{"id":2057,"date":"2022-07-15T16:09:03","date_gmt":"2022-07-15T16:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/radio\/?p=2057"},"modified":"2025-04-28T19:37:55","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T19:37:55","slug":"celtic-pathways-languages-and-tongues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/radio\/?p=2057","title":{"rendered":"Celtic Pathways &#8211; Languages and Tongues"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemscope itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/AudioObject\"><meta itemprop=\"name\" content=\"Celtic Pathways &amp;#8211; Languages and Tongues\" \/><meta itemprop=\"uploadDate\" content=\"2022-07-15T16:09:03+00:00\" \/><meta itemprop=\"encodingFormat\" content=\"audio\/mpeg\" \/><meta itemprop=\"duration\" content=\"PT4M52S\" \/><meta itemprop=\"description\" content=\"Celtic Pathways is a new series on Radio Omniglot that will be exploring connections between Celtic languages, and looking for Celtic roots in other languages.\n\nThe Six Celtic languages currently spoken are all members of the insular branch of the Ce...\" \/><meta itemprop=\"contentUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/radio_omniglot\/www.omniglot.com\/soundfiles\/celticpathways\/language.mp3\" \/><meta itemprop=\"contentSize\" content=\"5.4\" \/><div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_1328\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-2057-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/radio_omniglot\/www.omniglot.com\/soundfiles\/celticpathways\/language.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/radio_omniglot\/www.omniglot.com\/soundfiles\/celticpathways\/language.mp3\">https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/radio_omniglot\/www.omniglot.com\/soundfiles\/celticpathways\/language.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/radio_omniglot\/www.omniglot.com\/soundfiles\/celticpathways\/language.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/radio\/?powerpress_pinw=2057-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/radio_omniglot\/www.omniglot.com\/soundfiles\/celticpathways\/language.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"language.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p><strong>Celtic Pathways<\/strong> is a new series on Radio Omniglot that will be exploring connections between Celtic languages, and looking for Celtic roots in other languages.<\/p>\n<p>The Six Celtic languages currently spoken are all members of the insular branch of the Celtic language family, which is part of the Indo-European language family. They can be divided into two groups: the Goidelic or Q-Celtic languages: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/writing\/irish.htm\">Irish<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/writing\/manx.htm\">Manx<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/writing\/gaelic.htm\">Scottish Gaelic<\/a>, and the Brythonic or P-Celtic languages: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/writing\/welsh.htm\">Welsh<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/writing\/cornish.htm\">Cornish<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/writing\/breton.htm\">Breton<\/a>. They are spoken mainly in the British Isles, Ireland, and Brittany in the northwest of France. There are also Welsh speakers in Patagonia in Argentina, and Scottish Gaelic speakers in Nova Scotia in Canada.<\/p>\n<p>Other Celtic languages were spoken in the past in parts of Continental Europe, particularly in what is now France, Spain, Portugual, northern Italy and across central Europe perhaps as far as Turkey. They are all extinct, although there is a little written material in some of them, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/writing\/gaulish.htm\">Gaulish<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/writing\/celtiberian.htm\">Celtiberian<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/writing\/leptonic.htm\">Leptonic<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve been collecting words that are cognate (related) in some or all of the modern Celtic languages since 2009 and putting them together in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/language\/celtic\/connections\/index.php\">Celtic cognates<\/a> section of Omniglot. In 2018 I started exploring these words in more depth on the <a href=\"Celtic cognates\">Celtiadur<\/a> blog. I look for related words in the modern Celtic languages, in earlier versions of the Celtic languages, such as Middle Welsh and Old Irish, and in their extinct and reconstructed relatives, right back to Proto-Celtic. I also look for words from the same roots in other languages, such as English, French and Spanish.