Chapter II: GOIDELIC AND BRYTHONIC.--When the monuments of the Celtic dialects (1)

of the British Islands begin to appear, we find a wide divergence between the two groups. We can only mention some of the more important cases here. The Brythonic dialects have gone very much farther in giving up inflectional endings than Goidelic. In Irish all final syllables in general disappear except long vowels followed by s or r and u < o preceded by i. But these reservations do not hold good for Brythonic. Thus, whilst O. Irish possesses five cases the Brythonic dialects have only one, and they have further lost the neuter gender and the dual number in substantives. In phonology there are also very striking differences, apart from the treatment of the labialized velar qv already mentioned. The sonant n appears in Brythonic as an, whereas in Goidelic the nasal disappears before k, t with compensatory lengthening of the vowel, e.g. I. E. _*kmtom_, Ir. _cet_, "hundred," W. _cant_, Bret. _kant_; Prim. Celt. _*jovnko-_, O. Ir. _oac_, Mod. Ir. og, "young," W. _ieuanc_, Bret, _iaouank_. t, k standing after a vowel and preceding l, n (and also r if k precede) disappear in Goidelic with compensatory lengthening of the vowel, e.g. Prim. Celt. _*statla-_, Ir. _sal_, "heel," W. _sawdl_; Prim. Celt. _*petno-_, Ir. _en_, "bird," O. W. _etn_, Mod. W. _edn._ Similarly b, d, g disappear in Goidelic when standing after a vowel and preceding l, r, n with compensatory lengthening of the vowel, but in Welsh they produce a vowel forming a diphthong with the preceding vowel, e.g. Prim. Celt. _*neblo-_, Ir. _nel_, "cloud," W. _niwl_; Prim. Celt. _*ogno-_, cf. Lat. _agnus_, Ir. _uan_, "lamb," from _*on_, W. _oen_; Prim. Celt. _*vegno-_, cf. Ger. _Wagen_, Ir. _fen_, "wagon," O. W. _guein_, Mod. W. _gwain_. The Goidelic dialects have preserved the vowels of accented syllables on the whole better than Brythonic. Thus Brythonic has changed Prim. Celt, a (= I. E. a, o) to o (W. aw, Bret. eu); and Prim. Celt. u to i, e.g. Ir. _brathir_, "brother," W. _brawd_, Bret. _breur_; Gaulish _dunum_, Ir. _dun_, "fort," W. _din_. Already in Gaulish the I. E. diphthongs show a tendency to become simple long vowels and the latter are treated differently by Goidelic and Brythonic. In early times I. E. _eu, ou_ both became o and I. E. ei gave e. In Goidelic o, e, in accented syllables were diphthongized in the early part of the 8th century to ua, ia if the next syllable did not contain the vowels e or i, whereas in Brythonic o gave =u (written u) and e became in W. ui (wy), and in Bret. oe (_oue_), e.g. Gaulish _Teuto-_, _Toutius_, Ir. _tuath_, "people," W., Bret. _tud_; Brythonic _Leto-cetum_, Ir. _tuath_, "grey," W. _llwyd_, Bret, _loued_. Similarly in loan-words, Ir. _ceir_, _fial_, W. _cwyr_, O. Corn. _guil_, from Lat. _cera_, _velum_. Further I. E. ai, oi are preserved in Irish as ai (ae), oi (oe), Mod. Ir. ao, but in Welsh I. E. ai gave either ai or oe, whilst oi changed to _u_ (written u), Ir. _toeb_, "side," W., Bret. tu; I. E. _*oinos_, Ir. _oen_, "one," W., Bret. un; Prim. Celt. _*saitlo-_, cf. Lat. _saeculum_, W. _hoedl_, "age," Bret. _hoal_. In Goidelic accented e changes to i before _i, u_ in the following syllable, cf. Ir. _fid_, "wood," gen. sing, _fedo_, O. H. G. _witu_, and i changes to e before a or o under similar conditions. In like manner u becomes o before a or o, whilst o changes to u before i, u, cf. Ir. _muir_, "sea," Prim. Celt. _*mori_, gen. sing. _mora_. Of Brythonic finals which disappear, a, i, (o), j alone influence preceding vowels, whilst an i (y) which received the stress in O. W. was also able to modify vowels which went before it. In Goidelic the combinations _sqv_, sv appear respectively as sc, s (medially, f), but in Brythonic they both give _chw_; Prim. Celt. _*sqvetlon_, Ir. _scel_, "story," W. _chwedl_; Prim. Celt. _*svesor_, Ir. _siur_, "sister," but _mo fiur_, "my sister" (whence Scottish _piuthar_ by false de-aspiration), W. _chwaer_, Bret. _c'hoar_. In Brythonic initial s becomes h in the 7th century, but this is unknown in Goidelic, e.g. Ir. _salann_, "salt," W. _halen_, Cornish _haloin_, Bret, _holenn_; Lat. _se-men_, Ir. _sil_, "seed," W. _hil_. Initial v gives f in Goidelic in the course of the 7th century, whereas in Brythonic it appears as _gu, gw_, cf. Lat. _verus_, Ir. _fir_, W., Bret. _gwir_. We may also mention that in Goidelic initial j and medial v disappear, e.g. Gaulish _Jovincillus_, W. _ieuanc_, "young," Bret, _iouank_, Ir. _oac, oc_; W. _bywyd_, "food," Ir. _biad_. Post-consonantic j in Brythonic sometimes gives -id (Mod. W. _-ydd_, Mod. Bret, -ez), e.g. Gaulish _nevio-, novio-_, O. Bret, _nowid_, W. _newydd_, Bret, _nevez_, Ir. _nue._ I.E. -kt and -pt both appear in Goidelic as _-cht_ but in Brythonic as _-ith_, cf. Lat. _septem_, O. Ir. _secht_, W. _seith_, Bret. _seiz_.

We unfortunately know very little about the position of the stress in ancient Gaulish. According to Meyer-Lubke in place-names the penult was accented if the vowel was long, otherwise the stress lay on the preceding syllable, e.g. _Augustodunum_, O. Fr. _Ostedun_, now _Autun; Catalaunos_ (Chalons), _Tricasses_ (Fr. Troyes), _Bituriges_ (Fr. Bourges). In Goidelic the stress, which is strongly expiratory, is always placed on the first syllable except in certain cases in verbs compounded with prepositional prefixes. In Old Welsh and Old Breton, on the other hand, the final syllable, i.e. the primitive penult, received the stress, but in both languages the stress was shifted in the middle period to the penultimate. The Goidelic dialects, like the Slavonic, distinguish between palatalized and nonpalatalized consonants, according as the consonant was originally followed by a front (e, i) or back vowel (a, o, u), a phenomenon which is entirely unknown to Brythonic.

