. It comes from a Brittonic language community that once extended from Great Britain to Armorica and had even established a toehold in Galicia. Old Breton is attested from the 9th century. It was the language of the upper classes until the 12th century, after which it became the language of commoners in Lower Brittany. The nobility, followed by the bourgeoisie, adopted French. The written language of the Duchy of Brittany was Latin, switching to French in the 15th century. There exists a limited tradition of Breton literature. Some philosophical and scientific terms in Modern Breton come from Old Breton. The recognized stages of the Breton language are: Old Breton - c.800 to c.1100, Middle Breton - c.1100 to c.1650, Modern Breton - c.1650 to present.The French monarchy was not concerned with the minority languages of France, spoken by the lower classes, and required the use of French for government business as part of its policy of national unity. During the French Revolution, the government introduced policies favouring French over the regional languages, which it pejoratively referred to as patois. The revolutionaries assumed that reactionary and monarchist forces preferred regional languages to try to keep the peasant masses underinformed. In 1794, Bertrand Barère submitted his "report on the patois" to the Committee of Public Safety in which he said that "federalism and superstition speak Breton".
Since the 19th century, under the Third, Fourth and Fifth Republics, the government has attempted to stamp out minority languages, including Breton, in state schools, in an effort to build a national culture. Teachers humiliated students for using their regional languages, and such practices prevailed until the late 1960s.
In the early 21st century, due to the political centralization of France, the influence of the media, and the increasing mobility of people, only about 200,000 people are active speakers of Breton, a dramatic decline from more than 1 million in 1950. The majority of today's speakers are more than 60 years old, and Breton is now classified as an endangered language.
At the beginning of the 20th century, half of the population of Lower Brittany knew only Breton; the other half were bilingual. By 1950, there were only 100,000 monolingual Bretons, and this rapid decline has continued, with likely no monolingual speakers left today. A statistical survey in 1997 found around 300,000 speakers in Lower Brittany, of whom about 190,000 were aged 60 or older. Few 15- to 19-year-olds spoke Breton. In 1993, parents were finally legally allowed to give their children Breton names.
Revival efforts
In 1925, Professor Roparz Hemon founded the Breton-language review Gwalarn. During its 19-year run, Gwalarn tried to raise the language to the level of a great international language. Its publication encouraged the creation of original literature in all genres, and proposed Breton translations of internationally recognized foreign works. In 1946, Al Liamm replaced Gwalarn. Other Breton-language periodicals have been published, which established a fairly large body of literature for a minority language.In 1977, Diwan schools were founded to teach Breton by immersion. Since their establishment, Diwan schools have provided fully immersive primary school and partially immersive secondary school instruction in Breton for thousands of students across Brittany. This has directly contributed to the growing numbers of school-age speakers of Breton. See the [|education section] for more information.
The Asterix comic series has been translated into Breton. According to the comic, the Gaulish village where Asterix lives is in the Armorica peninsula, which is now Brittany. Some other popular comics have also been translated into Breton, including The Adventures of Tintin, Spirou, Titeuf, Hägar the Horrible, Peanuts and Yakari.
Some original media are created in Breton. The sitcom, Ken Tuch, is in Breton. Radio Kerne, broadcasting from Finistère, has exclusively Breton programming. Some movies and TV series have also been translated and broadcast in Breton. Poets, singers, linguists, and writers who have written in Breton, including Yann-Ber Kalloc'h, Roparz Hemon, Anjela Duval, Xavier de Langlais, Pêr-Jakez Helias, Youenn Gwernig, Glenmor, Vefa de Saint-Pierre and Alan Stivell are now known internationally.
Today, Breton is the only living Celtic language that is not recognized by a national government as an official or regional language.
The first Breton dictionary, the Catholicon, was also the first French dictionary. Edited by Jehan Lagadec in 1464, it was a trilingual work containing Breton, French and Latin. Today bilingual dictionaries have been published for Breton and languages including English, Dutch, German, Spanish and Welsh. A new generation is determined to gain international recognition for Breton. The monolingual dictionary, Geriadur Brezhoneg an Here, defines Breton words in Breton. The first edition contained about 10,000 words, and the second edition of 2001 contains 20,000 words.