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Words of Celtic origin in other languages<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lists_of_English_words_of_Celtic_origin\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lists_of_English_words_of_Celtic_origin<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_French_words_of_Gaulish_origin\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_French_words_of_Gaulish_origin<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_Galician_words_of_Celtic_origin\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_Galician_words_of_Celtic_origin<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_Spanish_words_of_Celtic_origin\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_Spanish_words_of_Celtic_origin<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uni-trier.de\/en\/forschung\/zat\/celtic-studies\/celtic-cultures\/celtic-words\">https:\/\/www.uni-trier.de\/en\/forschung\/zat\/celtic-studies\/celtic-cultures\/celtic-words<\/a><\/p>\n<p>By the way, I speak Welsh and Irish more or less fluently, can get by in Scottish Gaelic and Manx, and have a smattering of Breton and Cornish. I\u2019ve been interested in Welsh for a long time as I have Welsh roots on my mother&#8217;s side, although she didn\u2019t speak it. I got into Irish and Scottish Gaelic through a love of tradition music and songs from Ireland and Scotland, and I learnt the others out of interest. While doing an MA in Linguistics at Bangor University, I wrote a dissertation on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/language\/articles\/languagerevival.php\">Death and Revival of Manx<\/a>. Find out more in my <a href=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/language\/learning\/index.htm\">Language Learning Adventures<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s start this first episode of Celtic Pathways by looking at words for <strong>language<\/strong> and <strong>tongue<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/images\/blog\/tongues.jpg\" width=\"630\" height=\"250\"><\/p>\n<p>The Proto-Celtic word for language was <strong>*yaxt\u012b<\/strong>, which comes from the Proto-Indo-European <em>*yek-<\/em> (to utter) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic\/yextis\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>Descendents in the modern Celtic languages include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>iaith<\/strong> [jai\u032f\u03b8] = language, tongue; people, nation, race, tribe in Welsh<\/li>\n<li><strong>yeth<\/strong> [e\u02d0\u03b8 \/ je\u02d0\u03b8] = tongue, language in Cornish<\/li>\n<li><strong>yezh<\/strong> [\u02c8je\u02d0s] = language in Breton<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Middle Irish word <strong>icht<\/strong> (race, people, tribe; province, district) possibly comes from the same Proto-Celtic root.<\/p>\n<p>Words from the same PIE root include: <strong>joke<\/strong> and <strong>Yule<\/strong> in English, <strong>jul<\/strong> (Yule, Christmas) in Danish and Norwegian, <strong>juego<\/strong> (play, game, sport) in Spanish, and <strong>joc<\/strong> (game, play, dance) in Romanian [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European\/yek-\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>The Proto-Celtic word for tongue was <strong>*tang\u02b7\u0101ss, tang\u02b7\u0101t<\/strong>, from the Proto-Indo-European *dn\u0325\u01f5\u02b0w\u00e9h\u2082s (tongue). Descendents in the modern Celtic langauges include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>teanga<\/strong> [\u02c8t\u02b2a\u014b\u0259 \/ \u02c8t\u02b2a\u014b\u0261\u0259] = tongue, language in Irish<\/li>\n<li><strong>teanga<\/strong> [t\u02b2\u025b\u014bg\u0259] = tongue speech, spit (of land) in Scottish Gaelic<\/li>\n<li><strong>\u00e7hengey<\/strong> [\u02c8t\u0283\u025bn\u02b2\u0259] = bell-clapper, clasp, feather, strap-hinge; catch (of buckle); tongue; language, speech; utterance in Manx<\/li>\n<li><strong>tafod<\/strong> [\u02c8tav\u0254d \/ \u02c8ta\u02d0v\u0254d] = tongue, faculty of speech, power of expression; language, speech, dialect, accent in Welsh<\/li>\n<li><strong>taves<\/strong> = language, tongue in Cornish<\/li>\n<li><strong>teod<\/strong> [\u02c8t\u025bwt] = language, tongue in Breton<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Words from the same PIE root include: <strong>tongue<\/strong> and <strong>language<\/strong> in English, <strong>lingua<\/strong> (tongue, language) in Italian, <strong>\u044f\u0437\u0438\u043a<\/strong> [j\u0250\u02c8z\u026ak] (tongue) in Ukrainian, and <strong>jazyk<\/strong> (tongue, language) in Czech and Slovak [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European\/dn%CC%A5%C7%B5%CA%B0w%C3%A9h%E2%82%82s\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>An Old Irish word for language and speech was <strong>b\u00e9lrae<\/strong> [\u02c8b\u02b2e\u02d0l\u0348re], from the Old Irish <em>b\u00e9l<\/em> (mouth). This became <strong>B\u00e9arla<\/strong> [\u02c8b\u02b2e\u02d0\u027e\u02e0l\u032a\u02e0\u0259] in modern Irish, <strong>Beurla<\/strong> [bj\u0264\u02d0r\u032a\u02e0l\u032a\u02e0\u0259] in Scottish Gaelic and <strong>Baarle<\/strong> [b\u025b\u02d0\u1d48l], all of which mean English (language) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/b%C3%A9lrae\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/celtiadur\/2019\/07\/05\/languages-and-tongues\/\">More details about these words on the Celtiadur<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I also write about words, etymology and other language-related topics on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/\">Omniglot Blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You can also listen to this