Gaulish Language | Can Welsh, Manx and Breton speakers understand it?

In this Celtic languages comparison video, we explore differences and similarities between Gaulish, Welsh, Breton and Manx - the modern Celtic languages.
Gaulish is part of the Indo-European family of languages and is more specifically categorized under the Celtic branch. It was in use from approximately the 6th century BC until the 6th century AD. As the Romans extended their control over the Celtic tribes of Gaul, the Gaulish language gradually gave way to Vulgar Latin, the precursor to the Romance languages, which includes modern French. (more info below)
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🤗 Big thanks to:
🤓 Morgan - the Gaulish researcher and KZbinr → @Gaisowiros
🤓 Paul - Manx teacher and KZbinr → @De Linguis,
Manx lessons: / delinguistuition
🤓🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Angharad - Mastodon, @[e-mail]
🤓 Daniel - Breton teacher
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🕰 Time Stamps:
0:00 - Introduction
1:35 - What's the challenge about?
2:07 - 1. Challenge
08:43 - Translations & Cognates
14:10 - 2. Challenge
20:06 - Translations & Cognates
25:10 - 3. Challenge
30:33 - Translations & Cognates
36:01 - 4. Challenge
41:20 - Translations & Cognates
52:54 - Commentary
More info about the Gaulish language:
The Gaulish language was a Celtic language that was spoken in what is now France, Belgium, parts of Switzerland, Northern Italy, as well as the parts of Germany and Hungary west of the Rhine and Danube respectively, prior to the Roman Imperial period. The Gauls were the Celtic tribes living in these regions, hence the name of the language.
Despite having been extinct for over a millennium, the Gaulish language has left its mark on modern times in several ways.
1. Place Names: Many modern place names in France and surrounding regions have Gaulish origins. For example, the name of the French capital, Paris, is derived from the Parisii, a Gaulish tribe.
2. Linguistic Influence: The Gaulish language has also influenced the French language. Though French is a Romance language deriving primarily from Latin, it has several words of Gaulish origin. Examples include "char" (cart), "chemin" (path), and "quai" (quay).
3. Cultural Heritage and Revitalization Efforts: In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in Gaulish as part of a broader exploration of Celtic heritage and history. Some enthusiasts are even trying to revive the language, much like the revival of other extinct or endangered Celtic languages such as Cornish and Manx.
4. Academic Research: Gaulish continues to be a subject of study for linguists and historians interested in the Celtic world, Indo-European languages, and the historical interaction between the Celtic and Roman cultures.
Thus, while the Gaulish language is no longer spoken, its significance remains in the form of linguistic traces, place names, cultural heritage, and academic research. It serves as an important piece of the puzzle for understanding the historical and cultural landscape of Europe.
🤗 Big hug for everyone reading my video descriptions! You rock! 🤓💪🏻
#languagechallenge #celtic #languages

[@muradhab]

As a Tatar speaker I understand every single word they said... since there are subtitles on video

[@axolotl-guy9801]

Haha lol you got me

[@67lionsoflisbon37]

🤣

[@Jazzgin]

Hahahaha you myshyk you! 😹😹

[@divelea]

🤭

[@PewPewPlasmagun]

Shaytan!

[@ur-inannak9565]

I recognized a ton of words from Latin, as did many of the modern Celtic speakers seemingly lol When I heard the anecdote that Caesar told his generals to only speak Greek during his Gaulish campaign as not to be understood by the locals by speaking Latin, I thought it was an exaggeration/paranoia, but the similarity is true.

[@damionkeeling3103]

Write, not speak. Caesar required translators when in Gaul. The written languages were deemed close enough for Roman orders to be guessed at by the Gauls. Orders were written on things like wax tablets and sent by horse. If the Gauls intercepted the messenger then they could potentially work out what the Romans were up to.

[@Ezullof]

Celtic and italic languages are indeed thought to be quite close. The thing is that only insular celtic survived to this age (including breton), and it the celtic languages that diverged the most from italic, so the connexion isn't as visible anymore. In many ways gaulish is probably closer to latin than to modern celtic languages, because of time proximity. Btw I do have some doubts on the accuracy of the gaulish in this video. Like for the first sentence: I would not expect to find cum + instrumental in archaic or early classical latin. I would just find instrumental. I don't think gaulish would have com + instrumental (plural -us, analogous to latin -is), it would be redundant, and in fact it sounds like it would mean "I and the horses drive the chariot". Similarly in the second sentence: "gladiyon isarni" is literally "a gladius of iron", but I would rather expect an adjective there, maybe something like "isaron"? Idk, the syntax feels off to me. Like if a student of latin with a good handle of grammar, a good dictionary, was given the task to translate from english to latin but didn't have a lot of experience with the texts. The word order also feels weird, I would expect "rigani dede" etc. Btw the breton speaker also seems very unaware of medieval french's heavy influence on breton. Like, Rouanez is almost identical to medieval "reines" (nominative case), with a few phonetical difference.

[@ForageGardener]

The gauls and italics had EXTENSIVE contact for many centuries. Some gauls were almost italic. Some italics were almost celts. Gaulish and italics are derived commonly

[@ForageGardener]

​@@Ezullof all of these languages have influences on each other. That's why it's fascinating to see people attempt to decipher them from different perspectives

[@Noblebird02]

​@@Ezullof I think reconstructing Gaulish on what we have (a few curse tablets from after Roman occupation) is not likely to get accurate results. Furthermore it is likely that Gaulish had loan words from pre indo European words like Basque, which makes it harder to reconstruct using Irish and Welsh

[@bjarnitryggvason7866]

Gaulish looks very old-school Indo-European compared to the modern Celtic languages. The three guests were very fun to watch as they collaborated together. 👍

[@Knappa22]

Yes because it is extinct. The Gaulish he is using is based on vocabulary and forms found in ancient inscriptions.

[@bjarnitryggvason7866]

@@Knappa22 Gaulish is extinct? Please share more of your wisdom, kind sir.

[@waltroskoh8650]

@@bjarnitryggvason7866 Isn't it just common knowledge.

[@thetrueoneandonlyladyprinc8038]

I recognized a lot of words from Latin, and there seem to be lots of pretty words in Gaulish, though it isn’t as pretty as the modern Celtic languages, but it makes me wanna add Gaulish to my list of languages I want to learn and improve - I am upper beginner level in Welsh and beginner level in Breton / Cornish / Manx / Irish / Scottish Gaelic, they are really pretty, and they also remind of Germanic languages, and I am advanced level in Dutch and intermediate level in Norwegian / German / Swedish and upper beginner level in Old Norse and Icelandic and writer level in English and beginner level in Gothic / Faroese / Danish and the other Germanic languages, and I can see plenty of cognates in Celtic languages, tho they have more cognates with Spanish and Latin and French and Gallo and other Latin languages, which I am also learning, and I am native speaker level in Spanish, so I came across lots of words in Welsh that are a cognate with the Spanish word, including a lot of verbs and nouns!

[@FrozenMermaid666]

By the way, Gaulish comes mostly from Latin, and the modern Celtic languages come mostly from Norse and Latin and Gaulish, but Gaulish had a lot more words that are more of an obvious cognate with the Latin word, whereas most modern Celtic words that come from Latin were modified a lot and many of them look completely different now - the Germanic languages also come directly from Latin, and the similarities are more obvious in Norse and in Proto Germanic, which give off strong Latin vibes and use typical Latin word endings like un / num etc in many words!

[@womanonabicycle]

I'm Welsh and I had no idea what the first bloke was saying. Though he was being pretty obscure at times. Like Angharad, I did understand the Breton guy, Daniel. I liked our similarities. Would be interesting to hear Cornish, Scottish or Irish gallic too.

[@chinmayhejmadi7902]

Manx is a Goidelic language, not in the same branch as Welsh and Breton. That's why you couldn't understand what Paul was saying.

[@jurgenharms2394]

For me as a German speaker my knowledge of Latin gave me an idea of what some of the Celtic words could mean. Moreover I made these observations: The Gaulish word "isarni" ("iron" as an adjective) was immediately understandable. It´s "isern" in Low German and "eisern" ("out of iron") in High German. It appears in North German place names like Isernhagen near Hanover. The Icelandic word for "iron" (as a noun) is "járn". The Manx speaking participant in the video used "yiarn". Loan words or cognates? The Welsh word "heddiw" for "today" looks like the Latin word "hodie" and the German word "heute", which both literally mean "on this day" (Latin "hoc die"). The Celtic word stem "gob-" for "smith" as in "gobannos" might be cognate to the Slavonic stem "Kow-" as in Polish and Ucrainian "Kowal", Czech "kovar", which all mean "smith".

