Introduction

Sulubī! Welcome to my Gaulish website. I have compiled together a reference of vocabulary, grammar, declensions, conjugations, and miscellaneous other information for learning Gaulish. I seek to consolidate what is known of this wonderful language into an organized resource that makes every piece of information easy to find.

Learning a whole language is a major task. One way to develop familiarity with a new language is to translate things into it: prose, poems, song lyrics, or even your thoughts. Initially, this means jumping around a dictionary and a grammar, looking for all the necessary parts until such time as one memorizes the basics (or at least memorizes where to find the information!) and hopefully becomes fluent.

To facilitate this process, I have condensed a version of the reconstructed Gaulish language, from different sources, into this reference, so that all the information can be readily accessible in one place in a tabbed web page format. Additionally, I am verifying elements of the grammar and vocabulary to better reflect 1.) the attested inscriptions, as I view these to be the most important indicator of the form and style of the actual language, and 2.) the most up-to-date reconstructions of the ancestor of Gaulish, Proto-Celtic.

This reference then will inevitably diverge in some ways from the reconstructions of other enthusiasts of Gaulish, as there will be features and words that others include that I reject and vice versa. Reconstructing a language means constructing a language, therefore the truest modern approximation of Gaulish will inevitably be tantamount to a conlang full of educated guesses about unattested material. The scarcity of attested Gaulish means it is important to acknowledge how impressive it is that there are any preexisting reconstructions at all, and to recognize the work that many have done to bring this wonderful language back to life. As always, I welcome feedback on any matter where I may have erred.

uissuianta [αt] umop (đóτ) net.

The Gaulish Language

Gaulish was spoken in ancient times in western Europe, particularly in what is now France. It's a Celtic language, and is therefore related to languages such as Irish and Welsh. But the modern Celtic languages have changed much over the millennia, and Gaulish looks and sounds a lot more like other ancient European languages such as Latin, Ancient Greek, and Gothic. It is a Continental Celtic language, along with Celtiberian as well as a few poorly attested languages such as Lepontic and Noric that are sometimes considered dialects of Gaulish. This is in contrast to Insular Celtic which includes all modern Celtic languages, other than revival efforts.

Gaulish is classified as a P-Celtic language, like Welsh and Old Brittonic, meaning the ancestral */k^w/ sound changed to /p/ in words like prennon (tree), from earlier *k^wresno-. Indeed, Tacitus noted that the languages of the Gauls and the Brittons of his time "differ little", and many modern scholars have hypothesized a Gallo-Brythonic grouping. But this is unlikely, given that the insular Celtic languages share several grammatical features utterly absent from Gaulish, including consonant mutation, fusion of prepositions with pronouns, and VSO as the neutral word order.

Gaul was not a single unified nation, consisting instead of numerous small kingdoms or micro-nations not unlike the Insular Celtic social structure that probably also gave rise to the Irish and Scottish clans. The Gauls' lack of national identity meant there was never a standard dialect of Gaulish, so reconstructions sometimes show multiple variants of words, likely corresponding to the speech of villages distant from one another. Some present day scholars would have you believe that Gaul was a monolithic enemy of Rome for a long time, with Rome eventually conquering and wiping out the Gauls, but that is just not true. In reality Rome administered Gaul, teaching Roman customs and the Latin language to Gauls, producing a hybrid Gallo-Roman culture. Studies support the common assertion that, far from being wiped out, the Gauls form a large portion of the ancestors of modern day peoples from formerly Gallic lands.

And while Romans and Celts did fight many battles, Gaul's lack of unity and warrior-focused culture resulted in frequent infighting between neighboring Gaulish groups, and oftentimes one side of a skirmish would ask the Romans for help. Rome soon grew tired of getting dragged into petty squabbles, and since Julius Caesar believed he could settle some of his own monetary debts if Rome annexed Gaul, that's what he effected. The Gaulish chief Uercingetorīxs of the Aruernī united much of Gaul and put up a valiant opposition to Caesar, but even this partial unification came too late and Rome's expertly trained armies and greater resources ultimately won. The Gaulish language unfortunately did become extinct as a result of annexation, declining slowly over hundreds of years, as its former speakers gradually switched to speaking Latin instead. But the fact of Gaulish speakers learning Latin resulted in a unique dialect, with a distinctly Gallic flavor, which would go on to become the Gallo-Romance languages including French.