podcast on: <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/gb\/podcast\/radio-omniglot\/id1432641094\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/music.amazon.com\/podcasts\/8b1b1d1b-b39e-4277-b28d-479a3b5043b3\/radio-omniglot\">Amazon Music<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stitcher.com\/podcast\/radio-omniglot\">Stitcher<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/tunein.com\/podcasts\/Education-Podcasts\/Radio-Omniglot-p1154145\/\">TuneIn<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.podchaser.com\/podcasts\/radio-omniglot-716327\">Podchaser<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/player.fm\/series\/radio-omniglot\">PlayerFM<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/podtail.com\/da\/podcast\/radio-omniglot\/\">podtail<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If you would like to support this podcast, you can make a donation via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.paypal.com\/uk\/cgi-bin\/webscr?cmd=_flow&amp;SESSION=aLjPfXL-vP_1gQ_U23Iz8_hSWLlhzLHPMFZrt32dIEfG8htoNFLYaPoWkv8&amp;dispatch=5885d80a13c0db1f8e263663d3faee8def8934b92a630e40b7fef61ab7e9fe63\">PayPal<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/omniglot\">Patreon<\/a>, or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/donations.htm\">contribute to Omniglot in other ways<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.japanesepod101.com\/member\/go.php?r=759259&amp;i=b0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/images\/banners\/banner_japanesepod.jpg\" alt=\"The Fastest Way to Learn Japanese Guaranteed with JapanesePod101.com\" width=\"630\" height=\"83\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div itemscope itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/AudioObject\"><meta itemprop=\"name\" content=\"Celtic Pathways &amp;#8211; Languages and Tongues\" \/><meta itemprop=\"uploadDate\" content=\"2022-07-15T16:09:03+00:00\" \/><meta itemprop=\"encodingFormat\" content=\"audio\/mpeg\" \/><meta itemprop=\"duration\" content=\"PT4M52S\" \/><meta itemprop=\"description\" content=\"Celtic Pathways is a new series on Radio Omniglot that will be exploring connections between Celtic languages, and looking for Celtic roots in other languages.\n\nThe Six Celtic languages currently spoken are all members of the insular branch of the Ce...\" \/><meta itemprop=\"contentUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/radio_omniglot\/www.omniglot.com\/soundfiles\/celticpathways\/language.mp3\" \/><meta itemprop=\"contentSize\" content=\"5.4\" \/><div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_1329\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-2057-2\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/radio_omniglot\/www.omniglot.com\/soundfiles\/celticpathways\/language.mp3?_=2\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/radio_omniglot\/www.omniglot.com\/soundfiles\/celticpathways\/language.mp3\">https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/radio_omniglot\/www.omniglot.com\/soundfiles\/celticpathways\/language.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/radio_omniglot\/www.omniglot.com\/soundfiles\/celticpathways\/language.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/radio\/?powerpress_pinw=2057-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/radio_omniglot\/www.omniglot.com\/soundfiles\/celticpathways\/language.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"language.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p>Celtic Pathways is a new series on Radio Omniglot that will be exploring connections between Celtic languages, and looking for Celtic roots in other languages. The Six Celtic languages currently spoken are all members of the insular branch of the Celtic language family, which is part of the Indo-European language family. They can be divided [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,122,37,33,31,20,56,23,6,4,36,84,1,94,59,5,28,30,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breton","category-celtic-pathways","category-cornish","category-czech","category-danish","category-english","category-etymology","category-french","category-irish","category-language","category-manx","category-norwegian-norsk","category-podcast","category-proto-celtic","category-proto-indo-european","category-scottish-gaelic","category-spanish","category-swedish","category-welsh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/radio\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/radio\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/radio\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/radio\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/radio\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2057"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/radio\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3898,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/radio\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2057\/revisions\/3898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/radio\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/radio\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/radio\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}