Restoring Britain’s first language and forgotten identity

Thomas Steres, Founder, Linguistic Legacies Initiative

As historical revelations about the British past emerge, the most compelling seems to be the heavily British nature of the population. In short, the Ancient Britons who were thought to be Anglo-Saxons across the island instead survived and merely adopted the language of the newcomers.

The British language, Brittonic, only survived in forms of dislocated dialects known as Cumbric, Welsh, Cornish and Breton (in Brittany, France). There is already acceptance of this fact in the form of our national ethos and reverence for Ancient Brittonic heroes like Boudica as ''British'' heroes.

The Brittonic Revival is here to take that vein of thought one step further by bringing a restoration of Brittonic, the old native language, to life once more.

We do this out of appreciation and reverence for the original civilisation of Britain, the original people for whom the name ''British'' was meant. We don't do this out of hatred for 'England', 'English' or what they constitute but out of love for 'British'. On this point, we must be very clear. With emerging distinctions in the perceptions that make up ''Britishness'', we hope to see a Brittonic identity and legacy as equally valid forms of what makes up Britishness. As members of the Brittonic Revival, we say that this is our sole intent: reviving the Brittonic language, along with its cultural implications, as a newfound form of what it means to be British.

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Legacy 

There is growing interest amongst modern Britons and the British diaspora in the Celtic peoples whom modern genetics have revealed as their primary forms of ancestry. We toast to this legacy by bringing back to life the original tongue of the Britons, thanks to the work of transatlantic collaborations between Celtic movements in both the US and the UK. We insist on this shared love for Celtic culture and language as well as the shared past between all Celtic nations. This is all the more meaningful with the rising trend amongst academia for ''Celto-scepticism'', a Celtophobic discourse that attempts to discredit the notion of there being any unified historical ''Celtic'' peoples.

Celtic is a modern term used to describe a group of peoples historically linked by culture, language and religion. It carries the same implications behind terms like Germanic, Nordic, Italic, Romance, Slavic, Turkic and others yet faces an opposition the others don't. Examine this fact first before you attempt to deny the existence of a people who have consistently faced marginalisation and persecution from ruling establishments.

We also recognise that Britons represent the first victims of English-speaking colonialism and Brittonic was the first victim of its linguistic homicide/genocide. We have carefully studied what remnants exist of the Old Language in the form of place-names, personal names, inscriptions and other forms. Using comparative insight from Gaulish, Gallo-Brittonic and Old Welsh/Breton, we have reconstructed Brettica, Brittonic, in the form as it was spoken in South and Southeastern England, from Kent to Devon, a region often neglected in appreciation for Celtic links. This dialect forms the main basis of the now spoken language. Thanks to passionate and inspired linguistic studies, new information on other dialects like Northern, South-Western and Midlands emerge constantly.

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Brictionary

Our website, LearnBrittonic.wordpress.com, represents the first resource of its kind. Excellent work has already begun to create widespread and accessible learning sources and we are partnered with 7000Languages and the Endangered Languages Project to revive the language and make it accessible to all.

Some of this work has already brought great results into the world, including the inmates of the Linguistic Legacies Initiative in Arizona who are focusing on Brittonic as one of the program's major languages. They have successfully created audio tracks for learning the language and compiled the 'Brictionary', the language's first dictionary.

What other possibilities does Brittonic hold for the future? As a cultural relic, we feel that it is unifying for one possible brightness. To the wider public we ask, ''What does the Brittonic past mean for you?'' To ourselves and those interested in joining this movement, we look towards the future for inspiration of what the language can be today.

By connecting with Indigenous and African movements as well as Celtic, we are reaching out to worlds that rarely get connected with and doing so on equal footing. Through our work with 7000 Languages, for example, we are connected with Indigenous movements in the Americas such as the Taino Revival in Puerto Rico and the Nahuatl Revival in Mexico. Several of these find themselves in similar positions as ours, such as the Taino tribes who face the false myth of Taino extinction and their having to wholly reconstruct a language that left little remnants. This parallels the perception of the Britons here in the UK, often seen as an extinct race particularly within England. This international solidarity brings us international awareness to just how much damage that colonialism has done across the world.

The Brittonic Revival is here to stay and will be proudly open to any and all who wish to join in! Brittonic heritage or ancestry is not a requirement nor is an ability to speak Brittonic or another Celtic language. The only requirement is a belief that the Britons had something good to contribute to world history and still do. The belief that our British story is more complicated and beautiful than establishment narratives would have us think. A belief in the power of the past shaping a brighter future for all, a more inclusive Britain that includes all of its parts on equal footing instead of an England-centric and London-centric worldview.

This last belief is important because it is echoed in our official 'Oath to Brettica' that members take. Our oath ends with the line, ''In Bretannia is life and in life is unity and in unity, Bretannia is Victorious!'' We believe this wholeheartedly, that our grassroots movement for a Brittonic Revival, respects the bottom-up perspective of British history that has for too long been hidden from us. The history of the Britons is the story of survival and freedom.

Thomas Steres works from within the US prison system as the founder and coordinator of the Linguistic Legacies Initiative (LLI) — an inmate-founded, volunteer-guided educational program devoted to the study and revival of endangered and ancestral languages, including Britain’s own lost mother tongue.