Background information on Breton

Steve Hewitt
s.hewitt@unesco.org

1. Historical and sociolinguistic background

Breton, the only Brythonic (Welsh, Cornish, Breton) Celtic language to have preserved the original name,
OB brethonec, ModB brezhoneg, is thought to have been brought to Armorica (NW peninsula of France) by
immigrants from Britain in the 5th-7th centuries. The traditional view is that the sparse local population was
already Romanized, and that Breton thus represents a purely Insular Celtic import. Falc’hun, however,
proposed that the aberrant SE dialect of Gwened (G, Vannes) constituted a hybrid of Gaulish and Insular
Brythonic, and later came to believe that Gwened was pure Gaulish and that the remaining dialects of Leon
(Léon, L: NW), Kerne (Cornouaille, K: SW and C) and Treger (Trégor, T: NE) were the result of a mixture of
Gaulish and Insular Brythonic. The most recent authoritative statement on the subject is Fleuriot (1980:
Chapter 3), who turned Falc’hun’s arguments around: if Gaulish, as he agrees is likely, still survived at the
time, it was most probably in the remoter north-western regions of the Osismii than among the more
Romanized south-eastern Veneti. For Fleuriot, then, the KLT dialects represent a blend of Gaulish and
Brythonic, and Gwened is the result of a re-Celticization of an area of Romance speech; this scenario
convincingly accounts for certain traits that are shared by Gwened and Insular Brythonic to the exclusion of
the KLT dialects.
While the precise origins of the Bretons are of minor concern to the average native speaker, they are of
considerably more importance to cutural activists. Here it is well to remember the ideological resonance the
ethnonym Gaulish has in France: following the French Revolution, the reactionary nobles of the ancien régime
were identified with the Franks, whereas the progressive ordinary Republican people was equated with nos
ancêtres les Gaulois. It was important for the anti-nationalist Falc’hun to show that the Bretons were not only
not a foreign element in France, but that they were in a sense doubly French, being the direct continuers of
Gaulish speech. Fleuriot was more interested in highlighting the variety of influences and hence the hybrid
nature of Breton language and culture, a position not always appreciated by the nationalist community.
The documented history of Breton begins with Old Breton (OB), roughly 800-1200, with numerous
glosses of sufficient length to reconstitute the grammar and vocabulary in some detail (Fleuriot: 1964b, 1964a);
this language is quite close to Old Welsh (800-1100), with which it shares most orthographical conventions.
There follows a troubled period in which only placenames and personal names are found.
Middle Breton (1350-1660), with numerous texts, many devotional in nature, from 1450 on, is as different
from Old Breton as Middle English is from Anglo-Saxon, and for similar reasons. The orthography, apart from
a few special conventions, such as –ff /–̃ṽ/, z /ð, ð̤/, zz, tz /θ/, cz, çz, ç /tθ? > ʦ/, ch /x, ḩ; ʃ/, is now French-
based. There is a mass of Romance vocabulary grafted onto the native stock (Piette 1973); uniquely among the
Celtic languages, there is now a fully-fledged verb ‘have’ based on oblique proclitic personal pronouns plus
(existential) forms of ‘be’: m-eus [to.me-there.is] ‘I have’, together with perfect tenses on the French
compound tenses model: ‘have’ / ‘be’ + past participle: …meus gweled [I.have seen.PP], …on aed [I.am gone.PP];
and finally, undoubtedly from contact with Old French, a strong tense-second (T-2) constraint, which interacts
in interesting ways with the traditional Insular Celtic predicate-subject-object PSO order, as we shall see below.
Middle Breton is a relatively standardized language which, with the exception of forms of ‘be’ (vez, etc.), does
not mark initial consonant mutations: da prenaff ‘to buy’ /da brẽːnãṽ/; Middle Breton verse abounds in
internal assonance reminiscent of Welsh cynghanedd: Ivonet Omnes, ca. 1350: an guen heguen am louenas / an
hegarat an lagat glas ‘the white-cheeked one gladdened me, the kind one of the blue eyes’.
With the 1659 Le Sacré-Collège de Jésus (Breton catechism, with a dictionary and grammar) by Julien
Maunoir, who dispenses with –ff for /–̃ṽ/, uses –n for /–̃/, and introduces the iconic c’h for /x, ḩ/, these two
traits (absence of mutations; verse with internal assonance) disappear, and Modern Breton is deemed to begin;
all writing is henceforth identifiable by dialect. Apart from these cosmetic changes, there is initially little
grammatical difference. However, during the course of the 18th century, the old system of proclitic object
pronouns me en gwel [I him.OBJ seeº] ‘I see him’ gradually gives way in the KLT dialects, but not in G, to a new
construction with a post-verbal person-marked preposition a ‘of’: me a=wel aneżañ [I AFF seeº of.him=him.OBJ],
which is structurally more similar to English. Even though it is today barely understood by KLT native
speakers, the old construction is widely maintained in Standard Breton (possibly owing to its structural
similarity with French).
The dialects of Breton are traditionally divided into L, K, T and G; needless to say, most isoglosses do not
follow the boundaries of the old (pre-1789) bishoprics exactly:
Hewitt – Background information on Breton 2

Figure 1 – Traditional bishoprics, dialect areas and linguistic frontiers of Breton

[Please seek permission to reproduce from: www.geobreizh.com: bodlore@gmail.com]

