|
Brythonic is one of two major divisions of Insular Celtic languages (the other being Goidelic). It is known loosely as P-Celtic for the way it uses p for an old *kw in Proto-Indo-European; however, this nomenclature usually implies an acceptance of the P-Celtic hypothesis rather than the Insular Celtic hypothesis (for a discussion, see Celtic languages).
The living Brythonic languages are Breton, Welsh, and Cornish; also notable are Cumbric (now extinct), Westcountry Brythonic or Old Devonian (extinct), Ivernic (also extinct) and probably the extinct Pictish (although the late Kenneth H. Jackson argued during the 1950s, from some of the few remaining examples of Pictish that Pictish was a non-Indo-European language, the majority of modern Pictish scholars do not agree). Once, Brythonic languages encompassed most of Great Britain and Ireland – though in Ireland it was replaced with Goidelic when Gaels invaded sometime between 500 and 100 BC, but they were driven to the fringes of Britain by the invasions of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes which brought English to Britain. Brythonic languages then disappeared from Scotland after Irish colonists brought a Goidelic language with them from their home island.
|
