Like all modern Celtic languages

Celtic languages

The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...

, Breton

Breton language

Breton is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany , France. Breton is a Brythonic language, descended from the Celtic British language brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages. Like the other Brythonic languages, Welsh and Cornish, it is classified as...

 is characterised by initial consonant mutations

Consonant mutation

Consonant mutation is when a consonant in a word changes according to its morphological and/or syntactic environment.Mutation phenomena occur in languages around the world. A prototypical example of consonant mutation is the initial consonant mutation of all modern Celtic languages...

, which are changes to the initial sound of a word caused by certain syntactic

Syntax

In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....

 or morphological

Morphology (linguistics)

In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...

 environments. In addition Breton, like French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, has a number of purely phonological

Phonology

Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...

 sandhi

Sandhi

Sandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries . Examples include the fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of sounds due to neighboring sounds or due to the grammatical function of adjacent words...

 features caused when certain sounds come into contact with others.

The mutations are divided into four main groups, according to the changes they cause: soft mutation (Breton kemmadurioù dre vlotaat), hard mutation (kemmadurioù dre galetaat), spirant mutation (kemmadurioù c'hwezhadenniñ) and mixed mutation (kemmadurioù mesket). There are also a number of defective (or incomplete) mutations which affect only certain words or certain letters.

Summary of Sound Changes

The main mutations cause the following changes:

Unmutated	Soft	Spirant	Hard	Mixed
p	b	f
t	d	z
k	g	c'h
b	v		p	v
d	z		t	t
g	c'h		k	c'h
gw	w		kw	w
m	v			v

Functions of Mutations

The role which initial mutations play in Breton grammar can be divided into three categories (which are not mutually exclusive):

• Linking (or Contact) Mutations – these occur systematically after certain words called mutators, of which there are around 100 in Breton.

tad "father" → da dad "your father"

mamm "mother" → div vamm "two mothers"

• Gender-Distinctive Mutations – these occur after the articles and in postposed adjectives to mark gender and number.

paotr "boy" (m.): ur paotr brav "a nice boy", but ar baotred vrav "the nice boys"

bro "country" (f.): ar vro vihan "the small country" but ar broioù bihan "the small countries"

tad and mamm: an tad kozh "the grandfather" and ar vamm gozh "the grandmother"

• Mutations of Recognition – these mark the distinction between homophones (e.g. e "his" & he "her") and are useful in the comprehension of the spoken language.

e vreur "his brother" but he breur "her brother"

o zi "their house" but ho ti " your house"

Soft Mutation

The soft mutation is by far the most frequent mutation in Breton, both in terms of the number of consonants it affects and the number of environments in which it occurs.

Effects

1. A voiceless
   Voiceless
   In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of...
   
    stop
   Stop consonant
   In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
   
    becomes voiced (p /p/ → b /b/, t /t/ → d /d/, k /k/ → g /ɡ/)
2. A voiced stop becomes a fricative
   Fricative consonant
   Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...
   
    (b /b/ → v /v/, d /d/ → z /z/, g /ɡ/ → c'h /x/)
3. Nasal
   Nasal consonant
   A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
   
    m /m/ becomes fricative v /v/
4. The consonant cluster gw /ɡw/ becomes w /w/

• Note that words beginning with gou- may follow either g or gw (eg. gouelañ → o ouelañ but gouarn → o c'houarn)

After Definite and Indefinite Articles

The definite article ar/an and the indefinite ur/un cause the soft mutation of:

• Most feminine singular nouns:

ur vamm "a mother"

• Masculine plural nouns denoting people: '

ar C'hallaoued "the Frenchmen"

Nouns beginning with d- and a few others do not mutate after the articles.

After Proclitics

The following grammatical words cause mutations to a following word:

• The prepositons da, dre, a, war, dindan, eme, en ur:

da Gernev "to Cornouaille"

• The interrogative pronoun pe "what":

pe zen? "what man?"

