Few English words are known to come directly from Brittonic. More can be proven to derive from Gaulish, which arrived through Norman French, often strengthened in form and use by Church/state Latin.
This list omits words of Celtic origin coming from later forms of Brittonic and intermediate tongues:
Academia recognises beyond all reasonable doubt "fewer than ten" Brittonic loan-words in English that are neither historic nor obsolete. [2] The following list derives mainly from surveys of possible Brittonic loanwords in English by Richard Coates, Dieter Kastovsky, and D. Gary Miller. Etymologies from the Oxford English Dictionary are included to indicate the view of this authoritative (but not necessarily definitive) source, distinguishing between the first, second, third and online editions. Words that are the most widely accepted as Brittonic loans are in bold.
word | possible Brittonic etymology | OED etymology | Type |
---|---|---|---|
ass | Old British *assin or Old Irish *assan, [3] but more likely from Irish. [4] [3] | Celtic (OED1) | historic/proverbal (widely used in the Bible instead of donkey) |
bannock | Etymologised by the OED as from Gaelic bannach, ? < Latin pānicium < pānis bread. [5] But possibly Old Brittonic *bannoc. [6] | Gaelic (OED1) | historic |
beck | Agricultural implement with two hooks. Etymologised in the OED as from a 'Celtic root bacc-' (possibly via French). [7] The similar Old English becca "fork" has been proposed as a Brittonic loan, though this has been questioned. [4] | French (OED1) | technical |
bin | Often considered to be from Old Brittonic *benna, but possibly a borrowing from Gallo-Roman. [6] | Probably Celtic (OED1) | common |
brat | Possibly from a Brittonic root meaning "cloak, cloth" (Old Welsh *breth or *brath), cognate with Old Irish bratt. However, the OED and recent scholars see the English word as coming from Irish. [8] [9] In Old English, bratt meant "cloak", but later came to mean "ragged garment", then "beggar's garment", and then "beggar's child", whence it attained its current meaning of "unruly child". [10] [11] "Brat" is still used in parts of Northern England to refer to a rough working apron. [12] | Irish bratt (OED1) | common, pejorative |
brock | From Brittonic *brocco-s, meaning "badger". [4] [6] | Celtic (OED1) | technical |
carr | From carreg such as in Welsh, meaning 'rock'. [6] | Old Northumbrian (OED1) | technical, local |
coomb | From Old Brittonic *kumba, meaning "valley". [4] [6] Frequently used as a place-name element in southwestern England. | Probably Brittonic (OED1) | local |
crag | According to the OED 'apparently of Celtic origin: compare Irish and Gaelic creag, Manx creg, cregg, Welsh craig rock. None of these, however, exactly gives the English crag, cragg'. [13] | Celtic (OED1) | common |
doe | Possibly from a Brittonic root *da-, [14] but could also be from Latin. | Latin dāma (OED1) | technical |
dun | According to the OED, 'perhaps < Celtic: compare Irish and Gaelic donn brown, Welsh dwn'. [15] | Celtic (OED1) | common |
gavelock | A kind of spear. Cf. 'Old Norse gaflak, gaflok neuter javelin (perhaps adopted < English), Welsh gaflach (said to mean ‘bearded arrow’), Irish gabhla lance, Old Northern French gavelot (12th cent.), gaverlot, gavrelot, garlot (= Central French javelot, Italian giavelotto ) javelin, whence Middle Dutch gavelot, gaverloot, Middle High German gabilôt'. [16] Now thought to have been borrowed into English from Old Norse, which borrowed it from Old Irish. [17] | Celtic (via Old French?) (OED1) | technical |
hog | Possibly from Brittonic *hukk. [18] Given by the OED as a Celtic loan, related to Cornish "hoch"; Welsh "hwch," a pig or a sow, its connotation being a large instance. | Celtic (OED Online) | common |
sark | Derived by Andrew Breeze from the Brittonic ancestor of Welsh seirch 'armour, trappings' (itself from Latin sarcīre 'patch'). [19] | Germanic *sarki-z (OED1) | historic |
tor | 'Generally held to be Celtic', per the OED, which cites Old Welsh twrr ‘heap, pile’ and Gaelic tòrr ‘hill of an abrupt or conical form, lofty hill, eminence, mound, grave, heap of ruins’.; [20] possibly via Latin turris (tower) such as Glastonbury Tor. Especially used in Devon. [21] | Celtic (OED1) | technical, local |
wan | Possibly from Brittonic *wanno- and related to Welsh gwan, which has a similar meaning to the English word. [18] | Unclear (OED Online) | common |
yan, tan, tethera etc. | And variants. Most common in northern England, and ultimately from Brittonic *oinā, *deŭai, *tisrīs, etc., though heavily corrupted over time. Whether this is a legitimate Brittonic survival or a later borrowing from Welsh and Cornish remains open to scholarly debate. | Unclear | local |
In extinct uses, seven main others are proposed, mainly by Andrew Breeze, seen in Old English. Though less controversial than others, some of the seven have been disputed:
The Brittonic, Brythonic, or British Celtic languages form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family; the other is Goidelic. The name Brythonic was derived by Welsh Celticist John Rhys from the Welsh word Brython, meaning Ancient Britons as opposed to an Anglo-Saxon or Gael.
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a comprehensive resource to scholars and academic researchers, as well as describing usage in its many variations throughout the world.
Pictish is the extinct language spoken by the Picts, the people of eastern and northern Scotland from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. Virtually no direct attestations of Pictish remain, short of a limited number of geographical and personal names found on monuments and the contemporary records in the area controlled by the kingdoms of the Picts, dating to the early medieval period. Such evidence, however, may point to the language being an Insular Celtic language related to the Brittonic language spoken prior to Anglo-Saxon settlement in what is now southern Scotland, England, and Wales, but this is contested.
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Folk etymology is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more familiar one. The form or the meaning of an archaic, foreign, or otherwise unfamiliar word is reinterpreted as resembling more familiar words or morphemes.
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The Britons, also known as Celtic Britons or Ancient Britons were the Celtic people who inhabited Great Britain from at least the British Iron Age and into the Middle Ages, at which point they diverged into the Welsh, Cornish and Bretons. They spoke the Common Brittonic language, the ancestor of the modern Brittonic languages.
"Uncleftish Beholding" (1989) is a short text by Poul Anderson, included in his anthology "All One Universe". It is designed to illustrate what English might look like without its large number of loanwords from languages such as French, Greek, and Latin, especially with regard to the proportion of scientific words with origins in those languages.
In Modern English, I is the singular, first-person pronoun.
The plant name Cannabis is derived originally from a Scythian or Thracian word, which loaned into Persian as kanab, then into Greek as κάνναβις and subsequently into Latin as cannabis. The Germanic word that gives rise to English hemp may be an early Germanic loan from the same source.
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These lists of English words of Celtic origin include English words derived from Celtic origins. These are, for example, Common Brittonic, Gaulish, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, or other languages.
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Common Brittonic, also known as British, Common Brythonic, or Proto-Brittonic, was a Celtic language spoken in Britain and Brittany.
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