Breton language

“ The national consciousness was awakened at the time of the Revolution, when the Bretons became aware of the difference between themselves and their French neighbours. It may be mentioned by the way that the Breton language was regarded with suspicion by the leaders of the First Republic and attempts were made to suppress it. A Breton named Legonidec had to flee to England for fighting against the Republic. He came under the influence of the movement in Wales, and on his return sought to create a Breton literary language. ”

“ It is the selage of the ancients, spoken of by Pliny (lib. xiv.) , and is said by the Bretons to glitter like gold before the eyes of those who at the moment may fulfil the conditions for perceiving it, and who, by touching it with the foot, are instantly enabled to understand the language of all animals, and to converse with them.
6 The tradition of the redbreast, who broke a thorn from the crown of our Lord, is current throughout Brittany. ”

“ But all these spoken dialects of Welsh are kept together and their tendency to divergence is greatly checked by the existence of a very clearly defined spelling, grammar, and standard of style in the book language of what is far and away the most cultivated and literary of all the Celtic tongues. Breton has four well-defined dialects, those of Leon, Treguier, Cornouailles, and Vannes, besides the broken-down Breton of the Croisic district, the Vannes dialect differing from the others as much as Cornish does, and curiously resembling Cornish in some of its peculiarities. ”

“ The older stages of Irish have hitherto so monopolized the energies of scholars that other departments of Celtic philology save Breton have been left in large measure unworked. J. Strachan had begun to tap the mine of the Old Welsh poems when his career was cut short by death. J. Loth and E. Ernault have concentrated their attention on Breton, and can claim that the development of the speech of Brittany has been more thoroughly investigated than that of any other Celtic language. The number of periodicals devoted entirely to Celtic studies has increased considerably of recent years. ”

“ The Brittany described in these pages is comprised principally of the three departments of Côtes-du-Nord, Finistère, and Morbihan, the inhabitants of these districts standing apart, as it were, from the rest of France, preserving their own customs and traditions, speaking their own language, singing their own songs, and dancing their own dances in the streets in 1879. In these three departments is comprehended nearly all that is most characteristic of the Bretons, and the district forms itself naturally into a convenient summer tour of three or four weeks. ”

“ The dialect of Léon is regarded as the literary dialect, thanks to Legonidec.
The modern language is unfortunately saturated with words borrowed from French which form at least a quarter of the whole vocabulary. The living speech is further characterized by innumerable cases of consonantal metathesis and by parasitic nasalization. Loth gives specimens of the most important varieties of Breton in his Chrestomathie bretonne, pp. 363-380, but here we must confine ourselves to pointing out the two most salient differences between the speech of Vannes and the rest of Brittany. ”

“ The Brittonic languages—Welsh, Cornish, and Breton—appear first in glosses as early as the eighth century. These glosses are marginal or super-linear translations into Celtic of words or phrases in the Latin texts contained in the MSS. so "glossed." The period of the glosses is known as the "Old" stage of the languages—Old Breton, Old Cornish, Old Welsh. Real literary works do not occur till the "Middle" period of these tongues, commencing with the twelfth century and ending with the sixteenth. ”

“ The language of the Coligny calendar contains both qu and p; but whether the latter is secondary, or borrowed from Gaulish, or represents Aryan p, cannot yet be decided, since independent evidence as to meaning is lacking. The presence of Ar. p, if proved, would constitute these dialects a class apart.
§ 3. i. Welsh, Cornish and Breton are descended from British (properly Brittish) , the language of the ancient Britons. The speakers called themselves Brittones, and their language *Brittonikā. ”

“ The Celtic language is still spoken in lower Brittany. Four dialects are pretty clearly marked (see the article Celt: Language, "Breton," p. 328) . Nowhere has the taste for marvellous legends been kept so green as in Brittany; and an entire folk-literature still flourishes there, as is manifested by the large number of folk-tales and folk-songs which have been collected of late years.
The whole duchy was formerly divided into nine bishoprics:—Rennes, Dol, Nantes, St Malo and St Brieuc, in Upper Brittany and Tréguier, Vannes, Quimper and St Pol de Léon in Lower. ”

“ That the Breton contribution to Geoffrey's history was a considerable one must be admitted, notwithstanding Welsh denials of the fact, and the acceptance by many good authorities of a theory assuming definite Cymric characteristics in the narrative. History and philology tend equally to show that whatever differences exist at present between the Welsh and Breton languages have arisen gradually since the time of Henry I, and that before his time the two peoples were virtually identical.
The ‘Historia Britonum’ exercised a powerful influence in the unification of the people of England. ”

“ Throughout the modern period we find numerous collections of religious poems and manuals of devotion in prose and verse, which we cannot here attempt to enumerate. But the bulk of Breton literature before the 19th century consists of mysteries and miracle plays. This class of literature had a tremendous vogue in Brittany, and the native stage was only killed about 1850. ”

“ On the contrary, it exists in very great quantity and of a high quality, not only as poetry, but as illustrating the character and history of the people. The Breton race is not only a profoundly poetical one, by its pensive, mystic, and deeply religious character, but by its secluded condition apart from the currents of modern education, and its occupations in the gloomy, wind-swept, and rain-beaten fields and on the mysterious and terrifying seas, is particularly subject to the influences which make folk-song a part of its life and the natural expression of its thoughts and emotions. ”

“ As in Welsh the accent is withdrawn during the middle period from the final to the penultimate (except in the Vannes dialect) , which causes the modern unstressed vowel to be reduced in many cases. Again, in Old Welsh and Old Breton a short stressed vowel in words of one syllable was lengthened, e.g. tād, “father,” pl. tădau, but in Modern Breton the accent tends to lengthen all stressed vowels. Breton has gone its own way in the matter of initial mutation. ”

