98-629: Guingamp ( French: [ɡɛ̃ɡɑ̃] ; Breton : Gwengamp [ˈɡwɛ̃ŋɡãmp] ) is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Brittany in northwestern France . With a population of 7,115 as of 2020, Guingamp is one of the smallest towns in Europe to have a top-tier professional football team: En Avant Guingamp , which played in Ligue 1 from 2013 until 2019 . Guingamp station
196-592: A Breton artistic revival but its ties with Nazism and the collaborationism of the Breton National Party during World War II weakened Breton nationalism in the post-war period. Brittany lost 240,000 men during the First World War . The Second World War was also catastrophic for the region. It was invaded by Nazi Germany in 1940 and freed after Operation Cobra in August 1944. However,
294-560: A Brittonic language community that once extended from Great Britain to Armorica (present-day Brittany) and had even established a toehold in Galicia (in present-day Spain). Old Breton is attested from the 9th century. It was the language of the upper classes until the 12th century, after which it became the language of commoners in Lower Brittany. The nobility, followed by the bourgeoisie , adopted French . The written language of
392-529: A different person. Brythonic (British Celtic) settlement increased during the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries to seek refuge from the Anglo-Saxon invaders. It is from this event that Brittany derives its name. Scholars such as Léon Fleuriot have suggested a two-wave model of migration from Britain which saw the emergence of an independent Breton people and established
490-540: A fairly large body of literature for a minority language. In 1977, Diwan schools were founded to teach Breton by immersion . Since their establishment, Diwan schools have provided fully immersive primary school and partially immersive secondary school instruction in Breton for thousands of students across Brittany. This has directly contributed to the growing numbers of school-age speakers of Breton. The Asterix comic series has been translated into Breton. According to
588-542: A life of hunting and gathering, to become settled farmers. Agriculture was introduced during the 5th millennium BC by migrants from the south and east. However, the Neolithic Revolution in Brittany did not happen due to a radical change of population, but by slow immigration and exchange of skills. Neolithic Brittany is characterised by important megalithic production and sites such as Quelfénnec , it
686-669: A military presence in Bourges in central Gaul, but was betrayed by Arvandus , the Praetorian Prefect of Gaul, and subsequently ambushed by Euric's army. After a long battle, the Armorican survivors escaped to Avallon in Burgundy , after which they are lost to history. According to Breton king-lists, Riotham survived and reigned as Prince of Domnonia until his death sometime between 500 and 520, though this may have been
784-450: A national competition of Breton dances and international festival, takes place every in around mid August. It culminates in a traditional dance called la Dérobée de Guingamp . The festival features Celtic musicians from Asturias , Ireland , Galicia , Scotland , Wales , and elsewhere. Breton dance features in other cultural manifestations and the local cultural office organizes a contemporary creative dance week. The municipality launched
882-461: A national culture. Teachers humiliated students for using their regional languages, and such practices prevailed until the late 1960s. In the early 21st century, due to the political centralization of France, the influence of the media, and the increasing mobility of people, only about 200,000 people are active speakers of Breton, a dramatic decline from more than 1 million in 1950. The majority of today's speakers are more than 60 years old, and Breton
980-690: A plan for the Breton language through Ya d'ar brezhoneg on 8 July 2008. In 2008, 15.89% of primary school children attended bilingual schools. The annual 'pardon' brings pilgrims to pay homage to the ' Black Virgin ' in the Basilica of Notre Dame de Bon Secours. Guingamp is twinned with: Breton language Breton ( / ˈ b r ɛ t ə n / , BRET -ən , French: [bʁətɔ̃] ; endonym : brezhoneg [bʁeˈzɔ̃ːnɛk] or [bɾəhɔ̃ˈnek] in Morbihan )
1078-750: A result of the Mad War , the Duke Francis II could not have his daughter Anne married without the king of France's consent. Nonetheless, she married the Holy Roman Emperor in 1490, leading to a crisis with France. Charles VIII of France besieged Rennes and had the marriage cancelled. He eventually married Anne of Brittany . After he died childless, the duchess had to marry his heir and cousin Louis XII . Anne unsuccessfully tried to preserve Breton independence, but she died in 1514, and
SECTION 10
#17327839872041176-477: A schwa sound occurs as a result of vowel neutralization in post-tonic position, among different dialects. All vowels can also be nasalized , which is noted by appending an 'n' letter after the base vowel, or by adding a combining tilde above the vowel (most commonly and easily done for a and o due to the Portuguese letters ), or more commonly by non-ambiguously appending an ⟨ñ⟩ letter after
1274-641: A threat to the Republic. During the 19th century, the Breton language started to decline precipitously, mainly because of the Francization policy conducted under the Third Republic . On one hand, children were not allowed to speak Breton at school, and were punished by teachers if they did. Famously, signs in schools read: "It is forbidden to speak Breton and to spit on the floor" ("Il est interdit de parler Breton et de cracher par terre"). At
