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Breton (''Brezhoneg'' )〔Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh〕 is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany (Breton: ''Breizh''; (フランス語:Bretagne)), France. Breton is a Brittonic language brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages; it is thus an Insular Celtic language and not closely related to the Gaulish language, which had been spoken in pre-Roman Gaul. Breton is most closely related to Cornish, both being Southwestern Brittonic languages. Welsh and the extinct Cumbric are the more distantly-related Brittonic languages. The other regional language of Brittany, Gallo, is a langue d'oïl. It is a Romance language, thus ultimately descended from Latin, (unlike the similarly-named ancient Celtic language Gaulish) and consequently very close to French, although not mutually intelligible. Having declined from more than 1 million speakers around 1950 to about 200,000 in the first decade of the 21st century, Breton is classified as "severely endangered" by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. However, the number of children attending bilingual classes has risen 33 percent between 2006 and 2012 to 14,709.〔〔 (Données clés sur breton, Ofis ar Brezhoneg )〕 ==History and status== Breton is spoken in Lower Brittany, roughly to the west of a line linking Plouha (west of Saint Brieuc) and La Roche-Bernard (east of Vannes). It comes from a Brittonic language community (see image) that once extended from Great Britain to Armorica (present-day Brittany) and had even established a toehold in Galicia (in present-day Spain). Old Breton is attested from the 9th century. It was the language of the upper classes until the 12th century, after which it became the language of commoners in West Brittany (''Breizh Izel'': "Lower Brittany"). The nobility, followed by the bourgeoisie, adopted French. The written language of the Duchy of Brittany was Latin, switching to French in the 15th century. There exists a limited tradition of Breton literature. Some Old Breton vocabulary remains in the present day as philosophical and scientific terms in Modern Breton. The French monarchy was not concerned with the minority languages of France spoken by the lower classes, and required the use of French for government business as part of its policy of national unity. During the French Revolution, the government introduced policies favouring French over the regional languages, which it pejoratively referred to as ''patois''. The revolutionaries assumed that reactionary and monarchist forces preferred regional languages to try to keep the peasant masses under-informed. In 1794, Bertrand Barère submitted his "report on the ''patois''" to the Committee of Public Safety in which he said that "federalism and superstition speak Breton".〔 Since the 19th century, under the Third, Fourth and Fifth Republics, the government has attempted to stamp out minority languages in state schools, including Breton, in an effort to build a national culture. Teachers humiliated students for using their regional languages, and such practices prevailed until the late 1960s.〔(ICBL information about Breton ) at breizh.net〕 In the early 21st century, due to the political centralization of France, the influence of the media, and the increasing mobility of people, only about 200,000 people can speak Breton. This has dramatically declined from more than a million in 1950. The majority of today's speakers are more than 60 years old, and Breton is now classified as an endangered language.〔 At the beginning of the 20th century, half of the population of Lower Brittany knew only Breton; the other half were bilingual. By 1950, there were only 100,000 monolingual Bretons, and a rapid decline has occurred, with likely no monolingual speakers left today. A statistical survey in 1997 found around 300,000 speakers in ''Breizh izel'', of whom about 190,000 were aged 60 or older. Few 15-to 19-year-olds spoke Breton.〔Fañch Broudic, ''Qui parle breton aujourd'hui? Qui le parlera demain?'' Brest: Brud Nevez, 1999〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Breton language」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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