Finally, the two groups differ radically in the matter of initial mutation or, as it is often called, aspiration. These mutations are by no means confined to initial consonants, as precisely the same changes have taken place under similar conditions in the interior of words. The Goidelic changes included under this head probably took place for the most part between the 5th and 7th centuries, whilst in Brythonic the process seems to have begun and continued later. It is easier to fix the date of the changes in Brythonic than in Goidelic, as a number of British names are preserved in lives of saints, and it is possible to draw conclusions from the shape that British place-names assumed in the mouths of the Anglo-Saxons. In Goidelic, we find two mutations, the vocalic and the nasal. Initial mutation only takes place between words which belong together syntactically, and which form one single stress-group, thus between article, numeral, possessive pronoun or preposition, and a following substantive; between a verbal prefix and the verb itself.

1. When the word causing mutation ended in a vowel we get the vocalic
mutation, called by Irish grammarians aspiration. The sounds affected
are the tenues k (c), t, p; the mediae g, d, b; the liquids and nasals
m, n, r, l, s, and Prim. Celt. v (Ir. f, W. gw). At the present day
the results of this mutation in Irish and Welsh may be tabulated as
follows. Where the sound is at variance with the traditional
orthography, the latter is given in brackets. In the case of n, r, l
in Goidelic we get a different variety of n, r, l sound. In Welsh in
the case of r, l, the absolute initial is a voiceless r, l written rh,
ll, which on mutation become voiced and are written r, l. In Irish s
becomes h written sh and the mutation of f is written fh, which,
however, is now silent. Examples:--Irish, cu, "hound," _do chu_, "thy
hound"; Welsh ci, dy gi (do, dy represent a Prim. Celt. _*tovo_);
Irish _mathair_, "mother," _an mhathair_, "the mother," Welsh _mam, y
fam_ (the feminine of the article was originally _*senta, senda)._

+--------+---------+-------+-------+-------+-------+---------+---------+
|Original| | | | | | | |
| sound | k | t | p | g | d | b | m |
+--------+---------+-------+-------+-------+-------+---------+---------+
| Irish |[chi](ch)| h(th) | f(ph) | Z(gh) | Z(dh) | v,w(bh) | v,w(mh) |
+--------+---------+-------+-------+-------+-------+---------+---------+
| Welsh | g | d | b | nil | d(dd) | v(f) | v(f) |
+--------+---------+-------+-------+-------+-------+---------+---------+

2. When the word causing mutation originally ended in a nasal, we get
the nasal mutation called by Irish grammarians eclipse. The sounds
affected are k (c), t, p; g, d, b; Prim. Celt. v (Ir. f, W. gw). In
mod. Irish and mod. Welsh the results are tabulated below. Irish f
becomes w written bh, whilst W. gw gives _ngw_. Examples:--Irish
_bliadhna_, "year," _seacht m-bliadhna_, "seven years," cf. Latin
_septem_, Welsh _blynedd, saith mlynedd_; Irish _tir_, "country," _i
d-tir_, "in a country," Welsh _tref_, "town," _yn nhref_, "in a
town," cf. Latin _in._

+----------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Original Sound | k | t | p | g | d | b |
+----------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Irish | g | d | b | ng | n | m |
+----------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| Welsh | ngh | nh | mh | ng | n | m |
+----------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+

3. In Welsh k (c), t, p undergo a further change when the word causing
mutation originally ended in s. There is nothing corresponding to this
consonantal mutation in Goidelic. In this case k (c), t, p become the
spirants [chi] (ch), th, f (ph), e.g. _lad_, "father," _ei thad_, "her
father," ei represents a primitive _*esias._ In the interior of words
in Brythonic, cc, pp, tt give the same result as initial k, t, p by
this mutation.

The relation in which the other Celtic dialects stand to this system will be mentioned below in dealing with the various languages. It will be noted from what has been said above that, with the exception of the different treatment of the labialized velar qv, and the nasal sonant n, the features which differentiate the Brythonic from the Goidelic dialects first appear for the most part after the Romans had left Britain. At the beginning of the Christian era the difference between the two groups can only have been very slight. And Strachan has shown recently that Old Irish and Old Welsh agree in a very striking manner in the use of the verbal particle ro and in other syntactical peculiarities connected with the verb.

(i.) _Goidelic_.--The term Goidelic is used to embrace the Celtic dialects of Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. In each case the national name for the speech is _Gaelic_ (Ir. _Gaedhlig_, Scottish _Gaidhlig_, Manx _Gailck_), from Ir. Scottish _Gaodhal, Gaedheal_, Mid. Ir. _Goedel_, W. _Gwyddel_, "a Gael, inhabitant of Ireland or Scotland." Old Irish may be regarded as the ancestor of Scottish and Manx Gaelic, as the forms of these dialects can be traced back to Old Irish, and there are practically no monuments of Scottish and Manx in the oldest period. Scottish and Irish may be regarded as standing to one another in much the same relation as broad Scottish and southern English. The divergences of Scottish and Manx from Irish will be mentioned below. The language of the Ogam inscriptions is the oldest form of Goidelic with which we are acquainted. Some 300 inscriptions have up to the present been discovered in this alphabet, the majority of them hailing from the south-west of Ireland (Kerry and Cork). In Scotland 22 are known, whilst in England and Wales about 30 have turned up. Most of the latter are in South Wales, but odd ones have been found in North Wales, Devon and Cornwall, and one has occurred as far east as Hampshire. The Isle of Man also possesses two. The letters in the oldest inscriptions are formed by strokes or notches scored on either side of the edge of an upright stone. Thus we obtain the following alphabet:--

--'----''----'''----''''----'''''-- --,----,,----,,,----,,,,----,,,,,--
h d t c q b l v s n

--/----//----///----////----/////-- --.----..----...----....----.....--
m g ng z r a o u e i

This system, which was eked out with other signs, would seem to have been framed in the south-west of Ireland by a person or persons who were familiar with the Latin alphabet. Some of the inscriptions probably go back to the 5th century and may even be earlier. As illustrations of the simplest forms of Ogam inscriptions we may mention the following: _Doveti maqqi Cattini_, i.e. "(the stone) of Dovetos son of Cattinos"; _Trenagusu Maqi Maqi-Treni_ is rendered in Latin _Trenegussi Fili Macutreni hic jacit; Sagramni Maqi Cunatami_, "(the stone) of Sagramnos son of Cunotamos"; _Ovanos avi Ivacattos_, "(the stone) of Ovanus descendant of Ivacattus." It will be seen that in the oldest of these inscriptions q is still kept apart from k (c), and that the final syllables have not disappeared (cf. _maqqi_, O. Ir. _maicc_), but it appears certain that in Ogamic writing stereotyped forms were used long after they had disappeared in ordinary speech. Several stones contain bilingual inscriptions, but the key to the Ogam alphabet is supplied by a treatise on Ogamic writing contained in the Book of Ballymote, a manuscript of the late 14th century. It should be mentioned that the Welsh stones are early whilst the Scottish ones are almost without exception late, and several of the latter have so far defied interpretation. In addition to the Irish Ogams there are a number of Christian inscriptions in Latin character, but, with one exception, they are not older than the 8th century.