Gaulish is not particularly well attested, reaching us mostly by way of inscriptions, and efforts to decode these have historically been full of uncertainty. But reconstructions of Gaulish have been accomplished, using other Celtic languages for reference. There are some very nice Gaulish lessons on the Gaulish Polytheism website, with links to a grammar and a lexicon. It is impressive that linguists have been able to make these reconstructions, and the result is a version of Gaulish that can be revived and spoken once more.

Conventions

There are a few variable conventions regarding the orthography of Gaulish.

For the usages of the letter x, I have opted to write xs where it is pronounced /xs/, as in dexsiuos and rīxs. Most authors leave off the S, e.g. dexiuos, rīx, however this website keeps the S.

Some original inscriptions seem to use a long I, commonly transcribed by modern researchers as as í, to represent two different sounds: consonantal-I next to a vowel-I, and long vowel I, for example uediíū-mí. Some modern revival sites opt for a letter J (uediju-mi) to represent the consonantal I, while even the ancients didn't always distinguish between forms of the letter I (uediiu-mi). I have opted to use í here to represent consonantal I next to vowel I, but only as a matter of preference, and admittedly there are still sections that lack acute accents where they would go. Some writers also use W or V for consonantal U, and even K in place of C, which makes for a more robust and unambiguous orthography but isn't as true to the classical inscriptions.

Finally, when writing vowel length, some authors prefer circumflex accents, e.g. mâros, while others prefer to use a macron, e.g. māros. I will be using a macron throughout this site, but again only as a matter of preference.

Sources

My sources for the information on this site include:

• Gaulish Language Lessons - Gaulish Paganism;
• Iextis Galation, a grammar;
• Yextis Keltica, an informative book about the language and culture of the Gauls, including grammar and known inscriptions;
• Uoxtlosernis Galatis, a lexicon with many entries, but perhaps with some bias toward the Gallo-Brythonic hypothesis, and mostly lacking info about attestations or etymology;
• Ueposlougos Nouiogalaticos, apparently an updated but greatly reduced version of the previous lexicon, including etymologies for all entries and even some useful neologisms;
• Lexilogos Dictionnaire gaulois, a collection of informative links (in French) about Gaulish;
• Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic, containing information about attested Gaulish words and stems and their etymologies from PrC;
• List of Gaulish inscriptions (in French);
• Words attested in Gaulish from French Wiktionary;
• French words of Gaulish origin;
• The Gaulish Verbal System;
• The Subjunctive in Celtic, including much information about Gaulish.

Font

The Gaulish font on this website is my own creation, Gaulish.ttf, licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0. It is based on the handwritten style of Gaulish writings, which itself derives from the Roman alphabet. I also have another version of the font that's closer to the way the ancients wrote, but maybe less easily readable to modern eyes, Galaties.ttf, as well as a monospace version, all under the same CC-BY-SA license.

"Modern Gaulish"

I no longer maintain a lexicon of Galáthach hAthevíu, as I have opted to focus on the natural language of attested inscriptions rather than alternate history conlangs. Admittedly, even reconstructing "real" Gaulish involves so much guesswork that the line between that and conlanging is a blurry one, so if all you want is something connected to Gaul that sounds beautiful and is easy to learn, Galáthach is a great choice. But it is not the focus of this page. All information about Galáthach can be found on its official website.

Nouns: O-declension Animate

Example: etnos, bird.

O-stem animate nouns ending in -ios share the same endings, e.g. anaganntios (fourth month of the year), anaganntie, anaganntion, anaganntii, anaganntiū, etc.

Nouns: O-Declension Neuter

Example: prennon, tree.

O-stem neuter nouns ending in -ion share the same endings, e.g. cridion (heart), cridíī, cridiū, etc.

Nouns: A-Declension

Examples: abonā, river; blēdnī, year.