[@jurgnobs1308]

you're wrong about the low and high german. you're right about low german using. a monophtong there but in high german, both are used. in high german within germany, it tends to be eisern, but swiss german is part of the "high german" group (as the high german dialects literally originated in the southern german and swiss mountains. that's what the high refers to) and in swiss german it's "isern". essentially, only a part of the high german group did the new high german diphtongisation. (Neuhochdeutsche Dipthtongisierung).

[@darksidekurd]

As a Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) speaker I could see similarities in some words like: -epus is hesp -isarni is hesin -dede is da in past tense Kurdish but dide is 3rd singular present tense -funny enough Today in Breton 'Hiriw' comes close to the Kurdish word iro -Derwon comes close to Dar in Kurdish, but Dar just means tree while Oak would be gûz - the Welsh and the Manx caban and chabbane sounds like our kabina, but in my regional dialect we use that for toilet, but most likely to indicate the small room (where you do you pee and shit and wash your hands) - abonim or afon is çemek but for water we say av

[@thomascastelein5476]

Yes both are Indo-European language, so there will be some similarities. Nevertheless it is very interesting Derwon is also similar to Slovene 'drevo' (tree). Probably a cognate.

[@arthur_p_dent]

interesting how a word for a small room changes its meaning to specifically denote a toilet. We have the same in German, our word for toilet, Klosett or Klo for short, directly derives from "closet". As for the word for water, that seems to be a coincidence. "av" is the same root as "aqua" in Latin, but a different root from that of "avon". The similarity is coincindental, but these are really two separate PIE roots developing similar meanings later on.

[@martinger.becker1614]

As a German,I do speak some farsi/Persian, regarding "epus", I was exactly thinking the same! Asp= hoarse!

[@erichamilton3373]

Tree is of the same root as drevo

[@quiricomazarin476]

Celtic Latin is close to Persian ~ Aryan I think & sanskrit.... So how does Kurdish fall/ fit into those languages?

[@elorigendelaspalabras2349]

Absolutely fascinating video guys!! I'm a passionate of Celtic languages myself. As a Spaniard who speaks several Romance languages, it's easy to see the etymological links between the Celtic and Latin/Romance roots, as direct loanwords or, very often, as cognate indoeuropean words. Also, most of Western Spain and all of Portugal were deeply Celtic up to romanization and lots of modern placenames still bear witness to that fact. I support the theory that proto Celtic and proto Latin were definitely closer to each other than to other IE branches. Some of you said that Gaulish sounds closer to Latin than to the modern Celtic languages and it makes all the sense! They both were in a similar stage of evolution,just like the modern IE languages have evolved away from those older languages, often dramatically so.

[@jeremiedelusignan950]

Yes, as a Spaniard, you are certainly a descendant of the Celtiberians, who were Celts people, close to the Gauls, their closest cousins.

[@pennydreadful4939]

Gofannon is indeed a Welsh Smith god. He is mentioned in Culhwch ac Olwen, and killed his nephew, Dylan ail Don, a sea god.

[@mercianthane2503]

Yes, he is equivalent to Gaibhne, the smith god of the irish

[@ealing456]

The town of Abergavenny in southeast Wales derives from this too. Gavenny / Gafenni being the river. The site was named by the Romans, "Gobannium", possibly after Gobannus the Roman-Gaulish smith god.

[@jarlnils435]

As a german, with almost no celtic knowlage, I have to say that I was surprised. Carron sounds almost like Karren, a cart. Cladiyon sounded for me like Gladius, the latin word for sword. Isarni is almost like Eisen or older low german Isen. And than I knew the word rigani because I had read something about Morrigan, the irish goddess. She was called, in old irish, Morrigani, great queen.

[@Someone-hd2vu]

If I'm not mistaken, the word gladius was originally borrowed from a Celtic language into Latin, so the similarity isn't due to shared origins in this case - it's just a loanword.

[@thetrueoneandonlyladyprinc8038]

I recognized a lot of words from both Latin and Germanic languages, and there seem to be lots of pretty words in Gaulish, though it isn’t as pretty as the modern Celtic languages, but it makes me wanna add Gaulish to my list of languages I want to learn and improve! I am upper beginner level in Welsh and beginner level in Breton / Cornish / Manx / Irish / Scottish Gaelic, they are really pretty, and they also remind of Germanic languages, and I am advanced level in Dutch and intermediate level in Norwegian / German / Swedish and upper beginner level in Old Norse and Icelandic and writer level in English and beginner level in Gothic / Faroese / Danish and the other Germanic languages, and I can see plenty of cognates in Celtic languages, tho they have more cognates with Spanish and Latin and French and Gallo and other Latin languages, which I am also learning, and I am native speaker level in Spanish, so I came across lots of words in Welsh that are a cognate with the Spanish word, including a lot of verbs and nouns! Also, I am the real-life Queen / Goddess etc (The Goddess / The Princess / The Queen / The Lady / The Star etc) and the being who reflects all the interesting feminine characters from Nordic mythology and Celtic mythology etc and all other stories / lyrics / poetry etc with similar characters, and I kinda thought that the word might be related to the Italian words Regina and re and the French word roy and the English and Latin word regal etc!

[@petertrevorah7388]

Cornish speaker here - your guests did a lot better than me! (I found myself ‘agreeing’ constantly with your Breton guest - no surprises there!)😊

[@BlinJe]

You're a Cornish speaker? how did you learn? how do you deal with accents?

[@le_synthesis2585]

Why nobody of Cornish speakers even care about accent and pronunciation and everyone use 100% English phonetics?

[@jjstudiosjj2408]

Gaulish is far closer to Latin than I ever imagined

[@tylere.8436]

It's so close that many linguists theorize Celtic languages to be very close to Italic languages in general and were united as a language at some point in the past.

[@TeodorLavilota]

@@tylere.8436 Brennus spoke latin : "Vae victis"

[@Ethan-qo9rx]

What? This Gaulish sampling he is using is all heavily Latinized. Pre Roman Gaulish was very different more similar to the other Celtic languages

[@Gaisowiros]

@@Ethan-qo9rx I'm interested in reading how Gaulish would have been pronounced without the Latin and Greek influences (whether on the Gauls or on us when we read the inscriptions or words). What I did is the best we can do so far.

[@peterfireflylund]

He did pronounce it almost as if it were Latin ;) It was very clear, though, which I appreciate.

[@Axacqk]

I think those who said "king" weren't that far off! The verbal root in "regu" must be the same from which Latin "rex" and Celtic cognates are derived, and it denotes the concept of "being in control of something". To bring Slavic into the analysis, in Polish we don't say "napędzam samochód", which would be a literal translation of "I drive a car", i.e. "I provide the impulse that makes the car go forward"; instead we say "prowadzę samochód", which literally means "I lead a car", i.e. "I decide where the car goes". This must also be how "regu" works here.

[@AntiNity_official]

As a big fan of Eluveitie, this video was a pleasure to watch. They have many songs written in gaulish. Now i know a bit more. Thank you! ❤

[@010arschloch]

been a fan for 13 years now, immediately thought about them while watching this

[@AntiNity_official]

@@010arschloch I'm with them since "everything remains as it never was" album of 2010, so, probably, since the middle/beginning of 2011. Cheers)

[@010arschloch]

@@AntiNity_official yeah approx the same point of time for me, but i did start with exploring Slania at first. Cheers

[@AntiNity_official]

@@010arschloch inis mona was my first. Then complete slania and the erainw

[@010arschloch]

@@AntiNity_official well yes inis mona was the very first I ever listened to from them

[@mytube001]

I'm a firm believer in an Italo-Celtic branch that only split into Italic and Celtic languages fairly late. The languages are just far too similar to make up distinct, first-order branches.

[@Ana_Al-Akbar]

Do you also think that there is a italo-celto-germanic branch?

[@mytube001]

@@Ana_Al-Akbar Nope!

[@Ana_Al-Akbar]

@@mytube001 All these are centum-languages.

[@mytube001]

@@Ana_Al-Akbar That's not at all relevant to that issue.

[@mattonthemoon225]

I think I don’t understand your point... I speak 4 italic languages but I don’t understand a single word of Celtic languages...

[@David-ru8xf]

Gaulish : giamu - Latin : hiems - English: winter; latin word hiems become late latin hibernus , hence Hibernia, latin name for Ireland, that means "wintry" named after the cloudy and chill weather of the island.