However, some features do coincide closely with these traditional ‘provinces’. For instance, the following
pronunciations of neweż ‘new’ (cf. Welsh newydd) will immediately identify speakers as being from the
following areas: L /ˈnεːvεz/, T /ˈneːwe/, G /nəˈɥẹ/, K /ˈneːve/, CE /ˈneː/. Falc’hun, working with Le Roux’s Atlas
Linguistique de la Basse-Bretagne and a map of Roman roads extant in medieval times, identified an area of
linguistic innovation radiating out from the central town of Karaes (Carhaix). There is thus a broad central NE-
SW band of innovative dialects of T and K along which intercomprehension is relatively easy; this is flanked by
two peripheral dialects, L and G, with G being particularly different from the rest. The latter two areas having
traditionally produced more priests than elsewhere, post-Maunoir written Breton came to have twin
standards, based on L and G, rather than a linguistically more central norm reflecting usage along the NE-SW
axis. L thus came to be used in T and K, but this is not to say that it was actively accepted by speakers of those
dialects as a workable literary norm for them. Beginning in the early 19th century with Le Gonidec, but
especially since 1925 and the Gwalarn (literary journal, ‘North-West’) movement, Standard Breton has become
increasingly divorced from traditional, spontaneous forms of the language, with the result that most native
speakers find it rather difficult to follow without special study. There is no standard spoken form of Breton; in
formal situations, native speakers who are literate in Breton usually speak their own dialect as clearly as
possible, occasionally substituting more standard morphology for excessively local forms; learners for the
most part apply more or less French phonology to what they see in writing, with the result that their oral
production is barely comprehensible to native speakers.
The history of Breton orthography is complex (cf. Hewitt 1987 and 2005, and especially Wmffre
forthcoming). Le Gonidec (1807, 1821) introduced k and g for traditional French-based c ~ que, qui; g ~ gue, gui,
and several other innovations. For the rest of the 19th century, Breton writing was divided into traditionalist
and reformist camps. The reformist KLT Emgleo ar skrivagnerien / Entente des écrivains of 1908-1911 introduced w
in place of o, u, and unjustifiably systematized voiceless -p, -t, -k in other than nouns or verb-stems, but voiced
-b, -d, -g in nouns and verb-stems, so brezoneg ‘Breton language’, brezonek ‘Breton adj.’; just a little earlier, in
1902, traditional G orthography was standardized. In 1941, under Nazi auspices, KLT and G were artificially
combined in a Peurunvan ‘fully unified’ orthography widely known as ZH (zh: KLT z ~ G h). In reaction against
ZH, Falc’hun promulgated in 1955 the Skolveurieg / Orthographe universitaire (OU) orthography, with parallel
standards for KLT and G; it generalized -b, -d, -g where warranted by derivation, introduced an ambiguous h for
both h and c’h, and systematized the indication of ‘new lenition’: f-, s-, ch-, c’hw- >’f-, z-, j-, hw-. In 1975, a third
Hewitt – Background information on Breton 3

Etrerannyezhel / Interdialectale (ID) orthography was launched, making a three-way distinction s, z, zh (with
provection: ss, zz, sh), w for T /w/, G /ɥ/, voiced finals like OU, but no new lenition. At present, ZH,
linguistically the least suitable, as it violates several native-speaker phonological intuitions, dominates, with
at least 85%; OU has 10-12%; and the remaining 3-5% use ID. I use a personal refinement of ID, an Etymological
(E) orthography, which has several extra supradialectal conventions that accurately predict dialect reflexes,
and which links up better with Middle Breton and Welsh. 1 In any case, there is well under 1% functional
literacy (the ability to write a simple personal letter) in Breton among native speakers; if a particular
orthography were well known and actively used by a significant number of native speakers, that would be the
obvious choice, but that is not the case. In the interests of consistency and comparability for non-specialists,
all examples here are given in E. Forms reflect majority usage, but may differ in some details from Standard
Breton.
The sociological history of Breton is one of a gradual decline in active use from the higher social classes
downwards, with a catastrophic acceleration in language shift since the Second World War, and especially the
1960s and 1970s. In 1900, there may have have been as much as 60% effective monoglots in Lower, Breton-
speaking, Brittany. Of the largely monoglot Bretons who went to fight in the trenches in the First World War,
those who survived came back with a working knowledge of French, thus introducing generalized
bilingualism for the first time. Total numbers probably peaked at around 1.1–1.3 million in the 1930s, with
some 100,000 monoglots (mainly women) still in 1950, and some 600,000-750,000 speakers even in the 1970s.
No linguistic questions are asked in the French census, as any reference to ethnic identity is deemed to be
anti-Republican. However, surveys (see Broudic, all references) suggest that current numbers of proficient
speakers probably stand at around the 300,000 mark, of whom two-thirds are over 60; the 3-20 age group has
well under 1%. On top of this, there are large numbers of ‘semi-speakers’ and people with a good passive
knowledge: ne=vin ked gwerzhed e brezhoneg [NEG I.will.be not sold in Breton] ‘I can’t be sold (tricked, duped,
caught out) in Breton’; indeed, one of the hallmarks of the linguistic situation today is the large numbers of
such ‘grey speakers’. The very youngest native speakers from traditional, spontaneous (non-activist)
backgrounds, in areas with relatively strong language vitality such as central and southern T, are today in
their 20s. An important factor to bear in mind is the widespread sense of shame connected with Breton, to
which a strong stigma has long been attached by French elites.
The activist community is very largely composed of French-dominant learners. Total numbers are
probably around 5,000-10,000, with perhaps a further 10,000 or so who have had some exposure to the
language. There is a recognizable ‘learners’ Breton’, which is strongly French in phonology, syntax and
phraseology, but highly puristic in vocabulary. The cumulative effect of this is to make communication in
Breton between such activists traditional native speakers laborious at best. A common attitude among
learner-activists, who cannot align two sentences without making serious grammatical mistakes or idiomatic
blunders, is that popular Breton is so ‘degenerate’ and shot through with French that it is hardly worth saving;
they maintain that they, the activists, are the only future of the language, an attitude which does little to
endear them to ordinary native speakers. Approximately 3% of schoolchildren in Brittany have some exposure
to Breton, whether in voluntary Breton classes in regular French state schools, in bilingual Breton-French
state schools, or in the private all-Breton Diwan system (currently a little over 3,000 pupils from pre-school to
secondary school – lycée). The presence of Breton in the media is insignificant – a little over one hour per week
on television, and 10-12 hours a week on public radio; only one local radio, Kreis Breizh (Central Brittany) in ST-
NEK, a particularly strong area for Breton, broadcasts a good part of the time in (local) Breton. In short, the
general outlook for Breton as a community language, rather than the language of networks of aficionados, is
rather bleak.