The irregular noun benā, woman, has the following declension:

Nouns: I-Stem Animate

Example: elantis, deer.

Nouns: I-Stem Neuter

Example: boudi, victory.

Nouns: U-Declension Animate

Example: britus, thought.

Nouns: U-Declension Neuter

Example: locu, lake.

A few U-declension nouns have diphthong roots which cause irregular declension, for example:

Nouns: Dental-Stem Animate

Example: caranđ, friend.

A few of these nouns have irregular nominatives, such as noxs, night, gen. noxtos, and moritexs, sailor, gen. moritextos.

Only one neuter dental-stem noun is known:

Declension of dant, tooth.

For purposes of inclusivity, I propose using the dental declension as a gender neutral alternative to the -os/-ā endings. An example might be to say mou caranđ eđđi andecāređ instead of andecāros or andecārā. This can also apply if the works of a certain bardeđ appeal to you, rather than a bardos or bardā: sondieđ eđđi bardeđ meliđđeđ. lubiíū-mī cantlūs sondietos bardetos instead of sondios/ā bardos/ā and sondī/iās bardī/iās.

Nouns: Velar Declension

Example: rīxs, king.

Nouns: Nasal Declension - Animate

Example: cū, dog.

Nouns: Nasal Declension - Neuter

Example: anuan, name.

*The genitive singular -ēs ending descents from the Proto-Celtic *anmens, genitive of *anman.

Nouns: R Declension

Examples: mātīr, mother; suiūr, sister.

R-stem nouns vary in how much the root reduces in the oblique cases. Noting the genitive form from the lexicon will help to know how to decline the remaining cases.

Nouns: S-Declension Neuters

Example: nemos, sky.

Combining Forms of Nouns

When nouns are combined, such as in personal names, the combining stem's suffix depends on the noun's declension:

Examples:

• uindos + bitus -> uindobitus, happiness.
• lucrā + candos -> lucrocandos, moonlight.
• aidu + legos -> aidulegos, hearth.
• TODO:

Adjectives: O/A Declension

Example: māros, great.

Adjectives: I-Declension

Example: letis, wider.

(Irregular comparative of litanos.)

Adjectives: U-Declension

Example: elus, much, many.

Adjectives: Consonant Declension

Example: trūxs, doomed.

Emphatic, Comparative, and Superlative

The degrees of comparison for regular adjectives are the comparative and superlative, along with an emphatic degree that is cognate to an equative prefix in Insular Celtic.

There is no evidence for an equative in Gaulish. For the meaning of the equative, use dūcī +acc., e.g. cauaros eđđi māros dūcī moniíon "the giant is as big as a mountain."

The comparative degree in -iūs has been assigned a unique declension of its own (see Iextis Galation), however per Wiktionary, "No gender/number/case inflection of comparative adjectives is attested in Celtic." Therefore, it seems that the -iūs suffix is indeclinable in Gaulish.

The emphatic prefix com- can become con- or co- before certain sounds for ease of pronunciation. Before l it becomes cob- as in cobletos < com- + *letos, cobrūnos < com- + rūnos.

Some adjectives have irregular gradations:

Declension rules:

1. All of the irregular degrees ending in -os are declined as normal O/A adjectives;
2. Degrees ending in -is are declined as normal I-adjectives.
3. All comparatives in -ūs are indeclinable.

The emphatic can be used to mean "such" or "so" in the sense of "very".

mīeđi cobleton tegos.
I have such a wide house.

cauaros eđđi comantis.
The giant is so big.

Comparatives are used with the instrumental of the entity being compared. By itself, a comparative means "quite".

tou mapos eđđi iouiūs mapū īmon.
Your son is younger than my son.

tīeđi iouiūs mapos.
You have quite a young son.

Superlatives take inter +instrumental plural of the class or group within which the entity is the most of something. Here, too, the superlative on its own without a class or group means "very", cf. usages such as "a painting most exquisite" or "a most curious mystery" in English.

ei-tū cū dagisamos inter ollobi cunobi in magū!
You are the best dog in the park!

ei-tū cū dagisamos!
You are a very good dog!

