Talk:Breton language

About Dialectal Divisions of the Breton Language

I was reading an article about the Breton language on Omniglot, and I noticed that one of the four dialectal divisions pointed out to right were Breton came from.

This dialectal division was in the county of Cornouaille (French for Cornwall), and the Breton dialect was Kerneveg. This seems sort of scary to me, especially when you compare the word for Cornish in their own language, which is Kernowek. You can sort of prove with this about the origin of Breton.

I bet that before Englih and French impacted Brittany, speakers of the Breton language probably thought they were speaking Cornish, or at least a dialect of it, and probably even identified themselves as Cornish. Now this brings upon another subject that I will discuss on the Cornish language article ... Fabrizio Alessandro Bernabéi (talk) 00:00, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Hello in Breton language

How do you say hello in Breton? >>

There is no single agreed equivalent for hello in Breton. Various phrases tend to be used depending on time of day, familiarity of interlocutors, etc. Among the most common are demat and salud, but often one simply asks someone how they are with a phrase such as penaos 'mañ ar bed ganeoc'h. Man vyi 13:16, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

In my family, it was usual to start a conversation by the weather : "Brav eo an amzer hirie !" ,"Nice weather today !". Even with strangers. Or a more familiar "Mont' a ra ?", a sort of "Are you well ?". Never heard an equivalent of "Hello". It was the way to speak, not a lack of politness. NEVER use the so-known "kenavo", wich means "goodbye" ! Gwalarn 03:10, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Statistics from WP accesses

Statistics on Wikipedia accesses from France and some surrounding countries show that hardly anybody accesses the Breton Wikipedia. I wonder what we can conclude out of this about the number of people who can really read Breton. David.Monniaux 10:03, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Partially right, but the main issue is that the Breton WP is more than thin. Because a few people can write Breton fluently, and a few among them know Wikipedia, and finally a few of those are involved in writing for WP. Today, maybe less than 5 ? Gwalarn 13:03, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You might wish to consider your remarks regarding the Breton wikipedia that you left on the Breton language talk page last year [1] in the light of the fact that Breton is the Celtic language with the most articles by far on the Wikipedia and is soon to move up to the 10,000 mark.

Neal: Breton Wikipedia Moderator

A huge progression! War raok ! Gwalarn 09:56, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

unique law?

I removed [in regard to the article of the French constitution stating French is the language of the Republic]:

, which is unique in Europe

In what way is this unique in Europe? Other countries define official languages as well (Constitution of Ireland, article 8, for example). Is the law unique for specifying French as the sole official language, or what? —Gabbe 20:50, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

Is there evidence that each year, there are more protesters demanding the repeal of the constitutional amendment? (Note: I'm not hostile to Breton, just I have an impression that some of the content of this article is written with a certain POV.) David.Monniaux 07:38, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The "unique law" is not the Constitution (wich is technically not a law), it is a law from the minister Toubon who obliged French language for every thing written or sold or treated on the French ground. This law was voted in 1994 (in France, some jokers called it the 'AllGood' law). Incidently, it gives obligation to teach in French only. So the school "Diwan", which is a monolingual school in Breton, is de facto out of law and cannot hope subsidies from the government as any other school. In fact, in France, you have no right to learn your language in its traditional speaking area. Only as a foreign language as English or Russian. That's what certains call a "linguicide", the will to kill the local languages. And on my own experience, the French governement approves of this linguicide. Gwalarn 00:26, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hem. Sorry to nitpick, but there were a few points to clarify in your explanation:

• We have an article called Toubon Law, and, no, this law does not impose the French language for every thing written on French ground. Consider reading the law. Imposing a language for privately produced publications etc. would probably be unconstitutional anyway.
• The Toubon Law indeed declares French to be the language of (public) education.
• Modifications to the Constitutions are lois constitutionnelles.
• The Diwan schools are not "outlawed". If they were outlawed, they would already have been closed. They are not state-subsidized.
• Not all schools are state-subsidized anyway (but it is true that most private schools are state-subsidized). David.Monniaux 07:27, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

OK for the precisions. Some more precisions : the Toubon law imposed the facts I stated. But some of those articles were declared "unconstitutional". French version, from the site www.legifrance.gouv.fr:

Dans la désignation, l'offre, la présentation, le mode d'emploi ou d'utilisation, la description de l'étendue et des conditions de garantie d'un bien, d'un produit ou d'un service, ainsi que dans les factures et quittances, l'emploi de la langue française est obligatoire. [Dispositions déclarées non conformes à la Constitution par décision du Conseil constitutionnel n° 94-345 DC du 29 juillet 1994.]