1
In E, s ż zh correspond closely to Old Breton s d th /s δ θ/ and Modern Welsh s dd th /s ð θ/. In what follows, /v̤ ð̤/ are /v ð/ with greater
friction ≈ /vh ðh/; /ḩ/ is variously /h hx ɣ/ and regularly /x/ under final obstruent devoicing. Old Breton (OB) /μ β δ γ/ > Middle Breton
(MB) /ṽ v ð ɣ>ḩ/ are ñv v ż c’h; OB /f θ s x/ > (medially and finally) MB /v̤ ð̤ z ḩ/ are f zh s c’h; OB /-fh- -θh- -sh- -xh-/ > MB /f θ s x/ (/f s/
also in loans from French) are ff zzh ss c”h; MB and Modern Breton (ModB) /ʃ ʒ/ are ch j; OB /oi/ > MB /oe/ is oa. Modern dialect reflexes,
where different from MB, are as follows: -Vñv N /Ṽː/, SW /Ṽw̃ /, SE /Ṽɥ̃/; -Vñv- /Ṽːv/, SE /Ṽɥ̃/; -ż-, -ż /-/, NW /z/; -żż- /-/, NW /s/; -zh-, -zh
/z/ SE /h/; -zzh- /s/ SE /h/; f- /f/ NE /v̤/; s- /s/ NE, C, CS /z/; j- /ʃ/, NE, C /ʒ/; where not already voiced (NE, C, CS), initial f-, s-, j- are more
amenable to the initial lenition (voicing) mutation than are ff-, ss-, ch-; oa (including in gŵoa, c’hŵoa) /wa/, NW /ˈoa/, SE /we/; c’hŵ- NW
/xw/, NE, C /ḩw/, SW /ḩɥ, f/, SE /hɥ/; gw- N /gw/, C, SW /gɥ/, SE /ɟɥ/; ŵ /w/; -w- W /v/, NE /w/, CE /-/, SE /ɥ/; -iw, -éw, -ew, -aw, -aou /iu,
eu, εo, ao, əu/, SE /iy, ey, ɛy, ay, əy/; -Vrw W /Vːro/, NE /Vrŏ/, SE /Vry̆/; ao /o̞ː/, NW /ao/, SE /əu/; ae /e̞ː/ NW /e̞ə/; aë /εː/ NW /aε/; u
/y/; eu /œ ø/; ou /u/; ä /a/ and widely /ε/. While it is usually possible to convert E automatically into ZH, the converse is not true because
ZH blurs a number of distinctions made in E:
E f ff ż żż zh zzh s ss c’h c’h gŵa gŵoa c’hŵa c’hŵoa -b× -d× -g× ŵ Cw- -w(-) v
ZH f z1 s zh sh z2 s c’h gwa c’hoa -p -t -k w v
1
a number of instances of etymological ż are zh in ZH.
2
E s: ZH s-, -z-, -z+, -s× (+ = nouns and verb stems; × = all other categories).
Hewitt – Background information on Breton 4

