hellog〜英語史ブログ / 2023-11-09

■ #5309. ケルト語派の記述 --- Baugh and Cable の英語史より [voicy][heldio][helwa][celtic][bchel][hel_education][notice]

　Baugh and Cable の英語史の古典的名著 A History of the English Language （第6版）を原書で精読する Voicy 「英語の語源が身につくラジオ」 (heldio) でのシリーズ企画を始めて4ヶ月弱となります（cf. 「#5291. heldio の「英語史の古典的名著 Baugh and Cable を読む」シリーズが順調に進んでいます」 ([2023-10-22-1])）．

　目下，第24節 Celtic 「ケルト語派」に入ろうというところです．本日の夕方早めの時間から，和田忍先生（駿河台大学）とともに，この節を超精読する対談精読実況生中継を heldio より配信する予定です．グラスを片手にリラックスした雰囲気のなか，詳細な英文解釈に加え，英語史研究者の立場からケルト語派について縦横無尽にコメントしつつ議論していく予定です．開始時刻は厳密には決められませんが，おそらく16:30くらいからになりそうです．こちらの heldio チャンネルをフォローいただきますと，予定通知や開始通知を受け取ることができるようになりますので，ぜひフォローのほどよろしくお願いいたします（目下，約5,160名のリスナーの皆さんにフォローいただいています）．
　今夕の配信に合わせ，3段落からなる1ページほどの同節を以下に引用します．

   24. Celtic. The Celtic languages at one time formed one of the most extensive groups in the Indo-European family. At the beginning of the Christian era, the Celts were found in Gaul and Spain, in Great Britain, in western Germany, and northern Italy---indeed, they covered the greater part of Western Europe. A few centuries earlier, their triumphal progress had extended even into Greece and Asia Minor. The steady retreat of Celtic before advancing Italic and Germanic tongues is one of the surprising phenomena of history. Today, Celtic languages are found only in the far corners of France and the British Isles; in the areas in which they were once dominant, they have left but little trace of their presence.
   The language of the Celts in Gaul who were conquered by Caesar is known as Gallic. Because it was early replaced by Latin, we know next to nothing about it. A few inscriptions, some proper names (cf. Orgetorix), one fragmentary text, and a small number of words preserved in modern French are all that survive. With respect to the Celtic languages in Britain, we are better off, although the many contradictory theories of Celticists make it impossible to say with any confidence how the Celts came to England. The older view, which is now questioned, holds that the first to come were Goidelic or Gaelic Celts. Some of these may have been driven to Ireland by the later invaders and from there may have spread into Scotland and the Isle of Man. Their language is represented in modern times by Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. The later Brythonic Celts, after occupying for some centuries what is now England, were in turn driven westward by Germanic invaders in the fifth century. Some of the fugitives crossed over into Brittany. The modern representatives of the Brythonic division are Welsh, Cornish, and Breton.
   The remnants of this one-time extensive group of languages are everywhere losing ground at the present day. Spoken by minorities in France and the British Isles, these languages are faced with the competition of two languages of wider communication, and some seem destined not to survive this competition. Cornish became extinct in the eighteenth century, and Manx, once spoken by all the native inhabitants of the Isle of Man, has died out since World War II. In Scotland, Gaelic is found only in the Highlands. It is spoken by about 50,000 people, all of whom know English as well. Welsh is still spoken by about one-quarter of the people, but the spread of English among them is indicated by the fact that the number of those who speak only Welsh had dropped from 30 percent in 1891 to 2 percent in 1950 and continues to slowly decrease. Irish is spoken by about 500,000 people, most of whom are bilingual. Whether nationalist sentiment will succeed in arresting the declining trend that has been observable here as in the other Celtic territory remains to be seen. If language-planning efforts fail, it seems inevitable that eventually another branch of the Indo-European family of languages will disappear.

　今朝の heldio の配信回「#892. Celtic --- ケルティックかセルティックか？」でもケルト関連の話題を扱っていますので，ぜひそちらもお聴きいただき，今夕の生放送のために準備していただければ．

　・ Baugh, Albert C. and Thomas Cable. A History of the English Language. 6th ed. London: Routledge, 2013.

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