- Also spoken in
- France
- Script
- Latin
- Speakers
- 207K (2018)
Where it's spoken
Article 2 of the French Constitution states that the language of the Republic is French, and Article 75-1 states that regional languages belong to the heritage of France. A survey commissioned by the Brittany Region questioned people aged 15 and over in the five departments of historic Brittany by telephone and found that about 5.5% of the population spoke Breton, with an average age of the speakers of 70.
Jouitteau refers to the traditional dialects of Breton by the terms Leon in the northwest, Gwened in the southeast, and a more innovative central area between Kerne in the southwest and Treger in the northeast.
Sources
- Constitution du 4 octobre 1958 (République française), Légifrance — Articles 2 and 75-1
- Région Bretagne, « Enquête sociolinguistique sur le breton et le gallo » (press release, 4 October 2018; survey by TMO Régions) — Synthèse of the survey results
- Jouitteau, Mélanie (2021). "The Politeness Systems of Address, Variations across Breton Dialects", Roczniki Humanistyczne 69(11) — §1.1 (dialect terms)
Script & pronunciation
Breton is written in the Latin alphabet. Its spelling includes the combination c'h, as in c'hwi ("you"), and the letter ñ, as in the infinitive troc'hañ ("to cut").
Like the other Celtic languages, Breton has initial consonant mutations: the first consonant of a word changes depending on the grammatical context, and the native grammatical tradition distinguishes four principal mutations, called spirantizing, reinforcing, leniting and mixed. Lenition, for example, changes k to g, m to v, p to b and t to d, as in kador ("chair") and e gador ("his chair"). When an article is followed by a feminine singular noun, the article apparently triggers the full range of lenitions with one exception, as in kador and ar gador ("the chair"), or mamm and ar vamm ("the mother"); delienn ("leaf") stays unchanged in an delienn.
This app's cards show lenition in several places. In N'em eus ket miret ur gambr ("I haven't booked a room"), the feminine noun kambr ("room") appears as gambr after ur. The negative ne also lenites the verb that follows it: in Ne gomprenan ket ("I don't understand"), gomprenan is the lenited form of komprenañ. For this reason, a word in a sentence can look different from the form listed in a dictionary.
Sources
- Jouitteau, Mélanie and Francesc Torres-Tamarit. "The Syntax of Modern Breton", in The Handbook of Celtic Languages (Palgrave) — pp. 2, 10 (examples in standardized Breton orthography)
- Stump, Gregory T. "On Incomplete Mutations in Breton" (University of Kentucky) — §1 (mutations; example 1; example 4)
Grammar essentials
The canonical word order of Breton is verb-second: the inflected verb comes after one other element, which can be the subject, the object, or an infinitive. A short particle, a or e, stands before the inflected verb. It is a after nominal elements, including infinitives, and e in all other contexts; a triggers lenition on the verb. With the help of the verb "to do", an infinitive can open the sentence. This app's Kompren a ran ("I understand") has a similar shape: the verb kompren comes first, then the particle a, then ran, a form of ober ("to do").
In a negative clause, ne stands before the inflected verb and ket after it, as in this app's Ne gomprenan ket ("I don't understand").
Breton has a verb "to have", kaout, which is irregular: it is written as two words, with the part that agrees with the possessor on the left, and the first person singular is am eus or em eus. The same verb also serves as an auxiliary. In this app's Miret em eus ur gambr ("I have booked a room"), em eus is combined with the participle miret.
Inside a noun phrase the order is determiner, noun, then modifiers, so adjectives follow the noun. In this app's Bloavezh mat ! ("Happy New Year!"), the noun bloavezh ("year") comes first and the adjective mat ("good") follows it.
Sources
- Jouitteau, Mélanie and Francesc Torres-Tamarit. "The Syntax of Modern Breton", in The Handbook of Celtic Languages (Palgrave) — §0.2.1 (pp. 2-3, word order and particles); p. 10 (negation); §0.4.3 (pp. 15-16, kaout); §0.5.1 (p. 16, noun phrase)
Politeness & etiquette
In Standard Breton the singular te and the plural c'hwi contrast in pronouns, in the pronouns attached to prepositions and in verb forms, and the plural form can be used for a single person to whom politeness and respect are shown, as in Welsh and Scottish Gaelic. This app's cards mark the contrast in several pairs: Trugarez deoc'h ("Thank you (formal)") against Trugarez dit (offered for a friend), and Penaos 'mañ kont ganeoc'h ? ("How are you? (formal)") against Penaos 'mañ kont ganit ? ("How are you?"). In Komz a rit saozneg ? ("Do you speak English?"), the card describes rit as the polite plural "you" and gives Komz a rez saozneg ? for a friend.
Not all Breton speakers use this contrast. Some traditional dialects have no singular address pronoun at all: their only second-person pronoun is a form of c'hwi, used for one or several addressees whatever the familiarity. Jouitteau reports that most speakers in the central and southern area have a single address pronoun, comparable to English "you", while other areas keep a two-way system based on age and social status, or on the gender of the person addressed. Because a speaker cannot guess which system the other person uses, Jouitteau concludes that there is no Breton-internal safe choice.