Of course, Gaulish and Roman were somewhat related, as they where both Indoeuropean languages and as two thousand years ago the differentiation between the different Indoeuropean languages was clearly less then it is today. Old Gothic, Ancient Greek and Latin had much more in common with each other then modern Germanic Languages, New Greek end Romanic languages have. In the same way Gaulish and Latin had quite some resemblances, but everything we know about Gaulish (which is not THAT much), indicates that both languages were NOT mutually comprehensible. Even between Latin and the much more closely related Italic languages Umbrian, Oscan and Samnitic mutual comprehension was out of the question, even though speakers of these languages could learn Latin rather easily. It would have be considerably less easy for the Gauls. The reason why Latin GRADUALLY replaced Gaulish was the high prestige of Roman civilisation. At first the Gaulic aristocracy tried to ape Roman customs and became bilingual (within 1 or 2 generations). Then the urban population became bilingual (the towns being a creation of the Romans, quite a few Italians and inhabitants of other parts of the Empire settled there). Then more and more peasants learned some Latin after having served for 10 years or more in the Roman army. It was probably not before 300 AD (3 1/2 centuries after the Roman conquest!) that a majority of the Gauls started abadoning the Gaulish language and becoming monolingual speakers of vulgar Latin. By 400 AD, however, Gaulish had almost died out. The Gallo-Roman author Ausonius remarks that in his time (early 4th century AD) a Celtic dialect (closely resembling that of the Galatians in Asia Minor) was still spoken in the neighborhood of Augusta Trevirorum (Trier).

I strongly feel that the mention of Gauls taking over to Latin very soon because the languages were mutually comprehensible (even if it has been promoted by the famous French historian A. Lot) is unsubstantiated and should be removed from the article.

Lignomontanus - 2nd of May 2005

I really doubt that a Celtic language and Latin might be mutually intelligible. Can anyone back up this claim? The story about sending a message in Greek rather than Latin is hardly sufficient proof. Burschik 12:47, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Whether you doubt it or not, that's how it is. Gaulish and Latin were unrelated, mutually intelligible languages. How, I don't know. But linguists will tell you that is the reason Gaulish fell out of favor so quickly in Roman lands, since the language of their new leaders was so similar. -- 141.156.184.238 14:51, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I remember reading somewhere (long time ago) that Roman scholars noted that there were similarities between Celtic languages and Latin. I imagine, since Celts and Romans had been in contact for 400 years before Caesar's conquest of Gaul, there might have been a lot of importation of Latin vocabulary into Gaulish. And of course they were both Indo-European laguages, so words for commmon objects would have been similar anyway.

A few examples

Celtic mor = Latin mare = English sea (mere)

Celtic deus = Latin deus = English god (deity)

Celtic ekwos = Latin equus = English horse (equestrian)

and so on. I would have thought a Gaul and Roman could have understood each other.

Exile 23:01, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

They were similar, they were not identical. It was relatively easy for Gauls to master Latin, just the same as it's relatively easy for Dutch people to master English, when compared to, say Frenchmen or Russians. They were not mutually comprehensible. There are enough texts in Gaulish to show that. Diderot 19:09, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think that perhaps also Celtic, since Latin was the closest, largest international language at that time, might have borrowed quite much vocabulary from Latin, as well. (?)

Gaulish did not borrow a great deal (although Latin borrowed words from Gaulish). Old Welsh does have quite some borrowing from Latin, yes. --Nantonos 23:39, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Only in 2004 was Asterix first published in Gaulish, despite the inhabitants of his village being referred to as Gauls.

This makes no sense. It's a dead language. Daniel Quinlan 13:34, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)

He means Gallo [1], which is not a Celtic language, it's the regional romance language of eastern Brittany. I pulled it.

---Diderot 17:26, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

We don't yet know enough to translate Asterix into Gaulish, and maybe never will. --Nantonos 23:39, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, it shouldn't be exaggerated that Gaulish was very close to Latin and mutually comprehensible without qualification---Yet, I suspect that French scholars like Lot may not have been too far off. Remember that some linguists also propose that Italic languages & Celtic languages both may descend from Italo-Celtic. If so, there may have been Celtic languages that still retained a large Italic element. Decius 12:46, 21 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Italo-Celtic as a class was politically motivated, so is strongly POV. --Nantonos 23:39, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Given the uncertainty & diverging opinions among scholars, it is best not to indulge in too much POV one way or the other in the article. Decius 12:47, 21 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]