1372-412: Is -où , with its variant -ioù ; most nouns that use this marker are inanimates but collectives of both inanimate and animate nouns always use it as well. Most animate nouns, including trees, take a plural in -ed . However, in some dialects the use of this affix has become rare. Various masculine nouns including occupations as well as the word Saoz ("Englishman", plural Saozon ) take
1470-551: Is a Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language group spoken in Brittany , part of modern-day France. It is the only Celtic language still widely in use on the European mainland, albeit as a member of the insular branch instead of the continental grouping. Breton was brought from Great Britain to Armorica (the ancient name for the coastal region that includes the Brittany peninsula) by migrating Britons during
1568-523: Is a peninsula , historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France , covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul . It became an independent kingdom and then a duchy before being united with the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province governed as a separate nation under the crown. Brittany is the traditional homeland of the Breton people and
1666-541: Is an urban commune part of the urban unit of Guingamp with 5 others cities of the department representing 22,049 inhabitant. The commune is also part of the Guingamp functional area . This area, which includes 15 communes, is categorized as an area of less than 50,000 inhabitants in 2020. The city is well-known for its professional football team, En Avant de Guingamp , which won the Coupe de France against Rennes in
1764-402: Is applied for animate referents. Metals, time divisions (except for eur "hour", noz "night" and sizhun "week") and mountains tend to be masculine, while rivers, cities and countries tend to be feminine. However, gender assignment to certain words often varies between dialects. Number in Breton is primarily based on an opposition between singular and plural. However, the system
1862-406: Is full of complexities in how this distinction is realized. Although modern Breton has lost its ancestral dual number marker, relics of its use are preserved in various nouns pertaining to body parts, including the words for eyes, ears, cheeks, legs, armpits, arms, hands, knees, thighs, and wings. This is seen in a prefix (formed in daou , di or div ) that is etymologically derived from
1960-422: Is not used, while keleier has become the regular plural, 'different news items'. Meanwhile, certain nouns can form doubly marked plurals with lexicalized meanings – bugel "child" is pluralized once into bugale "children" and then pluralized a second time to make bugaleoù "groups of children". The diminutive suffix -ig also has the somewhat unusual property of triggering double marking of
2058-609: Is now classified as an endangered language . At the beginning of the 20th century, half of the population of Lower Brittany knew only Breton; the other half were bilingual. By 1950, there were only 100,000 monolingual Bretons, and this rapid decline has continued, with likely no monolingual speakers left today. A statistical survey in 1997 found around 300,000 speakers in Lower Brittany, of whom about 190,000 were aged 60 or older. Few 15- to 19-year-olds spoke Breton. In 1993, parents were finally legally allowed to give their children Breton names. In 1925, Professor Roparz Hemon founded
SECTION 20
#17327839872042156-512: Is one of the six Celtic nations , retaining a distinct cultural identity that reflects its history . Brittany has also been referred to as Little Britain (as opposed to Great Britain , with which it shares an etymology). It is bordered by the English Channel to the north, Normandy to the northeast, eastern Pays de la Loire to the southeast, the Bay of Biscay to the south, and
2254-589: Is pluralized to pesked , singulativized to peskedenn , referring to a single fish out of a school of fish, and this singulative of the plural can then be pluralized again to make peskedennoù "fishes". On top of this, the formation of plurals is complicated by two different pluralizing functions. The "default" plural formation is contrasted with another formation which is said to "emphasize variety or diversity" – thus two semantically different plurals can be formed out of park : parkoù "parks" and parkeier "various different parks". Ball reports that
2352-441: Is served by high speed trains to Brest, Rennes and Paris, and regional trains to Brest, Lannion, Carhaix, Paimpol and Rennes. The town has the remains of three successive castles, the last of which was razed to the ground by the order of Cardinal Richelieu in the early 17th century. They were reduced to three towers. Vincent de Bourbon , great-grandson of Louis XIV, was Count of Guingamp from 1750 to his death in 1752. Guingamp
2450-583: Is sometimes designated as the "core area" of megalithic culture. The oldest monuments, cairns , were followed by princely tombs and stone rows . The Morbihan département , on the southern coast, comprises a large share of these structures, including the Carnac stones and the Broken Menhir of Er Grah in the Locmariaquer megaliths , the largest single stone erected by Neolithic people. During
2548-546: Is the only living Celtic language that is not recognized by a national government as an official or regional language. The first Breton dictionary, the Catholicon , was also the first French dictionary. Edited by Jehan Lagadec in 1464, it was a trilingual work containing Breton, French and Latin. Today bilingual dictionaries have been published for Breton and languages including English, Dutch, German, Spanish and Welsh. A monolingual dictionary, Geriadur Brezhoneg an Here