Approximat. translation : In designation, offer, presentation, user's guide, security agreement for a good or a service, like in the bills and quittances, the use of French language is compulsory (dispositions declared unconstitutional)

Some other articles unconstitutional like this one : the obligation to make ads (oral, printed, etc.) in French

The law was discussed, adopted (voted), then partially defined as "out of the Constitution". But the bad articles are not abroged or withdrawn, just defined "not applicable". They are still available.

• It is true that Diwan itself is not outlaw, but some of General Councils give it subsidies the school must refund, because they are forbidden. And there is no way to pay the teachers with public funds, which is the best way to avoid having teachers. Finally, to learn the language of your fathers, you have to be rich enough to pay your own teacher.

I agree with "lois constitutionnelles", but the constitution itself is not a law.

Recent decision from the French highest Court (Cour de Cassation), about the obligation in France to sell documentation of technical products in French language :

• http://www.tpe-pme.com/articlesid.asp?NomArticle=art1209.html.

(if link broken, see http://legifrance.gouv.fr/ and search the decision n° 03-85642 from the Cassation criminelle, 3 novembre 2004). This judgment clearly follows what I said here about the obligation to use the French language, even in private contracts. Incidentally, it shows that if an article is "unconstitutional", it may have force of law, anyway. Not a good news for Diwan. 80.170.54.245 Gwalarn 14:57, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think the whole penultimate paragraph in 1 is misleading and NPOV. What about Basque in the South-West, isn't that a non-official celtic language? Shelta? Cornish? What about other minority languages, for example Lorrain?

We need to change it to make clear:

• Whether Breton is treated differently from other non-French languages in France
• How much of this the Loi Toubon defines
• How much of this the Constitution defines

We should talk about how this is different from Welsh in the UK or other celtic languages.

Some precisions : Basque is not a Celtic language. Cornish has never been spoken in France. And I don't know what is "Shelta".

I don't think France has a different regard to any of its traditional languages. But it seems to be a different idea : the mistreatment in France of the non-French languages should make a whole article, and the situation of the less-spoken languages in Europe may, too. It does not remove any of the points highlighted above, which refers only to the situation of Breton comparing with French. Gwalarn 18:23, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Humiliating practices are History

• According to the defenders of the Breton language, humiliating practices geared toward stamping out Breton lingered in schools and churches until the 1960s.

Ok, it's not a word from the "defenders of the Breton language", it is history : all my grand parents, knowing only "oui" and "no" in French when primarely going to school (and their parents nothing at all) had to make tough job to learn French. All the public life was oriented "no Breton", with special treatments for young speakers. Only one language in the Republic schools : French, from Lille to the Ivory Coast. As there were no French speakers in the area of my grand parents, the teacher give the pupils frequent penalties when they were taught speaking Breton in the school of the Republic. This helped to remember French words. The Bretons accepted it as a price to pay, to give to their children a real place in the French Republic, laic and (only) French-speaking. At least they can be soldiers, civil servants, have a better job, follow more studies, etc. So they encourage their children to stop speaking Breton. And now the link between generations is broken, except in small areas. According to the French lawn, it was forbidden to give to your child a Breton first name, until the 1980's. On the road, the double signage starts only in the '90. Breton speaker is an "endangered species" ! Recently the French State Court rejected the right to teach pupils in Breton, according to the 2nd article of the Constitution : "French is the language of the Republic" ; full stop. Gwalarn 00:05, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hem. "Recently the French State Court rejected the right to teach pupils in Breton". No, it rejected the use of public money to subsidize such education. That's fairly different. David.Monniaux 11:05, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

León link disambiguation

I'm trying to disambiguate the Leon page. This page links to it with an ambiguous "Leon" dialog link. I don't know which of the options on the page to transfer the link to (or none). Can someone who knows please fix the link - either direct it to one of the Leon page disambig options, or link it to a new (to be created) page? Thanks, DarbyAsh 05:44, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

How to prononce "Brezhoneg"

like brez-honeg, or is the zh one sound like in bonjour?

No, zh is usually pronunced like a Z in Kerne Leon and Tregor, and it is pronunced like an H in the Gwennedeg dialect.