[@therat1117]

Hibernia is from the native ethnonym Iwerni, which is the basis for the modern Irish word 'Éire', meaning 'Ireland'. It has nothing to do with 'winter', and Ireland is more mild in winter than the Alps.

[@h2eroskoryosaryakaraaryani777]

Hima in Sanskrit and Jima in Avestani means snow that's why Himalaya means Abode of snow

[@metroudelnaya]

@@h2eroskoryosaryakaraaryani777 Zima is Winter in Russian.

[@Rasytojas1980]

Zhiema Lithuanian

[@jhombyrkotaksorgankazakh]

​@@Rasytojas1980Zhima in Russian

[@bacicinvatteneaca]

Rego in Latin has a descendant in reggere in Italian, which means to hold still or hold up. It is still used in the sense of driving in the case of holding a ship's maneuvering system, or metaphorically in the case of words like reggente (regent) or correggere (to correct)

[@newg4515]

Welsh used to use the word Rhi as a cognate for Rex/rigus or royal

[@andrewbollard5701]

Interesting that so many of these Gaulish words either sound or look similar across all the Celtic languages! Here’s a selection of Irish translations: Litawon - leathan Nertomarus - neart (strong), mór (big, large) Carron - carr Rigani - banríon Gobannos - gabha dubh Isarni - iarann Giamu - geimhreadh Moccus - muc Sindiu - Inniú Caitu - coill Derwon - doire Enter - idir Mediu - meán (mean, i.e. the statistical average of something) Abonim - abhainn Senim - sean Tegim - teach

[@elorigendelaspalabras2349]

Yes, it's amazing how the old Celtic connection is still to be seen

[@ftumschk]

Doesn't "gabha dubh" mean "smith black", in which case is this a literal rendering of the English "blacksmith" into Irish? I ask because we don't bother with the "black" bit in Welsh, and just use "gof" (smith) on its own. We could have settled on "gof ddu" (smith black), I suppose, but I've never seen or heard it being used.

[@andrewbollard5701]

@@ftumschk You're right; to be honest, I don't distinguish between smith and blacksmith, especially since the example was about a smith giving a sword to someone. "Gabha" by itself means smith, but to me we're talking about a blacksmith in this example which is why I translated it that way. As far as I know, the word "smith" in English is originally a contraction of the word "blacksmith", although I'm happy to be corrected on that.

[@ftumschk]

@@andrewbollard5701 As the English word "smith" is related to/derived from the Germanic "Schmied", I'd guess that the "black-" prefix was added later.

[@erichamilton3373]

Which is related to Polish adjective "śniady" (swarthy)

[@mobo8074]

Piękne! Nareszcie Pani z Walii miała pomoc w rozwiazaniu zagadek i nie była tylko sfrustrowana :D Super, że udało Ci się Norbercie znaleźć ludzi mówiacych po celtycku w tak różnych odmianach! Rekonstruowany Galijski jednak bardzo dużo zapożyczeń ma z łaciny, może dlatego, że zapisy które znamy dotyczyły rzeczy i działań których Celtowie nie znali zanim Rzymianie ich nie podbili, tym samym adoptowali nazwy przyniesione wraz z produktami i metodami pracy, zeby je stworzyć. Fascynujace było usłyszeć wpływ obcych jezyków na poszczególne języki Celtów. Brawo za udany odcinek!!!!

[@oana-mariauliu5828]

In Romanian we call a female horse "iapă", and in Spanish it's "yegua". Our Romanian word for big or large is "mare", which also means "great" and can refer to a person who is powerful or impressive. I would have thought rigani meant either "myself" or "to the king". In Romanian we have the word "rege", which means "king", but there's also another word, "rigă", which is rarely used these days. "Queen" is "regină".

[@elorigendelaspalabras2349]

Precisely, I also thought about the word "yegua" (mare) in Spanish. I didn't know that the Romanian word was so close. It's really interesting how many Romanian words are closer to Portuguese or Spanish (peripheral Romance languages) than to French or Italian (central Romance)

[@aroma13]

Rigă is a loan word from byzantine greek ρήγας/rēgas,which is in itself a loan from latin ,,rex",making it a doublet of romanian rege,which got inherited from vulgar latin ,,regem",the accusative of rex

[@steph7793]

Fascinating video with such qualitative host and guests. Thank you!

[@Ejosii]

Thank you so much for this Norbert. I maybe search for this topic once a month out of sheer curiosity. Was astounded to see it in my subscriptions.

[@vicentepintadoiborra6959]

Fantastic comparisons. I was able to recognize more Gaulish words than your 3 contestants. I've been trying to revive our Gallaecian language once spoken in Ancient Gallaecia.

[@nicolasN712]

If "celtiberians" brought celtic to iberia, wouldnt NW iberia just speak celtiberian? Or where there many celtic languages/dialects that descend from a hypotetical "proto celto-berian" branch of celtic, and both classical celtiberian and gallaecian evolved from it?

[@kyomademon453]

​@@nicolasN712there is no possible way to know, the most likely theory is that celtic was spoken in different dialects closer to each other in bordering regions and more differentiated the more distance there was between them

[@damionkeeling3103]

@@nicolasN712 I think the Spanish have a broader term of Celtiberian than history would allow. The actual Celtiberians inhabited central Spain and were some kind of mix between Celtic and Iberian groups. Those elsewhere in Spain and Portugal were just Celts and the Lusitanians were probably a Celticised group but not originally Iberian. The Iberians were a people who inhabited the Mediterranean coastal part of Spain and the name comes to us via the Carthaginians which is also why the word Iberia is used for the whole peninsula, it doesn't mean Iberians once covered the whole region because they didn't. A large group in the north of Spain were the Vascones who are ancestral to the Basques. The Celtic language(s) of Galicia were also q-Celtic so I guess it's just easier to lump them all together assuming there was any real difference between the various Celtic groups of Spain. I assume the Pyrenees acted as a language border between q-Celtic Spain and p-Celtic France the same way that the Irish Sea did for Britain and Ireland.

[@xabier2411]

Tell us more about that!!

[@Pracedru]

When I hear/read Dutch as a dane I also get a lot of cognates from other languages like English, German and French. But I am always surprised how similar Dutch is do danish.

[@buurmeisje]

We are Germanic brothers forever ❤

[@JonseyWales]

Well, that was fun; and fascinating! I dipped in, and then had to watch the whole thing. It's amazing how close they got as a group. They sounded like three detectives on a case. Well done all👏👏👏

[@carthkaras6449]

Merci pour tes efforts Morgan. J'avais apprécié ta vidéo sur la prononciation du gaulois. Dommage qu'elle ne soit pas plus accessible pour un public francophone, ne sous-estime pas l'audience que tu pourrais avoir.

[@kaysmith8992]

This was recommended on my playlist and way more interesting than I expected it to be. A very fun concept even for those of us with minimal knowledge of any Celtic language.

[@stephenmckay6968]

Really enjoying the ancient language videos. The Celtic languages went through a lot of changes in c. 400 AD. A fairer test than Gaulish might be seeing if Old Irish could be understood by modern Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx speakers. Future video idea!

[@FloatingIdeasonanarrowboat]

I have heard that the Celts language was closer to Latin back in Roman times. It seem it's very true. Thanks.

[@michalbock7648]

Thank you for your great effort! Please make a video with Saami speakers. That´s the only european language you have never presented in your channel. It would be great to see differences between Saami, Finnish, Norwegian and swedish languages. Thank you in advance.

[@mytube001]

Norwegian and Swedish have nothing in common with the Sami languages. A more reasonable grouping would be to have a speaker from one of the major Sami languages present the sentences or words, and then have a speaker from a different Sami language, a Finnish speaker and an Estonian speaker try to guess.

[@michalbock7648]

@@mytube001 or Karelian and Veps speakers.

[@AnnaKaunitz]

⁠​⁠@@michalbock7648​​⁠​⁠ Sami are divided into three major language groups which in turn can be divided into nine Sami languages. They’re not necessarily mutually intelligible. North Sami is probably the most spoken of them in all countries. Many Sami languages are sadly on the brink of extinction. It probably needs more effort in the Sami tv and radio news, the community, Sametinget, social media, schools, universities and translators to reach speakers who’d be willing to participate. It’s irrelevant to bring in Swedish and Norwegian speakers. Makes no sense. Veps is probably unrealistic requiring outreach among a thousand speakers at best, in Russia, who also likely need to use a VPN (I think KZbin is blocked in Russia) and read and understand at least good basic English plus the current effed situation in Russia.