2646-627: Is the traditional homeland of the Breton people and is one of the six Celtic nations , retaining a distinct cultural identity that reflects its history . A nationalist movement seeks greater autonomy within the French Republic, or independence from it. The reunification of Brittany is supported by half of the inhabitants of Brittany and of Loire-Atlantique, and is considered a prerequisite to further autonomy. The word Brittany , along with its French , Breton and Gallo equivalents Bretagne , Breizh and Bertaèyn , derive from
2744-405: Is used to form singulars out of collective nouns , for which the morphologically less complex form is the plural. Thus, the singulative of the collective logod "mice" is logod enn "mouse". However, Breton goes beyond Welsh in the complications of this system. Collectives can be pluralized to make forms which are different in meaning from the normal collective-- pesk "fish" (singular)
2842-552: Is why the Breton language is more closely related to recorded Cornish. The history behind such an establishment is unclear, but medieval Breton, Angevin and Welsh sources connect it to a figure known as Conan Meriadoc . Welsh literary sources assert that Conan came to Armorica on the orders of the Roman usurper Magnus Maximus , who sent some of his British troops to Gaul to enforce his claims and settled them in Armorica. This account
2940-498: The Ya d'ar brezhoneg campaign, to encourage enterprises, organisations and communes to promote the use of Breton, for example by installing bilingual signage or translating their websites into Breton. In the late 20th century, the French government considered incorporating the independent Breton-language immersion schools (called Diwan ) into the state education system. This action
3038-553: The 2008–09 season while it was still part of Ligue 2 . The team returned to Ligue 1 for the 2013–14 season for the first time in 9 years. Guingamp again won the French Cup against Rennes in 2013–14 and qualified for the 2014–15 UEFA Europa League . With 18,120 seats, the Stade de Roudourou which is the club's stadium has a capacity greater than the total population of Guingamp (7,115 inhabitants). The Saint Loup festival,
Guingamp - Misplaced Pages Continue
3136-650: The American War of Independence . These included many sailors such as Armand de Kersaint and soldiers such as Charles Armand Tuffin, marquis de la Rouërie . The Duchy was legally abolished with the French Revolution that began in 1789 - and in 1790 the province of Brittany was divided into five departments : Côtes-du-Nord (later Côtes-d'Armor ), Finistère , Ille-et-Vilaine , Loire-Inférieure (later Loire-Atlantique ) and Morbihan . Brittany essentially lost all its special privileges that existed under
3234-668: The Celtic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Its land area is 34,023 km (13,136 sq mi) . Brittany is the site of some of the world's oldest standing architecture, home to the Cairn of Barnenez , the Tumulus Saint-Michel and others, which date to the early 5th millennium BC. Today, the historical province of Brittany is split among five French departments: Finistère in the west, Côtes-d'Armor in
3332-572: The Duchy of Brittany was Latin , switching to French in the 15th century. There exists a limited tradition of Breton literature . Some philosophical and scientific terms in Modern Breton come from Old Breton. The recognized stages of the Breton language are: Old Breton – c. 800 to c. 1100 , Middle Breton – c. 1100 to c. 1650 , Modern Breton – c. 1650 to present. The French monarchy
3430-607: The Early Middle Ages , making it an Insular Celtic language . Breton is most closely related to Cornish , another Southwestern Brittonic language. Welsh and the extinct Cumbric , both Western Brittonic languages , are more distantly related, and the Goidelic languages ( Irish , Manx , Scottish Gaelic ) have a slight connection due to both of their origins being from Insular Celtic. Having declined from more than one million speakers around 1950 to about 200,000 in
3528-644: The Garonne estuary. This term probably comes from a Gallic word, aremorica , which means "close to the sea". Another name, Letauia (in English " Litavis "), was used until the 12th century. It possibly means "wide and flat" or "to expand" and it gave the Welsh name for Brittany: Llydaw . After the fall of the Western Roman Empire , many Cornish Britons settled in western Armorica to escape
3626-709: The Latin Britannia , which means "land of the Britons ". This word had been used by the Romans since the 1st century to refer to Great Britain, and more specifically the Roman province of Britain . This word derives from a Greek word, Πρεττανική (Prettanikḗ) or Βρεττανίαι (Brettaníai), used by Pytheas , an explorer from Massalia who visited the British Isles around 320 BC. The Greek word itself comes from
3724-431: The county of Léon ), tregerieg ( trégorrois , of Trégor ), kerneveg ( cornouaillais , of Cornouaille ), and gwenedeg ( vannetais , of Vannes ). Guérandais was spoken up to the beginning of the 20th century in the region of Guérande and Batz-sur-Mer . There are no clear boundaries between the dialects because they form a dialect continuum , varying only slightly from one village to