See R.R. Brash, _The Ogam Inscribed Monuments of the Gaedhil_ (London,
1879); R.A. Stewart Macalister, _Studies in Irish Epigraphy_ (London),
vol. i. (1897), vol. ii. 1902, vol. iii. 1907. The Welsh inscriptions
are contained in J. Rhys, _Lectures on Welsh Philology_[2] (London,
1879). The Scottish stones have also been treated by Rhys in the
_Proceedings of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries_ (Edinburgh,
1892). See also G.M. Atkinson for the tract in the Book of Ballymote,
_Kilkenny Journal of Archaeology_ (1874). The Irish Christian
inscriptions were published by Margaret Stokes as the annual volumes
of the Roy. Hist, and Archaeol. Association of Ireland (1870-1877),
and have been republished by R.A. Stewart Macalister.

(a) _Irish._--We are able to trace the history of the Irish language continuously for a period of 1200 years, and from the time that the literary documents begin we are better supplied with linguistic material for the study of the language than is the case with any other Celtic dialect. At the same time that form of Irish which is to be found in the oldest documents has preserved a number of features which have entirely, or almost entirely, disappeared from the Brythonic languages. For this reason scholars have largely occupied themselves with Irish, which for purposes of comparative philology may be regarded as the classic Celtic language.

The history of Irish is divided into three periods:--Old Irish
(700-1100), the documents mainly representing the language of the 8th
and 9th centuries; Middle Irish, extending roughly from 1100 to 1550;
Modern Irish from 1550 to the present day. These periods merge into
one another to such an extent that no firm division can be made. The
language of some manuscripts of the 14th century contains forms which
are really Old Irish, and Middle Irish orthography was partly employed
by historians and antiquarians in the middle of the 17th century. Old
Irish, as compared with Brythonic, preserves a wealth of inflectional
forms in declension and conjugation, but many of these tend to
disappear very early. In the modern dialects of Ireland and Scotland
there is a rigid rule of orthography that a palatalized, or, as it is
termed, slender consonant in medial or final position, must be
preceded by a palatal vowel (i), and a non-palatalized consonant by a
non-palatal or broad vowel (a, o, u). This is the famous rule of the
grammarians known as _caol le caol agus leathan le leathan_ ("slender
to slender and broad to broad"), but it is not so strictly adhered to
in the spoken language as is commonly stated. In the older language
the quality of medial and final consonants is only denoted very
imperfectly, thus non-palatalized final consonants are regularly not
denoted as such, e.g. O. and Mid. Ir. _fir_, Mod. Ir. _fior_. In Old
and Mid. Irish the initial mutations are only regularly denoted in the
case of the vocalic mutation of c, p, t, s, f, and the nasal mutation
of b, d, g. The vocalic mutation of c, p, t, s, f was denoted by
writing ch, ph, th, sh, fh, the first three symbols of which were
derived from the Latin alphabet. Another method of denoting the
mutation was to write a dot over the letter, originally the punctum
delens, which was justified in the case of mutated f as the latter
early became silent. But no such devices were ready at hand in the
case of the medial b, d, g, and the mutated forms of these consonants
were consequently not represented at all in the orthography. The same
remark holds good in the case of the nasal mutation (eclipse) of the
tenues. But it is easy to demonstrate that the same condition of
affairs as we find in the modern language must have obtained in Old
Irish. This insufficiency of symbols renders the orthography of the
early stages of the language very complicated. We find that b, d, g
were used initially to denote the voiced stops, but medially and
finally they represent spirants, the voiced stops in this case being
denoted by c, p, t. It is not until much later times that the h in the
mutated forms of the tenues, or the use of the dot, was extended to
the mediae. Thus in Mid. Irish we find _do bochtaib in choimded_ (Mod.
Ir. _dobhochtaibh_), Mid. Ir. _ro-gab_ = Mod. Ir. _do ghabh_. The
nasal mutation of c, p, t was first denoted by writing these sounds
double and finally in the 18th century by writing gc, bp, dt. The
spirants arising out of Prim. Celt. g, d, b came in Old Irish to be
confused with those which developed out of Prim. Celt, p, t, k, in
other than initial positions. In final positions in polysyllables we
commonly find d and b written but medially th and ph, e.g. _didnad_,
"consolation," gen. sing, _dithnatha_. For the ending -ad cp. Lat.
_-atu-_. On the other hand we find g written medially and ch finally.
These rules, however, are not yet applied in the oldest documents.

