The
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 ...
, and presumably its many dialects and closely allied sister languages, left a few hundred words in
French and many more in nearby Romance languages, i.e.
Franco-Provençal
Franco-Provençal (also Francoprovençal, Patois or Arpitan) is a Gallo-Romance languages, Gallo-Romance language that originated and is spoken in eastern France, western Switzerland, and northwestern Italy.
Franco-Provençal has several di ...
(Eastern France and Western Switzerland),
Occitan (Southern France),
Catalan,
Romansch,
Gallo-Italic (Northern Italy), and many of the regional languages of northern France and Belgium collectively known as ''
langues d'oïl
The ''langues d'oïl'' are a dialect continuum that includes standard French and its closest relatives historically spoken in the northern half of France, southern Belgium, and the Channel Islands. They belong to the larger category of Gallo- ...
'' (e.g.
Walloon,
Norman,
Gallo,
Picard, Bourguignon, and
Poitevin).
What follows is a non-exhaustive list of inherited French words, past and present, along with words in neighboring or related languages, all borrowed from the Gaulish language (or more precisely from a
substrate of Gaulish).
Modern French
A-B
C-G
I-Z
Old French
Regional and neighboring languages
See also
*
History of French
*
List of Spanish words of Celtic origin
*
List of Galician words of Celtic origin
*
List of French words of Germanic origin
Bibliography
*
Delamarre, Xavier. ''Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise: Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental'', 2nd edn. Paris: Errance, 2003 (1st edn. 2001).
* Deshayes, Albert. ''Dictionnaire étymologique du breton''. Douarnenez, France: Le Chasse-Marée, 2003.
*
Dottin, Georges. ''La langue gauloise: Grammaire, textes et glossaire'', preface de
François Falc'hun. Paris: C. Klincksieck, 1920 (reprint Geneva, 1985).
*
Lambert, Pierre-Yves. ''La Langue gauloise''. Paris: Errance, 1994.
*
Savignac, Jean-Paul. ''Dictionnaire français-gaulois''. Paris: La Différence, 2004.
*
von Wartburg, Walther. ''
Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch''. 25 vols. Bonn: Klopp; Heidelberg: Carl Winter; Leipzig–Berlin: Teubner; Basel: R. G. Zbinden, 1922–67.
References
{{Celts
Gaulish
Gaulish is an extinct Celtic languages, 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, ...
French
French Gaulish
Language comparison