In the early 21st century, the Ofis ar Brezhoneg began a campaign to encourage daily use of Breton in the region by both businesses and local communes. Efforts include installing bilingual signs and posters for regional events, as well as encouraging the use of the Spilhennig to let speakers identify each other. The office also started an Internationalization and localization policy asking Google, Firefox and SPIP to develop their interfaces in Breton. In 2004, the Breton Wikipedia started, which now counts more than 65,000 articles. In March 2007, the Ofis ar Brezhoneg signed a with Regional Council of Brittany and Microsoft for the consideration of the Breton language in Microsoft products. In October 2014, Facebook added Breton as one of its 121 languages after three years of talks between the Ofis and Facebook.
Geographic distribution and dialects
Breton is spoken mainly in Lower Brittany, but also in a more dispersed way in Upper Brittany, and in areas around the world that have Breton emigrants.The four traditional dialects of Breton correspond to medieval bishoprics rather than to linguistic divisions. They are leoneg, tregerieg, kerneveg, and gwenedeg. Guérandais was spoken up to the beginning of the 20th century in the region of Guérande and Batz-sur-Mer. There are no clear boundaries between the dialects because they form a dialect continuum, varying only slightly from one village to the next. Gwenedeg, however, requires a little study to be intelligible with most of the other dialects.
| Region | Population | Number of speakers | Percentage of speakers |
| Basse Bretagne | 1.3 m | 185,000 | 14.2% |
| Centre Ouest Bretagne | 112,000 | 20,000 | 20% |
| Trégor-Goelo | 127,000 | 25,000 | 20% |
| Pays de Brest | 370,000 | 40,000 | 11% |
| Pays de Cornouaille | 320,000 | 35,000 | 11.5% |
| Pays de Lorient | 212,000 | 15,000 | 7.3% |
| Pays de Vannes | 195,000 | 11,000 | 5.5% |
| Pays de Guingamp | 76,000 | 12,000 | 17% |
| Pays de Morlaix | 126,000 | 15,000 | 12% |
| Pays de St Brieuc | 191,000 | 5,000 | 3% |
| Pays de Pontivy | 85,000 | 6,500 | 8% |
| Pays d'Auray | 85,000 | 6,500 | 7.6% |
| Haute Bretagne | 1.9 m | 20,000 | 2% |
| Pays de Rennes | 450,000 | 7,000 | |
| Loire-Atlantique | 1.3 m | ||
| Pays de Nantes | 580,000 | 4,000 | 0.8% |
| TOTAL | 4.56 m | 216,000 | 4.6% |
Official status
Nation
As noted, only French is an official language of France. Supporters of Breton and other minority languages continue to argue for their recognition, and for their place in education, public schools, and public life.Constitution
In July 2008, the legislature amended the French Constitution, adding article 75-1: les langues régionales appartiennent au patrimoine de la France.The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which obliges signatory states to recognize minority and regional languages, was signed by France in 1999 but has not been ratified. On 27 October 2015, the Senate rejected a draft constitutional law ratifying the charter.
Region
Regional and departmental authorities use Breton to a very limited extent. Some bilingual signage has also been installed, such as street name signs in Breton towns. One station of the Rennes metro system has signs in both French and Breton.Under the French law known as Toubon, it is illegal for commercial signage to be in Breton alone. Signs must be bilingual or French only. Since commercial signage usually has limited physical space, most businesses have signs only in French.
Ofis Publik ar Brezhoneg, the Breton language agency, was set up in 1999 by the Brittany region to promote and develop the daily use of Breton. It created the Ya d'ar brezhoneg campaign, to encourage enterprises, organisations and communes to promote the use of Breton, for example by installing bilingual signage or translating their websites into Breton.
Education
In the late 20th century, the French government considered incorporating the independent Breton-language immersion schools into the state education system. This action was blocked by the French Constitutional Council based on the 1994 amendment to the Constitution that establishes French as the language of the republic. Therefore, no other language may be used as a language of instruction in state schools. The Toubon Law implemented the amendment, asserting that French is the language of public education.The Diwan schools were founded in Brittany in 1977 to teach Breton by immersion. Since their establishment, Diwan schools have provided fully immersive primary school and partially immersive secondary school instruction in Breton for thousands of students across Brittany. This has directly contributed to the growing numbers of school-age speakers of Breton. The schools have also gained fame from to their high level of results in school exams, including those on French language and literature. Breton-language schools do not receive funding from the national government, though the Brittany Region may fund them.
Another teaching method is a bilingual approach by Div Yezh in the State schools, created in 1979. Dihun was created in 1990 for bilingual education in the Catholic schools.
