I think it is very important to keep the Celtic language alive by teaching it in Schools around the Country.?

Question

What do you think and how do you feel ?
Its our heritage and who we are that counts.
Perhaps that is the problem today we have all lost our way in this world.
We have lost touch with our past.

Answer 1

Very much agree with you on this.

In order to understand the very long history and pre-history of Britain, a basic understanding of any one of the Celtic languages or a mix of them all, goes a long way to making that understanding much clearer.

Celtic place names abound across Britain, yet somehow folk do not seem to know this.

Where I am right now, in Kent, at the gateway to London, we have the Celtic place names. Kent [Cant] is named after the Celtic tribe 'Cantiacii' , also Canterbury.

London is from a Celtic source, possibly - Llyn Dyn or some such. The River Thames still bears it's Celtic name from Themesis = 'bright water'.

Meanwhile down in the land of Arther - the Cornish Language is going through something of a big revival. Lots of people now learning and speaking it.

Welsh is now having a revival in the USA would you believe. It's also a language which many English are now having a look at - realising as they do that it's actually much older than English and is on a par in terms of it being an official UK language.

Go to any UK.gov website and you get a choice, English or Welsh.

There is an English fee paying school near me and not only do they offer the choice of English or Welsh on their website, you actually get Welsh and English on their answer-fone when they're out.

We don't speak Latin any more in UK, yet we have languages who's history is much older than Latin.

Welsh, Cornish, Gaelic [Eire] and Gaelic [Scotia]

Spread the word.

Answer 2

As someone else mentioned there is more than one Celyic language. In the Brythonic group you have Welsh, Breton(france) and Cornish, In the Gaelic group you have Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic and Manx.
I believe celtic languages should be preserved, they are some of the oldest recorded languages in western europe. Welsh is widely spoken (even a community in Argntina), very few thousand can speak Cornish, although there are always sporadic attempts to revive it. Breton is surviving well in Brittany, France
The gaelic branch is in more trouble, very few scots speak it, and then mainly in the highlands and some f the northern isles. English is completely dominant as a language in Ireland also. Again only a few speak manx.

Answer 3

Hate to say this, but the real Celtic Language died out almost 1000 years ago when the Celts where over run by a number of stronger races. In the British Isles, there is traces of some form of Celtic languages in Cornwall, Southern Ireland, The Western Isles of Scotland, The Orkneys and to some extent on the Isle of Man. However each of these is no where near what you could call Celtic. If you don't believe Me, look at some of the Celtic texts from the 6th - 9th Centuries and try to read them outloud and understand them.

Answer 4

Ok, where do you cross the line? Do you want all languages of the world taught at the schools? If not then why are the other languages not worthy? What topics are you willing to get rid of to make room for teaching celtic? You can only teach so many subjects. It would make sense to teach the kids subjects that they could probably use in real life.

Answer 5

To Afallon, don't get cocky about the Poles getting polish language services in England when Plaid Cymru is trying to do the same in Wales. Perhaps they should change their name as they seem to be going down the same road as the SNP (not that those amadans ever gave a rats about gaelic).

As for the question, any community which is overwhelmingly of one heritage should have the chance to learn the language of their ancestors. It should not be forced on those who are not of that heritage though.

Answer 6

Which Celtic language? There are many of them - Irish in Ireland, Scots Gaelic in Scotland, Welsh in Wales, Bretonne in Brittany. The only one that's extinct is Cornish in Cornwall.

There is a danger that people idealise the past, it wasn't a good place to be.

Answer 7

I agree because it is our heritage coming from such a small island but the way things are going the only language they wont be teaching will be english as most of the schools will be teaching polish, lithuanian, russian, chech and any other eastern block language instead of the native tongue of most of the inhabitants of this island

Answer 8

Allthough the number of passive speakers (those who understand it a bit) has risen charply, especially in Ireland; the number of active speakers (those who use it daily) is declining steadily. If it comes to that, the scottish islands have the best chances of preserving the languages...they're the most remote.

Answer 9

by teaching it in schools will just manage to keep it alive. i was taught it for 3 years and i consider it a waste of time as i didn't learn that much, but i would like to be bi-lingual and use it as a second language but not if it means i'm the only one.

Answer 10

There is no such thing as THE Celtic language.There are many, including Welsh, Scots Gaelic and Irish Gaelic. It is important to keep them, Welsh has made a great recovery since the English tried to stifle it in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and where I live 80%+ of people speak it. Subjects are taught in school through the medium of Welsh and we have our own Welsh language TV and radio channels. Irish is slowly making a similar recovery and I believe Scots Gaelic is starting as well.
How Robert P can call himself Scottish I don't know, he is a wannabe Englishman.
Richard C is a prat, every country should have roadsigns in their language.just because more people speak Chinese than English does that mean that we should not have English signs in England?
The criminal waste of money is having them in English in Wales.If you go to France you learn to read French road signs before you go (oh, sorry ,I forgot, we are talking about English people here, who don't bother learning any more than 'hello' and 'Thank you' in a foreign language[if you're lucky]), visitors to Wales should learn the Welsh signs.We Welsh speakers...(a darn sight more than 380,000...where did he get that number from?) had to campaign long and hard (years), some even going to prison for doing so for the right to have roadsigns in OUR OWN language in OUR OWN country.
It took the Poles a few weeks to get Polish signs put up in England.....

Biddles the wannabe Englishman is talking through his (bowler) hat. If he hates the Welsh language that much why doesn't he move over Offa's dyke, he will find it full of English people (and Indian, and Chinese, and Polish, and Kurds..etc)
The sooner the better I say.
Twll dy dîn di Pharo!