Living Languages
SIL Ethnologue lists six "living" Celtic languages, of which four have retained a substantial number of native speakers. These are the Goidelic Irish (Gaeilge) and Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) descended from Old Irish, and the Brythonic Welsh and Breton descended from the British language.
The other two, Cornish and Manx, were spoken into modern times but later died as spoken community languages. For both these languages, however, revitalization movements have led to the adoption of these languages by adults and children and produced some native speakers.
Taken together, there were roughly one million native speakers of Celtic languages as of the 2000s. In 2010, there were more than 1.4 million speakers of Celtic languages.
Read more about this topic: Celtic Languages
Famous quotes containing the words living and/or languages:
“It’s that—the thought of the few, simple things we want and the knowledge that we’re going to get them in spite of you know Who and His spites and tempers—that keeps us living I think.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“No doubt, to a man of sense, travel offers advantages. As many languages as he has, as many friends, as many arts and trades, so many times is he a man. A foreign country is a point of comparison, wherefrom to judge his own.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)