Celts: Gaulish Celtic

[Shogun 144]

In general the ‘Celtic’ language is divided into two branches: P-Celtic which includes the languages spoken by the Gallic and Brythonic Celts. The other is Q-Celtic which includes the languages spoken by the Celtiberians and Goidelic Celts.

Of these among the best understood is Gaulish, which covered much of modern France, Switzerland, the Benelux, Northern Italy, and parts of Germany. Gaulish also spawned a number of dialects, the best known of which was the language of the Galatians in Asia Minor. Another well known case was Lepontic, native to Northern Italy.

Unfortunately the Celts did not leave much in the form of written records. As there was no native alphabet invented by the Celts they used the writing systems of the peoples they encountered. The most common were the Etruscan alphabet, the Greek alphabet, and the Latin alphabet. No full transliteration of spoken Gaulish into any of these alphabets exists so any attempt at written Gaulish is an adventure in conjecture and the educated guess.

Nevertheless we do know enough about Gaulish to make some general guidelines. In his De Bello Gallico Julius Caesar notes that Gaulish was very similar to Latin and that Gallic leaders could understand his military dispatches. So Caesar used Koine Greek instead, a language that the Celts did not understand as easily. Surviving inscriptions (like the Coligny Calendar and curse tablets) are another important clue and give us a broad understanding of sentence structure and how the words were used.

Gaulish was a viable language from approximately 600 BC when it separated from Common Celtic to the 7th Century AD when it fell out of use in favor of Vulgar Latin (which borrowed extensively from Gaulish) and Frankish, the language of the region's Germanic rulers.