ABSTRACT
Brittany is the home of a much-publicised Celtic-speaking minority, and the general image that has been created is one of a world sadly threatened with imminent disappearance. Brittany has been officially part of France since the early sixteenth century, by which time some form of French had already been the language of power and nobility within Brittany for a few hundred years. In the militant world, the choice of language is a self-consciously political act, and the Breton/French linguistic difference is, for the movement, a political opposition. At the local level, amongst native speakers of Breton in daily life, language choice is not a political statement and the Breton/French difference is not a political opposition. Village women in Kerguz commonly speak Breton to their husbands and other men, and both Breton and French when helping the men in the fields.