When we turn to the inflections we find that most of the old
terminations have disappeared, but that their influence on preceding
consonants is still felt and serves to distinguish one form from
another; thus in the declension of _fer_, "man," nom. sing. _fer_,
gen. sing. _fir_, dat. sing, _fiur_, acc. sing, _fer n-_, nom. pl.
_fir_, gen. pl. _fer n-_, corresponding to Prim. Celt. (Gaulish)
_viros, viri, viro, viron, viri, viron_, the influence of the
following sound still differentiates the cases from one another. In
the later language the initial mutations come more and more to be
used for this purpose. In Middle Irish the declensions and
conjugations are much simplified and the neuter gender is given up in
substantives. In the verb the athematic conjugation has disappeared
and the distinction of primary and secondary endings is not observed.
On the other hand Irish has developed a peculiar system of absolute
and conjoint inflection with different sets of endings. The conjoint
endings are always used in the case of compound verbs, and in simple
verbs they are employed after certain proclitics, e.g. the negative
particles. Thus _berid_, "he bears," is an absolute form; _do-beir_,
"he gives," _ni beir_, "he does not bear," are conjoint forms.
Further, the verb system is partly dominated by the various devices
employed to express relatival function. There are three main types of
conjugation in Old Irish corresponding to the Latin first, third and
fourth conjugations, the Latin types _moneo_ and _audio_ being
difficult to distinguish in Irish. In the modern language there is in
reality but one conjugation. The old Irish verb system comprises
present and imperfect indicative, imperative, pres. subjunctive in
-a-or -s- with corresponding past subjunctive, future in -f- or -s- or
-e- or with reduplication along with corresponding secondary future,
-s- preterite, -t- preterite, reduplicated preterite, a preterite
containing a long stem-vowel, together with deponential and passive
forms in -rd. This system is eked out with the verbal prefix ro, which
among other functions changes a preterite into a perfect or a present
into a perfect. Such a cumbrous system was bound to fall to pieces. A
number of isolated forms have come down, but the only tenses which
have survived into the modern period are the present and imperfect
indicative, the imperative, the present subjunctive, the -s-
preterite, the -b- and -e- future with corresponding secondary forms,
and some of the passive forms in -r. At the same time in the modern
language there is an increasing tendency to use analytical forms. Two
noteworthy features of the Irish verb remain to be mentioned. The one
is the use of pronouns as objects infixed between particle and verb,
or in a verb compounded with a preposition between preposition and
verb. There are two sets of forms according as to whether the verb
occurs in a relative clause or not. Thus -m- is the ordinary infixed
pronoun of the 1st pers. sing., whilst -dom- is the corresponding
relative form. In the 3rd pers. sing. aspiration may be employed, e.g.
_ni ceil_, "he does not hide," _ni cheil_, "he does not hide it." This
has been given up in the modern language. Secondly in verbs compounded
with prepositions the accent of the verb varies according as to
whether the verb is used enclitically or not--thus after the negative
ni or in the infinitive and imperative. Hence we have _do-beir_, "he
gives," by the side of _ni tabair_, "he does not give," infin.
_tabairt_; _do-gniu_, "I do," _ni denim_, "I do not do," infin.
_denum_. The changes caused by this alternation in addition to others
due to the working of the Irish accent and to the initial and internal
mutations have played havoc with the verb system and render it
exceedingly difficult to reconstruct the paradigms. In the later
periods of the language analogy naturally plays a great part, and many
of the complicated forms are done away with, but even in the modern
dialects the alternation between enclitic and orthotonic forms still
survives in the commonest verbs, e.g. Irish _bheir se_ "he gives," _ni
thabhair se_, "he does not give," infin. _tabhairt_; Scottish _bheir
e, cha toir, toirt_; Manx _ver eh, cha der, coyrt_; Irish _ni se_, "he
does," _ni dheanann se_, "he does not do," infin. _deanamh_; Scottish
_ni e_, "he does," _cha dean e_, "he will not do," infin. _deanamh_;
Manx _nee eh, cha jean eh, jannoo_.

In the early period Irish borrowed a number of words from Latin. These
are mainly connected with the church or with articles of civilization
which would be imported from Roman Britain. Some of these show traces
of British pronunciation, e.g. O. Ir. _trindoit_, from Latin
_trinitatem_ with o for a. In others again Lat. p is represented in
Ir. by c, which may be due to the substitution of q as being the
nearest Irish sound to the foreign p. Thus we find Ir. _corcur_,
"purple," _casc_, "Easter"; _cenciges_, "Whitsuntide"; _cruimther_,
"presbyter." In addition to these several loans were received from
Norse. In the Mid. Irish period many French words came in, and during
the middle and modern periods the number of English words introduced
is legion. Pedersen has tried to show in his _Vergl. Gramm._ that a
considerable number of words were borrowed from Brythonic (Welsh) at
an early date.

[For the Latin loan-words, see J. Vendryes, _De hibernicis vocabulis
quae a latina lingua originem duxerunt_ (Paris, 1902); Kuno Meyer has
collected a number of loan-words from Norse, Anglo-Saxon, Early
English, Latin and Early French in _Revue celtique_, xii. 460 and
xiii. 505. See also Whitley Stokes, _Bezzenberger's Beitrage_, xviii.
56 ff. For Celtic names in Norse see W. Stokes, _Revue celtique_, iii.
186 ff., and W.A. Craigie, _Zeitschr. f. celt. Phil._ i. 439 ff.]

With regard to the dialects of Irish, there is a well-known rhyme
which states the peculiarities of the speech of the four provinces,
and dialectical differences must have existed at an early period,
though they do not make their appearance in the literary language
until the 18th century. At the present day the Irish of Leinster has
vanished entirely, and we have unfortunately no records of it. But in
the other three provinces the vernacular still lives, and we find the
Irish of Munster, Connaught and Ulster marked off from one another by
well-defined peculiarities. In general it may be stated that the south
of Ireland is more conservative than the north. In Munster there is a
tendency to shift the word-stress from the initial syllable to a heavy
derivative syllable, e.g. -an. This does not take place in Connaught,
whilst in Ulster the tendency is to shorten the vowel. Again in
monosyllables ending in ll, nn, m, and under certain other conditions
a short vowel becomes a diphthong in the south, in Connaught it is
merely lengthened, but in Ulster the original length is retained, e.g.
Ulster _ball_, "member, limb," Connaught _ball_, Munster _baull_.
Final dh, gh in Munster are sounded as g. In certain cases the north
prefers the vocalic mutation where the west and south have the nasal,
thus notably in the dative singular after preposition and article,
e.g. Munster-Connaught _do'n bhfear_, "to the man," Ulster _do'n
fhear_. In the south synthetic verb-forms are employed to a much
larger extent than in the north.

In the early part of the 19th century Irish was still the speech of
more than half the inhabitants of Ireland. A German traveller reckoned
that out of a total population of seven millions in 1835 four millions
spoke Irish as their mother-tongue. The famine of 1846-1847 was felt
most in those districts that were purely Irish, and these were the
parts that were and still are chiefly affected by the tide of
emigration. Add to this the fact that the influence of O'Connell and
his satellites, and above all that of the Roman Catholic clergy, was
against the language. In spite of the efforts of the Gaelic League
(founded 1893), which have met with considerable success, the language
is rapidly dying of internal decay. The speakers of Irish are chiefly
confined to the following counties, where over 20% of the population
speak Gaelic:--Waterford, Cork, Kerry, Clare, Galway, Mayo, Sligo,
Donegal. The following figures will illustrate the decay of the
language since the famine:--

Year. Monoglots. Bilinguists.

