What is 'Kelteag Nueadh'? It is, quite simply, the way I see the old Celtic language being brought up to date. Old Celtic devolved and diverged into the tongues we know today as Breton, Cornish, Irish, Manx, Scottish, and Welsh. Now they have been drawn together again into a culturally-sound and reconverged language geared to the 21st century.
            Over the past 150 years there have been numerous attempts at inventing and popularising artificial languages of various kinds.  Some of these enjoyed notable success in their day - perhaps the most well-known of those which still survive is 'Esperanto' (which claims 8 million adherents worldwide). The objection to all such invented languages, however, is that they are wholly unCeltic. Esperanto, for instance, was based on Latin, Greek, Germanic (English, German, etc.), Slavonic, and Romanic (French, Italian, etc.), and is without authentic idiom.
            This is obviously not to claim that Celtic is totally unrelated to the forementioned languages. There is an especially close relationship between the Celtic and Italic languages and with various old Greek dialects.
            Old Celtic itself emerged from the so-called Celto-Italic group of Indo-European tongues. The group - which gave way to the Italic (Latin, Umbrian, etc.) and Celtic languages -  set itself apart from the other Indo-European groups and devolved into so-called 'P' and 'Q' Celtic (the precursors of Welsh, Breton, Cornish, and Gaulish on the one hand, and Irish, Scottish and Manx on the other) and into various Italic languages with similar 'P' / 'Q' characteristics. Although Latin was only one of numerous Italic languages it was Latin alone which ultimately survived - probably due to the Romans' military-economic predominance - and it was Latin - the language of the Latinii - which was to give rise to today's Romanic languages (Italian, Spanish, etc.).
            But who were the Celts?  It was in around 500 BC that the Celts (called the 'keltoi' by the Greeks) first appeared in Europe, speaking what we now refer to as Old Celtic. They migrated from central Europe to northern Germany, the Black Sea, Asia Minor, south-western Spain and the British Isles. One of the main migrations was probably that of the Gauls, who spread to France, northern Italy and northern Europe. A few reminders of their language, Gaulish, still exist in the form of inscriptions and place-names. The Celts living in the Balkans and Asia Minor were known as Galats or Galatians and the ones in Spain as Celto-Iberians, whose language is only partially understood even to this day. (For further information see Celtic Connections.)
            The Celtic languages spoken on the European continent belonged to the 'Continental' branch of the Celtic whereas those spoken in the British Isles and in Brittany belong to the 'Insular' branch. Nearly everything we know about Celtic languages today comes from our knowledge of the Insular branch. There were probably two main waves of immigration to the British Isles. The first in about 400 BC, resulted in the formation of the Goidelic or Gaelic group of Celtic languages, which later spread from Ireland to the Isle of Mann and to Scotland. The second wave, which swept through the south of England, Wales and, later, Brittany, produced the Brythonic or British group of Celtic languages. The first group is now also called 'Q-Celtic' because the Indo-European [kw] sound was written as 'q' (now written as 'c') in these languages, as indeed it was in Latin. The second group is called 'P-Celtic' because this [kw] sound developed into a 'p'. For example, the Irish word for 'four' is 'ceathair' , whereas the Welsh is 'pedwar'.
            Around 500 AD the Anglo-Saxons entering England from the east pushed the Celts back to the west and north. Dialectal differences soon began to appear. These differences gave way to the formation of new languages: Cornish (in Cornwall and Devon), Welsh (in Wales) and Cumbrian (in Cumbria and parts of Scotland). At about the same time, the Celts from the south of England settled in Brittany where the Breton language developed.
            Kelteag Nueadh (pronounced kelchegg nooethe) - or simply 'Kelteag', as opposed to 'Old Celtic' ('Hean gKelteag' - pronounced hane ghelchegg) - may be considered 'synthetic' in one sense but never 'artificial'. It is rooted in Celtic idiom, completely different from other so-called international or artificial languages. It is a viable language-in-common, a language which is more than mere invention, a language with authentic roots. A language which could well be what Old Celtic might have evolved into had it not fragmented.

            In researching Kelteag I have not been afraid to acknowledge its relationship to the old Italic and Greek languages. There is much commonality. Equally I have not been overly hesitant in accepting the inevitable influence of the English language (or, more pedantically, I should say 'American'  because English per se is now declining). Like it or not the American language is now the de facto lingua franca.
            And I should explain that although Old Celtic has been my guiding principle, the objective is not primarily to recreate the old Celtic language but to bring about a reconvergence by marrying it to our existing Celtic tongues with their accumulated wealth of idiomatic expression. Kelteag is therefore an amalgam of the Breton, Cornish, Welsh, Manx, Scottish, and Irish languages, past and present, related as far as possible to the original Celtic. It is intended to become a bridge between the individual Celtic tongues. Kelteag Nueadh is still in its infancy but, warts and all, it is a start. It has become a reality and has already attracted widespread interest and support from Celtic communities right across from Brittany to North America.
            Finally, one caveat from the author.  Although every effort is being made to draft Kelteag Nueadh in as authentic a manner as possible, given the resources available, it will be for future scholars, grammaticians, academics, and enthusiasts to tidy up the rough edges and to refine it.  What matters most at present is that a viable initial version be produced that is capable of use.

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