2. Linguistic background
Breton, like all other Celtic languages, has grammaticalized initial consonant mutations which are
historically the complex result of final vowel loss and sandhi; these will be indicated here, whenever a
mutation has applied, with =, ≠, º, etc: dibriñ [eat.INF], o≠tibriñ [PROG eat.INF] ‘eating’, a=zebr [AFF eatº] ‘eats’; penn,
maºfenn [head, my head], etc.; see abbrevations – naturally, these symbols are not used in normal written
Breton. The three tense particles, a= ‘direct’ affirmative tense particle AFF (after subject, object, infinitive), e≠
‘indirect’ affirmative tense particle AFF (after other elements, such as prepositional phrase, adverb, etc.), ne=
negative tense particle NEG, and the progressive infinitival particle o≠ (é≠ in some areas) PROG are often elided in
normal tempos, but the initial consonant mutations they trigger remain. In the central NE-SW dialects, e≠ is
usually replaced by a=, with the result that all tensed forms with an initial lenitable consonant have lenition
(this tendency is not reflected here).
Basic Breton word order 2 may be succinctly described with the following formula (see abbrevations):
(X) (AUX) P S O… and T-2 (tense-second), where X may be S, O, PO, ADV, etc., and T attaches either to AUX, if there is
one, or to the simple verb V; the negative tense particle ne NEG is ambivalent: it may either itself fill the X slot
or allow some other element to its left. There is a primary division into an information-neutral ‘bare
presentation’ with an initial P (the whole utterance is relatively new), and various ‘lead-in presentations’ with
in intial position some other element X, which, in a secondary division, may be either thematic (given, scene-
setting) or rhematic (new, focus, contrast, emphasis, etc.). One of the most common elements to fill the X slot
is actually the subject, such that SPO order is more frequent than PSO, even if it is not necessarily the most
neutral from the point of view of information structure. The interaction of this framework with the T-2
constraint means that, quite uniquely among languages, the Breton simple affirmative sentence in ‘bare
presentation’ does not have the simplest structure, but usually undergoes one of two ‘transformations’. With
simple verbs, there is Dummy Auxiliary Creation in order to get T into second position, such that (1a) without
the initial adverb neuse becomes (1b):
(1a) neuse e≠tebr an=dud krampouzh
so AFF eatº the people crêpes
‘so people eat crêpes’
(1b) dibriñ a ra an=dud krampouzh
eat.INF AFF doº the people crêpes
‘people eat crêpes’
With auxiliary structures (auxiliary ‘be’/‘have’ + past participle; copula + predicate; existential operator eus +
existential entity), there is Auxiliary-Predicate Inversion – (2a, 3a, 4a) become (2b, 3b, 4b):
(2a) neuse e meus gweled
so AFF I.have seen.PP
‘so I have seen’
(2b) gweled e meus
seen.PP AFF I.have
‘I have seen’
≠
(3a) neuse e h-eo bras
so AFF is.3SG big
‘…it is big’
(3b) bras eo
big is.3SG
‘it is big’
(4a) neuse so tud
so be.EXIST.AFF people
‘so there are people’
(4b) tud so
people be.EXIST.AFF
‘there are people’
The general rule is no person/number marking in the verb (tensed element); when a verb is marked for
tense only, it will be glossed with º: …e≠tebr an=dud […AFF eatº the people] ‘the people eat’. There are two

2
For a fuller account of Breton verbal syntax, see Hewitt 1988, and especially Hewitt 2002b; for VSO vs VGN (verb-given-new) word order
typology, see Hewitt 2002a.
Hewitt – Background information on Breton 5

exceptions to the rule of tense-marking only: (1) when a subject pronoun may be thought to follow the tensed
element, there is Subject Inclusion: *ra+me [doº+I] > ran [do.1SG] or [I.do], giving rise to the personal forms of
the TAM sets (including the ‘impersonal form’, a seventh form in each set referring to some indeterminate
human agent French on, English one, but there is no corresponding subject pronoun – see Hewitt 2002b for
further details); (2) when an initial subject is followed by a tensed form in the negative, so (5a) without person
agreement in the affirmative, but (5b) with person agreement in the negative:
(5a) an=dud a=zebr
the people AFF eatº]
‘the people eat’
(5b) an=dud ne=zebront ked
the people NEG eat.3PL not
‘the people do not eat’
Historically, initial subjects in the affirmative derive from a cleft relative with subsequent ellipsis of the
copula and defocusing of the initial element: ‘it is the people who eat’ > ‘[it is] the people [who] eat’ > ‘the
people eat’. Since the negative of the first phrase is ‘it is not the people who eat’, it is pragmatically impossible
to elide the copula, so the only way to provide a functional equivalent in the negative is to treat ‘the people’ as
an initial thematic topic, which is then echoed with a post-verbal pronominal subject with Subject Inclusion:
an=dud ne=zebront ked [the people NEG they.eat not].
As a result of its unique morphological origin, the verb ‘have’ always uses person-marked forms: m-eus
[to.me-be.EXIST] ‘I have’. In addition, there is a strong tendency in the central NE-SW dialects to add regular
personal endings in the plural: Standard Breton hon-eus [to.us-there.is] ‘we have’ > *hon-eus-omp [to.us-
there.is.1PL] > neusomp > neump; (hom-eus) > meusomp > meump ‘we have’. Since ‘have’ is derived from ‘be’, the
infinitive of auxiliary-‘have’ is simply ‘be’, to be interpreted according to context:
=
(6) ne meus ked c’hŵant da veżañ debred
NEG I.have not desire to be.INF eaten.PP
‘I do not want to be eaten’
(7) red e≠vo deomp beżañ debred a-=benn nav eur
necessary AFF will.beº to.us be=have.INF eaten.PP by nine hour
‘we will have to have eaten by nine o’clock’.
As a lexical verb meaning ‘possess’, ‘have’ has a suppletive infinitive kaoud < kavoud ‘find’.
In addition to the simple tenses or TAM (tense-aspect-mood) sets reviewed below (other useful terms to
avoid using the slightly inaccurate ‘tense’ or ‘conjugation’ are ‘screeve’, coined from the Georgian mc k rivi
‘row’, or French tiroir ‘drawer’), and the compound perfect tenses alluded to above, Breton has a periphrastic
progressive construction consisting of ‘be.SIT’ + o [PROG] + INF:
(8) emañ an=dud o ≠
tibriñ krampouzh
be.SITº the people PROG eat.INF crêpes
‘the people are eating crêpes’
which is very similar in range of use to English, the main divergence being that English appears to be
developing in the direction of ‘progressive > contingent situation, even state’, whereas Breton appears to
correlate the progressive strongly with ‘control by the subject’; for more details, see Hewitt 1986 and 1990.