[@michalbock7648]

@@AnnaKaunitz Thank you for telling me what I already know. I am a Russian citizen, born and raised in Siberia, I have got a german ancestry since my ancestors came from Germany in the late 19th century. I have got some basic german knowledge but russian language is my mother language. I served in the russian army - in Murmansk which is city in the Northern part of my country and I met one ethnic Vep and he was able to speak his language, he spoke finnish as well and understood karelian which is logic. There are like 5 000 ethnic Veps left in Russia. They live mostly in republic of Karelia. It´s possible to find these people and there are 1 000 Sami people in Russia. They predominately live in one village in Murmans region. If there is a wish there is a way. I am writing to you from Russia and like you said there are always ways how to beat western sanctions. You don´t really think that they are working, do you? I must admit that prices have gone up in the last a few months but your situation with inflation is pretty much the same. Leave politics behind us. Well it´s possible to find all these speakers even if they live in Russia or speak Russian. There is no need knowledge of english. They can speak freely russian and it can be translated into English. The important is their knowledge of Veps, Karelian and Sami (Northern accent which you have mentioned in your comment above).

[@k.v.7681]

@@michalbock7648 The issue would be a lack of common language to begin with. English is often used (just like in this video) to give the several speakers a common basis to fall back on when discussing the languages at play. As pointed out, with all the requirements needed for such a video, the chances are slim.

[@jeandeboishault6380]

Very interesting. Thanks to all of you !

[@yezholein9252]

Thank you for this video, it's a pleasure hearing this languages !

[@tizgerard_9816]

Omg I love Gaulish and in general all Celtic languages, dead or alive 😍 How did you manage to reconstruct it guys??

[@andrewraymond3657]

That's my question.

[@rreid3990]

This is my question too!! Fill me in please, people. I thought we only had little bits of Gaulish from coins and geographical references. How do we now have this much Gaulish?! So exciting...

[@joalexsg9741]

This one was especially adorable for me, thank you so much!!!

[@torrawel]

pegen braw, how wonderful! Still the best languages in Europe ;) I just happened to have a conversation yesterday about Gaulish & Brittonic (ancestor of Welsh, Breton & Cornish) with Rhys Saunders. I asked him how similar they were and if both languages are more a product of reconstructions or of actual sources. Besides my own Breton background (half of it ;)), I don't know a lot about the (other) celtic languages since my focus is on the Americas and the indigenous languages there. Nonetheless, I still think that my quote "still the best languages in Europe" holds true if you look on how different they are from other (Indo-)European languages with the mutations, the verb initials, the fancy way of using prepositions, and the many cool ways to combine these prepositions with verbs.

[@kevindasilvagoncalves468]

Great initiative, Norbert

[@jamesraymond1158]

Very interesting. Great idea for a video. Thank you.

[@hooverbaglegs]

The Breton speaker’s a bright lad! Da iawn ti ….. very interesting exercise

[@Juraberg]

Fascinating comparison of Celtic languages. 👍🏼

[@philandrews2860]

I enjoyed this very much! I'm a big fan of learning about the different languages of Europe and their respective histories, and how they are inter-related through common Indo-European ties, and more especially the Celtic languages, which my more ancient ancestors were likely speakers of (along with Germanic). I learned a little Welsh a few years ago, and have learned a few words here and there in Irish Gaelic and Manx. I even learned to sing a few Welsh folk songs a while back (though I'm out of practice now). I loved seeing the different Celtic language speakers try to figure out the Gaulish sentences, and it was fun to see both the similarities and differences to each other as well as to Gaulish and Latin. Knowing a little of those languages myself, I instantly recognized that one word for horse and had a couple of similar insights on some of the other words that the Celtic language speakers had. Thank you for sharing this :)

[@AlexanderRemus]

With that kind of reconstructed language, you can't even be ENTIRELY sure that someone who spoke the language in question - in this case Gaulish - would be able to understand. If you could revive someone in the present. But it's still fun

[@andrewwoodgate3769]

Stunning revelation. Well done on raising this.

[@gazbeast666]

This was great, please do another one. I'm amazed how my Welsh is so similar to all these other old languages.

[@saralaudicina7913]

My boyfriend is a historical reenactor (hope this is the term in English 😅) for the Celts of Northern Italy (north-west, more specifically), and he was able to recognise quite a few words because they use whatever they can find in documents and inscriptions for their Celtic names 😅 for instance, he's Kentu Milos (a hundred animals, I believe). He was just slightly puzzled by boar, as he has a friend who's called Torco, supposedly boar (originally Torcoceto, as in boar of the forest or something like that).

[@celtofcanaanesurix2245]

You got the English term for it correct. Moccus meaning boar rather than a pig surprised me

[@Gaisowiros]

Xavier Delamarre in his dictionary gives moccus as "pig, boar" and turcos as "male pig, boar". I consider either words as synonyms if one means to talk about wild boars.

[@SionTJobbins]

@@Gaisowiros turcos would be cognate with modern Welsh 'twrch' which can mean boar and is also seen in the word 'twrch daear' (earth hog = mole) but also Twrch Trwyth - the legendary boar in the Mabinogi mythology. Tyrchu means to dig or burrow in Welsh too.

[@Mister69K]

the Breton TOURC'H still means BOAR, Male pig

[@Ezullof]

@@Gaisowiros I mean, you can consider all you want, but ultimately what matters is the source and context for each word. This isn't a conlang, if we know of these words, it's because they appear somewhere, and it's important.

[@mathieuhendey]

I wonder if having a Cornish speaker would have filled in a gap between the Breton and Welsh speaker. You could see once the Breton speaker started speaking a lot of bells started ringing for the Welsh speaker. Was very impressed with the Manx speaker

[@fylmysynemlow5738]

What struck me which none of them seemed to get was that Eti, etsi and so on in Gaulish reminds me of one of the two halves of 'to be' in Cornish which is bos / yma. Yma (there is) is conjugated in the past: esen, eses, esa, esen, esewgh, present: esov, esos, yma, eson, esowgh. I don't know what these would be in welsh or breton. I'll give you all the sentences: Y lewyav karr ledan gans mergh* grev. An gwav eus passys** an gov a ros kledha horn dhe'n Vyghternes.*** Hedhyw y helghyas tri badh**** krev y'n koos Yma derwen y'n kres, ynter an avon***** gwynn ha'n krow koth. *Ebel is foal **could also use diwettha to match the Welsh and Breton ***Ruvanes is also a word for queen but in less common use. ****Hogh is pig, badh is specifically boar, mogh also means pigs in general but I don't come across it much. ***** avon is a modern re-entry into Cornish which did have at one stage but appears in middle and late C as 'Awon' I beleive more commonly just 'Dowr' ('water' is used for rivers in cornwall).

[@carlitoskii]

Centuries before the Roman conquest of what is now Spain and Portugal, the Iberian Peninsula was practically dominated by the Celts, and as a Spaniard I now understand the great link between Latin and the Celtic languages. Thanks for the video!

[@rafaeldebrasilia]

I had never heard these three Celtic languages and I was very curious to listen, especially WELSH.

[@1Anime4you]

Great video!

[@mikolajtrzeciecki1188]

It is pretty chilling to imagine why in all mentioned languages, a "bad house" changed its meaning to a "house" in general, whereas a "good house" disappeared altogether.

[@dickyadhadyanto4986]

man, economy so bad even people in the past can't afford proper housing.

[@SionTJobbins]

Diddorol iawn. As a Welsh speaker I found this very interesting. Didn't expect to understand so much - nothing at the beginning, but it became clearer as the 3 helped each another. Epus also gave us the mountain range, Epynt in southern Wales. Gobannos - Abergavenny a town in Wales has the residue of the 'gabanos', it's developed into gof. Moch is plural for pig in Welsh, singular is mochyn, so 'tri mochyn' would be correct in modern Welsh. When Welsh developed from Brythonic we seem to have forgotten which words were singular and plural, so an -yn was added (which is a diminutive suffix or implies singular), so mochyn, pysgodyn (pysgod in plurar) etc.

[@markadams6497]

So why is Y Fenni the Welsh name for Abergavenny?

[@ftumschk]

@@markadams6497 "Y Fenni" means nothing in Welsh, but is instead an abbreviated colloquial form of what was once "Aber Gofenni" ("mouth of the river Gofenni"). Truncating place-names happens quite often in colloquial Welsh, as in "I went to the Bont to do some shopping", which could refer to Pontypridd/Pontardawe/etc, or "I was born in the Ceiber" (short for "Penrhiwceiber").

[@markadams6497]

@@ftumschk We do the same thing in Australian English, for example, "I come from Newie", which usually refers to Newcastle, but could also refer to many other places.

