The Celtic languages originated from Proto-Celtic and are part of the Indo-European language family. There are four living Celtic languages today - Welsh, Breton, Irish, and Scottish Gaelic. Welsh and Irish have official status in Wales and Ireland respectively. The Celtic languages have a rich literary tradition dating back to the 6th century BC. Welsh literature in particular has been produced continuously since the 5th century AD and plays a major role in Welsh culture and identity.
The Celtic languages originated from Proto-Celtic and are part of the Indo-European language family. There are four living Celtic languages today - Welsh, Breton, Irish, and Scottish Gaelic. Welsh and Irish have official status in Wales and Ireland respectively. The Celtic languages have a rich literary tradition dating back to the 6th century BC. Welsh literature in particular has been produced continuously since the 5th century AD and plays a major role in Welsh culture and identity.
The Celtic languages originated from Proto-Celtic and are part of the Indo-European language family. There are four living Celtic languages today - Welsh, Breton, Irish, and Scottish Gaelic. Welsh and Irish have official status in Wales and Ireland respectively. The Celtic languages have a rich literary tradition dating back to the 6th century BC. Welsh literature in particular has been produced continuously since the 5th century AD and plays a major role in Welsh culture and identity.
The Celtic languages originated from Proto-Celtic and are part of the Indo-European language family. There are four living Celtic languages today - Welsh, Breton, Irish, and Scottish Gaelic. Welsh and Irish have official status in Wales and Ireland respectively. The Celtic languages have a rich literary tradition dating back to the 6th century BC. Welsh literature in particular has been produced continuously since the 5th century AD and plays a major role in Welsh culture and identity.
The Celtic languages (usually /ˈkɛltɪk/, but sometimes /ˈsɛltɪk/ in the US)[4] are a
group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch
of the Indo-European language family.[5] The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward Lhuyd in 1707,[6] following Paul-Yves Pezron, who made the explicit link between the Celts described by classical writers and the Welsh and Breton languages.[7] During the 1st millennium BC, Celtic languages were spoken across much of Europe and central Anatolia. Today, they are restricted to the northwestern fringe of Europe and a few diaspora communities. There are four living languages: Welsh, Breton, Irish, and Scottish Gaelic. All are minority languages in their respective countries, though there are continuing efforts at revitalisation. Welsh is an official language in Wales and Irish is an official language of Ireland and of the European Union. Welsh is the only Celtic language not classified as endangered by UNESCO. The Cornish and Manx languages went extinct in modern times. They have been the object of revivals and now each has several hundred second-language speakers. Irish, Scottish and Manx form the Goidelic languages, while Welsh, Cornish and Breton are Brittonic. All of these are Insular Celtic languages, since Breton, the only living Celtic language spoken in continental Europe, is descended from the language of settlers from Britain. There are a number of extinct but attested continental Celtic languages, such as Celtiberian, Galatian and Gaulish. Beyond that there is no agreement on the subdivisions of the Celtic language family. They may be divided into P-Celtic and Q-Celtic. The Celtic languages have a rich literary tradition. The earliest specimens of written Celtic are Lepontic inscriptions from the 6th century BC in the Alps. Early Continental inscriptions used Italic and Paleohispanic scripts. Between the 4th and 8th centuries, Irish and Pictish were occasionally written in an original script, Ogham, but the Latin alphabet came to be used for all Celtic languages. Welsh has had a continuous literary tradition from the 6th century AD. Welsh-language literature (llenyddiaeth Gymraeg) has been produced continuously since the emergence of Welsh from Brythonic as a distinct language in around the 5th century AD. The earliest Welsh literature was poetry, which was extremely intricate in form from its earliest known examples, a tradition sustained today. Poetry was followed by the first British prose literature in the 11th century (such as that contained in the Mabinogion). Welsh-language literature has repeatedly played a major part in the self-assertion of Wales and its people. It continues to be held in the highest regard, as evidenced by the size and enthusiasm of the audiences attending the annual National Eisteddfod of Wales (Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru), probably the largest amateur arts festival in Europe,[1] which crowns the literary prize winners in a dignified ceremony. A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival constitutes typical cases of glocalization, as well as the high culture-low culture interrelationship.[1] Next to religion and folklore, a significant origin is agricultural. Food is such a vital resource that many festivals are associated with harvest time. Religious commemoration and thanksgiving for good harvests are blended in events that take place in autumn, such as Halloween in the northern hemisphere and Easter in the southern. Festivals often serve to fulfill specific communal purposes, especially in regard to commemoration or thanking to the gods and goddesses. They may also provide entertainment, which was particularly important to local communities before the advent of mass-produced entertainment. Festivals that focus on cultural or ethnic topics also seek to inform community members of their traditions; the involvement of elders sharing stories and experience provides a means for unity among families. In Ancient Greece and Rome, festivals such as the Saturnalia were closely associated with social organisation and political processes as well as religion. [2][3][4] In modern times, festivals may be attended by strangers such as tourists,
who are attracted to some of the more eccentric or historical ones. The Philippines is one example of a modern society with many festivals, as each day of the year has at least one specific celebration. There are more than 42,000 known major and minor festivals in the country, most of which are specific to the barangay (village) level.[5]
