Maintenance of the Breton mixed mutation

This paper investigates the mixed mutation in Breton, an endangered language which has seen a gap in transmission. Initial consonant mutation is a highly salient feature of the language, but susceptible to change in the context of widespread bilingualism and an ageing population of speakers. We investigate to what extent a younger generation is continuing to maintain the mixed mutation, and find that young adults achieve proficiency equivalent to that of older speakers. Children acquire this feature very late, and need sustained Breton input beyond the early teenage years. To investigate the nature of the mutation itself, we examine measurements of a crucial alternation, which show that acoustically there is little difference in the realisation of the mutation, and this feature is being maintained.