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Breizh

Breton language, Breton BREIZ, a member of the Brythonic group of Celtic languages, spoken in Brittany near northwestern France. 

Breton was introduced into northwestern France in the 5th and 6th centuries by Brythonic Celtic refugees displaced from southern England by the influx of Anglo-Saxons. 

The language is closely related to Cornish and Welsh but has been influenced by French and  by a continental Celtic language formerly spoken in the region. 

After the 17th century, Breton occurs in four major dialects: those of Léon, Tréguier, Cornouaille, and Vannes. 

Two standardized forms of Breton were developed in the mid-20th century to encourage the literary development of the language.

However the French constitution states Breton language as illegal.

Breton disappeared from sight after the early period, and no literary texts are available until the 15th century. These, mainly mystery plays and similar religious material, are written in a standardized language that is by now completely differentiated from Welsh and, to a lesser degree, from Cornish. 
The divergence between Breton and Cornish is largely a matter of the English loanwords in Cornish and the French loanwords in Breton. The present tense was retained in its original function, whereas a future and conditional were formed from the present and past subjunctive, respectively.

Later, the Breton dialects became written and showed considerable divergences in this form. Not until the 1920s was an attempt at standardization made, and even then it was necessary to adopt two norms. One was called KLT, from the initials of the Breton names of the dioceses of Cornouaille, Léon, and Tréguier, the dialects of which agree with Welsh and Cornish in having the stress accent on the next to the last syllable. The other norm was the dialect of Vannes in the south, which has the stress accent on the final syllable and many other distinctive features, at least some of which can be explained by its close contacts with French. More recently, two norms have been evolved to cover all four dialects; one of these is used by most writers, whereas the other is officially recognized by the universities of Brest and Rennes, in both of which Breton is taught.

Up until recently, Breton was the common language of the people in Cornouaille, Léon, Tréguier and Vannes, within the boundaries of the départements of Côtes-du-Nord, Finistère, and Morbihan. 

Breton may still have more speakers than Welsh, but this is quite uncertain because no language statistics exist for France. There is, however, general agreement that very few children today are being brought up speaking Breton. 

This is at least partly the result of French official policy, which in effect excludes the language from primary and secondary schools, though the poor economic opportunities in Brittany also play a part. The literary movement is, therefore, confined to an intelligentsia of perhaps not much more than 10,000 people, many of whom live outside Brittany. The overwhelming mass of the remainder of Breton speakers are literate only in French.

A Short History
of the Breton Language
and literature

THE BRETON LANGUAGE FROM ARTHUR'S TIME TO THE RENAISSANCE

It is generally assumed by specialists that the most ancient text in continental britonnic language is held now at the Leyden university. This was established by the late Prof. Léon Fleuriot (1923-1987).
This manuscript fragment of medicinal recipes composed of plants demonstrate that the breton, closely related to the galian which has died perhaps recently, was used by people of great knowledge at the turn of the 11th century.
Many authors suppose that there was no real difference in the Dark ages between the three britonnic languages, known now as Breton, Cornish and Welsh, the galian being a brittonic bough of the celtic languages too.
Before and during the Danish conquest, churchmen and lords came from Britain, took in their power the galian-roman province of Armorica and supposedly refresh or strenghten the original galian idiom in the little Brittania, i.e. Brittany.
Many marginal notes or glosses were found in medieval manuscripts produced by the early breton continental abbeys in the 9th and the 10th centuries.
At this time, the Count of Brittany, Alan Fergant (1084-1112 regnante), entitled under the breton and celtic name of Ri Brit (King of Brittany), was the last to be referred to with a personal surname in breton.
Episodically, it was said by later authors that they have seen some very ancient manuscripts in breton (Geoffrey of Monmouth in 11th, Dom Gregoire of Rostrenen in 18th). Possibly, all the medieval breton literature was lost, by robbery, vandalism, and neglect, most of all due to the decay of the breton abbeys for the 17th and the 18th.
The seaside abbey of Landevennek, where breton-speaking monks draw magnificent enluminated manuscripts in latin (S. Mark's Godspell now in New-York), was sacked by the Northmen in 913 and later by the English marine troops in 1387 and 1595 as by many others (pirates and aristocratic outlaws).
That is why breton literary works appears very lately in the15th and are under strong influence of french literature, especially the religious dramas, also called mysteres, a few of them were printed : the Passion (1530), the Mystere of Saint Gwenole, the Mystere of Saint Nonna, the Dialogue of Arthur and Gwenc'hlan.
These dramas and also the poems showed a very complicate system of versification with internal rimes
For centuries, the breton literature was a religious one and the first profane texts were emerging in the 18th, a number of them written by priests and many others by civil servants or magistrates.
Afore to the 17th, the orthograph was unified, evolving from near insular forms to french spellings, but showing no variations, either as there was no distinct dialects, either as they were not purposely reflected.
As in the Cornwall, the theater was very popular amongst the peasants who enjoyed watching for two or three days religious spectacles played by professionnal actors and a number of ordinary people.