3822-1056: The protohistorical period , Brittany was inhabited by five Celtic tribes: Those people had strong economic ties to the Insular Celts , especially for the tin trade . Several tribes also belonged to an "Armorican confederation " which, according to Julius Caesar , gathered the Curiosolitae , the Redones , the Osismii , the Unelli , the Caletes , the Lemovices and the Ambibarii. The Unelli, Caletes, and Lemovices were respectively located in Cotentin (Lower-Normandy), pays de Caux (Upper-Normandy), and Limousin (Aquitaine);
3920-477: The 15th to the 18th century, Brittany reached an economic golden age. The region was located on the seaways near Spain, England and the Netherlands and it greatly benefited from the creation of a French colonial empire . Local seaports like Brest and Saint-Brieuc quickly expanded, and Lorient , first spelled "L'Orient", was founded in the 17th century. Saint-Malo then was known for its corsairs , Brest
4018-555: The 9th century. The unification of Brittany was carried out by Nominoe , king between 845 and 851 and considered as the Breton Pater Patriae . Among the immigrant Britons, there were some clergymen who helped the evangelisation of the region, which was still pagan, particularly in rural areas. His son Erispoe secured the independence of the new kingdom of Brittany and won the Battle of Jengland against Charles
Guingamp - Misplaced Pages Continue
4116-580: The Bald . The Bretons won another war in 867, and the kingdom reached then its maximum extent: It received parts of Normandy , Maine and Anjou and the Channel Islands . Brittany was heavily attacked by the Vikings at the beginning of the 10th century. The kingdom lost its eastern territories, including Normandy and Anjou , and the county of Nantes was given to Fulk I of Anjou in 909. Nantes
4214-498: The Breton-language review Gwalarn . During its 19-year run, Gwalarn tried to raise the language to the level of a great international language. Its publication encouraged the creation of original literature in all genres, and proposed Breton translations of internationally recognized foreign works. In 1946, Al Liamm replaced Gwalarn . Other Breton-language periodicals have been published, which established
4312-807: The Duchy. Three years later, the area became a centre of royalist and Catholic resistance to the Revolution during the Chouannerie . During the 19th century, Brittany remained in economic recession, and many Bretons emigrated to other French regions, particularly to Paris. This trend remained strong until the beginning of the 20th century. Nonetheless, the region was also modernising, with new roads and railways being built, and some places being industrialised. Nantes specialised in shipbuilding and food processing (sugar, exotic fruits and vegetables, fish...), Fougères in glass and shoe production, and metallurgy
4410-570: The Dukes were usually independent, but they often contracted alliances with England or France depending on who was threatening them at that point. Their support for each nation became very important during the 14th century because the English kings had started to claim the French throne. The Breton War of Succession , a local episode of the Hundred Years' War , saw the House of Blois , backed by
4508-412: The French law known as Toubon , it is illegal for commercial signage to be in Breton alone. Signs must be bilingual or French only. Since commercial signage usually has limited physical space, most businesses have signs only in French. Ofis Publik ar Brezhoneg , the Breton language agency, was set up in 1999 by the Brittany region to promote and develop the daily use of Breton. It helped to create
4606-461: The French side during the deciding stages of the war (including the battles of Patay , Formigny and Castillon and the Treaty of Arras ). Brittany importantly lost the Mad War against France in 1488, mostly because of its internal divisions that were exacerbated by the corruption at the court of Francis II, Duke of Brittany . Indeed, some rebel Breton lords were fighting on the French side. As
4704-593: The French, fighting with the House of Montfort , backed by the English. The Montforts won in 1364 and enjoyed a period of total independence until the end of the Hundred Years' War, because France was weakened and stopped sending royal envoys to the Court of Brittany. English diplomatic failures led to the Breton cavalry commanders Arthur, Comte de Richemont (later to become Arthur III, Duke of Brittany ) and his nephew Peter II, Duke of Brittany playing key roles on
4802-568: The Huns' front lines during the main battle and thwarted Attila's night assault on the Roman camp with a hail of arrows "like rain". After the battle was won, Aetius sent the Alans to Armorica and Galicia. The late 5th century Brittonic leader Riothamus received correspondence from the eminent Roman jurist Sidonius Apollinaris and was called "King of the Britons" by Jordanes . Some suggest that he
4900-446: The Roman gods. Only a small number of statues depicting Roman gods were found in Brittany, and most of the time they combine Celtic elements. During the 3rd century AD, the region was attacked several times by Franks , Alamanni and pirates. At the same time, the local economy collapsed and many farming estates were abandoned. To face the invasions, many towns and cities were fortified, like Nantes , Rennes and Vannes . This area
4998-569: The Saxons and the region started to be called Britannia , although this name only replaced Armorica in the sixth century or perhaps by the end of the fifth. Breton-speaking people may pronounce the word Breizh in two different ways, according to their region of origin. Breton can be divided into two main dialects: the KLT ( Kerne -Leon- Tregor ) and the dialect of Vannes . KLT speakers pronounce it [brɛjs] and would write it Breiz , while
