page_title: Languages of the Roman Empire
section_title: Celtic
hierarchical_section_title: Languages of the Roman Empire / Regional languages / Celtic
caption_attribution_description: Español: Tesera de Hospitalidad celtíbera, encontrada en Uxama (Osma, Soria, España). Depositada en el Museo Numantino de Soria. Français&#160;: Tessère d'hospitalité celtibère, trouvée à Uxama Argaela (Osma, Soria, Espagne) et conservée au Museo Numantino de Soria.
context_page_description: Latin and Greek were the official languages of the Roman Empire, but other languages were important regionally. Latin was the original language of the Romans and remained the language of imperial administration, legislation, and the military throughout the classical period. In the West, it became the lingua franca and came to be used for even local administration of the cities including the law courts. After all freeborn inhabitants of the Empire were universally enfranchised in 212 AD, a great number of Roman citizens would have lacked Latin, though they were expected to acquire at least a token knowledge, and Latin remained a marker of "Romanness".
  Koine Greek had become a shared language around the eastern Mediterranean and diplomatic communications in the East, even beyond the borders of the Empire. The international use of Greek was one condition that enabled the spread of Christianity, as indicated for example by the choice of Greek as the language of the New Testament in the Bible and its use for the ecumenical councils of the Christian Roman Empire rather than Latin.
context_section_description: Celtic languages at the beginning of the Imperial period include Gaulish, spoken in Gaul (Gallia, present-day France, Belgium, Switzerland and northern Italy); Celtiberian, in parts of Hispania (Spain and Portugal); Brittonic in Britannia (Roman Britain), and Galatian, a branch of Celtic brought to Anatolia by the Gallic invasions of the 3rd century BC. The place name Galatia, a Roman province, derives from the Greek word for "Gauls" or "Celts", Galatai. Loanwords from Gaulish are recorded in Latin as early as the time of Ennius (ca. 239–169 BC), due to the presence of Celtic settlements on the Italian peninsula. By late antiquity, some Gaulish words had become so Latinized that their origin was no longer recognized as such.
  Celtiberian is documented as a written language only after contact with the Romans in the 2nd century BC. Of 103 Celtiberian inscriptions, thirty in Iberian script are hospitality tokens (tesserae hospitales), twenty of which are in the shape of animals. The social custom of pledging mutual support among families or communities was compatible with hospitium in Roman culture, and the Celtiberians continued to produce the tokens, though switching to Latin, into the 2nd century of the Imperial era. Under Augustus, the territory of the Celtiberians became part of the Tarraconensis province. Written Celtiberian ceases early in the reign of Augustus, if not before.
  Several references to Gaulish in late antiquity may indicate that it continued to be spoken. Irenaeus, bishop of Lugdunum (present-day Lyon) from 177 AD, complains that he has to communicate with his parishioners in their "barbarous tongue", probably Gaulish. The jurist Ulpian (170–228) mentions the need to recognize Gaulish verbal contracts. Lampridius says that a druidess made a prophecy in Gaulish to Alexander Severus (208–235). Jerome (331–420), who had first-hand knowledge, observes that the Gallic Treveri speak a language "more or less the same" as that of the Galatians. The collection of pharmacological recipes by Marcellus of Bordeaux (late 4th- or early 5th-century) contains several Gaulish words, mainly plant names, and seems to indicate that the language remained in use for at least some purposes such as traditional medicine and magic. Sulpicius Severus (363–425), also from Gallia Aquitania, takes note of Gaulish-Latin bilingualism, with Gaulish as the first language. Other mentions of people who speak "in the Gallic manner" (gallice) or similar may refer to speaking Latin with a regional Gaulish accent.
  Much of historical linguistics scholarship postulates that Gaulish was indeed still spoken as late as the mid to late 6th century in France. Despite considerable Romanization of the local material culture, the Gaulish language is held to have survived and had coexisted with spoken Latin during the centuries of Roman rule of Gaul.
caption: Celtiberian inscription on a hospitality token from the Republican period
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