3. Evolution of the Breton and Welsh TAM sets and values

Table 1 shows the evolution of the six basic Breton and Welsh TAM sets. In the middle period of both
languages, the primary value of each set was quite similar, and most of the individual forms were clearly
related, apart from 2SG and 2PL in sets 1a and 2a, and 2SG in set 3a.
Hewitt – Background information on Breton 6

Table 1 – Evolution of the Breton and Welsh TAM sets

Middle Breton orth. ch -ff s z Modern Breton: orth. c’h j ff ou s z
phon. /ḩ –̃ṽ z ð ð̤/ phon./ḩ ʒ f u z z/
[literary register] G: Gwened (Vannes)
1a 2a 3a 1a 2a 3a
PRES/FUT PRES.SUBJ>FUT PRET PRES FUT/SUBJ PRET [literary]
-an /ã~ãn~ˈãõ~ˈ- -in /ĩ ~ĩ ɲ ~ĩ n/
1sg -aff /ãṽ/ -iff /ĩṽ/ -is [-is]
õ/ -i
2sg -ez -y -sot [-jout]
-ez -o
3sg -, -a -o -as -as
-, -a -ffomp, -imp G-
1pl -omp -homp -somp [-jomp]
-omp G -amp éemp
2pl -et, -it -het -soch [-joc’h]
-et, -it, -oc’h -ffet, -(ff)oc’h, -ot G -éet
3pl -ont -hint -sont [-jont]
-ont G -ant -ffont, -int G -éent
imp. -er -her -at [-jod]
-er -ffer, -or

1b 2b 3b 1b 2b 3b
IMPF IMPF.SUBJ>POT PLPF >HYP IMPF POT/SUBJ HYP/2FUT
1sg -enn -henn -senn -enn -ffenn G –ëhenn, etc. -jenn j /ʒ~ʃ/
2sg -es -hes -ses -es -ffes -jes
3sg -e -he -se -e -ffe -je
1pl -emp -hemp -semp -emp -ffemp -jemp
2pl -ech -hech -sech -ec’h -ffec’h -jec’h
3pl -ent -hent -sent -ent -ffent -jent
imp. -et -het -set [-ed] [-ffed] [-jed]

Middle Welsh orth. ch d f u w y Modern Welsh orth. ch dd f u w y

phon. /χ ð v y u ɨ/ phon./χ ð v ɨ u ɨ/ (/ɨ/: N/ɨ/ ~ S/i/)
(spoken forms with obligatory postclitic subject pronouns)
S
South Welsh; N North Welsh; [literary register]
1a 2a 3a 1a 2a 3a
PRES/FUT PRES.SUBJ PRET [PRES]/FUT [SUBJ] PRET
1sg -af -(h)wyf -eis -af (-a i) [-wyf] -ais (-es i)
2sg -y -(h)ych -eist -i (-i di) [-ych] -aist (-est ti)
3sg -, -a -(h)o -awd, -as -, -a (-ith eS~oN/hi) [-o] -odd (-odd eS~oN /hi)
1pl -wn -(h)om -assom -wn (-wn ni) [-om] -(a)som (-(s)on ni)
2pl -wch -(h)och -assawch -wch (-wch chi) [-och] -(a)soch (-(s)och chi)
3pl -ant -(h)ont -assant -ant (-an nhw) [-ont] -(a)sant (-(s)on nhw)
imp. -ir -(h)er -at, -wyt [-ir] [-er] [-wyd]

1b 2b 3b 1b 2b 3b
IMPF IMPF.SUBJ PLPF [IMPF]/COND < [PLPF]
1sg -wn -(h)wn -asswn -wn (-wnN/-enS i) < [-aswn]
2sg -ut -(h)ut -assut -it (-et ti) < [-asit]
3sg -ei -(h)ei -assei -ai (-e feS~foN/hi) < [-asai]
1pl -em -(h)em -assem -em (-en ni) < [-asem]
2pl -ewch -(h)ewch -assewch -ech (-ech chi) < [-asech]
3pl -ynt -(h)ynt -assynt -ent (-en nhw) < [-asent]
imp. -it -(h)it -assit [-id] < [-asid, -esid]

Since then, however, the two languages have diverged. 3 Breton has kept all six sets, but apart from 3a
‘preterite’, which has become moribund, rather like the French passé simple, and 1b ‘imperfect’, their primary
values have evolved significantly: 1a MB present/future > ModB present; 2a MB present subjunctive > ModB
future; 2b MB imperfect subjunctive > ModB potential conditional; 3b OB pluperfect > MB, ModB hypothetical
conditional/secondary future (future-in-past). In fact, all these uses were already present, at least secondarily,
in MB, and, as we shall see, the primary MB value often remains in residual use in ModB, so the above table is a
little too schematic (furthermore, the pluperfect value of set 3b is clear for Old Breton, but by MB the set
appears already to have acquired the more modern values of hypothetical conditional/secondary future). It
would be more accurate to say that there has been a shift of emphasis in the primary values of the various
TAM sets between MB and ModB.