SECTION 50
#17327839872045096-510: The University of Rennes 2 has a Breton language department offering courses in the language along with a master's degree in Breton and Celtic Studies. Vowels in Breton may be short or long . All unstressed vowels are short; stressed vowels can be short or long (vowel lengths are not noted in usual orthographies as they are implicit in the phonology of particular dialects, and not all dialects pronounce stressed vowels as long). An emergence of
5194-477: The Vannetais speakers pronounce it [brɛχ] and would write it Breih . The official spelling is a compromise between both variants, with a z and an h together. In 1941, efforts to unify the dialects led to the creation of the so-called Breton zh , a standard which has never been widely accepted. On its side, Gallo has never had a widely accepted writing system and several ones coexist. For instance,
5292-506: The areas around Saint-Nazaire and Lorient only surrendered on 10 and 11 May 1945, several days after the German capitulation. The two port towns had been virtually destroyed by Allied air raids, like Brest and Saint-Malo , and other towns, such as Nantes and Rennes , had also suffered. In 1956, Brittany was legally reconstituted as the Region of Brittany , although the region excluded
5390-479: The base vowel (this depends on the orthographic variant). Diphthongs are /ai, ei, ou/ . Breton nouns are marked for gender and number. While Breton gender is fairly typical of gender systems across western Europe (with the exception of Basque and modern English), Breton number markers demonstrate rarer behaviors. Breton has two genders: masculine ( gourel ) and feminine ( gwregel ), having largely lost its historic neuter ( nepreizh ) as has also occurred in
5488-465: The capitals of the local civitates . They all had a grid plan and a forum , and sometimes a temple, a basilica , thermae or an aqueduct , like Carhaix . The Romans also built three major roads through the region. However, most of the population remained rural. The free peasants lived in small huts, whereas the landowners and their employees lived in proper villae rusticae . The Gallic deities continued to be worshiped, and were often assimilated to
5586-600: The changes associated with -er / -ier are less predictable. Various nouns instead form their plural merely with ablaut : a or o in the stem being changed to e : askell "wing" → eskell "wings"; dant "tooth" → dent "teeth"; kordenn "rope" → kerdenn "ropes". Brittany Brittany ( / ˈ b r ɪ t ən i / BRIT -ən-ee ; French: Bretagne , pronounced [bʁətaɲ] ; Breton : Breizh , pronounced [bʁɛjs, bʁɛx] ; Gallo : Bertaèyn or Bertègn , pronounced [bəʁtaɛɲ] )
5684-940: The comic, the Gaulish village where Asterix lives is in the Armorica peninsula , which is now Brittany. Some other popular comics have also been translated into Breton, including The Adventures of Tintin , Spirou , Titeuf , Hägar the Horrible , Peanuts and Yakari . Some original media are created in Breton. The sitcom, Ken Tuch , is in Breton. Radio Kerne , broadcasting from Finistère , has exclusively Breton programming. Some movies ( Lancelot du Lac , Shakespeare in Love , Marion du Faouet , Sezneg ) and TV series ( Columbo , Perry Mason ) have also been translated and broadcast in Breton. Poets, singers, linguists, and writers who have written in Breton, including Yann-Ber Kallocʼh , Roparz Hemon , Añjela Duval , Xavier de Langlais , Pêr-Jakez Helias , Youenn Gwernig , Glenmor , Vefa de Saint-Pierre and Alan Stivell are now known internationally. Today, Breton
5782-424: The common Brythonic ethnonym reconstructed as *Pritanī , itself from Proto-Celtic *kʷritanoi (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kʷer- 'to cut, make'). In Roman times, Armorica included what is now Brittany. This was an indefinite region that extended along the English Channel coast from the Seine estuary, then along the Atlantic coast to the Loire estuary and, according to several sources, maybe to
5880-597: The consideration of the Breton language in Microsoft products. In October 2014, Facebook added Breton as one of its 121 languages after three years of talks between the Ofis and Facebook. France has twice chosen to enter the Eurovision Song Contest with songs in Breton; once in 1996 in Oslo with " Diwanit bugale " by Dan Ar Braz and the fifty piece band Héritage des Celtes , and most recently in 2022 in Turin with " Fulenn " by Alvan Morvan Rosius and vocal trio Ahez . These are two of five times France has chosen songs in one of its minority languages for
5978-504: The contest, the others being in 1992 (bilingual French and Antillean Creole ), 1993 (bilingual French and Corsican ), and 2011 (Corsican). Breton is spoken mainly in Lower Brittany, but also in a more dispersed way in Upper Brittany (where it is spoken alongside Gallo and French), and in areas around the world that have Breton emigrants. The four traditional dialects of Breton correspond to medieval bishoprics rather than to linguistic divisions. They are leoneg ( léonard , of
SECTION 60
#17327839872046076-408: The details remain confused, these colonies consisted of related and intermarried dynasties which repeatedly unified (as by the 7th-century Saint Judicaël ) before splintering again according to Celtic inheritance practices. At the beginning of the medieval era, Brittany was divided among three kingdoms, Domnonea , Cornouaille and Broërec . These realms eventually merged into a single state during