Statistics
In 2018, 18,337 pupils attended Diwan, Div Yezh and Dihun schools, and their number has increased yearly. The goal of Jean-Yves Le Drian of 20,000, and of “their recognition” for “their place in education, public schools, and public life”, by 2010, was not achieved, but he describes being encouraged by their progress.In 2007, some 4,500 to 5,000 adults followed such a Breton language course as an evening or correspondence one. The transmission of Breton in 1999 is estimated to be 3 percent.
Growth of the percentage of pupils in bilingual education.
| Year | Number | Percentage of all pupils in Brittany |
| 2005 | 10,397 | 1.24% |
| 2006 | 11,092 | 1.30% |
| 2007 | 11,732 | 1.38% |
| 2008 | 12,333 | ± 1.4% |
| 2009 | 13,077 | 1.45% |
| 2010 | 13,493 | 1.48% |
| 2011 | 14,174 | 1.55% |
| 2012 | 14,709 | 1.63% |
| 2013 | 15,338 | 1.70% |
| 2014 | 15,840 | . % |
| 2015 | 16,345 | . % |
| 2016 | 17,024 | . % |
| 2017 | 17,748 | . % |
| 2018 | 18,337 | 2.00 % |
Percentage of pupils in bilingual education per department.
| Department | Primary education |
| Finistère | 8.1% |
| Morbihan | 5.9% |
| Côtes-d'Armor | 3.8% |
| Ille-et-Vilaine | 1.2% |
| Loire-Atlantique | 0.5% |
Municipalities
The 10 communes with the highest percentage of pupils in bilingual primary education, listed with their total population.| Commune | Percentage | Population |
| Saint-Rivoal | 100% | 177 |
| Plounévez-Moëdec | 82.4% | 1,461 |
| Bulat-Pestivien | 53.7% | 493 |
| Commana | 49.7% | 1,061 |
| Cavan | 39.6% | 1,425 |
| Rostrenen | 39.3% | 3,655 |
| Guégon | 35.5% | 2,432 |
| Lannilis | 35.1% | 5,121 |
| Pabu | 32.46% | 2,923 |
| Melrand | 31.4% | 1,558 |
The 10 communes of historic Brittany with the highest total population, listed with their percentages of pupils in bilingual primary education.
| Commune | Percentage | Population |
| Nantes | 1.4% | 290,943 |
| Rennes | 2.87% | 213,096 |
| Brest | 1.94% | 146,519 |
| Saint-Nazaire | 0.41% | 71,046 |
| Quimper | 3.17% | 67,255 |
| Lorient | 2.71% | 59,805 |
| Vannes | 7.71% | 55,383 |
| Saint-Malo | 0.55% | 50,206 |
| Saint-Brieuc | 3.98% | 48,178 |
| Saint-Herblain | ? | 44,364 |
Other forms of education
In addition to bilingual education the region has introduced the Breton language in primary education, mainly in the department of Finistère. These "initiation" sessions are generally one to three hours per week, and consist of songs and games.Schools in secondary education offer some courses in Breton. In 2010, nearly 5,000 students in Brittany were reported to be taking this option. Additionally, the University of Rennes 2 has a Breton language department offering courses in the language along with a master's degree in Breton and Celtic Studies.
Phonology
Vowels
Vowels in Breton may be short or long. All unstressed vowels are short; stressed vowels can be short or long. An emergence of a schwa sound occurs as a result of vowel neutralization in post-tonic position, among different dialects.All vowels can also be nasalized, which is noted by appending an 'n' letter after the base vowel, or by adding a combining tilde above the vowel, or more commonly by non-ambiguously appending an letter after the base vowel.
Diphthongs are.
Consonants
- The pronunciation of the letter varies nowadays: is used in the French-influenced standard language and, generally speaking, in the central parts of Lower Brittany whereas is the common realisation in Léon and often in the Haut-Vannetais dialect of central Morbihan, though in rapid speech mostly a tapped occurs. In the other regions of Trégor or even may be found.