THE TIME FOR RELIGIOUS CONCERNS : THE EPOCH OF THE HYBRID BRETON

In 1659, Father Juluan (Julien) Maunoir (1606-1683) published Le Sacré collège de Jésus, wherein a breton grammar and a french-breton dictionnary were enclosed. A pupil of breton-speaking missionaryFather Mikael an Noblez (1577-1652) who was born in Enez Eussa (Ouessant = Ushant), he stuck to the north-western dialect of Leon and made apparent in the orthograph the idiomatic mutations of some initial letters : tok = hat ; kiger = butcher, going to be tok ar c'higer (the butcher's hat) or tokoù ar gigerien (the butchers' hats), also ma z og(my hat) and e dok (his hat) and many other unusual combinations another example of wich is found in a Sardinian dialect.
A different orthograph appeared in order to translettering the south-western dialect spoken around the town of Gwened (Vannes).
After the counter-protestant Synode held in Trento in mid-17th, the Catholic Church took a great care for publishing many religious books and songs in the breton people's language, but it refused to let the believers read the Holy Bible out of its control.
Contrary to the welsh situation, no official version of the Bible went to become a literary model and there was no breton-speaking school and no official support to develop the breton literature for the lay people, the priests being carefully taught writing and speaking breton when established in the celtic speaking area, i.e.in the western part of the country, also known as the Lower Brittany.
A comic theater appeared in the 18th, as a recreation enjoyed by some bourgeois (judges, tax-collectors) displaying a new spirit of criticism and derision. (Ar c'hi = The dog, by Klaod Al Lae, Ar farvel goaper = The mocking fool, by François-Nicolas Paskal Kerenveier,1729-1794).
A Benedictine monk , Dom Louis Le Pelletier (1663-1733) wrote a breton etymologic dictionary whom the publishing the Breton Assembly (Les Etats de Bretagne) agreed to pay for. Before him, Dom Gregoire de Rostrenen(1672-1750) wrote the manuscript of a french-breton dictionary too.
The religious side of the breton literature was illustrated by the Claude Marigo's (1693-1759)Buhez ar Saent (1752), a collection of many saints short biographies, and by the Heures bretonnes et latines (1712) written by Charles Le Bris (1665-1737). This religious breton was hybrid as many french words invaded it, the syntax remaining pure. It was called brezhoneg beleg, i.e. the priests' breton
It happened that the breton dramas played on the local religious feasts ("pardons") were forbidden by the religious and judiciary authorities allegedly for the disorders they may bring about.
The breton bourgeoisie became more and more angry against the privileges of the gentry which was very numerous and often so poor as it hold the harder on its feudal incomes.
All of the élites were educated in french and the breton language lose his prestige and its high-ranked defensors.
The French revolution (1789-1798) was the time of the exaltation of the french language as being the way to dive into the national enthusiasm and the new citizenship.
A first project of covering the whole country by french-managed schools aborted, but the Convention agreed seriously (?!!!) to vote and publish that "the superstition is told in lower breton" and that "the fanatism is spelt through the basque idiom" .

THE FIRST REVIVAL : ROMANTICISM IDEALIZING THE PEASANTS TASTES

After the stormy revolutionary and napoleonian times, the romantiscism came as a tentative aiming at rebuild the fundamentals of the society and it is no wonder to see young gentlemen supporting a celtic revival in France, in Brittany and seeking for relations with celtic cousins in Cymru-Wales.
The 24 years-old viscount Theodore Hersart de la Villemarque (bre : Teodor a gKervarker), 1815-1895. achieved a terrific literary success when publishing in 1839 his Barzaz Breiz (i.e. Bardic poetry of Brittany) and a lot of upper and middle-class bretons began collecting popular songs, the long complaints named gwerzion and the elegies named sonioù..
Poems were published in many papers, the breton folklore (legends, tales, proverbs, customs) began to raise attention and La Villemarqué had many followers, such as Auguste Brizeux (Aogust Brizeug) 1803-1858, who wrote a little book enclosing elegiac poems, Marie (Mari), Jean-Marie Le Scour (he published Gwerz Ker-Is (The lament on Is, the submerged city), Prosper Proux1811-1873, Narcisse Quellien1848-1902.
But one of the first orthographic disputes brought difficulties for establishing the new literature on a solid ground as the Catholic Church was not pleased to use the new orthographic rules of Jean-Marie Le Gonidec (Yann-Vari ar Gonideg),1775-1838, who wrote a Grammaire celto-bretonne (1807) and a dictionary Breton-French (1838). He decided to translate the Bible, but he found no support from the established church and he was obliged to let his tremendous work published by an english protestant society. He saw the book when being at the hospital a few days before his final departure, but the church authorities barred the diffusion of a so-called protestant book.

by Christian Rogel, Chief librarian, degree in French and Latin Literature and in History, celtic studies graduate.
 

Bibliography :
ABEOZEN, pseud. Fañch Elies . - Istor lennegezh vrezhonek an amzer-vremañ, 1957 ABEOZEN, pseud. Fañch Elies . - Damskeud eus hol lennegezh kozh, 1962 - FLEURIOT, Léon) . - Les origines de la Bretagne, 1987 - LE GALLO, Yves, dir. . - Histoire littéraire et culturelle de la Bretagne, 3 vol., 1987 - RAOUL, Lukian . - Geriadur ar skrivagnerien ha yezhourien, 1992 FAVEREAU, Fransez . - Littérature et écrivains bretonnants (1945-1990), 1991.

© Levraoueg Breizh - 25 october 1996