The
Brythonic languages (or
Brittonic languages or
British languages) form one of the two branches of the
Insular Celtic language family, the other being
Goidelic.
[1] The name
Brythonic was derived by
Welsh Celticist Sir
John Rhys from the
Welsh word
Brython, meaning an indigenous
Briton as opposed to an
Anglo-Saxon or
Gael. The name
Brittonic derives ultimately from the name
Prettanic recorded by Greek authors for the
British Isles. Some authors reserve the term
Brittonic for the modified later Brythonic languages after about AD 600.
These languages have been spoken in the British Isles since at least the Iron Age until today, originally as the majority languages but now as minority ones in Wales and Cornwall. In the Isle of Man and Scotland the Brythonic languages have been replaced by Goedelic ones. By emigration there are also communities of Brythonic language speakers in Brittany and Patagonia.
Knowledge of the Brythonic languages comes from a variety of sources. For the early languages information is obtained from coins, inscriptions and comments by classical writers as well as place names and personal names recorded by them. For later languages there is information from medieval writers and modern native speakers, together with place names. The names recorded in the Roman period are given in Rivet and Smith.
The Brythonic branch is also referred to as P-Celtic (like Gaulish) because the Brythonic reflex of the Proto-Indo-European phoneme *kw is p as opposed to the Goidelic c. Such nomenclature usually implies an acceptance of the P-Celtic hypothesis rather than the Insular Celtic hypothesis (for a discussion, see Celtic languages).