3
On this topic, cf. Humphreys 1990.
Hewitt – Background information on Breton 7

A special development in the value of the 3b -se- set is evident in the SE. In 1987, Breton dialectologists
were startled (local speakers, naturally, had known it all along) by Evenou’s revelation of -ise- forms with
imperfect habitual value not only for the two verbs ‘be’ and ‘have’ for which such a TAM set is traditionally
recognized, but also for the three semi-irregular (contraction of vocalic stem and endings) verbs ober ‘do’,
mond ‘go’, and dond ‘come’: rise [did.IMP.HABº], yise [went.IMP.HABº], tise [came.IMP.HABº]. Furthermore, in Enes
Groe (Île de Groix), Ternes (1970) found such forms for all verbs. This seems related to a general reluctance in
the SE to recognize a hypothetical conditional value for set 3b, which there is secondary future (future-in-the-
past) and, in some areas at least (more research is needed to see how widespread the development is, and
which verbs are affected) imperfect habitual.
Concerning morphological evolution between MB and ModB, the development outside G of -s- to -j-
appears to be simply a case of ioticization and palatalization: /z > zj > ʒ/. There is a tendency is many areas for
-j- to be devoiced to -ch-, probably as a result of a general rule devoicing obstruent clusters, so e≠tebrjenn ‘I
would eat’ /tεːbʒεn > tεbʒεn > tεpʃεn/, and then the -ch- forms are taken as basic. In all likelihood, the
development outside G of -h- to -ff- began with verb stems ending in /-v/: MB. evhe [should.drink.IMPF.SUBJ] >
ModB evffe [would.drink.POT]; many central dialects add /-v/ to verb stems ending in a vowel, so koueżañ,
koueż- ‘fall’ /kweː- > kweːv-/, so this would have given a number of verb stems in /-v/: /-v+h- > -f-/.
Welsh, on the other hand, has undergone something of a revolution, especially in the spontaneous, oral
form of the language known as Colloquial Welsh. 4 Apart from the loss of the imperfect subjunctive as a
distinct set, Classical Welsh, which is still cultivated in formal academic writing, in principle maintains the
Middle Welsh situation. In Colloquial Welsh, sets 2a ‘present subjunctive’, 2b ‘imperfect subjunctive’ and 3b
‘pluperfect’ (precisely those of greatest interest to us here in Breton) have all been lost, except in fossilized
phrases. Of the remaining three, 3a ‘preterite’ remains unchanged. In 1a, the punctual, perfective value of
‘future’ has elbowed out the cursive, imperfective value of ‘present’, and something similar has occurred in 1b,
which is now normally a punctual, perfective ‘conditional’ rather than a cursive, imperfective ‘imperfect’
(there are residual instances of present and imperfect for sets 1a and 1b respectively, but these are now very
marginal). This means that all tensed forms of the simple verb in Colloquial Welsh now have punctual,
perfective value, or at least are strongly tending in that direction.
So how does one express cursive, imperfective TAM values in Colloquial Welsh? Quite simply, the above
drastic simplification has not affected bod ‘be’, or not to the same extent, and bod in all its TAM sets combines
with various aspectual operators, yn [in 5 > PROG], wedi,’di [after > PERF], hen [old > long previously], newydd [new
> recently], ar [on > about to], am [for > about to/intention] etc. plus infinitive, to give a wide range of
periphrastic TAM constructions. Note that under this thorough-going rearrangement of the Welsh TAM
system, (1) the old present/future becomes restricted to future; (2) the old progressive is expanded to become
a general cursive or imperfective, which may freely be used with statives; and (3) an extended construction
has come in to express specifically progressive Aktionsart; Hindi/Urdu shows a strikingly similar path of
development:
Classical Welsh Old Hindi
(9a) siarad-af bōl-ū̃
speak-PRES/FUT.1SG speak-PRES.1SG
I speak / I will speak I speak
(10a) yr wyf yn siarad bōl-tā hū̃
AFF am PROG speak.INF speak-PROG I.am
I am speaking I am speaking
Modern Colloquial Welsh Modern Hindi/Urdu
(9b) siarad-a i bōl-ū̃
speak-FUT.1SG I speak-SUBJ.1SG
I will speak [that] I [may/should] speak
(10b) rw i ’n siarad bōl-tā hū̃
am I PROG speak.INF speak-IPFV I.am
I speak / I am speaking I speak / I am speaking
(11) rw i wrth-i ’n siarad bōl rah-ā hū̃
am I at-her PROG speak.INF speak stay-PFV I.am
I am speaking (right now) I am speaking (right now)

4
See Heinecke 1999 for an interesting description of the Welsh situation. He does not always distinguish clearly between the Classical
Welsh and Colloquial Welsh poles, and declines to acknowledge the etymology of the various aspectual operators; his analysis of Breton is
more sketchy than that of Welsh.
5
Isaac 1994 derives the progressive particle not from yn ‘in’, but from MW wnc, onc ‘close to’, which is cognate with the Irish preposition
ag ‘at’ used for the progressive, and probably also with Breton enk ‘narrow’, which might just possibly explain the widespread variant é for
the normal Breton progressive infinitive particle o < MB oz ‘at, against’ (ModB ouzh).
Hewitt – Background information on Breton 8

Table 2 shows the Welsh TAM sets for bod ‘be’ in the 1SG. While 2a ‘present subjunctive’ and 2b ‘imperfect
subjunctive’ are moribund, except for set phrases, and 3b can no longer be used for the pluperfect, this still
leaves 1a irregular ‘present’, 1a regular ‘future/present habitual (especially in North Welsh)’, 3a ‘preterite’, 2a
irregular ‘imperfect’, 2a regular ‘1st conditional/imperfect habitual (especially in North Welsh)’, and 3b ‘2nd
conditional’ (there is no discernible difference between the two conditionals, unlike in Breton). It seems
certain that this exuberant development of periphrastic TAM constructions in Welsh is somehow linked to the
morphological and semantic simplification of the TAM sets of the simple verb.