1851 319,602 1,204,684
1861 163,275 942,261
1871 103,562 714,313
1881 64,167 885,765
1891 38,192 642,053
1901 20,953 620,189

According to the 1901 census report the speakers of Irish were
distributed as follows:--Leinster, 26,436; Munster, 276,268;
Connaught, 245,580; Ulster, 92,858. The Gaelic movement, which has
thriven largely on account of its anti-English character, would have a
much better chance of galvanizing the ancient language of Ireland if
it were not for the supreme difficulties of Irish spelling and
phonetics. Of the hundreds of thousands of persons who attend the
classes of the League not more than one or two per cent. at the
outside arrive at any state of proficiency. Presbyterian Gaels in
Scotland are taught to read the Bible but Irish Catholics are not
encouraged to do so. The result of this is seen in the fact that,
whilst many, if not all, of the local Nationalist newspapers under the
pressure of the League publish badly-printed and little-read columns
in Irish, there are only two regularly appearing periodicals which
contain any large amount of Irish. Half the contents--and those the
most important--of the weekly organ of the league, _An Claidheamh
Soluis_ ("the flaming sword"), are in English. The latter was started
in 1898 under the title of _Fainne an Lae_ ("the ring of day," i.e.
the dawn). The other periodical is the monthly _Gaelic Journal_
(_Irisleabhar na Gaedhilge_), a would-be literary magazine of very
inferior quality which has led a precarious existence since 1882. In
1898 it was decided to hold a festival called the _Oireachtas_
("hosting, gathering") on the lines of the Welsh _Eisteddfod_. The
venture was a great success and similar meetings have been held every
year since, whilst each province and many of the counties have their
annual local Gaelic _feis_ (festival). The literary output of the
movement has been prodigious, consisting in the main of a number of
short stories and dramas (mostly propagandist), but nothing of any
particular merit has as yet been forthcoming. The best-known writers
are Dr Douglas Hyde (collector of folk-stories--_Beside the Fire_,
1890, _An Sgeulaidhe Gaedhealach_, 1895 (reprinted from vol. x. of the
_Annales de Bretagne_), _Love Songs of Connaught_, 1893, _Religious
Songs of Connaught_, 1905); P. O'Leary (author of two lengthy stories,
_Seadna_, 1904, _Niamh_, 1907); P. Dinneen (author of an historical
tale, _Cormac Ua Connaill_, 1901); P. O'Shea, better known as "Conan
Maol," author of a collection of short stories entitled _An Buaiceas_,
1903.

AUTHORITIES ON IRISH LANGUAGE.--For the study of Old Irish--Zeuss,
_Grammatica Celtica^2_ (Berlin, 1871); B. Guterbock and R. Thurneysen,
Indices to the Irish words treated in Zeuss (Leipzig, 1881); E.
Windisch published the first grammar of Old Irish in 1879 (trans. by
N. Moore, Pitt Press, 1882), but Windisch's treatment of the verb was
rendered obsolete by the discovery of the laws of the Irish accent by
H. Zimmer, _Keltische Studien_ (Berlin, 1884), and R. Thurneysen,
_Revue celtique_, vi. 309, J. Vendreys, _Grammaire du Vieil-Irlandais_
(Paris, 1908); R. Thurneysen, _Handbuch des Alt-Irischen_ (Heidelberg,
1909). Mention should also be made of J. Strachan, _Selections from
the Old Irish Glosses_ (Dublin, 1904); and the same writer's _Old
Irish Paradigms_ (Dublin, 1905), _Stories from the Tain_ (Dublin,
1908). See also various papers on the Irish verb in the _Transactions
of the London Philological Society_ by Strachan (1895-1902); H.
Pedersen, _Aspirationen i Irsk_ (Copenhagen, 1898); C. Sarauw, _Irske
Studier_ (Copenhagen, 1901); G.J. Ascoli, _Archivio glottologico
italiano_, vols. v. and vi. For the study of Middle Irish--E.
Windisch, _Irische Texte mit Worterbuch_ (Leipzig, 1880). (Other
volumes in conjunction with W. Stokes.)

Editions of texts by W. Stokes, Kuno Meyer and others in the _Revue
celtique, Zeitschrift fur celtische Philologie, Eriu_. K. Meyer has
issued an exhaustive Mid. Irish glossary (A-D) as a supplement to the
_Archiv fur celtische Lexikographie_. The remainder is being published
under the auspices of the Royal Irish Academy. The first grammar of
Modern Irish was published by Francis Molloy in 1677 at Rome under the
title of _Grammatica Latino-Hibernica_. Molloy was followed by
Jeremiah Curtin in 1728 with a book called _Elements of the Irish
Language_. Numerous other grammars were published towards the end of
the 18th and at the beginning of the 19th century, but few of them
have any value. The more important of them are enumerated in the
introduction to O'Donovan's _Grammar_ and to Windisch's _Kurzgefasste
irische Grammatik_, and in Pedersen's _Aspirationen i Irsk_, pp.
29-47. We may mention W. Neilson's _Grammar_ (1808) as it is important
for the Irish of E. Ulster. But the greatest native grammarian was
John O'Donovan, who traversed Ireland in connexion with the Ordnance
Survey, and published in 1854 a comprehensive grammar noting the
differences between the various dialects. A little grammar published
by Molloy in 1867 is instructive on account of the author's peculiar
point of view. The most useful books for the study of the living
language are the series of booklets (five) published by Father
O'Growney, one of the chief promoters of the present movement. Mention
should also be made of J.P. Henry's _Handbook of Modern Irish_, pts.
i.-iv., and of the grammars by P.W. Joyce (Dublin, 1896) and the
Christian Brothers (Dublin, 1901). For the northern form of Irish J.P.
Craig's _Grammar of Modern Irish_ is useful (^2 Dublin, 1904). The
phonetics of a Munster dialect have been investigated by R. Henebry,
_A Contribution to the Phonology of Desi Irish_ (Greifswald, 1901).
The dialect of the Aran Islands off the coast of Galway has been
described by F.N. Finck, _Die Araner Mundart_, i. _Lautlehre und
Grammatik_, ii. _Worterbuch_ (Marburg, 1899). G. Dottin has given an
account of a dialect of North Connaught (Mayo) in the _Revue
celtique_, xiv. pp. 97-137. A study of the speech of the north was
published by E.C. Quiggin under the title of _A Dialect of Donegal,
Phonology and Texts_ (Cambridge, 1906). For an account of the decay of
Irish see H. Zimmer, "Die keltische Bewegung in Irland," _Preussische
Jahrbucher_ for 1898, vol. 93, p. 59 ff., and the last chapter of
Douglas Hyde's _Literary History of Ireland_ (London, 1901).

