What langauge did the Ancient Britons speak?

3 Comments

1. Brennus says:

   October 30, 2009 at 1:13 pm

   The ancient Britons whom Julius Caesar encountered spoke a Celtic language that was similar to modern day Welsh and very similar to the Gaulish (or Gallic) language that was spoken on the French side of the channel. Compare Boudica the name of the British warrior queen with Welsh buddugol "victorious" or the British rebel chieftain Caraticus with Welsh cariad "beloved" and the French surname Chirac coming from a Gallic name meaning "beloved."

   Of course, the Celts were still relative late-commers to the British Isles arriving only around 500 B.C. Unfortunately, we don’t know what the pre-Celtic languages of England and the British Isles were like. That is, the languages that the builders of the Stonehenge and the Newgrange temples spoke, and the language of the mysterious, dark-complexioned Picts in Scotland.

   By the time written history really begins in the British Isles in the 6th century A.D. Anglo-Saxon and Celtic were established everywhere.
2. Pittsburgher - Mateo el ateo - says:

   October 30, 2009 at 1:13 pm

   They spoke Anglo-Saxon. From the 5th-12th century AD.

   We call it "Old English"

   —–
   Edit: I took a British Lit class in high school and we had to read Beowolf in Old English….ugh…wtf.
3. Philip says:

   February 16, 2011 at 7:22 pm

   Well actually we don’t know how ancient Welsh is. Archeology takes us back to 500BC but the language/culture could be much older than that. But yes it would reasonable to suppose that some form of Welsh was spoken from the Channel to the Scottish border area up to the Roman occupation and beyond.

   People were probably bi-lingual Welsh-Latin speakers. Then the Danegeld brought in varieties of Norse. Welsh was probably finally restricted to modern Wales in the early Medieval period say 900-1200AD.