• The possessive pronoun
  Possessive pronoun
  A possessive pronoun is a part of speech that substitutes for a noun phrase that begins with a possessive determiner . For example, in the sentence These glasses are mine, not yours, the words mine and yours are possessive pronouns and stand for my glasses and your glasses, respectively...
  
  s da "your", e "his":

da benn "your head"

e aad "his father"

• The verbal particles a, ne, na, ez, ra, en em:

tud a welan "I see people"

na ganit ket "do not sing"

ra zeuio buan en-dro "may he return quickly"

• The numerals daou "two (masculine)", div "two (feminine)":

div blac'h "two girls"

• The conjunctions
  Grammatical conjunction
  In grammar, a conjunction is a part of speech that connects two words, sentences, phrases or clauses together. A discourse connective is a conjunction joining sentences. This definition may overlap with that of other parts of speech, so what constitutes a "conjunction" must be defined for each...
  
   pa "if, when", pe "or, tra "while"

kozh e oa pa varvas "he was old when he died"

den pe zen "one person or another"

• The adverb
  Adverb
  An adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
  
   re "too":

re vihan "too small"

• The pronoun
  Pronoun
  In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
  
  s holl "all", re "those, ones", hini :

an holl diez "all the houses"

After Adjectives & Nouns

The soft mutation occurs in:

• Adjectives following feminine singular nouns:

kador gaer "beautiful chair"

• Adjectives following masculine plural nouns referring to people:

breudeur vat "good brothers"

• Nouns following adjectives:

e berr gomzoù "in few words"

These mutations are limited. When the first word ends in a vowel or -l, -r, -m, -n it causes the soft mutation wherever possible, but when the first word ends in any other consonant only the consonants g-, gw-, m-, b- change in the following words.

Effects

The Spirant Mutation transform three unvoiced plosive consonants into fricatives: p /p/ → f /f/, t /t/ → z /z/ and k /k/ → c'h /x/.

Environments

The mutation occurs following:

• The possessive pronouns he "her", o "their, ma/va "my" and (in the Trégorrois Dialect
  Trégorrois Breton dialect
  Trégorrois Breton is the dialect of Breton spoken in Trégor .-Distinguishing characteristics:Trégorrois differs from other varieties of the language in a number of ways:...
  
  ) hon "our":

he zad "her father"

o faotr "their son"

ma c'hi "my dog"

• The numerals tri "three (masc.)", teir "three (fem.)", pevar "four (masc.)", peder "four (fem.)", nav "nine":

tri zi "three houses"

nav fesk "nine fish"

In the spoken language the spirant mutation is usually replaced with the soft mutation after numerals.

Defective Mutations

• The mutation of t and k occurs following the infixed pronoun 'm "me" (am, em with verbal particles), da'm "to my" and em "in my":

em zi "in my house"

• Mutation of k occurs following hor "our":

hor c'harr "our car"

• The word Pask "Easter" becomes Fask following the days Sul "Sunday" and Lun "Monday.

Effects

The hard mutation causes voiced stops to be devoiced: b /b/ → p /p/, d /d/ → t /t/, g /g/ → k /k/.

Environments

The mutation is caused by:

• Possessive pronoun ho "your (plural)":

ho preur "your brother"

• Infixed pronoun 'z "you (singular)" (az, ez with verbal particles), da'z "to your (sg.)", ez "in your (sg.)":

ez taouarn "in your hands"

da'z pag "to your boat"

va breur az kwelas "my brother saw you"

Effects

The mixed mutation causes:

1. The soft mutation of b /b/ → v /v/, g /ɡ/ → c'h /x/, gw /ɡw/ → w /w/, m /m/ → v /v/
2. Hard mutation of d /d/ → t /t/

Environments

The mixed mutation occurs after:

• The verbal particles e and o

emaon o vont da vrest "I am going to Brest"

krediñ a ran e teuio "I believe that he will come"

