is french a celtic language?

Question

and are the french people celts ?

Answer 1

No. French is a Romance language. Breton, however, is a Celtic language spoken in France.

Answer 2

Brennus' answer is quite complete about the language. About the people, though, is a bit light. There weren't many Roman colonists and most stayed in the warmer south, the different tribes of the Gauls were romanised but stayed in place.
There were invasions from the eastern Franks, who became the rulers, but they mixed with the locals rather than displace them.
Then you had the Vikings settling in Normandy. The Huns (from east) were chased back and did not count. Ditto with the Arabs from Spain.

After that of course you had all the later invasions and the visits abroad from the French armies, not counting the addition of new lands to the French kingdom. So the French were basically Celts a long time ago but since then things have changed. As said above you can find the last remnant of celtic civilisation in Brittany.

Answer 3

No, but their land did once have Celtic inhabitants and their language still has traces of the old Celtic system of counting. Celts count in units of twenty, which is why when they get to sixty and eighty the French continue to count up to the next unit of twenty (soixante-dix, quatre-vingt-dix, etc.) However, in Brittany, which has been part of France since 1532, the people are Celts and speak a Celtic language called Breton, which is very close to Cornish and Welsh. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittany

Answer 4

Celtic was an Indo-European language. Latin is an Indo-European language.. French comes from Latin.
People from Britanny are Celts.

Answer 5

No. The French language is of the Romance family. Other romance languages include Spanish, Italian, Catalan, Romanian, Portuguese and Occitan (the latter is spoken also in France). You may be thinking of Breton, which IS a celtic language and is spoken in France.

Answer 6

French is a descendant of the Latin of the Roman Empire, as are languages such as Spanish, Italian, Catalan, Romanian, and Portuguese. Its development was also influenced by the native Celtic languages of Roman Gaul and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders.

Answer 7

This is one of these topics you could actually write a whole book on.

However, in short, French is basically a Romance (Latin)language but appears to have a fairly strong Celtic substratum inherited from the Gauls who were living in France, Belgium and Switzerland before the Roman and Germanic invasions.

This substratum is not found very much in Italian, Sardinian or Spanish. In these countries Greek or Carthaginian seem to have been the main substratic influences.

Just a few examples of Celtic influence in French are the French verb "brisser" (to break), a cognate with Irish Gaelic brisim (to break), pronounced "brishim." The Latin words for "to break" were frangere and rompere. The French word for badger, "blaireau" comes from a Gallo-Roman *blarellus related to the Scottish Gaelic word blair, meaning "gray." "Ruche" (bee hive) is cognate with Breton ruskenn (bee hive) and Irish Gaelic rusc "bark."

French is not the only western European language with Celtic substratic influences. They also appear to exist in Romantsch (spoken in Switzerland), Portuguese and even Dutch, A Germanic language. The ancient Lusitanians of Portugal were also Celtic and so were the Morini of modern day Holland whose name meant "seafarers" cf. Welsh; Breton "mor" (sea).

The most Celtic people in France today are probably the Bretons (called "Armoricans" in Roman and early Medieval times). They were the farthest from the Germanic frontier and appear to have been only feebly Romanized. They still speak a Celtic-based language to this day.

Gallic was spoken in one French province, Auvergne, until the 7th century A.D. Auvergne was also the home of Gallic hero Vercingetorix in Julius Caesar's time. Breton could also be a Gallic descendent. There is no real historical evidence that it was brought over from Britain.

The ancestry of the modern French people probably consists of a lot of Frankish (Germanic) and Roman colonist . Nevertheless, there are still pockets of Celtic people living in various parts of France, Switzerland and even Northern Italy and Pyraneean Spain too. Many of them still strongly resemble their Welsh and Scotch-Irish cousins in physical appearance, but they no longer speak Celtic.

Some of the strongest Celtic influences in modern day France are in place names. Over half, including Paris and Lyon are of Celtic origin.

Answer 8

French is Indo-European or Romance.
Some French people (Bretons) are celts.

Answer 9

No and yes...kinda Rome killed off many but not all the celts. Replaced their language, culture and peoples with their own. Tribes of celtic peoples swept in after the romans left, then germans, then huns, then more groups.
The celts are mixed in there somewhere.

Answer 10

no frnch comes from latin....its a romance language...