[@juanjacobomoracerecero6604]

As a Mexican 🇲🇽 I was amazed by how I catched some words. Like carron = carro, epus = hípico (related to horses), cladiyon = gladio = (roman sword), rigani = rey, reina (king, queen)... etc. Then he said that Gaulish is influenced by Latin, that's why.

[@gerald-dw7vp]

These words aren't influenced by Latin, they are just related indo-european words. Also I think "gladius" is a loanword from Celtic.

[@dracodistortion9447]

i requested this video years ago! hope i had some influence in the decision but i doubt it!

[@mariateresasatta]

About the similarities with Latin, an important thing must be remembered: Latin and Gaulish were spoken more than two thousands years ago, so they had less time to differentiate from the common Indo-European source. It's why Latin and ancient Greek are also a good help for the study of ancient Indo-European languages that never met after the split, like Hittite or Sanskrit. Greek and Latin help not only with the roots, but with the grammar too: Gaulish retains most of the Indo-European desinences that in late stages mostly disappeared, be it for Celtic languages or German or Romance ones.

[@celtofcanaanesurix2245]

This is a very important thing to take into account especially when you consider the Gaulish and Latin had only been different languages for about 1000 years while they were spoken, while Irish and Welsh have been different languages for about 2000 years as of now

[@Ezullof]

Also, gaulish and latin were practically neighbours. They influenced each other. Modern insular celtic languages are not only separated from gaulish by 2000 years, but also by geography. Breton was influenced a lot by medieval french later on so quite funnily it had some retrospective latin influence from there.

[@waltroskoh8650]

Ancient Greek and Sanskrit probably met somewhere along the Indus River in the 4th century BC.

[@therat1117]

It's like how I read Hittite sometimes and go 'ah, their constructions are so Celtic-looking!' and then have to tell myself 'no kidding, smart guy, they haven't trimmed off all the excess grammar yet'.

[@therat1117]

@@waltroskoh8650 Not Sanskrit, and not Ancient Greek. By that time the Indian vernaculars had already become Prakrit, and Sanskrit was reserved for literary uses only, and the Greek used by Alexander the Great's army was early Koine. Unless the Indian guys were quoting ancient texts and the Greek guys were all a bunch of old men and sticklers for grammar, Koine met Ashokan Prakrit along the Indus River.

[@maryamniord2214]

Treis very close to swedish "tre" too. Funny and interesting. Love this kind of videos!

[@ggoannas]

Fascinating!!!

[@Ulvestorm]

Not only English out of Germanic languages necessarily :) In Norwegian, we have "kjerre," a cognate with "car." It generally means "cart" or "chariot," but it can also refer to cars, often old or worn down. Sometimes it's even used about new ones in an affectionate kind of way (e.g. by car enthusiasts).

[@FortressofLugh]

Based on my knowledge of Scottish Gaelic, Old Gaelic and Latin I was able to work out more than I expected. Balcus is cognate with Balc in Old/Middle Gaelic which means strong. Balor is called "Balc Beimon" (strong striker). I am curious how you learned the language, given that there are very limited inscriptions and written sources. It was reconstructed I guess?

[@celtofcanaanesurix2245]

I would have to think it’s mainly reconstructed. Most of what I’ve learned is essentially my own reconstruction from my own sources which is why I thought a couple words sounded funny when he said them. (Also granted I’m not fluent)

[@mercianthane2503]

​@@celtofcanaanesurix2245 Do you have a dictionary of reconstructed Gaulish?

[@therat1117]

@@mercianthane2503 You can work to an extent from Matasovic's Dictionary of Proto-Celtic with Gaulish-specific changes such as kw->p and so forth, but the grammar is going to be hellish for you because we are still working on that, and it is very unlike a modern Celtic language. To say 'I want to make a big sword' in Gaulish would be 'cladion maron cobriu-mi urgeton-io'. Whilst the pronoun for the verb is usually postposited behind it, there is free word order so 'big sword' can go wherever, 'make' needs a verb-noun whose form I've had to guess at with cross-lingual evidence from Hittite, and because it is in a dependent clause, the verb-noun needs a relative pronoun attached to it. And that's a very simple sentence. I had to read a 300 page thesis to get an idea of how the subjunctive works, which is basically 'infix -s- before the verb ending, not to be confused with -si-, which would be the future tense'.

[@dominiquemanchon9914]

Excellente vidéo ! Y avait-il des mutations en gaulois comme dans toutes les langues celtiques modernes ? J'en vois au moins une : Bos --> tarVos (qui a donné Taureau en français). Un exemple similaire en breton : kazh --> targazh. "An targazh" signifie donc "le matou", rien à voir avec une bouteille de gaz 🙂

[@_kukaracha_]

Дякую за відео! 💙💛 Вдачі та всього найкращого!

[@nirutivan9811]

11:07 In German we have Karren (cart in english) which probably is also related to that. At least colloquially it can also be used for a car as well.

[@TK-uh7qs]

The host mentioned that most Western European languages have a cognate word voor "carron", but the subtitles included a correction saying that this only applied to English. Actually, in Dutch "kar" kan refer to several objects with wheels, such as cars, carts and trolleys (sometimes paired with another noun or adjective, e.g. "bolderkar" which means handcart).

[@DoraEmon-xf8br]

In French too we have that. A ’’wheel charriot maker’’ is literally a «carron» in French.

[@hglundahl]

4:07 ebol would involve a diminutive suffix -l. Epus = like foal, but _not_ diminutive.

[@purple_purpur7379]

11:07 As a speaker of Dutch, German, and Swedish, I would like to also mention that all of those have a word related to (and I think ultimately from!) Gaulish _carron_: NL _kar_ (c), DE _Karre_ (f), and SV _kärra_ (c). In all of these languages, they mean cart or barrow though (though at least the Dutch one but I think also the German one is also colloquially used for cars), and they derive their word for car from automobile in some way (NL _auto_ (c), DE _Auto_ (n), and SV _bil_ (c)).

[@pedalersrant1977]

Kärra in Swedish is also used colloquially for car

[@JustinJust-In]

And Kar in Afrikaans is also used colloquially for car.

[@user-kp1gb7cp8g]

@@pedalersrant1977 These words are all loan words, ultimately from the Latin word(of Gaulish origin). The closest cognate in Germanic languages is "horse"(g. Ross, sw. russ, d. ros).

[@arthur_p_dent]

"Karre" in German is a colloquial term specifically for an old, rusty, shitty, run-down vehicle.

[@acxtreme]

Great video 👍🏻, please make a video if modern Spanish speakers can understand Old Spanish. 😀😀

[@Sk0lzky]

I'm really surprised I guessed the carron com (...) epus (and fell on that rule/ruler as in king trap with regu lol) without knowing a lick of celtic beyond very basic "survival" tier scottish gaelic! These videos should be used as a blueprint for exercises used in comparative linguistics classes, reading theory on "Celto-italic" or even having two sentences side-by-side with underscored cognates is one thing, but doing the "legwork" and noticing them yourself gives a sense, a feeling, for it. Really helps you appreciate why authors of fringe and disproven theories fight so vehemently, and often communicate in unsavory ways, with their opponents

[@mariateresasatta]

Actually you weren't so wrong with regu... it's cognate with Latin rego, that means to rule, to guide and has the same root of rex 😉

[@celtofcanaanesurix2245]

I don’t know where he gets regu as “I drive”. To me that looks like it should mean something like I rule or I measure

[@Gaisowiros]

@@celtofcanaanesurix2245 Might have been an English translation mistake on my end along with some liberty taken: Delamarre p. 256 "regu: je dirige, j'oriente" Here I took "orienter" as synonym of "conduire". In French, one can say "conduire" for a group of people as well as for a vehicle. So I did a calque of French that's hard to justify for English "drive" I must admit. "I drive" in Gaulish could be *redu, but it's not attested. All the words I've used for the 4 sentences are attested, however.

[@Unbrutal_Rawr]

@@Gaisowiros This seems to be another example of us not knowing what even such a common IE root meant in Gaulish. Matasović 2009 gives it as "extend, stretch, straighten", and its attested descendants have to do with rising up (cf. Grk ορέγω "extend"). Besides, the only attestation of it in Gaulish (as _reguc_ ) might not even be related to this root, but to Middle Irish _ric, riged_ "fore-arm"; although Old Irish also has _-riga_ apparently meaning "will go". Henri's 1984 article on the Chamalières inscription (available on Persée) translates it as "I straighten". Basically, there's no certainty even about such basic things when it comes to a language as poorly attested as Gaulish. The interpretation "conduire" appears to be based mainly on the verb's meaning in Latin.