[bre'zõ:nEk], or ['brehõ'nEk],... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Evarzheg (talk • contribs) 14:05, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Gender

Does Breton have the same masculine/feminie gender system as Irish and Welsh? — Hippietrail 00:13, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know for those languages, but the gender system is the same as French, Spanish, Portuguese : masculine or feminine for every noun. But not in exact correspondance with the gender of French words. Gwalarn 10:04, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Distribution

I had to remove the linked image showing a map of the distribution of Breton and Gallo languages, because it was deleted from wiki commons for not explaining where it came from. If someone could find a new image that would be great. Murderbike 01:32, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Are there any data anyone could find that shows the actual current distribution of Breton in Brittany similar to the Gaeltachtaed maps for Irish and Scottish Gaelic? It says there are 500k speakers, but other places (like Wikitravel) says Breton is limited to a few old people and scholars. I think it is important to paint a realistic portrait of the distribution and extent of language use.65.100.32.202 (talk) 04:21, 30 March 2008 (UTC) 65.100.32.202 (talk) 04:21, 30 March 2008 (UTC) 65.100.32.202 (talk) 04:21, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

IPA table

Strictly speaking, ɥ and w do not belong in the two-dimensional IPA table. They are usually shown outside it. Right now, it looks like ɥ is a voiceless j, which is not the case.

Fixed it by adding a labiopalatal section. Generally speaking now, there's still a small problem in 'pedia regarding the matter of non-explicit "voiceness": if someone has no knowledge of the IPA, how is (s)he gonna know right-away that ʎ, ɥ, ʕ denote voiced consonants, while ɸ, ɬ voiceless ones, since in the IPA tables of many languages' (whose phonetic inventories have only one of the two "voice-varieties" of a consonant) articles all these symbols appear centralized in their table-boxes? Maybe, someone should start fixing this.
--Omnipedian (talk) 06:53, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

No mention of either stress or accent,

and I guess it's just an omission rather than a characteristic of the language.

.bzh - Proposed for deletion

Hi,

I am proposing the article .bzh for deletion. Please see Talk:.bzh for explanation. Your input is welcome. --Amir E. Aharoni 07:23, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Catholic church

The article states that after the Second Vatican Council the Catholic Church turned against the Breton language. What does this refer to?--HarryHenryGebel (talk) 19:50, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Influence of French on Breton

Considering that Breton is the only living Celtic language that has an indefinite article, it would appear to me that this has resulted from French influence. Am I wrong in saying that? Also, the word order in the Breton sentence "ul levr zo ganin" and the French "un livre est avec-moi" are identical in word order. "Ul levr zo ganin" is more similar to French than to Irish or Welsh in which the nearest word order would respectively be "Is leabhar atá agam" and "Lyffr ydy gen i" which would translate to something along the lines of "'Tis a book that is at me/with me" as opposed to "a book is with-me" which is again closer to English than to it's Celtic relatives. French influence? Enlighten me... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.147.139.145 (talk) 00:32, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Well the Welsh for I have a book - "Ul levr zo ganin" quoted above is "Mae llyfr gen i" The form "Llyfr sy' gen i" is also grammatical and is identical with the Breton construction. In Welsh it suggests emphasis - It is a book that I have". Of course there is French influence on Breton. There is French influence on English too, and English influence on French for that matter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Barcudcoch (talk • contribs) 15:59, 14 December 2008 (UTC) Barcud Coch (talk) 16:02, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

It comes from a community...

Robin, I think we discussed this already elsewhere. The sentence (in the History section) "It comes from a Celtic language community (see image) between Great Britain and Armorica (present-day Brittany), and even Galicia" is unclear in the extreme, and that is part of the reason I changed an earlier version of it. A language does not 'come from a community'; rather, it is spoken by members of a community. From the earlier discussion (and from your newly-added reference to the map), my understanding is that you want to say that a common community existed (when exactly?) between all of the Brythonic-speaking lands, despite (or even, as you imply, because of) the intervening ocean. I think you need to (1) cite a reference for that contention, and (2) make your sentence say that!
--Yumegusa (talk) 09:30, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Wider cultural references

It's almost trivial, I know, but I wonder if the song Gortoz a Ran - J'Attends, sung by Denez Prigent and Lisa Gerrard should be mentioned on this page, as an example of the use of Breton in wider popular culture. I heard it from the "Black Hawk Down" soundtrack, and realised it wasn't French or anything like that, but had to search the Internet to discover that the lyrics were written in Breton. It's pretty safe to say, I should think, that it's probably the only time most Americans (or most anyone outside of France) have ever heard Breton spoken (or sung). I don't know exactly how one would go about including it, but I think it's somewhat relevant. Thoughts? Sacxpert (talk) 06:45, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

phonology and orthography

There is no detailed explanation of the phonology and orthography of Breton in this article. For example, what consonant does “c’h” represent? Cheers. – Kaihsu (talk) 10:29, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Some sort of a [x], as far as I understand.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 23:12, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Breton vowels

While I don't know much about Breton, this primer by a teacher of Breton at the Russian MGU seems to say that the Breton vowel system looks like this:

		Front		Back
		unrounded	rounded
Close		i	y	u
Close-mid		e	ø	o
Open-mid		ɛ	œ	ɔ
Open		a~ɑ 1

¹ - /a/ may be either front or back depending on the specific dialect.

