The Structure of Breton 1 - definite and infinite articles

Breton is an insular Celtic language, most closely related to the other two languages in the Brythonic branch, Welsh and Cornish. It shares many common features with the other Celtic languages, and additionally has both vocabulary and grammatical features which have been added under influence of the French language.

The normal word order for Breton, as with other Celtic languages, is VSO, but there is considerable freedom in Breton about word order, especially with emphatic sentences - more later in a separate post.

Breton has two genders, masculine and feminine, number (singular and plural). It has definite articles in common with the other Celtic languages. Uniquely for a Celtic language it also has indefinite articles under influence of French.

Like Welsh the definite article depends not on gender, but on the initial sound of the following word.

Breton Articles

Following the preposition e "in" the direct articles combine with the preposition to give el, en, er "in the":

er gambr - "in the room"

el labouradeg "in the factory"

In common with all other Celtic languages, when a noun is followed by a complement - it is qualified by another noun which follows it - it does not use the article.

"The door of the house"