Yann speaking Breton

This video was recorded by Timothy McKeon in Quimper, Brittany, France, where Yann lives. Breton is spoken by as many as 210,000 people, primarily in the Brittany and Île-de-France regions of northern France. A Celtic language of the Indo-European linguistic family, Breton shares its roots with the non-Germanic languages of the British Isles, in particular Cornish and Welsh. Due in large part to persecution by the central government of France, Breton speakers began abandoning their language over the course of the 20th century and, as a result, the fluent population had declined by 80% by the year 2000. Nevertheless, a lively revitalization movement has emerged over the past two decades, with the number of children in bilingual education rapidly increasing.