The Lezoux plate is a ceramic plate discovered in 1970 at

Lezoux Lezoux (; ) is a commune in the Puy-de-Dôme department in Auvergne in central France. It was a key location in the filming of the 2004 film Les Choristes (The Chorus). Population See also *Communes of the Puy-de-Dôme department The fol ...

(

Puy-de-Dôme Puy-de-Dôme (; or ''lo Puèi Domat'') is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in the centre of France. In 2021, it had a population of 662,285.Gaulish language Gaulish is an extinct Celtic language spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language of the Celts of Gaul (now France, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Switzerl ...

(in a Gallo-Latin cursive script) which has yet been found. Since it is fragmentary, only parts of the text can be read, and only a fragment of that can be reliably translated. From those bits, it seems to be a list of aphorisms directed toward a young man. ::''mesamobi molatus certiognu sue-ticon'' ::“praise (''molatus'' = Old Irish ''molad'' “praise”) by the worst (''mesam-bi'' with a dative plural ending, the root related to Old Irish ''messam'' "worse") (is) self-damaging to the righteous” ::''nu, gnate, ne dama gussou'' ::“now, my boy, do not yield to violence” (?) ::''batoron ueia sue-breto'' ::“one should go one’s way by one’s own judgement”. The last form, ''-breto'' is likely related to Old Irish ''bráth'' "judgement" but the vowel is unexpected.Matasovic, R. ''Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic'' Leiden: Brill. 2009. p. 76

Bibliography

Xavier Delamarre Xavier Delamarre (; born 5 June 1954) is a French linguist, lexicographer, and former diplomat. He is regarded as one of the world's foremost authorities on the Gaulish language. With linguist Romain Garnier, Delamarre is the co-publishing edi ...

, ''Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise'', Ed. Errance, Paris, 2003 *

Pierre-Yves Lambert Pierre-Yves Lambert (born 30 May 1949) is a French linguist and scholar of Celtic studies. He is a researcher at the CNRS and a lecturer at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Celtic linguistics and philology. Lambert is the director of the j ...

, ''La langue gauloise'', Ed. Errance, Paris, 2003 * Pierre-Yves Lambert, '' Recueil des inscriptions gauloises (R.I.G.).: Textes gallo-latins sur Instrumentum Éditions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique'', 2002 - 1650 pages
l'Arbre Celtique

References

{{Portal bar, History, languages, France Gaulish inscriptions French pottery