Table 2 – Welsh TAM sets for bod ‘be’ (1SG)

1a IRREG 1a REG 2a 3a
PRES.HAB PRES.SUBJ*
N
PRES FUT PRET
wyf byddaf bwyf bûm ~ bues i
2a IRREG 2a REG 2b 3b
COND.1 IMPF.HAB IMPF.SUBJ* COND.2 PLPF*
N
IMPF
oeddwn byddwn bawn buaswn
N
North Welsh; *Classical, Literary Welsh
The basic literary forms are shown; the colloquial forms involve variants for affirmative, negative,
interrogative and responsive incorporating AFF yr, NEG nid and long-form extension yd-: Standard Colloquial ‘I
am’: AFF r(yd)w i; NEG d(yd)w i ddim; INT ydw i?; RES ydw; Northern Colloquial: AFF (mir)dw i; NEG (ty)dw i ddim; INT
(y)dw i?; RES yndw; Southern Colloquial: AFF w i; NEG w i ddim (also smo fi, sa i – of quite different origin); INT odw
i?; RES odw. Mastery of the numerous variations of the colloquial forms of bod ‘be’ is half the battle in achieving
fluent intercomprehension between North and South Welsh.
Breton, too, has an expanded range of TAM sets for ‘be’, shown in Table 3.

Table 3 – Breton TAM sets for beżañ/boud ‘be’ (1SG)

1a IRREG 1a IRREG 1a REG 2a REG 1b IRREG ST
PRES.SIT* PRES.HAB
L
PRES FUT PRET
=
emaonNW = vezinL
on veżanL = oenn
emonSW, C vinXL
1b IRREG ST 1b IRREG ST 1b REG 2b IRREG ST 2b REG 3b
POT.HST
IMPF.SIT IMPF.HAB POT.MOD IMPF.HAB
NW L XL
IMPF HYP
PRES.HAB
XL

=
vîenn
edonn = =
= = vehenn visenn
oann evedonn veżenn vénn = =
emedonn veffenn vijenn
=
vichenn
* In the whole of the East, only 3SG, PL: emañ, emaint (the historical situation); bold: main written form.
For the habitual sets, L 1a veżan, 1b veżenn are preferred to the more widely used 2b IRREG vénn, 3b vijenn, etc.
L
Leon; XL outside Leon; NW North-West only; SW, C South-West, Centre only.
In addition to the six TAM sets of the regular verb, there are 1a irregular ‘present situative’, 1a regular
‘present habitual’, 1b irregular stem ‘imperfect situative’, 1b regular ‘imperfect habitual’, 2b irregular stem
‘potential’ (historical form), also borrowed outside L for the ‘present habitual’; 2b regular ‘potential’
(dominant modern form created by analogy). Just as the historical 2b irregular set has been borrowed outside
L for the present habitual, 3b ‘hypothetical/secondary future’ has been borrowed outside L for the imperfect
habitual; indeed in G, that is now its only value. There is a popular misconception that the 2b irregular forms
borrowed outside L for the present habitual actually represent a contraction of the regular 1a forms following
the loss of ż outside L: veżan > ven (most orthographies write a single n). However, this cannot be so for two
reasons: (1) in vénn a strong /-nː/ is heard everywhere, whereas the -an of the regular present endings is
simply a nasal vowel /-ã, -õ/ in much of the country; and (2), the 2PL form is everywhere vec’h, which cannot
conceivably be derived from veżit. It seems, instead, that following the loss in pronunciation of ż outside L, the
presental habitual veż fell together with the old irregular imperfect subjunctive > potential ve, the whole of
which set was then borrowed in those areas for the present habitual. Similarly, the past habitual veżenn
/veːεn/ was identified with vi(h)enn, visenn, vijenn /viːεn, viːzεn, viːʒεn/, and in areas using vijenn, a new
distinction between vije [IMPF.HAB<HYP] ‘used to be’ and viche [HYP] ‘would be’; mije [IMPF.HAB<HYP] ‘I used to have’
and miche [HYP] ‘I would have’ is widely observed.
In addition to true habitual meaning:
Hewitt – Background information on Breton 9

(12) an amser a=veż braw alîes ’tro Gouel-Mikael

the weather AFF is.HABº fine often round Holiday-Michael
‘the weather is often fine round Michaelmas’
a distinction which may not be obligatory everywhere, 6 probably the most frequent use of the ‘present
habitual’ is in embedded clauses with future reference:
(13) ma≠veż braw an amser e≠h-äffomp da=Gemper
if is.HABº fine the weather AFF we.will.go to Kemper
‘if the weather is fine, we will go to Kemper (Quimper)’
Here again, there is a widespread impression that the forms used in this construction are the old irregular
subjunctive = modern potential vénn, etc. However, this can hardly be so, because in the 3SG, the ż is clearly
heard in L in all persons. Furthermore, Irish has an exact equivalent in:
(14) má=bhíonn an aimsir go breá, rachaimid go Gaillimh
if is.HABº the weather PDC fine, we.will.go to Galway
‘if the weather is fine, we will go to Galway’
Finally, since ‘have’ is historically derived from ‘be’, it, too, has separate habitual forms in the present
and imperfect: meus [I.have.PRES] ~ meż [I.have.PRES.HAB]; moa [I.had.IMPF] ~ mije [I.had.IMPF.HAB<HYP]. Details of
the functional articulation of beżañ/boud ‘be’ in the present and imperfect are found in Table 4.