6174-428: The dominance of the Brythonic Breton language in Armorica. Their petty kingdoms are now known by the names of the counties that succeeded them— Domnonée ( Devon ), Cornouaille ( Cornwall ), Léon ( Caerleon ); but these names in Breton and Latin are in most cases identical to their British homelands. (In Breton and French, however, Gwened or Vannetais continued the name of the indigenous Veneti .) Although
6272-425: The ducal capital of Nantes and the surrounding area . Nevertheless, Brittany retained its cultural distinctiveness, and a new cultural revival emerged during the 1960s and 1970s. Bilingual schools were opened, singers started to write songs in Breton, and ecological catastrophes such as the Amoco Cadiz oil spill or the Erika oil spill and water pollution from intensive pig farming favoured new movements to protect
6370-447: The first decade of the 21st century, Breton is classified as "severely endangered" by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger . However, the number of children attending bilingual classes rose 33% between 2006 and 2012 to 14,709. Breton is spoken in Lower Brittany ( Breton : Breizh-Izel ), roughly to the west of a line linking Plouha (west of Saint-Brieuc ) and La Roche-Bernard (east of Vannes ). It comes from
6468-460: The growing numbers of school-age speakers of Breton. The schools have also gained fame from their high level of results in school exams, including those on French language and literature. Breton-language schools do not receive funding from the national government, though the Brittany Region may fund them. Another teaching method is a bilingual approach by Div Yezh ("Two Languages") in the State schools, created in 1979. Dihun ("Awakening")
6566-681: The growth of the movement. In 2007, some 4,500 to 5,000 adults followed an evening or correspondence one Breton-language course. The transmission of Breton in 1999 was estimated to be 3 percent. In addition to bilingual education (including Breton-medium education) the region has introduced the Breton language in primary education, mainly in the department of Finistère. These "initiation" sessions are generally one to three hours per week, and consist of songs and games. Schools in secondary education ( collèges and lycées ) offer some courses in Breton. In 2010, nearly 5,000 students in Brittany were reported to be taking this option. Additionally,
6664-489: The heritage of France ). The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , which obliges signatory states to recognize minority and regional languages, was signed by France in 1999 but has not been ratified. On 27 October 2015, the Senate rejected a draft constitutional law ratifying the charter. Regional and departmental authorities use Breton to a very limited extent. Some bilingual signage has also been installed, such as street name signs in Breton towns. Under
6762-450: The latter pluralizer is used only for inanimate nouns. Certain formations have been lexicalized to have meanings other than that which might be predicted solely from the morphology: dour "water" pluralized forms dourioù which means not "waters" but instead "rivers", while doureier now has come to mean "running waters after a storm". Certain forms have lost the singular from their paradigm: keloù means "news" and * kel
6860-399: The latter to restrain its trade, and the Breton economy went into recession during the 18th century. Two significant revolts occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries: the Revolt of the papier timbré (1675) and the Pontcallec conspiracy (1719). Both arose from attempts to resist centralisation and assert Breton constitutional exceptions to tax. Many Bretons crossed the Atlantic to support
6958-716: The location of the Ambibarii is unknown. The Caletes are sometimes also considered Belgians, and Lemovices is probably a mistake for Lexovii (Lower-Normandy). During the Gallic Wars , the Veneti were defeated in the Battle of Morbihan off the coast of Brittany. At the conclusion of the Gallic Wars, the region became part of the Roman Republic in 51 BC. It was included in the province of Gallia Lugdunensis in 13 BC. Gallic towns and villages were redeveloped according to Roman standards, and several cities were created. These cities are Condate ( Rennes ), Vorgium ( Carhaix ), Darioritum ( Vannes ) and Condevincum or Condevicnum ( Nantes ). Together with Fanum Martis ( Corseul ), they were
7056-579: The name of the region in that language can be written Bertaèyn in ELG script, or Bertègn in MOGA , and a couple of other scripts also exist. Brittany has been inhabited by humans since the Lower Palaeolithic . This population was scarce and very similar to the other Neanderthals found in the whole of Western Europe. Their only original feature was a distinct culture, called "Colombanian". One of
7154-549: The natural heritage. Brittany as a political entity disappeared in 1790, when it was divided into five départements . The Breton départements more or less correspond to the nine Catholic dioceses that appeared at the beginning of the Middle Ages. They were often called "pays" or "bro" ("country" in French and Breton ) and they also served as fiscal and military districts. Brittany is also divided between Lower Brittany ("Basse Bretagne" and "Breizh Izel"), corresponding to
