Breton, or Brezhoneg, is the only Celtic language still spoken on the European mainland.

Breton, or Brezhoneg, is the only Celtic language still spoken on the European mainland. It was brought to Brittany in the 5th and 6th centuries by Britons fleeing the Anglo-Saxon invasions, making it a close cousin of Cornish and Welsh rather than Irish or Scottish Gaelic. As recently as 1914, around a million people in western Brittany spoke it — roughly 90% of the population there — and half of those couldn’t speak French at all. But the French state spent over a century trying to stamp it out, banning it from schools, punishing children for speaking it, and one education official in 1845 openly declaring the goal was to “kill the Breton language.” By 2024 only around 107,000 speakers remained, most over 60, and the language loses an estimated 10,000 speakers a year as the older generation dies. Immersion schools called Diwan, founded in 1977, are now producing a new generation of young speakers, but France still hasn’t signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages — making Breton the only Celtic language without any official legal protection.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​