Old Breton

Breton
brezhoneg
Bilingual sign Huelgoat, Brittany
Pronunciation	[bʁeˈzõːnɛk], [brəhõˈnek]
Native to	France
Region	Brittany (including Loire-Atlantique)
Ethnicity	Bretons
Native speakers	210,000 in Brittany (2007) 16,000 in Île-de-France (Number includes students in bilingual education)
Language family	Indo-European Celtic Insular Celtic Brittonic Southwestern Breton
Dialects	Gwenedeg Kerneveg Leoneg Tregerieg
Writing system	Latin script
Official status
Recognised minority language in	No official status due to French law
Regulated by	Ofis Publik ar Brezhoneg
Language codes
ISO 639-1	br
ISO 639-2
ISO 639-3	Variously: bre – Modern Breton xbm – Middle Breton obt – Old Breton
Linguist list	xbm Middle Breton
	obt Old Breton
Glottolog	bret1244
Linguasphere	50-ABB-b (varieties: 50-ABB-ba to -be)
Regional distribution of Breton speakers (2004)
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50-ABB-b (varieties:

Breton /ˈbrɛtən/ (brezhoneg IPA: [bʁeˈzõːnɛk] or IPA: [brəhõˈnek] in Morbihan) is a Southwestern Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Brittany.

Breton was brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages; it is thus an Insular Celtic language, and as such not closely related to the Continental Celtic Gaulish language which had been spoken in pre-Roman Gaul. Breton is most closely related to Cornish, both being Southwestern Brittonic languages. Welsh and the extinct Cumbric are the more distantly related Brittonic languages.

The other regional language of Brittany, Gallo, is a langue d'oïl. Gallo is consequently close to French, although not mutually intelligible, and a Romance language descended from Latin (unlike the similarly-named ancient Celtic language Gaulish).