The work of the earlier compilers of glosses will be mentioned in the
literature section below. The first dictionary of the modern language
of any importance was that published by J. O'Brien in 1768. Next came
E. O'Reilly with his _Irish-English Dictionary_ (Dublin, 1817). This
book contains a vast store of words gathered on no principle whatever
from all manner of sources, and has therefore to be used with caution,
but even at the present day it renders considerable service. A second
edition with a supplement by O'Donovan was published after the
latter's death in 1864. The first trustworthy dictionary of the modern
language was published under the auspices of the Irish Texts Society
by P.J. Dinneen (London, 1904). English-Irish dictionaries have been
compiled by D. Foley (Dublin, 1855); E.E. Fournier (Dublin, 1903); T.
O'Neill Lane (Dublin, 1904).

(b) _Scottish Gaelic._--Scottish Gaelic is the form of Goidelic speech which was introduced into Scotland by the Dalriadic Scots who came over from Ireland in the early centuries of our era. We possess practically no early monuments of the language. We have one or two inscriptions in Latin characters, such as that at St Vigeans and the Ogams mentioned above, which have not yet been solved. In the _Book of Deir_ there is a colophon of a few lines probably written by an Irish scribe in the 9th century, and as the language of these lines differs in no wise from the Irish of the period, we do not know if they accurately represent the Gaelic of Scotland or if they may not be pure Irish. In the same MS. there are further Gaelic scraps belonging to the 11th and 12th centuries. The word-forms in these entries are identical with those current at the time in Ireland, but the historical orthography seems to show more signs of decay than is the case in Irish. The medieval Scottish MSS. in the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh are only just being published, but they seem either to hail from Ireland or to be written in pure Irish. The end of the 15th century brought a change. The Lordship of the Isles, the great bond between Ireland and Scotland, was broken up. The Gaels of Scotland, thrown on their own resources, advanced their own dialect to the position of a literary language and tried to discard the Irish orthography. The _Book of the Dean of Lismore_, compiled about 1500, is written in a kind of phonetic orthography which has not as yet been sufficiently investigated. The language of those poems which are not directly ascribed to Irish poets, and which may therefore be regarded as representing the literary language of the Highlands at the time, seems to occupy a position midway between Irish and Scottish Gaelic. But until the beginning of the 18th century the Highlands were under the literary dominion of Ireland, so much so that Bedell's Irish version of the Scriptures was circulated in Scotland with a glossary from 1690 to 1767, and Bishop Carsewell's version of Knox's Prayer-book (1567) is pure Irish. The language of the people is poorly represented in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the orthography is not fixed until we reach the 18th century.

Irish and Scottish Gaelic differ considerably in point of vocabulary,
but there are also important divergences in phonetics and inflections.
In the first place, Scottish Gaelic as written has entirely given up
the nasal mutation (eclipse), e.g. Scottish _ar bo_, "our cow," Irish
_ar m-bo_; Scottish _nan tir_, "of the countries," Irish _na d-tir_.
It should, however, be observed that in Skye and the Outer Isles the
nasal mutation has been partly restored and in some places there are
even parallels to the Welsh nasal mutation of c, p, t to _ngh, mh,
nh._ Secondly, post-vocalic c, p, t are commonly preceded by a
breathed sound not represented in writing, thus _mac_ "son," is
pronounced _mahk_; _slat_, "rod," as _slaht_. Again there is a
tendency to insert a sibilant in the group rt, thus _ceart_, "right,"
is sounded _kearst_, and the distinction between palatalized and
non-palatalized sounds is not so rigidly observed as in Irish. The
group _cht_ is in Scotland pronounced as if _chk_. We may also mention
that Scottish Gaelic preserves an old e in a number of words where
Irish now has a, thus, Old Ir. _fer_, Scottish G. _fer_, Irish _far_,
but in both cases the spelling is _fear_ (in this respect Scottish
Gaelic goes hand in hand with Manx and the almost extinct Irish of
Down). Similarly, we find that in Scottish Gaelic and Manx stressed
vowels preceding a palatalized consonant have not undergone
palatalization to the same extent as in Irish, e.g. in Ireland
_duine_, "man," < _*dunjo-_, is pronounced _din'd_, but in Scotland
_dun'd_ (in Manx written _dooinney_). A further peculiarity of
Scottish Gaelic is that it substitutes lenes or voiceless mediae for
the voiced stops, and even l, r, n sounds show a great tendency to
give up the voice. Scottish Gaelic goes farther even than Irish in the
confusion of vowel-sounds, e.g. Lat. _coxa_, Ir. _cos_, "foot," Sc.
_cas_; Ir. _codal_, Sc. _cadal_. When we turn to the inflections we
find that analogy has here played a much greater part than in Irish.
There is a tendency to make the plural of all substantives except
masculine monosyllables end in -an. In the conjugation the synthetic
forms have with one or two exceptions entirely disappeared and the
present forms have become momentary in force. Hence in ordinary
grammars it is stated that the present has become a future, thus _ni
mi_ means "I shall do." The past participle chiefly ends in -te as
against Irish -the, -te, or -tha, -ta, according to the quality of the
preceding sound. The present (future) and past subjunctive
(conditional, representing both the imperfect indic. and secondary
future of Irish) supply the place of the Irish consuetudinal forms. In
idiom also Scottish has diverged very considerably from Irish, e.g. in
the use of _tha_ (Ir. ta) for is.

It seems now to be agreed that the various dialects of Scottish Gaelic
fall into two main divisions--northern and southern. Mackinnon states
that the boundary between the two passes roughly up the Firth of Lorne
to Loch Leven, then across country from Ballachulish to the Grampians.
The country covered by the northern dialect was of old the country of
the Northern Picts, whilst the portion of Argyllshire south of the
boundary line, together with Bute and Arran, made up the kingdom of
Dalriada. The Gaelic district south of the Grampians belonged to the
Southern Picts. The southern dialect is commonly regarded as the
literary language. It approaches more nearly to Irish and preserves
the inflections much better than the speech of the north.

