Essay On Celtic Language

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Nowadays, Celtic languages are not spoken by a large number of people and they are mostly limited to the British Isles and to Brittany, in north-western France. However, they once comprised a huge area of Europe, from Britain to Asia Minor in Roman and pre-Roman times. Celtic, which is a branch of the Indo-European language family, is subdivided into Continental Celtic and Insular Celtic. The four Continental languages of which there is evidence are Gaulish, Celtiberian, Galatian and Lepontic. Nonetheless, MacAulay observes that Celtic language “appears to have died out on the European continent by AD 500” (2). Whereas, Insular Celtic, in British Isles survived. MacAulay asserts that “within the Roman province and its spheres of influence the British tongues were, in different degrees, affected by Latin but survived the…show more content…
One of the most striking aspects of this problem is that the death of a language also means the loss of its speakers´ identity, history and culture. Bearing this in mind people should be concerned about what would happened if a language disappeared and be aware so as to take precaution measures to avoid it. On account of the fact that English is a dominant language all around the world, the future of the six living Celtic languages is not certain. Indeed, languages of the world are being threatened by English encroachment. In addition to values, beliefs and cultural identity, linguistic diversity allows access to the knowledge generated within each social group. When languages disappear, all knowledge related to their culture also disappears. Language is a mean to understand social organization, social relations and patterns of behaviour that are transmitted from generation to generation throughout the process of socialization and culture

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