[@Lena-cz6re]

Love to see some of the less widespread languages featured here 🤩

[@LuigiElettrico]

So strange laguages and their orthography vs pronunciation... simply amazing and difficult as hell :D

[@forgottenmind1]

My ancestors come from Brittany. But strangely enough, I am more attracted to gaulish than breton. Anyway, it is such a pleasure to see my celtic cousins talking about gaulish. Of course, french mainly inherited from latin. But is seems to be also subtle : Jacques Lacroix wrote a book about gaulish (« Les irréductibles mots gaulois dans la langue française ») and he discovered that the quantity of words that french language inherited from gaulish language was quite underestimated. He said there were like 1000 words in french language that have gaulish roots. And these words are not useless ones : these are everyday words like ambassadeur, bataille, crème, bac, brasserie, charger, chemin, creuser, corne, drap, encombrer, gaillard, galette, grève, jambe, lance, mégot, mine, mouton, petit, quai, raie, rayure, roc, rocher, sapin, saumon, souche, souiller, tonne, tonneau, trancher, trou, troc, truand, valet, vassal, virer, virevolter... And so many others. I would say that french is the most celtic romance language. Thank you for all that interesting content !

[@Edarnon_Brodie]

And here isy question: what gaulish do you learning? There is two gaulish language: old and modern. Old gaulish is a type of gaulish that people in France spoke in 6 century. And modern gaulish is a type of gaulish that we speak today. In 21 we just revived an old gaulish language, and added new words from other celtic languages for some new things like computer, fridge, radio, etc. There are many sites for modern gaulish, but I don't find any places where you can learn old Gaulish. And what about you?

[@forgottenmind1]

@@Edarnon_Brodie Bonjour ! I did not know there was a revival of gaulish, thank you for this piece of information. If you have some content about it, I would be delighted to read it. If I'm right and if I understood what you wrote, I'm talking about old gaulish but also about methods that compare celtic languages in order to check if a word has gaulish roots (partially or totally). That is how Jacques Lacroix (the author that I mentionned) has worked on gaulish words in french language. In the last decades, we have been knowing more and more about gaulish and Gauls. There are still missing pieces but we have been improving our knowledge about gaulish (and Celts, more generally speaking). If you have something to share, that will be a pleasure !

[@antonblazevich7220]

In the second sentence I recognized the words "dede" that sounds like in italian "diede" that means "it gave to..." and "cladyon" is in latin "gladius" or in italian "gladio" that is the short sword for the romans. And we can find it in the word "gladiator" or "gladiatore" in italian. Very interesting things to me. Thank you for the video.

[@betenoireindustries]

this is amazing.

[@sisi2484]

The gaulish - latin influence used in the film made me wonder of the brittonic language under roman rule . Is anything known of that . Was there the same Latin influence on brittonic celtic as there was on gaulish under roman rule .

[@whukriede]

In the first sentence, we have "regu", "I lead, drive" cognate to Latin rex, regnum (king, to reign) etc, "litawon" cognate to Latin plenus (full), "carron" was explained in the discussion as was "com"; "marus" could be related to "more", "epus" of course is "equus" (horse). For "nerto" I have no idea. These are all guesses of mine, interesting topic.

[@le_synthesis2585]

Litawon is cognate to Greek platus (flat) (PIE pléth₂us). Latin plenus is PIE pl̥h₁nós. In Breton, it is ledan and leun, completely different words.

[@Knappa22]

As a Welsh speaker I got nertomarus epos - which in Welsh cognate would be ebol nerthfawr. Also got com, cognate with Welsh cyf. I got litawon - llydan after it was explained.

[@philomelodia]

I read somewhere that the italic and Celtic branches of Indo European were sister branches. This really demonstrates that very well with Gaulish. Very similar to Latin.

[@commanderjnm2008]

When I heard "Gobannos", I was thinking of Polish "Kabanos", which is a really thin pork-sausage basically. It can taste either very good or very bad depending on the type and the crispiness. I'm Polish so I'd know. :D Norbert, ty tez myslales o kabanosie w tym momencie? XD XD XD

[@hglundahl]

4:58 So, "com nertomarus epus" would after this explanation by Daniel likely mean "with big-strengthed horses" = "with very strong horses" As to "carron" it's probably a genitive plural of the Celtic word which in Latin is "carrus" = car, cart. Or it could even be accusative plural? -ons -> -on? "I conduct litawon carts with very strong horses" Regu = Latin rego, which in cart contexts means "conduct" or "drive" ...

[@LobyDobster]

So that's why I got the car, with and horses (Spanish speaker). Literally carro, con and equino I guess. Strangely similar. I thought I wasn't going to understand a single thing...

[@hglundahl]

@@LobyDobster Latin, which is Q-Italic, has: rego largum carrum cum fortibus equis Differences: * cum has ablative instead of accusative * largum for litawon * fortes for nertomarus

[@Gaisowiros]

Carron is accusative singular of carros here, and nertomarus, while it looks like accusative plural, -us is also the instrumental plural of -os words. I can't remember if we talked about it in the video, I might have said accusative plural. If so, my bad!

[@Ethan-qo9rx]

This Latinized Gaulish uses Latin verbs and nouns and has no Celtic articles

[@hglundahl]

@@Ethan-qo9rx I am sorry, but where do you get it from that : a) two languages never share verbs and nouns, particularly if they are both counted as Indo-European? b) Celtic always had articles? Irish and Welsh seem to have different articles.

[@christopherellis2663]

A large chariot with strong horse 🐎 capal caballus equus hippos Cleft asunder, to cleave Y sounds like â/î in Romanian. Tegi is Basque for a shop. Shack comes from teag ( tectum )

[@franksiegle6346]

Very interesting. I'm acquainted with Latin and noted the similarities, particularly the case endings. I was also interested in the differences between Breton of the south with the rest of the country. I've read that there are likely holdovers from Gaulish in that dialect as opposed to the other(s ?). Having a nodding acquainteace with all six current languages, I could make relatively educated guesses at many of the words, but like the others, was at sea. But I think, all in all, I did about as well as they did, and in a very few instances better, perhaps partly because Welsh, Breton, and Manx are not my languages. Whether or not in antiquity there was an Italo-Celtic lamguage that broke up into what became two language families, there are striking similarities,

[@MatheusSalvia]

The first sentence absolutely blew my mind rendered (word for word, not a very good tanslation) in Latin: Regu litawon carron com nertomarus epus Rego latum currum cum nerioso equo (neriosus equus in the nominative, but the preposition cum requires ablative)

[@whukriede]

Oh, your command of the Latin language is excellent, much better than mine, fwi. At least, I would have to revise the "litawon", but latus and plenus could still be related, I think.

[@mariateresasatta]

litawon is more probably linked with platus, that is from Greel platys. Did you mean rego, not regio, right?

[@MatheusSalvia]

@@mariateresasatta yep, Regō! I didnt check the Etymology of latus but you may be right about it being a false cognate, I would have to check

[@Unbrutal_Rawr]

_neriosus_ isn't a word in Latin, it's most likely a lexicographical phantom word that comes from a single Late Latin glossary. The most obvious explanation for it is it's a misspelling for _nervōsus_ "sinewy, muscular, energetic". Supposing it was an actual word, it was certainly only known in a few Umbrian villages. _nēr (níir)_ was the Oscan-Umbrian word for "man", but this root is unknown in Latin outside of the borrowed name _Nerō_ whose meaning was opaque.

[@MatheusSalvia]

@@Unbrutal_Rawr very interesting! Do you have source that I can read more about this?

[@alexj9603]

I don't speak any Celtic language, but I am surprised how many words I could recognize (or at least guess) from Latin: equus, gladius, carrus etc. Also, some words that have cognates in both Latin and modern Celtic languages look closer to Latin, as the modern Celtic languages have had important sound changes since. Even if the Gaulish language as shown here had strong influences from Latin, it was clearly closer to the common ancestor of Celtic and Romance languages than to the modern languages.

[@therat1117]

These are because these are Gaulish loanwords in Latin, except equus, which is only one sound-change off. Gladius is from Gaulish *kladios/kladiwos, and carrus is from Gaulish *karros, the native Latin cognate word is 'currus', which was displaced by carrus. The native Latin word for sword is 'ensis', which had been completely displaced by Greek and Gaulish words by the Imperial period. Latin has a lot of Gaulish loanwords, probably from the Gauls who lived in the Po Valley and nearly burned Rome to the ground that one time.