The following characteristics of the northern dialects may be
mentioned:--(1) The diphthongization of open e to ia is carried much
farther in the north than in the south. (2) The vowel ao in the north
is more regularly the high-back-narrow-unrounded vowel-sound, whereas
the south in many cases has a low-front-wide-round sound. (3) The
north has _str_ in initial position where the south prefers sr.
Further, the northern dialects go very far in dropping unaccented
final vowels. It may be remarked that in the reduction of derivative
endings containing long vowels Scotland goes hand-in-hand with Ulster
Irish, thus Connaught _aran_, "bread," is in Ulster and Scotland
_aran_. Again, Scottish agrees with North Irish in the loss of
synthetic verb-forms and in using as negative _cha_, Mid. Ir. _nico,
nocha_. But, on the other hand, Scotland, with the exception of South
Argyll and some of the Isles, diphthongizes accented a, o, e, in
monosyllables, before ll, nn, m, thus resembling the speech of
Munster. In South Argyll the original short vowel is half lengthened.

As to the southern limits of Gaelic speech in Scotland, the boundary
between Gaelic and English in medieval times was the so-called
Highland line, and at the War of Independence it is probable that it
extended to Stirling, Perth and the Ochil and Sidlaw Hills, the Inglis
being limited to a very narrow strip along the coast. Dr J.A.H. Murray
traced the linguistic frontier in 1869-1870 with the following
results. The line started about 3 m. west of the town of Nairn on the
Moray Firth and ran in a south-east direction to the Dee, 4 m. above
Ballater. On the other side of the Dee it began 4 m. above Balmoral
and followed the boundary of Perth and Forfar as far as Glen Shee,
where it went off to the south-west as far as Dunkeld. After passing
Birnam Hill it turned due west until the upper part of Glen Almond was
reached, where it bent to the southward, passing through Comrie and
along the braes of Doune to the Teith, 3 or 4 m. below Callander.
Thence it ran along the north shore of Lake Monteith to Gartmore, and
from there to Rowardennan on the east side of Loch Lomond. On the west
side it passed through Glen Douglas down Loch Long and the Firth of
Clyde, leaving Bute and Arran to the west. At the present day this
boundary has probably receded to the extent of several miles, and even
in 1870 there were districts such as Bute and the region round Dunoon
where Gaelic was only spoken by the oldest natives and the immigrant
population. The language is not found in the north-east of Caithness,
the boundary running, according to Murray, roughly from a little
north-east of Lybster to the mouth of the Forss. Celtic was driven out
of Shetland and Orkney by Scandinavian some time during the middle
ages. (See further J.A.H. Murray, _The Dialect of the Southern
Counties of Scotland_, London, 1875; _Revue celtique_, vol. ii. pp.
180-187.)

Until the 18th century Gaelic was spoken in Galloway and on the
uplands of Ayr and Lanark. The following figures from the census
returns illustrate the decrease in the number of persons who speak
Gaelic:--

Monolinguists. Bilinguists.

1881 No return 231,594
(this includes
Gaelic monolinguists)
1891 43,738 210,677
1901 28,106 202,700

In the last-mentioned year it appears that nearly one-half of the
speakers of Gaelic are reported from the counties of Inverness and
Ross (23,893 monolinguists and 82,573 bilinguists). From about 1300 we
find Scottish emigrants filtering into the glens of Antrim, where the
Gaelic that is spoken is still unmistakably Scottish. There have long
been local societies of Highlanders for the cultivation of their
native tongue, the most important one being _An Comunn Gaidhealach_
(founded 1891). This society holds an annual gathering called the
_Mod_ (=Eng. "moot") on the lines of the Welsh Eisteddfod, and
recently the Scottish Education Department has countenanced the
teaching of Gaelic in Highland schools. But the political element
plays little or no part in the language movement in Scotland, and the
latter is not likely to assume the proportions of the Gaelic League in
Ireland. As a rule, however, Highlanders are better able to read their
own language than Irish Gaels, for, the majority being Protestants,
they are encouraged to read their Bibles. There are only two
periodicals which devote half their space to Gaelic. The one is _An
Deo-Greine_ ("the sunbeam"), founded October 1905; and the other is
the Catholic propagandist quarterly _Guth na Bliadhna_ ("the voice of
the year"), started in 1904. Up to 1905 a fortnightly newspaper
printed wholly in Gaelic appeared in Prince Edward Island, under the
title of _An Mac-talla_ ("the echo"), and efforts have been made to
revive it. A weekly newspaper wholly in Gaelic was started in 1908 by
R. Stuart Erskine under the title of _Alba_.

AUTHORITIES ON SCOTTISH GAELIC.--The first grammar of Scottish Gaelic
was compiled by W. Shaw (_An Analysis of the Galic Language_, 1778).
The most useful one was that published by Alexander Stewart, _Elements
of Gaelic Grammar_ (Edinburgh, 1801). A revised edition of this work
with many additions and corrections was published by H.C. Gillies,
London, 1902. This book is rather spoilt by the author's attitude, and
requires to be supplemented and corrected. G. Henderson and C.W.
Robertson have published important papers on the modern dialects in
the _Zeitschrift fur celtische Philologie_, the _Celtic Review_ and
the _Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness_. The most useful
work on Gaelic philology is Alexander Macbain's _Etymological Gaelic
Dictionary_ (Inverness, 1896) (a later edition by W.J. Watson). The
chief dictionaries are _Dictionarium Scoto-Celticum_, published by the
Highland Society of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1828); R.A. Armstrong,
_Gaelic Dictionary_ in two parts (London, 1825); N. McAlpine,
_Pronouncing Gaelic Dictionary_ (Edinburgh, 1847) (this book gives the
pronunciation of Islay); Macleod and Dewar, _Gaelic and English
Dictionary_ (latest edition, Edinburgh, 1901); _Faclair Gaidhlig_,
published by E. Macdonald, Herne Bay, appearing in parts since 1902.