- The voiced dental fricative is a conservative realisation of the lenition of the consonants and which is to be found in certain varieties of Haut-Vannetais. Most of the Breton dialects do not inherit the sound and thus it is mostly not orthographically fixed. The Peurunvan, for instance, uses for both mutations, which are regularly and more prominently pronounced in Léonais, Cornouaillais, Trégorrois and Bas-Vannetais. In traditional literature written in the Vannetais dialect, two different graphemes are employed for representing the dental fricative, depending on the scripture's historical period. There once was a time when was used to transcribe the sound, but today mostly the regular is instead used, and this practice can be traced back to at least the end of the 17th century. The area this phenomenon has been found to be evident in encompasses the towns of Pontivy and Baud and surrounding smaller villages like Cléguérec, Noyal-Pontivy, Pluméliau, St. Allouestre, St. Barthélemy, Pluvigner and also parts of Belle-Île. The only known place where the mutation occurs outside of the Vannes country is the Île de Sein, an island located off Finistère's coast. Some scholars also used as the symbol for the sound to indicate that it was rather an "infra-dental" consonant than a clear interdental, which is the sound the symbol is usually describes. Other linguists, however, did not draw that distinction, either because they identified the sound to actually be an interdental fricative or due to the fact that they attached no importance to it and ascertained that their descriptions were not in need of a further clarification of the sound's phonetic realisation as it was a clearly distinguishable phoneme.
Grammar
Verbal aspect
Like in other Celtic languages as well as English, a variety of verbal constructions are available to express grammatical aspect, for example: showing a distinction between progressive and habitual actions:| Breton | English | Irish | Welsh | Cornish |
| Me zo o komz gant ma amezeg | I am talking to my neighbour | Táim ag labhairt le mo chomharsana | Dw i'n siarad â fy nghymydog | Yth eso'vy ow kewsel orth ow hentrevek |
| Me a gomz gant ma amezeg | I talk to my neighbour | Labhraím le mo chomharsana | Siaradaf â fy nghymydog | My a gews orth ow hentrevek |
Inflected prepositions
As in other modern Celtic languages, Breton pronouns are fused into preceding prepositions to produce a sort of inflected preposition. Below are some examples in Breton, Cornish, Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx, along with English translations.| Breton | Cornish | Welsh | Irish | Scottish Gaelic | Manx | English |
| ul levr zo ganin a book is with-me | yma lyver genev | mae llyfr gennyf | tá leabhar agam | tha leabhar agam | ta lioar aym | I have a book |
| un died zo ganit a drink is with-you | yma diwes genes | mae diod gennyt | tá deoch agat | tha deoch agad | ta jough ayd | you have a drink |
| un urzhiataer zo gantañ a computer is with-him | yma jynn-amontya ganso | mae cyfrifiadur ganddo | tá ríomhaire aige | tha coimpiutair aige | ta co-earrooder echey | he has a computer |
| ur bugel zo ganti a child is with-her | yma flogh gensi | mae plentyn ganddi | tá leanbh aici | tha leanabh aice | ta lhiannoo eck | she has a child |
| ur c'harr zo ganimp a car is with-us | yma karr genen | mae car gennym | tá gluaisteán / carr againn | tha càr againn | ta gleashtan / carr ain | we have a car |
| un ti zo ganeoc'h a house is with-you | yma chi genowgh | mae tŷ gennych | tá teach agaibh | tha taigh agaibh | ta thie eu | you have a house |
| arc'hant zo ganto money is with-them | yma mona gansa | mae arian ganddynt | tá airgead acu | tha airgead aca | ta argid oc | they have money |
Note that in the examples above the Goidelic languages use the preposition meaning at to show possession, whereas the Brittonic languages use with. The Goidelic languages, however, do use the preposition with to express "belong to".
The Welsh examples are in literary Welsh. The order and preposition may differ slightly in colloquial Welsh.
Initial consonant mutations
Breton has four initial consonant mutations: though modern Breton lost the nasal mutation of Welsh, it also has a "hard" mutation, in which voiced stops become voiceless, and a "mixed" mutation, which is a mixture of hard and soft mutations.Word order
Normal word order, like the other Insular Celtic languages, is VSO. It is however perfectly possible to put the Subject or the Object at the beginning of the sentence. This largely depends on the focus of the speaker. The following options are possible :- the first places the verbal infinitive in initial position, followed by the auxiliary ober 'to do'.
- the second places the Auxiliary verb bezañ 'to be' in initial position, followed the Subject, and the construction o + infinitive. At the end comes the Object.
- the third places the construction o + infinitive in the initial position, followed by the Auxiliary verb bezañ, the Subject, and the Object.
- the fourth option places the Object in initial position, followed by an inflected verb, followed by the Subject.
- the fifth, and originally least common, places the Subject in initial position, followed by an inflected verb, followed by the Object, just like in English.
