Introduction to the Celtic Languages

This text provides a single-volume single-author general introduction to the Celtic languages.The first half of the book considers the historical background of the language group as a whole. There follows a discussion of the two main sub-groups of Celtic Goidelic (comprising Irish Scottish Gaelic and Manx) and Brittonic (Welsh Cornish and Breton) together with a detailed survey of one representative from each group Irish and Welsh.The second half considers a range of linguistic features which are often regarded as characteristic of Celtic: spelling systems mutations verbal nouns and word order.