[@beyurzelf]

​@@therat1117no , because both are indo Europe so they have cognates, its like comparing Chinese and Tibetan

[@chromaticAberration]

@@beyurzelf No! @therat1117 is right. They *are* direct loanwords (while there indeed existed cognates like currus/karros).

[@lauresantschi6789]

Would there be a way to get an idea of what Lepontic would sound, using modern remains of celtic languages? I'd like to know better about my country 🇨🇭

[@bacicinvatteneaca]

From this context about the words for queen, it seems like both rigani and Latin regina mean "woman king", if gani/gina are cognates to the Greek word that gave us the prefix gyn-. So that would be the same word construction as in Manx and Welsh, but with opposite word order and a different word for woman.

[@DannyPotato]

Love this observation

[@Knappa22]

Yes. The Brittonic word for Queen - Rigantona renders Rhiannon in modern Welsh, and is a popular girl’s name.

[@RobbeSeolh]

Marus could be a cognate to the (old) Germanic words meaning famous. Dietmar, Sigmar in modern German. -mer in Old English. Eomer Isarn Eisen in German

[@przemysawdata6246]

As I'm not native Celtic speaker (I'm Slavonic, literaly Polish), i could (I guess) understand some words. 1st, i bound the word epus from 1st sentence with greek word ίπον (hipon), that means horse, in 2nd sentence i bound word riganu with latin regina (mean. queen), in third none, and in fourth "Etsi Derwon in middu, enter windim, abonim eti senim tegim" I guess, word 'senim' could be a cognate to proto-slavonic wod senь" that in Polish has a twin word in word "sień" that in free translation, means a hall, and IMO, the translation is "From this oak in the middle, it'll be the windows, a basement and a hall built" But I can mistake it.

[@mariannehepple4907]

Good point re Greek - hippo - epus

[@djdissi]

24:02 "le rouai françouai" sounds very quebecois. So interesting. We wouldn't say those exact words that way, but that familiar sounding accent is definitely there. Many franco-quebecois in certain regions still have that accent today.

[@moritamikamikara3879]

iirc the Quebequois have a slightly more Breton influence that most of France, so that makes sense.

[@lonewaer]

It really does sound like Old French/Middle French, but yes, also Québecois. What I've noticed is that Québecois seems to have stayed more original to the French the French settlers of North America used to speak, while Metropolitan French has evolved/mutated quite a bit, probably from external influences. Québecois also has picked up a lot of "anglicismes", words and expressions from American English, as well as literal French translations of such expressions. It seems to me like a snapshot of Old/Middle French.

[@quinnimon]

This was so cool. Makes Gwyneth understood toe me now for such a beautiful name. Crazy realization, that Eiichiro Oda Sensei probably borrrowed cognate of Gaulic Gobannos for "smith" and remodeled it a surname "Gaban" for the fiction character 'Scopper Gaban' of the manga and anime series 'One Piece'. That fictional name says Copper Smith. Language is a heck of thing.

[@DoctorCymraeg]

I'd love to play next time 😊😊

[@aarond8562]

Vehicle in welsh is 'cerbyd' which is where I went when I spotted carron 😊. In Welsh you also have brenhines. renhines (without the 'B') is similar I think.

[@celtofcanaanesurix2245]

Cerbyd in gaulish would hypothetically be something like carbantos, meaning specifically a chariot, while carros could be a wagon too

[@ignacioignogrundinglestheg9089]

yes, same in breton it's "karbed" or "karr"

[@Knappa22]

Brenhines comes from a different root. The cognate here is in the Welsh word ‘Rhi’ the old Welsh word for King. It lives on in feminine form in girls’ names like Rhian and Rhiannon. Rhiannon means ‘Queen.’

[@tibsky1396]

I wonder if there weren't several dialects from Gaulish depending the times, and the regions of Gallia. I imagine that the Arvernii, Belgae, Armoricans, Parisii, Pictones, Helvetii tribes etc... were not necessarily the same, despite staying intelligible. For me, this one seems to be rather close to the Mediterranean or to Northern Italy. Or, it remains contemporary with the Roman Conquest, whether during or shortly after.

[@AllanLimosin]

Yes, there were varieties. Gauls weren't one united people, but rather several tribes. Some were friendly, others were hostile to one another, especially when Latins arrived. This set led them to isolate and evolve, including their tribes' languages. We can deduce there were a dialect per tribes. Latins saw Gauls as one single people, that is why we tend to think they are one people with one uniform language, which is unlikely. Though, since Gaulish is hard to be documented (there are words that are even reconstructed), it is even harder to study tribes' varieties.

[@Unbrutal_Rawr]

There are quite a few discrepancies in our data on Gaulish that could potentially be due to chronological or dialectal differences, but there's too little of that data to be able to come up with an explanation even for discrepancies in grammatical endings. The reconstructed Gaulish - the one in this video - has been cobbled together from words attested across a wide time and space, and the variation in endings etc. was eliminated somewhat at random. It's not a language in the same sense that Latin or Dutch is, it's more of a skeleton of one.

[@celtofcanaanesurix2245]

Historical linguist know for a fact that there was at least three or four main dialects, possibly five. Transalpine Gaulish in France and Switzerland. Cisalpine Gaulish in Northern Italy. Galatian in central Anatolia. Noric is Austria (and possibly in the whole of Gaulish’ eastern range besides Galatia. And finally Belgic which was in Belgium, and parts of Northwestern Germany and Northeastern France.

[@Unbrutal_Rawr]

@@celtofcanaanesurix2245 Yeah? What are the names of these historical linguists, and what do they say were the features that distinguished these dialects from each other?

[@therat1117]

@@Unbrutal_Rawr He's being formalistic. The Main (TM) distinctions are the broad categories of Transalpine (France, Belgium) and Cisalpine Gaulish (Italy, Alps, Pannonia). There's also Lepontic, which we're pretty sure is just early Cisalpine Gaulish, but it's hard to say because they don't precisely line up and our data is scarce. The differences are small - Cisalpine Gaulish prefers terminal m and Transalpine prefers terminal n, and nasal clusters work slightly differently: Cisalpine tends to be more 'Irish-y' and collapse a nasal + plosive to just the plosive, unless it's nd, which goes to nn. Transalpine Gaulish is more 'Welsh-y' and preserves these clusters, with a later tendency towards nt, nd > nn, which would be nt > t, nd > nn in Cisalpine. They also use different patronymic systems, Cisalpine prefers ikno or alo whereas Transalpine prefers gnato or geno (although these are all from the same source 'born of', except alo, which is a diminutive). There is very little systemic evidence for major differences in Gaulish other than these sorts of things: The abovementioned 'Belgic' is all Transalpine Gaulish with no real difference than elsewhere in France; Galatian is also Transalpine we're pretty sure based on tribal names and personal names and was brought there by very recent migrants (ca. 250 BCE) and does not constitute a separate dialect; ""Noric"" is known from precisely two inscriptions, one of which might say 'this bear c*ck is for Brogdos', which is... an interesting graffito, and the other of which is highly fragmentary. It's not a language so much as probably? Cisalpine Gaulish considering the Romans tell us the area had Gaulish speakers in it and it's right next to a bunch of Cisalpine speakers. I hesitate to recommend him as he is overly poisoned by Old Irish and comes to strange conclusions sometimes, but David Stifter has done most of the work in this area.

[@josephkolodziejski6882]

@Ecolinguist One little thing I'd like to point out which could be helpful is that Roman Latin is technically incapable of recognising soft fricatives like modern "v" the soft "th" or the grinding "gh" (IPA gamma) sounds. If you think about it, only F, S, H and the Greek derivatives PH, TH, and CH actually feature in Latin, and V wasn't separate into U/V/W like today and was a W or U sound. A Gallo-Roman transliteration of B and D for "vee" and "soft th" and the omission of "gh" with a semivowel glide. A VERY similar change affects Modern Greek - beta delta and gamma have mutated into "v", "th" and "y" sounds respectively. This explains why so many of the letters B, D, and G in the tentative Gaulish examples shown seem to be "vee" or "soft th" "w" or vowel continuations in modern Celtic languages.

[@mantasradzevicius1]

41:35 in Lithuanian , Etsi - esi or esti is pretty much direct translation to (there is), senim - seni, sena (old)

[@RichardDCook]

Very interesting! In Scottish Gaelic "each" is horse or beast (interesting the semantic shift to "foal" in the P-Celtic languages) "mor" is large or great, "leathan" is wide.

[@talideon]

Worth pointing out that the likes of "banríon" in Irish and "benrein" in Manx is a bit of a funny one etymologically: the last element is from the Old Irish "rígan", meaning "queen" too, making it very similar to the Gaulish. It also means that the modern words literally mean "woman-queen"!