(c) _Manx._--Our sources of information with regard to the language of the Isle of Man are even more scanty in the early period than they are in the case of Scotland. There are a number of references to the island in Irish literature, but the earliest monument of the vernacular we possess is the version of the Book of Common Prayer made by Bishop Phillips in 1610. In this translation the traditional Irish orthography is not followed. The spelling resembles the orthography which was employed in Scotland by the compiler of the _Book of the Dean of Lismore_. How far this system was used is a question which it is difficult to decide. In Scotland the Irish orthography has prevailed in a slightly modified form, but Manx writers adhered to a mode of spelling which was as phonetic as any system based on English, or, probably more correctly Anglo-Scottish, orthography could be. This fact, combined with the rapid phonetic decay of the language, makes it extremely difficult to discover what sound-values are to be attached to the various symbols. At the beginning of the 18th century English was not understood by two-thirds of the natives, and in 1764 the S.P.C.K. issued a paper containing this statement: "The population of the Isle is 20,000, of whom the far greater number are ignorant of English." But from this time English gradually crept in. The last edition of the Manx Bible was issued in 1819, and of the New Testament in 1840. The present writer's great-grandmother refused to speak English, his grandfather (b. 1815) preached in Manx and English, and his father (b. 1844) only spoke English. The following figures illustrate the rapid decline of the language:--

Monolinguists. Bilinguists.
1875 190 12,340
(out of a population
of 41,084 exclusive
of Douglas)
1901 None 4,419

Manx stands in a much closer relation to Scottish Gaelic than Irish,
and fishermen state that they could understand a good deal of what is
said in South Argyll, though they are quite at a loss at Kinsale. Manx
exhibits the same tendency as Scottish to use analytical and
periphrastic forms in the verb, thus _jannoo_, "to do," is used like
Scottish _deanamh_ with an infinitive to express the past and future.
The present has acquired a momentary (future) signification, and the
past participle ends in -it (Scottish -te). The negative is _cha_ as
in Scotland and Ulster. Manx goes as far as northern Scottish in
dropping unstressed final vowels, e.g. _chiarn_, "lord," Irish,
_tighearna_; -yn is the favourite plural ending in substantives. The
nasal mutation has been partly given up. Old Irish stressed e is
frequently retained, e.g. _fer_, "man," Irish _far_ (spelt _fear_),
and the vowels o and a are confused as in Scottish, e.g. Manx _cass_,
"foot," Scottish _cas_, Irish _cos_. Manx is divided in itself about
the treatment of short accented vowels before _ll, nn, m_. According
to Rhys the south side lengthens, whilst the north side diphthongizes;
e.g. Irish _crann_, "tree," _clann_, "offspring," S. Manx _kron_,
_klon_, N. Manx, _kroun_, _kloun_ (written _croan_, _cloan_). In the
matter of stress Manx is quite original, going farther even than the
dialects of the south of Ireland. Not only does it shift the stress in
the case of heavy derivative suffixes like -an and reduce the
preceding vowel, e.g. Ir. _fuaran_, Sc. _fuaran_, Manx _fran_,
"spring," but even in cases like _caghlaa_, "variety," Sc. Ir.
_caochladh_, O. Ir. _coimmchloud_; _coraa_, "voice," Ir. _comhradh_.
The Mid. English stress on the final is further retained in words from
the French such as _ashoon_, "nation," _livrey_, "deliver."

As other features peculiar to Manx we may mention the following. An
intervocalic s or sh shows a tendency to become lisped and voiced to
d. In monosyllables post-vocalic final m, n, are often preceded by an
intrusive b, d respectively, thus _ben_ "woman," may be heard as
_bedn_. Ir. a becomes more palatal and is often ae. Ir. sc becomes st,
_sht_, e.g. Ir. _fescor_, "evening," Manx _fastyr_; Ir. _uisce_,
"water," Manx _ushtey_.

AUTHORITIES ON MANX.--The place and personal names of the Isle of Man
have been collected by A.W. Moore in _Manx Names_[2] (London, 1903)
(33% of the proper names are Scandinavian). The chief source of
information about the spoken language is J. Rhys, _The Outlines of the
Phonology of Manx Gaelic_ (London, 1895) (the book has unfortunately
no index and no texts). The only serious attempt to represent spoken
Manx graphically is the transcription of a song by J. Strachan in the
_Zeitschr. fur celtische Philologie_, vol. i. p. 54. The native
grammarian is J. Kelly, who in 1803 published _A Practical Grammar of
the Ancient Gaelic or Language of the Isle of Man, usually called
Manks_. This book was republished by W. Gill for the Manx Society in
1859, and a facsimile reprint of this latter was made for Quaritch,
London, 1870. A useful little book entitled, _First Lessons in Manx_
was published by Edwin Goodwin (Dublin, 1901). There are two
dictionaries, one by A. Cregeen, Douglas 1835, which is now being
reprinted for _An Cheshaght Gailckagh_, a Douglas society which is
endeavouring to encourage the use of Manx and to get it introduced
into the schools. The other dictionary is by J. Kelly in two
parts--(i) Manx and English, (2) English and Manx, published by the
Manx Society in 1866. Kelly also prepared a Triglot of Manx, Irish and
Gaelic, based upon English, which has never been published. A useful
paper on the language appeared in the _Transactions of the London
Philological Society_ for 1875 by H. Jenner, "The Manx Language: Its
Grammar, Literature and Present State." (E. C. Q.)

(ii). _Brythonic._ The term Brythonic is used to denote the Celtic dialects of Wales, Brittany and Cornwall. Unlike the Goidels the Brythonic peoples have no common name for their language. Forms of Brythonic speech were doubtless current throughout England and Wales and the Lowlands of Scotland at the time of the Saxon invasion. The S.E. of Britain may have been extensively Romanized, and it is not impossible that remnants of Goidelic speech may have lingered on in out-of-the-way corners. No literary documents dating from this period have been preserved, but some idea of the character of Brythonic may be gathered from the numerous inscriptions which have come to light. In the middle of the 6th century Brythonic was confined to the western half of Britain south of the Clyde and Forth. The colonization of Britannia minor or Armorican Brittany during the 5th and 6th centuries will be described later. In the latter part of the 6th century the W. Saxons pushed their conquests as far as the estuary of the Severn, and from that time the Brythons of S.W. Britain were cut off from their kinsmen in Wales. Early in the 7th century the Brythons of Strathclyde were similarly isolated by the battle of Chester (613). The kingdom of Strathclyde maintained a separate existence until the 10th century, and it is generally stated that Brythonic speech did not die out there until the 12th century. The question as to how far Brythonic names and words have survived in these districts has never been properly investigated. Certain it is that Brythonic numerals survived amongst shepherds in Cumberland, Westmorland and N.W. Yorkshire down to the second half of the 19th century, just as herrings are still counted in Manx by Manx fishermen otherwise quite innocent of the language. Accordingly, from the 7th century onwards Brythonic became gradually limited in Great Britain to three districts--Strathclyde, Wales, and Cornwall and Devon. During the 7th century the Brythons of Wales and Strathclyde often fought side by side against the Angles, and it is from this period that the name by which the Welsh call themselves is supposed to date, _Cymro_ < _*Combrox_, pl. _Cymry_ < _*Combroges_, i.e. "fellow-countrymen" as opposed to W. _allfro_, Gaul. _Allobroges_, "foreigners." We have no means of determining when Celtic speech became extinct in the petty states of the north which retained their independence longest.