Is this a combination of Cé and an? I can't find Cén in Dinneen's dictionary, but Cé exists. It also says to see Cia, where "where" is given as Cia (an) áit?

Cén is a combination of cé + an.

Sea.

cén
cé2 + an.

cé [mír cheisteach]
cad é an duine nó an rud (cé hé sin? cén chaoi a bhfuil tú?).
cé acu (cén ceann nó duine díobh (cé acu is fearr leat? níl a fhios agam cé acu)).
cén chaoi (conas).
cén dóigh (conas).

Dinneen's "cia" is an old form of "cé".

Cia, from Old Irish cía; Welsh pwy, Breton piv... Latin quis...

... and from Proto-Indoeuropean *k^wi :-)

Lars

Common Celtic, something like *k(w)ê, i'd say.

Common Celtic, according to Lewis/Pedersen (Concise Comparative Celtic Grammar): *k^uei (*k^uoi?)

BTW:Breton is piou in this book.

Lars

*k(w)ei et *k(w)oi must be older forms than *k(w)ê. I gave *k(w)ê because Gaelic -ia- as a cognate to Welsh -wy-, Breton -oe-, -oa- come from older long -ê-'s.

Breton has several spellings. Piv and piou are the very same word. The first one is in the Peurunvan (=Unified) spelling, the second (the one you gave) is in the Skolveurieg (=Universitary) spelling. There are other spellings like piw and più, for example. Nowadays, "piv" is the most used spelling. (I speak Breton fluently, so... ).

I don't speak Breton at all, I must say.
My impression is that the spelling "piv" looks better ("piou", esp. "ou" looks almost like being French).
But, AFAIR, I saw lots of "ou" in Breton words, so "piou" seems to be more familiar to me.
Are they pronounced the same? /pju/, /piu/, /piv/ or /piw/?

> I speak Breton fluently, so... ).

Oh, I wish I could say that of any other language than German ...

Lars

(I speak Breton fluently, so... ).

Lughaidh, let me finish your sentence for you:

I speak Breton fluently, so don't argue!! :-):-)

Lars your English seems fluent. I had assumed you were Swedish though, not German.

>My impression is that the spelling "piv" looks better ("piou", esp. "ou" looks almost like being French).
>But, AFAIR, I saw lots of "ou" in Breton words, >so "piou" seems to be more familiar to me.
>Are they pronounced the same? /pju/, /piu/, /piv/ >or /piw/?

The pronounciation depends on dialect: Breton is the Celtic language that has the biggest number of dialectal variants. Let's say some of the pronounciations:
[pif],[piw], [piy], [pju], [pi], [piu]...

> Lars your English seems fluent.

Go raibh maith agat.
Ach, mhuise, is fusa scríobh ná labhairt ...

> I had assumed you were Swedish though, not German.

Ó, cén fáth? Mar gheall ar m'ainmse, b'fhéidir? Ach ní hea, ní Sualannach mé.
Is coitianta an t-ainm é "Lars" i nGearmáin inniu, go háirithe ar na daoine óga. (Ach b'ainm annamh é sin san am ar rugadh mé, caithfidh mé a rá i bhfabhar mo thuismitheoirí ... )

Lars

B'é an Béar úd is ciontaí leis sin, meas tú?

http://www.trickfilmwelt.de/eisbaer.htm