[@damionkeeling3103]

Yeah, rigan meant queen back then. Add the augmentative suffix -on and feminine suffix -a and you get riganona or apparently rigantona which is where the name Rhiannon comes from. Gaelic has the more logical but redundant word bànrigh.

[@Caramelhorse1]

Unrelated to the video but in the new Legend of Zelda game "Tears of the Kingdom", you can find stone tablets that can be translated by an NPC in game. The translations look similar (to my completely untrained eye) to some kind of old english style writing (although using the modern alphabet). Would you consider looking at it and maybe making a video about it?

[@yourmum69_420]

After reading this comment I just spent a while googling this to try to find a picture because you got me curious, but I can't find any examples

[@Caramelhorse1]

@@yourmum69_420 The quest is called "Messages from an ancient era". The tablets themselves don't have the text on them, but when the NPC translates them he tells you the "old hyrulian" version first, then his interpretation of the text.

[@tile-maker4962]

where can I find a book or site on Gaulish grammar and the best accumulation of accurate words and reconstructions?

[@donovantownshend8783]

We need Gaulish and Latin. I barely know any Latin but I recognised things faster than I'd expect.

[@therat1117]

It's going to be false cognate city. 'Senatus populusque romae' is 'Conarlios etic touta romias' (The council and people of Rome) as a start into your issues here. Similarly, 'Quisque est barbarus alio' would be 'Popos oinos ais allinos arallii' (Each one is a foreigner to another). There are certainly Latin cognates in here, but you basically need a degree to tease the details out.

[@Unbrutal_Rawr]

As a viewer, this was a very fun video to watch, thanks in no small part to the three guests' metalinguistic knowledge, especially that of Angharad. Normal monolingual ~betas~ speakers wouldn't stand a chance at this (not that one could find a monolingual Celtic speaker today). As a linguist, however, I have some further thoughts: - Morgan, the presenter, fails to distinguish vowel length in almost any way. This is a big problem if you speak Latin, Ancient Greek or another language where vowel length differences play a large role in comprehension. For instance, I couldn't make sense of the phrase "com nertomarus epus" because "nertomarus epus" was pronounced with short u's and so sounded like the Nominative, therefore unconnected with the preposition "com". In the same vein, it's supposed to be _īsarni, rīganī, māros..._ - The word for "broad, wide" is wrong: it's _lītanos,_ not _litāwos_ (vowel length as well as the consonant is wrong). - In the second challenge, the presenter consistently phrases "isarni rigani" together as a unit. But "isarni" means "of iron" so the phrase ends up meaning "iron's queen". Not to mention that the mistakenly identical vowel length of _i_ makes it look like the two words agree. - On the subject of this, the Genitive doesn't look like the right way to say "made of" - this makes no sense in either Latin or Slavic. I'm not sure about adjective formation of Gaulish - dyos, icos, īnos? - but even using a compound seems like a better idea, as in _īsarnokladiwos._ - Oh yes, it's _kladiwos_ not _kladiyos._ - I'm confused as to why it's _windim, abonim, senim_ in the last challenge. These are all o-stem adjectives and should end in _om/am._ The only word that can end in _īm_ in that challenge is _tegīm,_ provided it's the Accusative of _tegyā,_ not _tegos._

[@Gaisowiros]

Thank you for your linguistic review. I will take the time to properly read this again! I can tell you as for -im, that's accusative singular of -a words according to Delamarre. See also the Larzac inscription. You comment also makes it sound like you specifically didn't enjoy my presence here. I will assume my mistakes and take your criticism. It simply felt unnecessarily hostile towards me.

[@Gaisowiros]

-I definitely have problems with vowel length in Gaulish and in those languages that you mentionned as well. Another reason for that is that Xavier Delamarre doesn't give much information about vowel length in his dictionary. I would gladly let somebody with better pronunciation take part in the next video, should they volunteer. -It is indeed lîtanos (can't do the macron here but you get the point), not litâwos. My bad, honest mistake. Llydan also shows that the word ends with -an-, not -aw-. -Isarni rigani should indeed not have been in a single prosody unit, I understand the mistake and the confusion. -Latin does use the genitive to show what an object is made out of. Gladius ferri would be correct, for example. - The lemma is cladio- according to Delamarre, though he also gives these unattested forms: "*cladibo-, *cladijo-, *cladimo-". Cladiyos is from the second unattested form here, but I have claimed to only use attested words. I should have gone for cladios. -I've replied to your last point, though I would like to ask why should tegyâ be different? It's an -a word like abona.

[@Unbrutal_Rawr]

@@Gaisowiros Thanks for your reply to my comment. I'm well aware that my style can come across as hostile, but I always hope that people can disregard the lack of pleasantries and engage with the factual content, especially seeing as they aren't likely to receive that level of insight from other users on social media. The video wouldn't have been possible without you at all and as I said, I've really enjoyed it as a viewer. I direct my comments to you because you're by far the most knowledgeable of the people in it and can profit from my comments the most, and not because I didn't enjoy or appreciate your part in the video. I'm as fluent in Latin as anyone, and I'm pretty certain it doesn't use the Genitive to convey the "made of" meaning. _gladius ferrī_ reads as "a sword belonging to iron"; the only other interpretation makes it look like _gladius_ is a *_unit of measurement,_* as in "a piece, lump, ingot of iron". This is as in _pondus ferrī,_ where _ferrum_ is a mass noun, not a material - the weight is not made of iron, it's in a whole-part relation. In order to convey material, Latin uses either relative adjectives in _-(n)eus,_ or prepositional phrases with _ex_ and _dē: a(h)ēneus gladius = gladius ex aere = gladius dē aere._ I think you're being mislead by equating French _de_ with the Latin Genitive - Latin makes a distinction that French doesn't have. If you think I'm mistaken, you can point me to an actual example of the Genitive to express "made of" as opposed to "part of".

[@Unbrutal_Rawr]

@@Gaisowiros On the subject of the ā-stem accusative, here's what I've found in Alex Mullen's 2013 book _Southern Gaul and the Mediterranean,_ page 203: “the accusative of the ā-stems is attested as _-an_ in Gaulish, possibly at Saignon in Gallo-Greek ΜΑΤΙΚΑΝ (RIG I G-151) and at Todi in Gallo-Etruscan LOKAN (RIG II.1 E-5), and, later, through analogy with the iā-stems, as _-im_ at Larzac, e.g. _Seuerim Tertionicnim_ (RIG II.2 L-98). An alternative might be to see the ending as a consonant accusative stem ending _(ṃ > am > em / en)_ of a consonant stem noun, as in _materem_ (Larzac RIG II.2 L-98).” I myself also thought that this ending must be borrowed from yā-stems like _tegyā,_ where it should be a regular development (ih₂m > īm). This declension has varying Nominative, e.g. _rīganī ~ rīganyā,_ and it seems to have become progressively mixed up with the ā-declension, for ex. the earlier ā-Genitive _toutās_ becomes _toutyās._ It seems that the Accusative ending migrated from the yā-stem in exactly the same way. I'm not sure what reason Delamarre has for reconstructing the other forms, but all the attested forms of that lemma seem to point to a w-form. Matasović's 2009 _Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic_ which I'm consulting further says that all the Brythonic words have been borrowed from early Goidelic. Even Slavic borrowed it as _kladivo._

[@user-pf6jl6mu1n]

As a portuguese native speaker, and knowing that actually all portuguese words come from latin( sure except for those that had came from arabic, greek, suevi and visigothic ones), I could had a better understanding of gaulish words than those people from celtic nations. Gaulish sounds much like latin and the words realy looks like some sort of a very proximity towards latin.

[@MrRabiddogg]

interesting how she said siaxsou reminded her of Saxon was the wrong timeline. If I remember correctly Saxon also referred to a type of knife so it a round about way it is related.

[@dengan699]

I understood a whole three words! Derwon -> дерево Etsi / esti -> есть Dede -> дай lol without surprises, knowing Russian doesn't help understanding Gaulish!

[@noahtylerpritchett2682]

I noticed Gaelic is more different to Gaulish than Brythonic languages but Gaelic has better preserved cognate words at times in isolation.

[@jhombyrkotaksorgankazakh]

Gaelic are migrated to Iberia and then to Ireland while Gaulish and others migrated to Central Europe

[@noahtylerpritchett2682]

@@jhombyrkotaksorgankazakh I know. Celtiberian

[@jhombyrkotaksorgankazakh]

@@noahtylerpritchett2682 quis nertmatus actem factus