Pronouns

First and Second Person

Mon and ton, when following the noun they qualify, become īmon and īton.

The reflexives of 1st and 2nd pronouns are formed by:

• Adding suesin (indecl.) after it: me suesin "myself", tou suesin "your own", amē suesin "to ourselves", etc.
• Adding suedesin (indecl.): me suedesin, etc. This has a contrastive meaning, e.g. "myself as opposed to anyone else".

The pronoun oinānos, -ā, -on, declined as an O/A adjective, has the emphatic meaning as in "I myself [did the thing]."

Third Person

The reflexive 3rd pronoun is made by prefixing sue-: sueíin himself, suesian herself, etc. The sue- can also be prefixed to a possessed noun, e.g. sue-tegos her/his (own) house.

The emphatic pronoun oinānos can also be used in the third person.

The oblique forms of ceilios (mate, companion) fill in for the meaning of "each other", e.g. appissomos-nīs ceiliūs "we see each other." Cognates of this usage occur in Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Welsh.

Pronouns

Proximal Demonstratives

Proximal demonstratives (i.e. this, these) occur both as the indeclinable so and as a system with its own pronominal declension that can be reconstructed as:

Emphatic Demonstratives

A system of emphatic demonstratives (e.g. this one!, that one!) exists based on prefixing so onto the proximal demonstrative:

Medial Demonstratives

Medial demonstratives (e.g. "that, those") have a stem sondio- that declines like a normal O/A adjective:

Confusingly, the neuters sometimes swap the sounds around so that sondion becomes sindon, etc.

Distal Demonstratives

Distal demonstratives ("that over there", "yon", "that yonder") also decline like O/A adjectives, based on the stem sindo-:

In compounds, be careful not to confuse sindos with sin- meaning "this", as in sindīū "today", sinbāregū "this morning", sinnoxti "tonight".

Miscellaneous Demonstratives

• -cios "this here" (proximate), e.g.:
  ibete-suīs uciū andecārī biíete
  "to drink of this you (pl.) will be merry."
• ixsos, -ā, -on "such"; stem *isto-, loc. sg. *istei
• sios, siā, sin "this here", emphatic, e.g. mī-siā, me-here
• somos, -ā, -on, "this very, the same"

Verbs: Pronominal Enclitics

The pronominal enclitics have the function of adding emphasis to the subject and/or object of the verb. If the verb is moved to the beginning of its sentence for emphasis, then some type of pronoun enclitic is mandatory. Oftentimes, a meaningless enclitic -i or -id is used in this case. This does not have the same meaning as the neuter -i(d), but is more like the Ancient Greek δε ("and"). Alternatively, the verb may be preceded by it(a), meaning roughly "thus". Both it(a) and -i(d) are optional unless the verb is at the beginning of the sentence. Compare:

• Cletus gabiet arganton, the thief takes the silver.
• Cletus gabiet-īs arganton, the thief himself takes the silver.
• Gabiet-īs cletus arganton, the thief, he takes the silver.
• Gabiet-i cletus arganton, and the thief takes the silver.
• Ita gabiet cletus arganton, thus takes the thief (subj.) the silver (obj.).

Verbs: AI

Example: bināt, bibe, bītos; beiassus, -ous, to punish.

Verbs: AII

Example: cambīt, cambīsset, cambītos; cambītus, –ous, to exchange.

Verbs: BI

This is the largest class of Gaulish verbs, the plain-ending consonant-stem verbs, and there is a lot of variety in the stems as well as in the preterites. This page provides a large selection of verbs, not to pile a huge memorization task onto the reader, but to illustrate this variability, and the ways the consonants combine with the future and subjunctive endings, such as c+s = xs, p+s = xs, t+s = đđ, etc.

As with all of the other conjugations, while the first person singular passive ending is usually reconstructed as -ūr, based on known sound changes that happened in Proto-Celtic, in Gaulish this ending is consistently attested as -or, indicating that the vowel had changed from u to o by the time of known inscriptions. Therefore, I reconstruct -ōr as the 1st sg. passive ending, noting that the sounds of ō and ū were probably very close together.