Vocabulary
Words that passed into French and into English
The English words and have been borrowed from French, which took them from Breton. However, this is uncertain: for instance, menhir is peulvan or maen hir, maen sav in Breton. Dolmen is a misconstructed word. Some studies state that these words were borrowed from Cornish. Maen hir can be directly translated from Welsh as "long stone". The Cornish surnames Mennear, Minear and Manhire all derive from the Cornish , as does Tremenheere "settlement by the long stone".The French word is derived from Breton ' and '. The French word is derived from Breton , which shares the same root as English "gull".
Orthography
The first extant Breton texts, contained in the Leyde manuscript, were written at the end of the 8th century: 50 years prior to the Strasbourg Oaths, considered to be the earliest example of French. Like many medieval orthographies, Old- and Middle Breton orthography was at first not standardised, and the spelling of a particular word varied at authors' discretion. In 1499, however, the Catholicon, was published; as the first dictionary written for both French and Breton, it became a point of reference on how to transcribe the language. The orthography presented in the Catholicon was largely similar to that of French, in particular with respect to the representation of vowels, as well as the use of both the Latinate digraph —a remnant of the sound change /kʷ/ > /k/ in Latin—and Brittonic or to represent /k/ before front vowels.As phonetic and phonological differences between the dialects began to magnify, many regions, particularly the Vannes country, began to devise their own orthographies. Many of these orthographies were more closely related to the French model, albeit with some modifications. Examples of these modifications include the replacement of Old Breton with to denote word-final /x~h/ and use of to denote the initial mutation of /k/. and thus needed another transcription.
In the 1830s Jean-François Le Gonidec created a modern phonetic system for the language.
During the early years of the 20th century, a group of writers known as Emglev ar Skrivanerien elaborated and reformed Le Gonidec's system. They made it more suitable as a super-dialectal representation of the dialects of Cornouaille, Leon and Trégor. This KLT orthography was established in 1911. At the same time writers of the more divergent Vannetais dialect developed a phonetic system also based on that of Le Gonidec.
Following proposals made during the 1920s, the KLT and Vannetais orthographies were merged in 1941 to create an orthographic system to represent all four dialects. This Peurunvan orthography was significant for the inclusion of the zh digraph, which represents a in Vannetais and corresponds to a in the KLT dialects.
In 1955 François Falc'hun and the group Emgleo Breiz proposed a new orthography. It was designed to use a set of graphemes closer to the conventions of French. This Orthographie Universitaire was given official recognition by the French authorities as the "official orthography of Breton in French education." It was opposed in the region and today is used only by the magazine Brud Nevez and the publishing house Emgléo Breiz.
In the 1970s, a new standard orthography was devised — the etrerannyezhel or interdialectale. This system is based on the derivation of the words.
Today the majority of writers continue to use the Peurunvan orthography, and it is the version taught in most Breton-language schools.
Alphabet
Breton is written in the Latin script. Peurunvan, the most commonly used orthography, consists of the following letters:The circumflex, grave accent, trema and tilde appear on some letters. These diacritics are used in the following way:
See for an introduction to the Breton alphabet and pronunciation.
Differences between and
Both orthographies use the above alphabet, although é is used only in Skolveurieg.Differences between the two systems are particularly noticeable in word endings. In Peurunvan, final obstruents, which are devoiced in absolute final position and voiced in sandhi before voiced sounds, are represented by a grapheme that indicates a voiceless sound. In OU they are written as voiced but represented as voiceless before suffixes: braz, brasoc'h.
In addition, Peurunvan maintains the KLT convention, which distinguishes noun/adjective pairs by nouns written with a final voiced consonant and adjectives with a voiceless one. No distinction is made in pronunciation, e.g. brezhoneg Breton language vs. brezhonek Breton .
Some examples of words in the different orthographies:
| Etrerannyezhel | Peurunvan | Skolveurieg |
| glaw | glav | glao |
| piw | piv | piou |
| levr | levr | leor |
| ewid | evit | evid |
| gant | gant | gand |
| anezhi | anezhi | anezi |
| ouzhpenn | ouzhpenn | ouspenn |
| brawañ | bravañ | brava |
| pelec'h | pelec'h | peleh |
Pronunciation of the Breton alphabet
Notes:- Vocative particle: â Vreizh O Brittany!
- Word-initially.
- Word-finally.
- Unwritten lenition of ch, c'h, f, s and spirantization of p > f.
