Gaulish

Gaulish is a Celtic language once spoken in much of what is now France and neighboring regions, known mostly from inscriptions and names. It’s useful for Celtic historical linguistics and for reading epigraphic evidence from Roman Gaul.

Family: Indo-EuropeanBranch: CelticPeriod: c. 300 BCE → 500 CE (fragmentary attestation)

Region: Gaul (modern France and neighboring regions)

c. 300 BCE → 500 CE (fragmentary attestation)

Approximate modern reference — A broad modern-reference region; evidence is mostly inscriptions and onomastics.. Open in OpenStreetMap .

Link legend: links marked “(archived)” open an Internet Archive snapshot because the original site is down or unreliable.

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Dictionaries

Gaulish glossary
- Notes: In French, part of an old textbook.
Gaulish lexicon
- Notes: Part of the Indo-European lexicon project.
Celtic lexicon
- Notes: Entries for many Celtic languages, including Gaulish.
Etymological lexicon of Proto-Celtic
- Notes: A work in progress, it says.
Cisalpine Gaulish
- Notes: Part of a wiki on the language.
Neo-Gaulish Dictionary
- Notes: About 200 entries.

Grammars

Gaulish grammar
- Notes: An old textbook, with texts.
Grammar summary from David Stifter
- Format: PDF
- Notes: Scroll down to the blue links for the PDFs.
Wikipedia summary of Gaulish phonology and morphology
- Notes: A brief summary of what is known about the language.
Gaulish verbal forms
- Notes: A short list.
Language Gulper summary
- Notes: A bit more than some other entries here.
Very brief summary of Gaulish declensions
- Notes: Emphasis on “brief,” and on “very.”

Charts & Aids

Gaulish Charts
- Notes: Seriously, who knew there would be charts for this language?
Gaulish Verbs
- Notes: There are links to a couple other charts at the top of this page.

Texts

Gaulish inscriptions from David Stifter
- Format: PDF
- Notes: Like the grammar resource above, scroll down to get to the links for the PDFs. Don’t miss the Powerpoint files below that, too.
Gaulish texts
- Notes: Part of the same old textbook as linked above.
Two Gaulish inscriptions
- Notes: With pictures and transcription.
Gaulish inscriptions in French
- Notes: Well, the inscriptions are in Gaulish, while the rest of it is in French.

Other Resources

Toward a chronology of ancient Gaulish, Celtic, and IE
- Notes: It’s an academic article, but it has some useful charts and visuals too.