Table 4 – Breton beżañ/boud ‘be’: functional articulation in the present and imperfect
SIT COP EXIST
S__PRES.AFF so AFF NEG SIT COP EXIST
PRES EMAÑ EO so (eusL) eus IMPF (EDO )
NW
OA
PRES.HAB = XL-NW = . = XL-NW =
VE ( VEŻ )
L
IMPF HAB VIJE ( VEŻEL)
lower-case: single form; bold: preferred literary form; Leon;
L XL NW
not Leon ~ North-West
SMALL CAPS : full paradigm – 1, 2, 3 SG/PL; impersonal form

So and eus are single, invariable forms; the other forms (in SMALL CAPS) have person/number-marking (EMAÑ has
3SG and 3PL forms only in the E – the historical situation; in the W and in Literary Breton, forms which arose by
anology exist for all persons). The imperfect situative forms EDO are current only in the NW (more typically as
EVEDO); they are common, but not obligatory, in Literary Breton. The distribution of EMAÑ and EO is subject to
syntactic rather than semantic criteria in Gwened, as is that of MAE and YW in Welsh, and functions according
to another, imperfectly understood system in the SC (see Hewitt 1988).
For glossing we will use the basic TAM-set descriptors: PRES, FUT, PRET, IMPF, POT, HYP, plus .HAB for the
present and imperfect habitual sets of ‘be’ and ‘have’, .SIT for the situational forms of ‘be’, .EXIST for the two
existential forms of ‘be’, and SUBJ for the old irregular imperfect subjunctive set of ‘be’ and ‘have’, which
remains in use with present subjunctive, but not conditional, force. Secondary TAM values will be indicated,
where applicable, as follows: FUT=SUBJ, POT=SUBJ, HYP=2FUT. On the other hand, in cases where, outside Leon, the
morphological sets SUBJ and HYP have been borrowed to express respectively the present and imperfect
habitual of ‘be’ and ‘have’, that will be glossed as PRES.HAB<SUBJ and IMPF.HAB<HYP.
Standing back to reflect on the relationship between the morphological matrix of the Middle and
Modern Breton TAM sets and the rough abstract semantics of their values, one might come up with something
like Table 5.

Table 5 – Breton TAM sets: abstract morphological and semantic matrix – 1PL forms
factual, general virtual, projected H > FF past S > J
1a 2a 3a
basic – lennomp lennHomp > lennFFomp lennSomp > lennJomp
1b 2b 3b
prior E lennEmp lennHEmp > lennFFEmp lennSEmp > lennJEmp

6
Cf. a recent discussion (‘la forme d’habitude’) on the Kervarker forum (www.kervarker.org) concerning the extent to which the habitual
TAM sets are used, or even known, in the extreme SW (Bro-Vigouden/Pays Bigouden); a participant in my Breton linguistics seminar at
the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Guillaume Floc’h, a native speaker from Plouhineg, just south of Gwaien (Audierne), informs me that
while the habitual distinction is rarely made, most people there are at least aware of the forms. In my own area of Central Treger, the
distinction is obligatory.
Hewitt – Background information on Breton 10

Abbreviations and symbols

º (doº) apersonal form: marking of tense, but not o≠ progressive infinitival particle (é≠ in
person/number Central Treger and other areas)
= soft mutation (lenition: voicing voiceless OBJ object
stops; spirantizing voiced stops) OB Old Breton (ca. 800-1200)
/
hard mutation (provection: devoicing OPT optative
obstruents) OW Old Welsh (ca. 800-1100)
≠ mixed mutation (spirantizing voiced P predicate, predicate syntagm: V.T /
stops, d>t, devoicing voiced fricatives) AUX.T PRED (PRED AUX.T)
º spirant mutation (spirantizing voiceless PDC predicative particle
stops (+voicing)) PERF perfect
? questionable PFV perfective
ADV adverb, adverbial PL plural
AFF affirmative, affirmative tense particle PLPF pluperfect
AUX auxiliary PN person and number
C Centre, central PO prepositional object (preposition plus
E east noun)
EXIST existential POT potential conditional
F feminine PP past participle
Fr. French PRED predicate (verb, adjective, noun)
FUT future PRES present
2FUT secondary future (future-in-past) PRET preterite
G Gwened (Vannes, SE) PSO predicate-subject-object (predicate-
HAB habitual initial order)
HST historical RA auxiliary-do
HYP hypothetical conditional (irrealis, REG regular
counterfactual) RES responsive
IMPF imperfect S subject
IMPV imperative S south
INF infinitive SB Standard Breton
IPFV imperfective SE south-east
IRREG irregular SG singular
K Kerne (Cornouaille, SW, C) SIT situative
L Leon (Léon, NW) SPO subject-predicate-object (subject-initial
M masculine order)
MB Middle Breton (ca. 1350-1660) ST stem
MOD modern SUBJ subjunctive
ModB Modern Breton (ca. 1660-present) SW south-west
MW Middle Welsh (ca. 1100-1450) T Treger (Trégor, NE)
N north T tense: V.T(.PN), AUX.T(.PN)
N nasal mutation d > n TAM tense-aspect-mood
NE north-east V verb
ne= negative tense particle (na= in Treger) W west
NEG negative, negative tense particle X any non-predicate initial element
NW north-west
O object
Hewitt – Background information on Breton 11

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