Language

1. P Celtic
2. Q Celtic
P Celtic languages are those languages where a P (or B) sound is used instead of the gaelic C - the welsh Pean (Head) being equivalent to the gaelic (Q Celtic) Ceann. The P celtic language has many offshoots, including Welsh, Breton, Manx and Cornish. Although Manx and Cornish in Britain are more or less "dead" languages - partly because of Education systems, Medieval English conquests and (in modern times) the adoption of BBC English, Welsh and Breton are still very much alive and as long as the populations of Wales and Brittany continue to protect them as living languages, hopefully they will continue to be used well into the next century.
Modern Scots and Irish gaelic descends linguistically from it's roots in the Q Celtic (Gaelic) speaking Celts of Europe. One current theory is that Gaelic survives from an earlier form of the Celtic language spoken during the Hallstatt period in Celtic culture, while P Celtic languages were of a form more in line with later developments in the Culture of the Celts i.e. the later La Tene period. An alternative theory, drawn from modern interpretations of the Irish invasion legends, is that the Gaelic speakers were from the Celtiberian tribes of Spain. As such these people would be a racial mixture of both Celts and Iberians and the resultant combination of languages is the origin of Irish and Scots Gaelic.
Although modern Celtic languages such as welsh and gaelic are descended from the ancient Celtic languages, we must remember that they have been subject to a great deal of influence and change during the previous 2000 years. The Roman occupation, English Expansion, Viking Settlers and Norman influences have all played their parts in altering the meaning and use of words, phrases and ultimately sentence construction. It is important to remember that in language development modern words derive from older applications, which may have been used to mean something quite entirely different. It is a very inexact practice to interpret ancient celtic words and phrases, and any modern explanation must be approached with caution and consideration of what was originally meant rather than what these may mean today.

Copyright 1998 David F. Dale