- published: 15 Jul 2009
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The Brythonic or Brittonic languages (Welsh: ieithoedd Brythonaidd/Prydeinig, Cornish: yethow brythonek/predennek, Breton: yezhoù predenek) form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family; the other is Goidelic. The name Brythonic was derived by Welsh Celticist John Rhys from the Welsh word Brython, meaning an indigenous Briton as opposed to an Anglo-Saxon or Gael. The name Brittonic derives ultimately from the name Prettanike, recorded by Greek authors for the British Isles. Some authors reserve the term Brittonic for the modified later Brythonic languages after about AD 600.
The Brythonic languages derive from the British language, spoken throughout Britain south of the Firth of Forth during the Iron Age and Roman period. North of the Forth, the Pictish language is considered to be related; it is possible it was a Brythonic language, but it may have been a sister language. In the 4th and 5th centuries emigrating Britons also took Brythonic speech to the continent, most significantly in Brittany. During the next few centuries the language began to split into several dialects, eventually evolving into Welsh, Cornish, Breton, and Cumbric. Welsh and Breton continue to be spoken as native languages, while a revival in Cornish has led to an increase in speakers of that language. Cumbric is extinct, having been replaced by Goidelic and English speech. The Isle of Man may also have had a Brythonic language that was replaced with a Goidelic one. By emigration there are also communities of Brythonic language speakers in England, France, and Y Wladfa, the Welsh settlement in Patagonia.
Into a new place, pulling myself back
Tasting smoke and blood and burning in my lungs
I'm lying on my left side, I don't know if I can move
But I can hear myself breathing, I can hear myself breathing
Then into a new place - this is where I die
And all the noise is gone and there is only calm
Deep beneath the city waiting for the fire
Any second now
But the fireball never comes and so we turn back to ourselves
I can hear us all breathing, I can hear us all breathing
In the pitch black tunnels with all the weight above
I can hear us all breathing, I can hear us all breathing
Then into a new place shouting men with torches and tools
Stumbling from the wreckage in a starlight of shattered glass
The wounded and the shell-shocked, the blackened and the burned
I can hear us all breathing, I can hear us all breathing
Climbing ever upwards like the rising of the dead
I can hear us all breathing, I can hear us all breathing
I can hear myself breathing, I can hear myself breathing