“ In our day, while many of the old provinces of France have suffered—if they really do “suffer”—from a decreasing population, Brittany has augmented her numbers continually. It is a well-worn saying among the political economists of France that the “fine and healthy race of Bretons is one of the greatest reserves and hopes of the republic.” Three-quarters of all those who man French ships come from the Breton peninsula. ”

“ Victor, who must have had an exceedingly bad dinner at his inn when he delivered himself of the following:
“Breton dialect is full of barbarisms, and Brittany is not even a healthy country for painters. It is a land of monasteries and dull routine; the same types and the same costumes; no men, no women, all Bretons, all of Brittany.”
As a race, the Breton may well be summed up as follows: They are the descendants of the men of a primitive epoch, from whom they inherit traits which even time has not entirely eradicated. Their intuitions are correct, and their convictions profound ”

“ J. Loth, Revue celtique, xxviii. 374-403) . So that since the 13th and 14th centuries the boundary between French and Breton begins in the north about Plouha (west of St Brieuc Bay) , and stretches to the mouth of the Vilaine in the south. That is to say, the Breton speakers are confined to the department of Finistère and the west of the departments Côtes-du-Nord and Morbihan. Lower Brittany contains a population of 1,360,000, of whom roughly 1,250,000 speak Breton. The number of monoglot Bretons is stated to have been 768,000 in 1878, 679,000 in 1885, and over 500,000 in 1898. ”

“ Perhaps no Europeans are more unlike each other than they. They differ more widely than plain French and English, for the Breton exhibits in caricature those habits and customs which mark the contrast most strongly between our neighbours and ourselves. He is far more bigoted, dirty, and ignorant than the average of his countrymen. ”

“ At first, we good people, artists, poets, or authors, who generally claim to possess some little knowledge, were rather surprised at such a decision. But the wise men had said so; Bengal and Bretagne had to fraternize; the Brahmins of Benares speak Breton and the Bretons of Bretagne speak Sanskrit. Bretagne is Indian and India is Breton.
Comparative Philology has taught the children of our day, that two syllables which are identical [011] in the idioms of two different races, prove the connection between two nations; hybridism means kinship.
What happy people scholars are! ”

“ The first is represented in Brittany by the Korigans, the second by the Teuz. The Teuz is just the same as the elf or fairy of the Scotch and Irish, aiding the labourers in their toil, and resembles the mountain spirit of Germany.
6 In Brittany they reckon by reals; the Breton real is not worth one franc eight centimes, as in Spain, but only twenty-five centimes.
[Contents]
The Spectre Laundresses.
The Bretons are born in sin, even as other men, but never have they been wanting in care for the souls of their faithful departed. ”

“ It does not appear that the Bretons have so much as a national tradition of any romantic poetry; nor any writings in their language older than 1450. The authority of Warton, Leyden, Ellis, Turner, and Price have rendered this hypothesis of early Armorican romance popular; but I cannot believe that so baseless a fabric will endure much longer. Is it credible that tales of aristocratic splendour and courtesy sprung up in so poor and uncivilised a country as Bretagne? ”

“ Probably those vast colonies of megalithic monuments at Carnac, and their orphaned brothers and sisters scattered elsewhere throughout Brittany, did much to keep the flames aglow on pagan altars, and even to-day it is easy to perceive with what awe and veneration the simple-minded Breton peasant regards these weird survivals of other days. At any rate, Breton religion to-day is a devotion to many forms and ceremonies. ”

“ Exercises sur la grammaire bretonne (Vannes, 1903) ; H. d’Arbois de Jubainville, “Étude phonétique sur le dialecte breton de Vannes,” Revue celtique, i. 85 ff. 211 ff.; E. Ernault, “Le Dialecte vannetais de Sarzeau,” Rev. celt. iii. 47 ff., 232 ff.; J. Guillome, Grammaire française-bretonne (Vannes, 1836) . As a curiosity we mention P. Treasure, An Introduction to Breton Grammar (Carmarthen, 1903) . Dictionaries: Legonidec, Dictionnaire français-breton (St Brieuc, 1847) , Breton-Français (St Brieuc, 1850) , both republished by de la Villemarqué and representing the Léon dialect ”

“ The interinfluence of French and English literature can be studied in the Breton romances and the romans d’aventure even better than in the epic poetry of the period. The Lay of Orpheus is known to us only through an English imitation; the Lai du cor was composed by Robert Biket, an Anglo-Norman poet of the 12th century (Wulff, Lund, 1888) . The lais of Marie de France were written in England, and the greater number of the romances composing the matière de Bretagne seem to have passed from England to France through the medium of Anglo-Norman. ”

“ And according to popular Breton belief, as reliable peasants assure me, during dreams, trance, or ecstasy, the soul is supposed to depart from the body and actually see spirits of all kinds in another world, and to be then under their influence. While many details in the more conventional corrigan stories appear to reflect a folk-memory of religious dances and songs, and racial, social, and traditional usages of the ancient Bretons, the animistic background of them could conceivably have originated from psychical experiences such as this girl is supposed to have had. ”

“ There are several hundred English residents in Dinan, and the voices in the streets have a familiar sound, neither French nor Breton. But the population, including English, scarcely exceeds 10,000 even in summer; and the inhabitants, who are not given up to trading with visitors, are principally occupied in agriculture, or working in their dark dwellings at hand looms. ”

“ Sometimes the love of one’s own country may be carried to an extreme. We read that for long years, and until recently, the inhabitants of Trélaze positively refused to assimilate with outside conditions of life to the least degree, and finding a Breton of this little zone or islet who spoke French was as improbable as to find one who spoke English. At St. Brieuc there is a special quarter where the Breton-speaking folk live to the number of two thousand, and this out of a population of only twenty-two thousand, while at Nantes the Bretons number ten thousand. ”