7252-589: The next. Gwenedeg , however, requires a little study to be intelligible with most of the other dialects. French is the sole official language of France . Supporters of Breton and other minority languages continue to argue for their recognition, and for their place in education, public schools, and public life. In July 2008, the legislature amended the French Constitution , adding article 75-1: les langues régionales appartiennent au patrimoine de la France (the regional languages belong to
7350-532: The north, Ille-et-Vilaine in the northeast, Morbihan in the south and Loire-Atlantique in the southeast. Loire-Atlantique now belongs to the Pays de la Loire region while the other four departments make up the Brittany region . At the 2010 census, the population of historic Brittany was estimated to be 4,475,295. In 2017, the largest metropolitan areas were Nantes (934,165 inhabitants), Rennes (733,320 inhabitants), and Brest (321,364 inhabitants). Brittany
7448-720: The oldest hearths in the world has been found in Plouhinec, Finistère . Homo sapiens settled in Brittany around 35,000 years ago. They replaced or absorbed the Neanderthals and developed local industries , similar to the Châtelperronian or to the Magdalenian . After the last glacial period , the warmer climate allowed the area to become heavily wooded. At that time, Brittany was populated by relatively large communities who started to change their lifestyles from
7546-457: The other Celtic languages as well as across the Romance languages. Certain suffixes ( -ach/-aj, -(a)dur, -er, -lecʼh, -our, -ti, -va ) are masculine, while others ( -enti, -er, -ez, -ezh, -ezon, -i , -eg , -ell , and the singulative -enn ) are feminine. The suffix -eg can be masculine or feminine. There are certain non-determinant factors that influence gender assignment. Biological sex
7644-519: The peasant masses under-informed. In 1794, Bertrand Barère submitted his "report on the patois " to the Committee of Public Safety in which he said that "federalism and superstition speak Breton". Since the 19th century, under the Third , Fourth and now Fifth Republics , the French government has attempted to stamp out minority languages—including Breton—in state schools, in an effort to build
7742-478: The plural: bugelig means "little child", but the doubly pluralized bug ale ig où means "little children"; bag boat has a singular diminutive bagig and a simple plural bagoù , thus its diminutive plural is the doubly pluralized bag où ig où . As seen elsewhere in many Celtic languages, the formation of the plural can be hard to predict, being determined by a mix of semantic, morphological and lexical factors. The most common plural marker
7840-410: The prefixation of the number two. The dual is no longer productive, and has merely been lexicalized in these cases rather than remaining a part of Breton grammar. The (etymologically) already dual words for eyes ( daoulagad ) and ears ( divskouarn ) can be pluralized "again" to form daoulagad où and diskouarn où . Like other Brythonic languages, Breton has a singulative suffix that
7938-607: The same time, the Celtic Revival led to the foundation of the Breton Regionalist Union (URB) and later to independence movements linked to Irish, Welsh, and Scottish and Cornish independence parties in the UK, and to pan-Celticism . However, the audience of these movements remained very low and their ideas did not reach a large public until the 20th century. The Seiz Breur movement, created in 1923, permitted
8036-721: The same year as Alan II) and thus Brittany ceased to be a kingdom and became a duchy. Several Breton lords helped William the Conqueror to invade England and the Bretons formed over a third of the landing force in 1066. They received large estates there (e.g. William's double-second cousin Alan Rufus and the latter's brother Brian of Brittany ). The Bretons helped to liberate the Cornish, replacing Anglo-Saxon land owners. Some of these lords were powerful rivals. Medieval Brittany
8134-512: The suffix -ien , with a range of variants including -on , -ion , -an and -ian . The rare pluralizing suffixes -er / -ier and -i are used for a few nouns. When they are appended, they also trigger a change in the vowel of the root: -i triggers a vowel harmony effect whereby some or all preceding vowels are changed to i ( kenderv "cousin" → kindirvi "cousins"; bran "crow" → brini "crows"; klujur "partridge" → klujiri "partridges");
8232-548: The union between the two crowns was formally carried out by Francis I in 1532. He granted several privileges to Brittany, such as exemption from the gabelle , a tax on salt that was very unpopular in France. Under the Ancien Régime , Brittany and France were governed as separate countries but under the same crown, so Breton aristocrats in the French royal court were classed as Princes étrangers (foreign princes). From
8330-618: The use of the Spilhennig to let speakers identify each other. The office also started an Internationalization and localization policy asking Google , Firefox and SPIP to develop their interfaces in Breton. In 2004, the Breton Misplaced Pages started, which counts more than 85,000 articles as of August 2024. In March 2007, the Ofis ar Brezhoneg signed a tripartite agreement with Regional Council of Brittany and Microsoft for
8428-456: The western half, where Breton is traditionally spoken, and Upper Brittany ("Haute Bretagne" and "Breizh Uhel"), corresponding to the eastern half, where Gallo is traditionally spoken. The historical Breton dioceses were: During the French Revolution , four dioceses were suppressed and the five remaining ones were modified to have the same administrative borders as the départements . Brittany has several historical capital cities. When it
