Gaulish love poem

Translation of the love poem into Gaulish (French celtic, old continental Celtic, excluding Celtiberian with recognized dialect specificity), the language of the early bards. Its just an attempt to translate the poetry, with the ogham writing.

This is of course just a little distraction, the Gaulish, have just left a few traces of their language, since for religious reasons they did not write!

As a result, the research concerning this old continental Celtic, which for the researchers is a fragmentary language, advances only by very small steps, with the discoveries of new inscriptions and by their interpretation using the etymological analysis based on the Celtic islands languages that have come down to us.

The toponymy and the substrate of Romance languages also provide valuable informations. That's all the "fragmentary" and very reduced possibilities which allow some progress to discover what the Gaulish language was.

It seems today established that the Celtic languages spoken on the island of Brittany and on the continent are only variants, and as scant as the traces, concerning the Gaulish language which can be analyzed, these show as for Sanskrit, an archaic Indo-European language.

Vannetais is probably the closest language to continental Celtic and therefore to the Gaulish language.

Note these French words whose origin is Gaulish: bercer, briser, changer, craindre, glaner, valet, vassal, talus, chemin , dune, quai, bruyère, chêne, if, sapin, alouette, bouc, lotte, mouton, bec, orteil, chemin, crème, tonneau! cf Claude Hagège. On the map you will see the Gaulish language point to the village of Gergovie, near the plateau of the same name, which is became famous with Vercingetorix.

If they called themselves Celts, it is the Romans who called them Gaulish, a word which will end up designating the Celts living in Gaul.

The Celts settle in Gaul in -500. The conquest of Gaul by the Romans, which ends in -52, will be the beginning of the Romanization. The Gauls, composed of peoples of oral tradition, adopt the Roman way of life. Latin becomes the language of the elite.

In 212, the edict of Caracalla making Gauls Roman citizens, sign the death sentence of their language, which will disappear completely in the 5th century, with the arrival of the Franks.

Most of the inscriptions noted in ogham writing, were found in Great Britain, engraved on stone or wood. These are just brief funeral inscriptions with a magical character that should be for the use of druids.

We can understand this alphabet which must date from the 3rd century, because, in Wales, it has been found doubled with Latin letters.

The consonants are represented by notches more or less numerous and on one side or both of the edge of a stone ... it is therefore the number and the location of these notches which designates them. For the vowels, the notches are much smaller and on the edge of the stone.