- Unstressed vowels e, eu, o are pronounced in Leoneg but in the other dialects. The pronunciation appears mainly in front of clusters lc'h, rc'h, before semivowels, before other clusters beginning with r, l and before rr. Stressed long e, eu, o are realized as.
- In Gwenedeg velars or labialized velars are palatalized when followed by e and i: k, g, kw/kou, c'hw/c'hou, gw/gou, w/ou, sk to. Instead of also may appear.
- In Gwenedeg word-final g and k is palatalized to after preceding i.
- But before a vowel other than i the digraph ni is written instead of gn, e.g. bleniañ to drive', radical blegn, 1PS preterite blegnis, 3PS preterite blenias.
- But mute in words such as ha, he, ho, holl, hon/hor/hol. Silent in Gwenedeg and Leoneg.
- I is realized as when it precedes or follows a vowel, but in words such as lien, liorzh, rakdiazezañ the letter i is pronounced as .
- Group ilh is pronounced when it follows a vowel, following a consonant the group is pronounced . But before a vowel other than i li is written instead of ilh, e.g. heuliañ to follow, radical heuilh, 1PS preterite heuilhis, 3PS preterite heulias. In some regions instead of may appear pronunciation.
- Word-finally following a cluster of unvoiced consonants.
- In front of k, g.
- The digraph ou is realized same as the letter w when preceded or followed by a vowel, but in words such as Doue, douar, gouarn the digraph ou is pronounced.
- The digraph où marks plural ending. Its pronunciation varies throughout Brittany: rating geographically from Northwest Leon to Southeast Gwened.
- The letter v is usually pronounced, but word-finally is pronounced usually as or in KLT, as in Gwenedeg and as in Goëlo. The pronunciation is retained word-finally in verbs. In words bliv, Gwiskriv, gwiv, liv, piv, riv are v is pronounced in KLT, in Gwenedeg and in Goëlo. Word-finally following r, l, n, z it is pronounced.
- But mute in words such as gouez, bloaz, goaz, ruziañ, kleiz, rakdïazezañ, bezañ, Roazhon, dezhañ, kouezhañ, 'z, az, ez, da'z, gwirionez, enepwirionez, moneiz, falsvoneiz, karantez, kengarantez, nevez, nevezc'hanet, nadozioù, abardaez, gwez, bemdez, kriz, bleiz, morvleiz, dezhi . Z is generally mute in Kerneweg, Tregerieg and Gwenedeg, but in Leoneg z is always pronounced.
- Used to distinguish words stêr river, hêr heir, kêr town from ster sense, her bold, ker dear.
- Used to distinguish trôad circuit/tour from troad foot.
- In northern dialects, there is a tendency to voice c'h between vowels. Pronunciation appears also in forms of lenition of g, c'h and mixed mutation of g.
- The lenition of d and the spirantization of t is also transcribed as z and is most prominently pronounced although in certain regions also and occur.
- Pronunciation of r varies in Brittany, nowadays uvular is a standard; in Leoneg r is pronounced, in Tregerieg or, in Kerneveg and are most common, in Gwenedeg occur.
- In Gwenedeg unstressed e often.
- Lenited varieties of r, l, n may appear word-initially in case of soft mutation.
- In Leoneg in front of a nasal.
- In Leoneg w in front of e, i.
- In Leoneg z in front of i or.
- In Leoneg gwr.
- Before a vowel.
- Forms of the indefinite article.
- A conservative realisation of the initial mutation of d and t, used in certain parts of the Vannes country.
Examples
Lord's Prayer
Words and phrases in Breton
Visitors to Brittany may encounter words and phrases such as the following:| Breton | English |
| deuet mat | welcome |
| deuet mat oc'h | you're welcome |
| Breizh | Brittany |
| brezhoneg | Breton ' |
| ti, "ty" | house |
| ti-kêr | town hall |
| kreiz-kêr | town centre |
| da bep lec'h | all directions |
| skol | school |
| skol-veur | university |
| bagad | pipe band ' |
| fest-noz | lit. "night festival", a fest deiz or "day festival" also exists |
| kenavo | goodbye |
| krampouezh | pancakes |
| sistr | cider |
| chouchenn | Breton mead |
| yec'hed mat | Cheers! |
| war vor atav | always at sea |
| kouign amann | rich butter and sugar cake |
Language comparison
Dictionaries
-
Learning
- Breton site with learners' forum and lessons
- Jouitteau, M. ,, IKER, CNRS, 2009 > 2017].
Bible