Example: beret, bert, britos; bertā, -iās, to bear.

Example: brennet, bebronne, brentos; brennos, -ī, to burn.

Example: depret, dedopre, depretos; depron, -ī, to eat.

Example: ibet, ixset, ixtos; oclon, -ī, to drink.

Example: orget, orxt, orxtos; orgenā, -iās, to kill.

Example: ratet, rerate, rassos; rasson, -ī, to promise.

Example: appiset, adpepise, appissos; pissū, -onos, to see.

Verbs: BII

These are verbs whose stems end with with a consonantal -i.

Example: uediíet, uāde, uessios; uediā, -iās, to entreat.

Notice the double-I in the stem, causing the forms with the stem uedi-.

Example: sagiet, sioxt, saxtos; sagitis, -ēs, to seek.

Verbs: BIII

These verbs end in a nasal (m or n) followed by a stop (b, g, t, etc.). Historically, they were formed by infixing a nasal before the end of the root, e.g. *la-m-b- from root *lab-, with the nasal disappearing in tenses other than the present and imperfect. In the Celtic languages, this nasal infix came to be kept in some or all of the tenses, so you have to know each verb's preterite in order to know whether it keeps the infix in all forms.

Example: tanget, tage, taxtos; tagon, –i, to agree.

Example: gandet, gegande, gāssos; gandon, –i, to permit.

Verbs: BIV

Example: prinat, pipre, pritos; priton, -i, to buy.

Verbs: BV

Example: clinutor, clutos; cloustā, -iās, to hear.

Preterites

Unlike most IE languages, Gaulish preterites fall into several paradigms independent of the verb's main conjugation class. It is usually easy to tell from the ending of the cited 3rd sg. preterite in the lexicon which paradigm it belongs to. The preterites for the active voice are given below, using the examples of attested verbs where either at least one preterite form is known, or the preterite can be reconstructed from the Proto-Celtic root.

Passive preterites don't have their own endings; for such meanings, use the corresponding number and gender of the past participle (O/A declension) with the corresponding present indicative or present subjunctive form of eđđi, e.g. appissā immi I was seen; auuessā buont were they (already) made.

Suffixless Preterites

S-Preterites

T-Preterites

The attested form sioxti is at the beginning of a clause, and consists of sioxt plus the meaningless enclitic -i, since an enclitic is normally required in verb first constructs.

U-Preterites

A number of attestations show a 3rd sg. preterite ending in -ū, plural -ūs. This is consistent with a set of reconstructed Proto-Celtic verbal preterite endings, perhaps originally deriving from an instrumental pronominal suffix. If, hypothetically, a suffixless preterite such as *īeure were suffixed as *īeure-os > *īeuros, its instrumental would be īeurū, which is exactly what we see in the dedication at Alise-Sainte-Reine:

MARTIALIS DANNOTALI IEVRV VCVETE SOSIN CELICNON ETIC GOBEDBI DUGIIONTIIO VCVETIN IN ALESIA

...which we can interpret as "Martialis [son] of Dannotalos offered-by-him to Ucuetis this banquet hall and along with the blacksmiths who worship Ucuetis in Alisia." This verb is also attested in the first person singular as īueri and third plural as īuerūs.

The -ū(s) ending is also attested for e.g. carnitū (erected) and dedū (gave), however since the preterite dede is also attested, -ū cannot be the normal 3rd sg. preterite ending of this verb.

Perfect Tense

The perfect is formed by prefixing ro- to the present or preterite. The future perfect is formed by prefixing ro- to the present subjunctive.

• auuedet = s/he makes
• auuōt = s/he made
• ro-auuedet = s/he has made
• ro-auuōt = s/he has made
• auueđđet = were s/he to make
• ro-auueđđet = s/he will have made

Participles and Nominalizers

Nominal forms of verbs can be formed directly from the dictionary form. The -os suffix has an active meaning, and the -ios suffix an inactive meaning.

All of the participles and nominal forms take -os, -ā, -on endings that decline like O/A adjectives.

