Great Britain Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Language=== {{Further|Languages of England|Languages of Scotland|Languages of Wales}} {{See also|Languages of the United Kingdom}} In the Late Bronze Age, Britain was part of a culture called the [[Atlantic Bronze Age]], held together by maritime trading, which also included Ireland, France, Spain and Portugal. In contrast to the generally accepted view<ref name=Eska2013>{{cite journal|last1=Eska|first1=Joseph F.|title=Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2013.12.35|url=http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2013/2013-12-35.html|journal=Bryn Mawr Classical Review|access-date=2 September 2014|date=December 2013}}</ref> that [[Celtic languages|Celtic]] originated in the context of the [[Hallstatt culture]], since 2009, [[John T. Koch]] and others have proposed that the origins of the Celtic languages are to be sought in Bronze Age Western Europe, especially the Iberian Peninsula.<ref>[http://www.aber.ac.uk/aberonline/en/archive/2008/05/au7608/ Aberystwyth University - News]. Aber.ac.uk. Retrieved on 17 July 2013.</ref><ref name=Koch>{{cite web| url= http://www.wales.ac.uk/Resources/Documents/Research/ODonnell.pdf| work =O'Donnell Lecture | year = 2008 | title = Appendix | access-date = 15 August 2011}}</ref><ref name= Koch2009>{{Cite journal| last = Koch | first = John | title = Tartessian: Celtic from the Southwest at the Dawn of History in Acta Palaeohispanica X Palaeohispanica 9 | journal = Palaeohispánica: Revista Sobre Lenguas y Culturas de la Hispania Antigua | publisher = Palaeohispanica | year = 2009 | pages = 339–51 | url = http://ifc.dpz.es/recursos/publicaciones/29/54/26koch.pdf | issn = 1578-5386 | access-date = 17 May 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=2146413465|title=New research suggests Welsh Celtic roots lie in Spain and Portugal|last=Koch|first=John|access-date=10 May 2010}}</ref> Koch et al.'s proposal has failed to find wide acceptance among experts on the Celtic languages.<ref name=Eska2013/> All the modern Brythonic languages (Breton, Cornish, Welsh) are generally considered to derive from a common ancestral language termed ''Brittonic'', ''British'', ''Common Brythonic'', ''Old Brythonic'' or ''Proto-Brythonic'', which is thought to have developed from [[Proto-Celtic]] or early [[Insular Celtic]] by the 6th century AD.<ref>{{cite book| title=An Atlas for Celtic Studies| first=John T.| last=Koch| publisher=Oxbow Books| location=Oxford| year=2007| isbn=978-1-84217-309-1}}</ref> Brythonic languages were probably spoken before the Roman invasion at least in the majority of Great Britain south of the rivers [[River Forth|Forth]] and [[River Clyde|Clyde]], though the [[Isle of Man]] later had a Goidelic language, [[Manx language|Manx]]. Northern Scotland mainly spoke [[Pritennic]], which became [[Pictish]], which may have been a Brythonic language. During the period of the Roman occupation of [[Southern Britain]] (AD 43 to {{Circa|410}}), Common Brythonic borrowed a large stock of [[Latin]] words. Approximately 800 of these Latin loan-words have survived in the three modern Brythonic languages. ''Romano-British'' is the name for the Latinised form of the language used by Roman authors. [[British English]] is spoken in the present day across the island, and developed from the [[Old English]] brought to the island by [[Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain|Anglo-Saxon settlers]] from the mid 5th century. Some 1.5 million people speak [[Scots language|Scots]]—which was indigenous language of Scotland and has become closer to English over centuries.<ref name=SCOTSCENSUS>Scotland's Census 2011 – Language, All people aged 3 and over. Out of the 60,815,385 residents of the UK over the age of three, 1,541,693 (2.5%) can speak Scots.</ref><ref name="English Language 1992. p.894">[[A.J. Aitken]] in ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'', Oxford University Press 1992. p.894</ref> An estimated 700,000 people speak [[Welsh language|Welsh]],<ref name=WelshStatOverview>[https://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20120330040554/http://www.byig-wlb.org.uk/English/publications/Publications/A%20statistical%20overview%20of%20the%20Welsh%20languagef2.pdf Bwrdd yr Iaith Gymraeg, A statistical overview of the Welsh language], by Hywel M Jones, page 115, 13.5.1.6, England. Published February 2012. Retrieved 28 March 2016.</ref> an official language in [[Wales]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.legislation.gov.uk/mwa/2011/1/section/1/enacted |publisher=[[The National Archives (United Kingdom)|The National Archives]] |work=[[legislation.gov.uk]] |title=Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 |access-date=30 May 2016 }}</ref> In parts of north west Scotland, [[Scottish Gaelic]] remains widely spoken. There are various regional dialects of English, and numerous languages spoken by some immigrant populations. Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page