A modern Celtic identity emerged in Western Europe following the identification of the native peoples of the Atlantic fringe as Celts by Edward Lhuyd in the 18th century. Lhuyd and others equated the Celts described by Greco-Roman writers with the ancestors of the pre-Roman peoples of France, Great Britain and Ireland. The Irish and ancient British languages were thus Celtic languages. The descendants of these languages were the Brittonic (Breton, Cornish and Welsh variants) and Gaelic (Irish, Manx and Scottish variants) languages. These peoples were therefore modern Celts. Attempts were made to link their distinctive cultures to those of the ancient Celtic peoples.