This is basically the same vowel system as that of French minus the nasals and the "schwa". If nobody objects, I intend to add it to the article in a few days.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 22:57, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Nasals are common in Breton, for example brezhoneg (Breton) is pronounced (by many) /bʁez'ɔ̃:nɛk/, heñvre (dream) is pronounced /h'ɛ̃:vʁe/. I am not very knowledgeable about the language itself though. I can't seem to find an example of a word using a schwa, but this is definitely not a proof that there isn't. Oyp (talk) 12:45, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, you're right. The text I cited doesn't include the nasalized vowels in the chart, but instead mentions them in a footnote - just brilliant. It doesn't care to list them though, so I guess some other source will have to be found.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 23:03, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

The nasalized pronunciation of [bʁez'ɔ̃:nɛk] and similar words (more examples here) would seem to be allophonic, though, so it doesn't necessarily count. The <Vñ> series, on the other hand, can't be ignored.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 23:08, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

[ɔ̃] is standard AFAIK. The alternative is [u], I think it is mostly found in Leon. Oyp (talk) 19:00, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I didn't say it wasn't standard, I said it seemed to be allophonic (a variant of /ɔ/ by the following /n/ rather than an actual phoneme) - something I assumed because it isn't spelled with a following <ñ> like <heñvre>, and because all vowels appear to be nasalized before /n/ in the example words here. By the way, Press (see below) doesn't mention any /ɔ̃/, just /õ/, but I suppose he means there is no contrast between the two in Breton. Oddly, he also says that "basically, all the vowels can be nasalized" (p.30)! --91.148.159.4 (talk) 16:19, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

My mistake. Roñse (horse) may be a better example, then. All vowels are not nasalised before /n/, e.g. den (man) is pronounced [dɛn]. I wouldn't be surprised if all the vowels could indeed be nasalised, since some Breton speakers tend to nasalise more or less everything. Oyp (talk) 19:18, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, all vowels may not be allophonically nasalized before /n/, but /a/ and /ɔ/ apparently are, if this lesson site is to be trusted: it says that <an> is pronounced [ãn], and <on> is pronounced [õn]. Whatever, this point was moot from the start. The worst thing is that I just haven't been able to find a reliable academic source about the phonology of the language, except for the one mentioned below, which IMO has too original ideas for our purposes. It's just absurd to have a consonant chart and no vowel chart in the article. --91.148.159.4 (talk) 18:10, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Ian Press (A grammar of modern Breton, 1986, p.24, available on Google Books) lists the following nasalized vowels: /ĩ/ /ẽ/ /ɛ̃/ /ỹ/ /œ̃/ /ã/ /ũ/ /õ/. The oral ones are the same as the ones I wrote above. I am, however, disconcerted by the fact that he lists the front rounded vowels (both oral and nasal) as central. Perhaps this is supposed to be an elegant phonological abstraction that he is very proud of - in any case, if anyone feels more comfortable with this part, and has an innate talent for wikitables :), please go ahead.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 23:44, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Inflected preposition

There seems to be some confusion in this section, especially on the fact that different languages use different prepositions to translate "have". In Breton, either da (to) or gant (with) can do that, depending on the meaning.

• ul levr zo din : I have a book, in the sense that I own it. It might be located far away.
• ul levr zo ganin : I have a book, meaning it is currently available to me. I might own it, or not.

Oyp (talk) 18:58, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Soft c'h

I am missing the IPA representation of the soft version of c'h in the consonant chart, which is specified as /ɣ/ in the mutation table. I am also confused, that the soft version of /x/ seems to be /ɣ/, while it is a voiced version of /χ/. I do not know from whence I heard it, but I seem to recall that the breton sound for hard c'h was somewhere between /x/ and /χ/. Would that mean that the soft version is between (what is it?) /ʁ/ and /ɣ/? Buriaku (talk) 00:42, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Edit. Buriaku (talk) 00:43, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I confounded /x/ with /χ/ so my first question should be ignored. But I'd still want to if the hard c'h is /x/ or a little farther back between /x/ and /χ/. Buriaku (talk) 13:45, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Vocabulary

The vocabulary section deals with supposed loan words into English. This article is about Breton not English. I propose to remove this section until a more appropriate section can be created. Opinions? Ozdaren (talk) 16:01, 27 July 2011 (UTC)