Why did the continental Gauls begin speaking a romance language when conquered, but the Britons south of Hadrians wall kept their Celtic tongues?

by AsaTJ
Searocksandtrees

hi! there's always room for more information - especially regarding the Gauls - but meanwhile, you can get started on this section of the FAQ*

Why doesn't England speak a Latin-based language like other former European Roman provinces

*see the link on the sidebar or the wiki tab

haloraptor

Here are the numbers 1 to 10 in French, English and Welsh:

Fr: un deux trois quatre cinq six sept huit neuf dix

En: one two three four five six seven eight nine ten

We: un dau tri pedwar pump chwech saith wyth naw deg

The welsh word for window is ffenstr, or something like that (my welsh is very poor). There are bits and pieces of Latin flavour in modern Welsh so it's not as if the Celtic languages remained 'pure', but they didn't have the same context as continental Europe and so the changes were different/lesser and of course the proportion of Latin speakers wasn't as large.