New research suggests that the Celtic language became a distinct language and was introduced to the British Isles much earlier than originally believed. Dr Peter Forster at the Molecular Genetics Laboratory and Dr Alfred Toth at the University of Zurich have used Celtic language inscriptions to reconstruct the history of the language and its position in the Indo-European family of languages.

Dr Forster used a model for tracking DNA to present the changes in the Celtic language as it spread and contracted across Europe. Dr Forster believes farmers carried the Celtic language into the British Isles, Ireland and France in a single wave 6,000 years ago, contrary to earlier beliefs.

The Celtic language group was once widespread in Europe, but today is only spoken in the British Isles, with the exception of a Celtic-speaking British colony in Brittany. In all other parts of western Europe, the Celtic language died out after the Roman conquest 2000 years ago. There are few written records of ancient Celtic language, making the linguistic and cultural relationships between the British Isles and the European mainland still unclear to linguists, historians, and archaeologists.

Dr Forster and Dr Toth compiled a bilingual list of words and grammatical features from 2000-year-old Gaulish/Latin inscriptions, and translated it into 12 further European languages. They have used the method to relate the various branches of the Celtic language to one another and to other Indo-European languages like English, French, Spanish, Latin and Greek.


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