Ar Priñs Bihan, in Breton (Brezhoneg).
The Breton language, known locally as Brezhoneg, is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany (Breizh) in the northwest of France. It holds the unique distinction of being the last and only Celtic language in use on the European mainland, serving as the final living link to the Continental Celtic tongues like Gaulish that once spanned the Roman Empire. For many, Brittany might bring to mind the adventures of Astérix the Gaul, but for me, it is a place of personal significance. Paris was the first city I ever visited overseas, but I then spent a memorable week exploring the Breton coast: from Lannion and Perros-Guirec to Pleumeur-Bodou and Guingamp.
Linguistically, Breton is spoken in Lower Brittany (Breizh-Izel), west of a line connecting Plouha and La Roche-Bernard. It originates from a Brittonic language community that once stretched from Great Britain to Armorica and even established a presence in Galicia, Spain. While it is most closely related to Cornish, to the point that speakers of the two were likely mutually intelligible during the Middle Ages, it is more distantly related to Welsh. Unlike its island cousins, Breton’s evolution was heavily influenced by centuries of contact with French and Gallo (the Romance language of Eastern Brittany), leading to unique features like the uvular “r” and a complex system of initial consonant mutations.
The history of the written language is marked by distinct stages: Old Breton (c. 800–1100), Middle Breton (c. 1100–1650), and Modern Breton. In Ar Priñs Bihan, we could find that modern editions often use the Peurunvan (or “ZH”) orthography, a system designed to unify the four traditional dialects: Kerne, Leon, Treger, and Gwened. The “zh” in the language’s name represents a sound that varies by region, appearing as a “z” in most areas but an “h” in the Vannes region. This standardisation is vital for a language that UNESCO classifies as “severely endangered,” having declined from over one million speakers in 1950 to approximately 200,000 today.