• The conjunction ma "if"

laouen e vefen ma teufe "I would be happy if he came"

Mutations and External Sandhi

All of the consonant mutations described above began as simple phonological processes in the British language

British language

The British language was an ancient Celtic language spoken in Britain.British language may also refer to:* Any of the Languages of the United Kingdom.*The Welsh language or the Brythonic languages more generally* British English...

 from which Breton arose and became standardised as grammatical processes as the language developed. Similar phonological processes continued to affect Breton and cause changes to word-initial sounds, but they are usually applied based on the phonology of the preceding word and not on its function. Because of this, they cannot be described as true initial mutations and are more properly aspects of external sandhi.

Nasalisation

The true nasal mutation which occurs in Welsh

Welsh language

Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

 never occurred in Breton and Cornish

Cornish language

Cornish is a Brythonic Celtic language and a recognised minority language of the United Kingdom. Along with Welsh and Breton, it is directly descended from the ancient British language spoken throughout much of Britain before the English language came to dominate...

, where it was replaced by the Spirant Mutation (compare Welsh fy nghi "my dog" with Breton ma c'hi). But there was assimilation of the voiced plosives, particularly b, d to a preceding nasal and this was often written in Middle Breton.

Today it is only written with an nor "the door" but can still be heard dialectally in other words, e.g. an den /an nẽːn "one" (lit. "the person") & bennak(et) "some" /mˈnak(ət)/.

Spirantisation

Today, a number of nouns beginning with k change to c'h following the articles ar "the" and ur "a":

ar c'hastell "the castle"

ur c'hazeg "a horse"

Although this is the same process seen in the Spirant Mutation (e.g. following hor "our"), it is really an external sandhi which has become fixed in writing.

"Interchangeable" Consonants

Breton has a series of 'interchangeable' consonants, composed of plosives and fricatives. When these sounds occur word-finally, they may be pronounced voiceless or voiced depending on the word that follows:

• The sounds are voiceless when the word is followed by a voiceless sound or a pause.
• The sounds are voiced when the following word begins with a voiced consonant or a vowel.

The table below shows the 'interchangeable' consonants:

Voiceless	Voiced	Orthography
/p/	/b/	p / b
/t/	/d/	t / d
/k/	/ɡ/	k / g
/f/	/v/	f / v
/ʃ/	/ʒ/	ch / j
/x/	/ɣ/	c'h
/s/	/z/	s(h) / z(h)

These changes are never written but occur regularly, regardless of how the final consonant is spelled:

beleg mat "good priest" /bɛːlɛɡ mɑːt/ vs. beleg kozh /bɛːlɛk koːs/

dek den "ten people" /deːɡ dẽːn/ vs. dek tad /deːk tɑːt/

Exceptions

• When two equivalent or identical consonants come together (e.g. p/b or z/z), both consonants become voiceless:

dek gwele "ten beds" /deːk kweːle/

bloaz 'zo "a year ago" /blwas so/

• Some words ending in s/z or ch/j resist voicing.

More information on this phenomenon can be found in the thesis of François Falc'hun

François Falc'hun

François Falc'hun was a controversial French linguist known for his theories about the origin of the Breton language. He was also an ordained Canon in the Catholic clergy.Falc'hun was professor at the Universities of Rennes and Brest...

: "Le système consonantique du Breton".

Orthography of Mutations

In Old and Middle Breton, it was extremely rare to write the consonant mutations. Around the 17th century, the Jesuits started to learn Breton and introduced the writing of mutations.

Sometimes, the mutated letter is written before the radical letter in the style of the Gaelic languages, to make recognition easier. This is largely confined to proper nouns (e.g. Itron vMaria "the virgin Maria" is pronounced /ˈitˌrõn ˈvarˌja/.

Some processes which are properly part of external sandhi have become crystalised in the written language, whilst others havent.