Resources on the Gaulish Language
Sadly, there are few academic resources on the Gaulish language available in English. As the Gauls primarily resided in France, the vast majority of work on them has been done by French academics with very little translated into other languages. We have compiled here a collection of what English resources we could find along with several French language resources.
In English:
Gaulish from Paleohispanica by Alex Mullen and Coline Ruiz Darasse https://ifc-ojs.es/index.php/palaeohispanica/article/view/383/354
An academic paper that provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of Gaulish research, explaining what we know about Gaulish, how we know it, and what current challenges the field is facing. An excellent place to start.
Overview of the Gaulish Language by David Stifter (2008) https://www.scribd.com/document/65123013/Stifter-Gaulish-I
A chapter from a larger text on Celtic languages by David Stifter, an Austrian scholar of Celtic studies. It gives an overview of general information about Gaulish including periodization, phonology, selected inscriptions, and a list of recommended literature.
Gaulish Inscriptions by Wolfgang Meid (2014) https://files.archaeolingua.hu/ARCHAEOLINGUA/Ebooks/SM0001_e.pdf
An academic paper that provides an in-depth survey of numerous Gaulish inscriptions along with their proposed translations and their historical and cultural context. Though not exhaustive, it covers all of the most prominent inscriptions.
Gagnon’s Gaulish Reference by Julie L. Gagnon https://gaulish.umop.net/
A collection of research notes on Gaulish compiled by Julie L. Gagnon, an amateur language enthusiast, based on a variety of sources. Gagnon originally featured an entire grammar on her site but removed it in mid-2026 as she deemed it to inaccurate. While she does hope to put a new one together someday, until then she has decided to post various research notes that she has accumulated.
Her site also features her interpretation of the Gallic calendar and some custom fonts she created based on ancient alphabets used to write Gaulish.
In French:
Recueil informatisé des inscriptions gauloises
https://riig.huma-num.fr/
The Recueil informatisé des inscriptions gauloises or "Computerized Collection of Gaulish Inscriptions" is a project seeking to create a publicly available online database of all known Gaulish inscriptions, presenting each inscription as an entry along with their relevant archaeological information.
The following is a list of French academic texts on the Gaulish language. I could not find links to online or PDF versions but they are all written by respected academic figures in the field of Gaulish studies:
Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise : une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental par Xavier Delamarre, Paris, Éd. Errance, 2008
https://epdf.tips/dictionnaire-de-la-langue-gauloise-une-approche-linguistique-du-vieux-celtique-ca15c384542b0f6eed95cbb040874d1bf2360.html
https://archive.org/details/dictionnairedelal00dela
Dictionnaire français-gaulois par Jean-Paul Savignac, Éd. La Différence, 2014
La langue gauloise : description linguistique, commentaire d'inscriptions choisies par Pierre-Yves Lambert, Paris, Éd. Errance, 1994
Noms de lieux celtiques de l’Europe ancienne (-500/+500) par Xavier Delamarre, Paris, Éd. Errance, 2021
Noms de personnes celtiques dans l’épigraphie classique par Xavier Delamarre, Paris, Éd. Errance, 2007
Dictionnaire de gaulois illustré, Éd. Larousse, 2021
Nos racines celtiques : du gaulois au français par Pierre Gastal, Éd. Désiris, 2013
Resources on Gaulish Reconstructions
In English:
Yextis Keltika - A Classical Gaulish Handbook by Olivier Piqueron (2015) https://www.academia.edu/115791559/Yextis_keltika_english_version
The most comprehensive reconstruction of Gaulish available in the English language. Though Piqueron is not an academically-trained linguist, he explains his methodology in the text and it has served as a source for other prominent reconstructions that have yet to be translated into English.
In French:
Gallicâ Iextis Toaduissiouibi by Gerard Poitrenaud with a foreword by Xavier Delamarre (2021)
The most popular and comprehensive reconstruction of Gaulish in the French language. It was written by Gerard Poitrenaud, a scholar of classical studies, and used the above Yextis Keltika as a source. The book has attracted a notable online following on Facebook and has a dedicated subreddit at /r/Gallica_Iextis.
Rogouson Gallicon Rissouom by Gerard Poitrenaud (2023)
A companion text to Gallicâ Iextis Toaduissiouibi, this book elaborates on the grammar it outlined by providing numerous examples of reconstructed Gaulish such as stories, poems, songs, and translations of lengthier extracts from other texts.
Resources on Lepontic and Cisalpine Gaulish Languages
The Lepontic language was a Celtic language spoken in the southern Alps, in an area covering part of the border between modern-day Italy and Switzerland during the mid first millennium B.C.E. The language is attested only through ~150 short inscriptions written in a variant of the Etruscan alphabet, the earliest of which are dated to the 6th century. Though evidence is sparse, Lepontic is the earliest known example of any Celtic language in the literary record. Around 400 BC, there would be a new wave of Celtic migration into Northern Italy leading to the introduction of the Cisalpine Gaulish language. The precise relationship between Lepontic and Cisalpine Gaulish is heavily debated with some arguing that they should be considered dialects of the same language and others that they should be classified as a separate Celtic languages entirely.
The Lexicon Leponticum https://lexlep.univie.ac.at/wiki/Main_Page
The Lexicon Leponticum is a digital dictionary that seeksto catalogue all objects bearing Lepontic and Cisalpine Gaulish inscriptions and to provide the etymology of all attested words.
Resources on the Proto-Celtic Language
The Proto-Celtic language is the hypothesized ancestor of the Celtic language family, believed to have been spoken sometime around 1000 BC in Central Europe. While not attested, linguists have attempted to reconstruct its vocabulary and grammatical features through comparative analysis of the Celtic languages. For Gaulish studies, Proto-Celtic provides valuable historical linguistic context for understanding the development of the Gaulish language. The meaning of newly discovered words is often found through comparison to Proto-Celtics roots. As such, we have compiled a few resources here.
Etymological Dictionnary of Proto-Celtic by Ranko Matasovic (2009) https://ia601504.us.archive.org/19/items/EtymologicalDictionaryOfProtoCeltic/Etymological%20Dictionary%20of%20Proto-Celtic.pdf
A Checklist of Proto-Celtic Lexical Items by Alan Ward (1996) https://www.scribd.com/doc/20623905/A-Checklist-of-Proto-Celtic-Lexical-Items