8526-635: Was a Breton, though others believe that he was from Britain, pointing to the passage that he arrived in the land of the Biturges "by way of Ocean", which would hardly have been efficient or required for a Breton. Both historians describe Riothamus's losing battle against King Euric of the Visigoths at Déols around the year 470. In response to a plea from the Roman Emperor Anthemius , Riothamus had led twelve thousand men to establish
8624-519: Was a major base for the French Navy and Nantes flourished with the Atlantic slave trade . On its side, the inland provided hemp ropes and canvas and linen sheets. However, Colbertism , which encouraged the creation of many factories, did not favour the Breton industry because most of the royal factories were opened in other provinces. Moreover, several conflicts between France and England led
8722-570: Was also affected by the Bagaudae (also spelled bacaudae) during this period, which were groups of peasant insurgents. The Bagaudae achieved some temporary and scattered successes under the leadership of peasants as well as former members of local ruling elites. Toward the end of the 4th century, the Britons of Domnonée (modern Devon and Cornwall ) on the South-Western peninsula of Great Britain began to emigrate to Armorica , which
8820-735: Was an independent duchy, the Estates of Brittany , which can be compared to a parliament, met in various towns: Dinan , Ploërmel , Redon , Rennes , Vitré , Guérande , and, most of all, Vannes , where they met 19 times, and Nantes , 17 times. The Court and the government were also very mobile, and each dynasty favoured its own castles and estates. The dukes mostly lived in Nantes , Vannes , Redon , Rennes , Fougères , Dol-de-Bretagne , Dinan and Guérande . All these towns except Vannes and Guérande are located in Upper Brittany , thus not in
8918-804: Was blocked by the French Constitutional Council based on the 1994 amendment to the Constitution that establishes French as the language of the republic. Therefore, no other language may be used as a language of instruction in state schools. The Toubon Law implemented the amendment, asserting that French is the language of public education. The Diwan schools were founded in Brittany in 1977 to teach Breton by immersion . Since their establishment, Diwan schools have provided fully immersive primary school and partially immersive secondary school instruction in Breton for thousands of students across Brittany. This has directly contributed to
9016-701: Was created in 1990 for bilingual education in the Catholic schools. In 2018, 18,337 pupils (about 2% of all students in Brittany) attended Diwan , Div Yezh and Dihun schools, and their number has increased yearly. This was short of the goal of Jean-Yves Le Drian (president of the Regional Council ), who aimed to have 20,000 students in bilingual schools by 2010, and of "their recognition" for "their place in education, public schools, and public life"; nevertheless he describes being encouraged by
9114-414: Was far from being a united nation. The French king maintained envoys in Brittany, alliances contracted by local lords often overlapped and there was no specific Breton unity. For example, Brittany replaced Latin with French as its official language in the 13th century, 300 years before France did so, and the Breton language did not have formal status. The foreign policy of the Duchy changed many times;
9212-467: Was not concerned with the minority languages of France , spoken by the lower classes, and required the use of French for government business as part of its policy of national unity. During the French Revolution , the government introduced policies favouring French over the regional languages, which it pejoratively referred to as patois . The revolutionaries assumed that reactionary and monarchist forces preferred regional languages to try to keep
9310-551: Was practised in small towns such as Châteaubriant and Lochrist , known for its labour movements . The region remained deeply Catholic, and during the Second Empire , the conservative values were strongly reasserted. When the Republic was re-established in 1871, there were rumours that Breton troops were mistrusted and mistreated at Camp Conlie during the Franco-Prussian War because of fears that they were
9408-489: Was published in 1995. The first edition contained about 10,000 words, and the second edition of 2001 contains 20,000 words. In the early 21st century, the Ofis Publik ar Brezhoneg ("Public Office for the Breton language") began a campaign to encourage daily use of Breton in the region by both businesses and local communes. Efforts include installing bilingual signs and posters for regional events, as well as encouraging
9506-496: Was seized by the Vikings in 914. At this time Brittany was also called Lydwiccum. Nantes was eventually liberated by Alan II of Brittany in 937 with the support of his godbrother King Æthelstan of England. Alan II totally expelled the Vikings from Brittany and recreated a strong Breton state. For aiding in removing the problem, Alan paid homage to Louis IV of France (who was Æthelstan's nephew and had returned from England in
9604-599: Was supported by the Counts of Anjou, who claimed descent from a Roman soldier expelled from Lower Brittany by Conan on Magnus's orders. The army recruited for Flavius Aetius to combat Attila the Hun at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains included Romans, Visigoths, Franks, Alans and Armoricans, amongst others. The Alans were placed front and centre, opposite the Huns. The Armoricans supplied archers who attacked
#203796