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The Languages of the Celtic Nations: The P-Celtic Areas

© Kelly Vincent

Like the nations of the Q-Celtic languages, Wales, Brittany and Cornwall have more interesting linguistic histories than you might have imagined. In Wales and Cornwall, the respective Celtic languages have been marginalized in favor of English, while the same happened in Brittany with French.

Brythonic, the P-Celtic common ancestor to Welsh, Breton and Cornish, was spoken all over present-day Wales, Cornwall, England and even southern Scotland from about the middle of the first millennium BC. It survived throughout the Roman occupation, from 43AD to the early 5th century. It also survived the Anglo-Saxon invasions of the post-Roman era, though this is the period in which it was largely displaced to Wales and Cornwall, and when the dialects began to diverge more. Welsh and Cornish survived the Viking invasions. Both languages then initially survived the Norman invasions, though this is when the threat started to develop.

Cornwall and Wales

Since both Cornwall and Wales are in the western part of southern Britain, they share similar histories, except that Welsh weathered much better than Cornish did. In Cornwall, Cornish (or its ancestor language) was the primary and most important language until its demise in favor of English. And in Wales, it was Welsh that was the primary language, which has been in decline because of the growing use of English. But what about the other languages historically spoken there?

When the Romans first arrived, the areas now called Cornwall and Wales were inhabited by different tribes, though these were all Celtic tribes (see the websites Roman Britain and Go Britannia! for the facts in this section). In Cornwall, there were the Dumnonii and the Durotriges tribes. Wales had several tribes, including the Demetae, Silures, Ordovices, Deceangi and Gangani. Although the Romans were most established in southeastern England, there delved quite deeply into both Cornwall and Wales. In both areas, archeology has yielded several Roman sites, such as settlements, marching camps, auxiliary forts and legionary forts. Latin was of course used by all of the Romans, and during this stage many Latin loanwords began influencing the natives' use of Brythonic. When the Romans left, Latin was also abandoned in favor of the Celtic language, although it remained important in scholarly pursuits and in the Church.

Brythonic was still being spoken at the time the Angles, Saxons and Jutes began moving into the Isles soon after the Romans left. The Anglo-Saxon language (the ancestor of English, of course), began slowly displacing Brythonic, especially where the concentration of Anglo-Saxon speakers was particularly high, such as southeastern England. Over time, this displacement moved north and west, so that virtually all the "Celtic-ness" of southern Britain was eventually pushed into Wales and Cornwall, where Brythonic was still spoken.