Dialectes et moyen-breton

Abstract

We have always said and affirmed that Breton is, in the middle of the twentieth century, a medieval language because of its two fundamental features, tangible in all everyday situations: 1. dialectal fragmentation, the basic linguistic unit of Breton being the parish; 2. the consequent difficulty of any written fixation according to standards acceptable to the various users insofar as these users are still sincere Breton speakers. This formally contradicts the accepted linguistic theories, which took shape in the nineteenth century, namely that 'dialectalisation' was a recent phenomenon, to be placed between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. Their conclusion amounts to making the decline of Breton a major consequence of the annexation of Brittany to France in 1532.

Keywords

• dialectology
• history
• Breton (language)
• Middle Breton
• dialectalisation