Like all modern Celtic languages, Breton is characterised by initial consonant mutations, which are changes to the initial sound of a word caused by certain syntactic or morphological environments. In addition Breton, like French, has a number of purely phonological sandhi features caused when certain sounds come into contact with others.
The mutations are divided into four main groups, according to the changes they cause: soft mutation (Breton kemmadurioù dre vlotaat), hard mutation (kemmadurioù dre galetaat), spirant mutation (kemmadurioù c'hwezhadenniñ) and mixed mutation (kemmadurioù mesket). There are also a number of defective (or incomplete) mutations which affect only certain words or certain letters.
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The main mutations cause the following changes:
| Unmutated | Soft | Spirant | Hard | Mixed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| p | b | f | ||
| t | d | z | ||
| k | g | c'h | ||
| b | v | p | v | |
| d | z | t | t | |
| g | c'h | k | c'h | |
| gw | w | kw | w | |
| m | v | v |
The role which initial mutations play in Breton grammar can be divided into three categories (which are not mutually exclusive):
The soft mutation is by far the most frequent mutation in Breton, both in terms of the number of consonants it affects and the number of environments in which it occurs.
The definite article ar/an and the indefinite ur/un cause the soft mutation of:
Nouns beginning with d- and a few others do not mutate after the articles.
The following grammatical words cause mutations to a following word:
The soft mutation occurs in:
These mutations are limited. When the first word ends in a vowel or -l, -r, -m, -n it causes the soft mutation wherever possible, but when the first word ends in any other consonant only the consonants g-, gw-, m-, b- change in the following words.
The Spirant Mutation transform three unvoiced plosive consonants into fricatives: p /p/ → f /f/, t /t/ → z /z/ and k /k/ → c'h /x/.
The mutation occurs following:
In the spoken language the spirant mutation is usually replaced with the soft mutation after numerals.
The hard mutation causes voiced stops to be devoiced: b /b/ → p /p/, d /d/ → t /t/, g /g/ → k /k/.
The mutation is caused by:
The mixed mutation causes:
The mixed mutation occurs after:
All of the consonant mutations described above began as simple phonological processes in the British language from which Breton arose and became standardised as grammatical processes as the language developed. Similar phonological processes continued to affect Breton and cause changes to word-initial sounds, but they are usually applied based on the phonology of the preceding word and not on its function. Because of this, they cannot be described as true initial mutations and are more properly aspects of external sandhi.
The true nasal mutation which occurs in Welsh never occurred in Breton and Cornish, where it was replaced by the Spirant Mutation (compare Welsh fy nghi "my dog" with Breton ma c'hi). But there was assimilation of the voiced plosives, particularly b, d to a preceding nasal and this was often written in Middle Breton.
Today it is only written with an nor "the door" but can still be heard dialectally in other words, e.g. an den /an nẽːn "one" (lit. "the person") & bennak(et) "some" /mˈnak(ət)/.
Today, a number of nouns beginning with k change to c'h following the articles ar "the" and ur "a":
Although this is the same process seen in the Spirant Mutation (e.g. following hor "our"), it is really an external sandhi which has become fixed in writing.
Breton has a series of 'interchangeable' consonants, composed of plosives and fricatives. When these sounds occur word-finally, they may be pronounced voiceless or voiced depending on the word that follows:
The table below shows the 'interchangeable' consonants:
| Voiceless | Voiced | Orthography |
|---|---|---|
| /p/ | /b/ | p / b |
| /t/ | /d/ | t / d |
| /k/ | /ɡ/ | k / g |
| /f/ | /v/ | f / v |
| /ʃ/ | /ʒ/ | ch / j |
| /x/ | /ɣ/ | c'h |
| /s/ | /z/ | s(h) / z(h) |
These changes are never written but occur regularly, regardless of how the final consonant is spelled:
More information on this phenomenon can be found in the thesis of François Falc'hun: "Le système consonantique du Breton".
In Old and Middle Breton, it was extremely rare to write the consonant mutations. Around the 17th century, the Jesuits started to learn Breton and introduced the writing of mutations.
Sometimes, the mutated letter is written before the radical letter in the style of the Gaelic languages, to make recognition easier. This is largely confined to proper nouns (e.g. Itron vMaria "the virgin Maria" is pronounced /ˈitˌrõn ˈvarˌja/.
Some processes which are properly part of external sandhi have become crystalised in the written language, whilst others havent.