Anthems Wales, Cornwall, Brittany

Subject: Anthems Wales, Cornwall, Brittany
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 13 Jan 11 - 05:22 PM

How come they have the same tune? WHich was first? Very pretty tune of course.

What is the relation of the Welsh language to Cornish and Breton? I always heard Welsh was unique. mg

Subject: RE: Anthems Wales, Cornwall, Brittany
From: sian, west wales
Date: 13 Jan 11 - 05:56 PM

Well, the Welsh was first. Composed by James James, 1856, in Pontypridd. Originally titled Glan Rhondda (the Banks of the Rhondda) His father, Evan, wrote the Welsh words.

It was the first national anthem to be sung officially at the start of a sporting match.

Evan James was ... uncle? great uncle? ... of Jesse James. Honest.

I was at a dinner reception thrown by our First Minister for a delegation from Brittany, sat next to Alain Stivell and so ended up singing Bro Gozh ma Zadoù with him at the end of the meal. I think we'd had a bit to drink ...

Welsh, Cornish and Breton are all in the same branch of Celtic languages. A lot of similarities. I can usually work out the gist of Cornish and Breton if I see it written down.

sian

Subject: RE: Anthems Wales, Cornwall, Brittany
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 13 Jan 11 - 06:03 PM

All three are directly descended from the British language, spoken in most of mainland Britain before the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons. It was the only Celtic language to survive Roman occupation, though eventually being driven out of most of Britain south of the Forth by the English. Gaulish was a closely related language, but had died out by the time that British refugees, fleeing the Anglo-Saxon invaders, settled in the former Gaulish region of Armorica.

Cornish was, until recently also known as South Wales, and there is a lot of correspondence between the place names on either side of the Channel, eg Cornouaille = Cornwall.

The Welsh national anthem was the first, the Breton was adapted from it, and I haven't heard the Cornish.

Subject: RE: Anthems Wales, Cornwall, Brittany
From: GUEST,bardan
Date: 13 Jan 11 - 08:01 PM

Um, I'm not sure that there's any proof that all the celtic languages in Britain were from the Brythonic (or p) branch of celtic. (Although it seems more likely than goidelic; still no particular reason to believe they would have been particularly close to Welsh other than proximity.) I've a vague memory of reading something that said the Silures were rather different and insular and I think they would have been the main tribe in the Welsh Cornish neck of the woods. Obviously scottish gaelic was/is goidelic, but apparently it came over from Ireland with the Dalriada. If someone knew anything about cumbrian, which I have a feeling was fairly well documented I'd be interested. Gaulish was apparently surprisingly close to latin according to the romans, so there's a distinct possibility that a lot of 'celtic' particularities only sprang up in Britain and Ireland.

Not an expert in any of this stuff- feel free to correct me.

Subject: RE: Anthems Wales, Cornwall, Brittany
From: GUEST,Allan Con
Date: 14 Jan 11 - 04:13 AM

"I'm not sure that there's any proof that all the celtic languages in Britain were from the Brythonic (or p) branch of celtic"

To be fair to David though he was talking about the Roman occupation so rather than Britain as a whole we are really only talking Roman Britannia which is England, Wales and perhaps southern Scotland. Do you know of any Celtic languages which were non Brythonic in this area during Roman times? Perhaps the Irish invaders in wales at the end of the Roman period but that is hardly an indiginous (for want of a better word)language surviving!

You are right in that some regard the different strains of British (ie Welsh, Cornish, Cumbric) as being dialects whilst others regard them as sister languages.

Outwith Roman Britannia proper Scottish historians have been pretty settled for some time now on the main Celtic language of the Picts being Brythonic too - prior to them later being Gaelicised. By tradition the Gaels arrived in Scottish Dalriada around 500AD with King Fergus so that of course post-dates Roman times anyway. However again historians now seem to concede that it was simply a change of power base and that the Gaels must have been in Dalriada prior to that. Some claim that the Epidii tribe of Roman times were already Gaelic speaking. In truth we don't know for sure.

Subject: RE: Anthems Wales, Cornwall, Brittany
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 14 Jan 11 - 04:34 AM

As I said, British was spoken almost universally south of the Forth. The Celtic language spoken by the Picts seems to have been closer to that of the Gauls, though all dialects were probably mutually comprehensible. Some of the Picts were probably still speaking a non-Indo-European language at the time of the Roman invasion. Cumbria (cf Cymru) was part of the British Kingdom of Strathclyde. There were probably individual Q-Celtic speakers on the mainline long before Dalriada - as someone has joked, the Irish were in Kilburn before the English.

The Celtic family of languages was closer than the Germanic to Latin and Greek, and a lot of the vocabulary of 'Yr Gododdin', though not perhaps the grammar, would be comprehensible to a modern Welsh speaker (more so than 'Beowulf' to a modern Sassunnach).

Subject: RE: Anthems Wales, Cornwall, Brittany
From: GUEST,Bardan
Date: 14 Jan 11 - 02:11 PM

My understanding was that there was very little actual evidence of what was spoken in Britannia prior to the Roman invasion. The Romans basically noticed they were Celts (well, Galli) and told us the names of the tribes and not much else and inscriptions etc are almost non-existant. (Ogham being a mainly Goidelic thing with the exception of some weird inscriptions in Scotland in what might be Pictish.) Toponyms might give a general idea of what was being spoken I suppose but I'm fairly clueless in that area. At any rate there were Belgae in the South East when the Romans turned up and I read a while back that the jury was barely in on whether they spoke a celtic or germanic language. I'm not saying that Brythonic Celtic isn't the most probable or anything, just that the actual evidence is patchy (as far as I know-once again I'm no expert.)

Subject: RE: Anthems Wales, Cornwall, Brittany
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 14 Jan 11 - 02:19 PM

OT but I read in some DNA research that there is widespread Syrian DNA in England/GB because of Syrian archers who were with the Roman Army..fascinating. mg

Subject: RE: Anthems Wales, Cornwall, Brittany
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 14 Jan 11 - 05:49 PM

Ogham in Britain in general post-dates Roman Britannia (some may date from Irish incursions as the end of Empire approached) as do the Pictish inscriptions. The earliest of the Pictish stones are generally dated to the 6thC (though some say earlier) though these earliest stones have only picture carvings on them anyway! About 50% of all Pictish stones are thought to date from the last 150 years or so of Pictish power hence that would be centuries later. You are right in that there isn't a lot of evidence. It amounts to place names, king lists, earliest insciptions and of course the later surviving languages themselves. What evidence there is for Celtic languages in Roman Britannia points to P-Celtic languages though. That is accepted as fact by historians. In fact any evidence of language at all in Roman Britain (Latin aside) points to P-Celtic. There may indeed have been other indiginous languages but we don't know of them.

There are some undeciphered (personal names aside) inscriptions on 14 or so of the Pictish stones. Some say this could mean that apart from the main Pictish P-Celtic language there perhaps was also a minority language still in existence in Pictland which was not only not Celtic but was non-Indo European. Some suggest it may have been a dead language only used for religious purposes etc. As they are undeciphered no-one really knows.