Breton Language - History and Status

History and Status

Breton is spoken in Lower Brittany, roughly to the west of a line linking Plouha and La Roche-Bernard (east of Vannes). It comes from a Brythonic language community (see image) that once extended from Great Britain to Armorica (present-day Brittany) and which had even established a toehold in Galicia (in present-day Spain). Old Breton is attested from the 9th century. It was the language of the upper classes until the 12th century, after which it became the language of commoners in West Brittany (Breizh Izel), while the nobility, followed by the bourgeoisie, adopted French. As a written language, the Duchy of Brittany used Latin, switching to French in the 15th century. There exists a limited tradition of Breton literature. Some Old Breton vocabulary remains in the present day as philosophical and scientific terms in Modern Breton.

The French Monarchy did not concern itself with the minority languages of France spoken by the lower classes, although it did require the use of French for government business. The revolutionary period saw the introduction of policies favouring French over the regional languages, pejoratively referred to as patois. It was assumed by the revolutionaries that reactionary and monarchist forces preferred regional languages in an attempt to keep the peasant masses under-informed. In 1794, Barère submitted to the Comité de salut public his "report on the idioms", in which he said that "federalism and superstition speak breton". Under the Third, Fourth and Fifth republics, humiliating practices aimed at stamping out the Breton language and culture prevailed in state schools until the late 1960s.

Today, due to the political centralization of France and the important influence of the media, only about 200,000 people are able to speak Breton, a figure down from more than a million in 1950, of which the majority is more than 60 years old. At the beginning of the 20th century, half of the population of Lower Brittany knew only Breton, the other half being bilingual. By 1950, there were only 100,000 monolingual Bretons, and a rapid decline since, with likely no monolingual speakers left today. A statistical survey in 1997 found around 300,000 speakers in Breizh izel, of which about 190,000 were aged 60 or over. Few of those of the 15-19 year-old age-group spoke Breton, which is now considered to be an endangered language.

In 1925, thanks to Professor Roparz Hemon, the first issue of the review Gwalarn appeared. During its 19-year run, Gwalarn tried to raise the language to the level of other great “international” languages by creating original works covering all genres and by proposing Breton translations of internationally-recognized foreign works.

In 1946, Al Liamm replaced Gwalarn. Other periodicals appeared and began to give Breton a fairly large body of literature for a minority language.

In 1977, Diwan schools were founded to teach Breton by immersion. They taught a few thousand young people from elementary school to high school. See the education section for more information.

The Asterix comic series has been translated into Breton. This is notable because, according to the comic, the Gaulish village where Asterix lives is in the Armoric peninsula, which is now Brittany. Some other comics have also been translated into Breton, including Tintin, Spirou, Titeuf, Hägar the Horrible, Peanuts and Yakari.

There is some original media in Breton. Radio Kerne broadcasting from Finistère, has exclusively Breton programming. Some movies (Lancelot du Lac, Shakespeare in Love, Marion du Faouet, Sezneg) and TV series (Columbo, Perry Mason) are also broadcast in Breton. Poets, linguists, and writers who have written in Breton, including Yann-Ber Kalloc'h, Roparz Hemon, Anjela Duval, Pêr-Jakez Helias and Youenn Gwernig, are now known internationally.

Today, Breton is the only living Celtic language that is not recognized as an official or regional language. The French State refuses to change the second article of the Constitution (added in 1994), which states that “the language of the Republic is French”. This means that in spite of long having been the Celtic language with the highest number of speakers, the language is now endangered.

The first Breton dictionary, the Catholicon, was also the first French dictionary. Edited by Jehan Lagadec in 1464, it was a trilingual work containing Breton, French and Latin. Today the existence of bilingual dictionaries directly from Breton into languages such as English, Dutch, German, Spanish and Welsh demonstrates the determination of a new generation to gain international recognition for Breton. There also exists a monolingual dictionary, Geriadur Brezhoneg an Here, defining Breton words in Breton. The first edition of 1995 contained about 10,000 words, and the second edition of 2001 contains 20,000 words.