 Most linguists believe that the Celtic languages arrived in Britain around 600 BCE.The Brythonic languages ceased to be spoken in of England and were replaced by the English language, which arrived in Wales around the end of the eighth century due to the defeat of the Kingdom of Powys.The Bible translations into Welsh and Protestant Reformation, which encouraged use of the vernacular in religious services, helped the language survive after Welsh elites abandoned it in favour of English in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.