• desset = s/he prepares
• desset-os = preparer, one who prepares
• desset-ios = prepared, that which is prepared

The -os suffix is also attested as -is in the case of accusative arueriíātin, meaning "one who gives satisfaction". This ending could make sense of the plural form eurisēs (offerers) if it is the plural of *eurisis, a suffixed form derived from the same verb as īeurū (see the preterites section for more on this verb).

The present participle suffix is -aunos. It can be added to the present or future stem of the verb, and the prefix ro- can be used to make a past tense.

• dessaunos = preparing; one who is preparing
• dessiaunos = about to prepare; going to prepare
• ro-dessaunos = one who has prepared

Each verb is listed in the lexicon with a past participle. This forms the basis of passive participles with imperfective, perfective, or future meanings.

• dessos = (having been) prepared
• dessios = being prepared

Some verbs have a past participle in the dictionary that is the same as the active nominalizer, e.g. damāt "to endure", past pple damātos "endured". When this happens, the active nominal form **damāt-os (**"endurer") is not used, and what would have been its meaning is covered by the present participle, e.g. ro-damaunos.

Verbs: Necessity

There is not much material attested to show how Gaulish forms statements of necessity, and extant Celtic languages have divergent ways of expressing this. However, both Goidelic and Brythonic have constructs that could be translated as "it is on [one] to...", specifically Ir. bí ar corresponding to Gaul. *butā uer and W. gorfod corresponding to Gaul. *uer-butā. So there's a good chance that Gaulish too has a construct meaning "it is on [pronoun] to..." involving uer, eđđi, and a verbal noun. This is directly equivalent to English "it's on me to..." meaning "I am responsible for doing this", and it is comparable to English "have to" and Spanish "tener que" in the sense that the action is said to be on or with the one who ought to do it.

The most parsimonious reconstruction for this style of phrasing would be eđđi me/te/eíī/eiū + vn., for example:

• eđđi uer me prīton deprī = "I have to get groceries," lit. "it is on me the buying of food."
• eđđi uer te auuedenā tou saituron = "you have to do your job," lit. "it is on you the doing of your job."
• eđđi uer eiū aduiđđus rīs uercantlū = "he has to study," lit. "it is on him the studying for education."
• ni eđđi uer eíī glanosagitis eiās-suesin = "she doesn't have to explain herself," lit. "it is not on her the clarification of herself."
• eđđi uer anse anextlon bitous = "we have to protect the planet," lit. "it is on us the protection of the world."
• eđđi uer ume arecouednis tenion caitobo = "you (pl.) have to prevent forest fires," lit. "it is on you (pl.) the hindrance of fires of/with forests."
• eiāto uer eiobi lauon eion-suesin in abonī = "they had to wash themselves in the river," lit. "it was on them the washing of themselves in river."

Some authors reconstruct a suffix of necessity *-(t)eios/ā/on and call it a "gerundive", but that's not what the word gerundive means, and there don't seem to be any examples of this kind of construct in attested Gaulish nor extant Celtic. The Châteaubleau inscription has a word ueíonna that has been interpreted as "to be married", perhaps uei- "marry" + onnā, assumed to be the "gerundive" of eđđi, but this is one inscription with an uncertain interpretation, and ueíonna itself is directly followed by incorobouido which hasn't been definitively resolved as either in coro[n] bouido[n] "in a contract backed by cattle" or in corobo uiro "in the presence of guarantors" or any of a number of other interpretations, so, absent any extant Celtic equivalents, neither **-(t)eios/ā/on nor -nnos/ā/on can be confidently reconstructed as a basic grammatical feature.

Other authors assert the adjective rincitusos, or some variation thereof, as a direct equivalent of English need, then go on to use a verbal form of rinci- as a blanket default way to express all types of necessity. However, this is an incongruous imposition of a very Germanic phrasing onto a language where it doesn't belong, and it's also problematic even in English for other reasons.

Verbs: Irregular

tēget, ludet, itos; tixtā, -iās, to go.

Verbs: Irregular

gniiet, auuōt, auuessos; auuedenā, -iās, to do, make.