| Early Modern Irish | |
|---|---|
| Early Modern Gaelic | |
| Gaoidhealg | |
 | |
| Native to | Scotland,Ireland |
| Era | c. 1200 to c. 1600 |
Indo-European
| |
Early forms | |
Standard forms | |
| Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | ghc |
ghc.html | |
| Glottolog | hibe1235 |
Early Modern Irish (Irish:Gaeilge Chlasaiceach,lit. 'Classical Irish') represented a transition betweenMiddle Irish andModern Irish.[1] Its literary form,Classical Gaelic, was used in Ireland and Scotland from the 13th to the 18th century.[2][3]
Classical Gaelic orClassical Irish (Gaoidhealg) was a sharedliterary form of Gaelic that was in use by poets inScotland andIreland from the 13th century to the 18th century.
Although the first written signs ofScottish Gaelic having diverged fromIrish appear as far back as the 12th century annotations of theBook of Deer, Scottish Gaelic did not have a separate standardised form and did not appear in print on a significant scale until the 1767 translation of theNew Testament into Scottish Gaelic;[4] however, in the 16th century,John Carswell'sFoirm na n-Urrnuidheadh, an adaptation ofJohn Knox'sBook of Common Order, was the first book printed in either Scottish or Irish Gaelic.[5]
Before that time, the vernacular dialects of Ireland and Scotland were considered to belong to a single language, and in the late 12th century a highly formalized standard variant of that language was created for the use inbardic poetry. The standard was created by medieval Gaelic poets based on the vernacular usage of the late 12th century and allowed a lot of dialectal forms that existed at that point in time,[6] but was kept conservative and had been taught virtually unchanged throughout later centuries. The grammar and metrical rules were described in a series of grammatical tracts and linguistic poems used for teaching in bardic schools.[7][8]
The Tudor dynasty sought to subdue its Irish citizens. The Tudor rulers attempted to do this by restricting the use of the Irish language while simultaneously promoting the use of the English language. English expansion in Ireland, outside of the Pale, was attempted under Mary I, but ended with poor results.[9]Queen Elizabeth I was proficient in several languages and is reported to have expressed a desire to understand Irish.[10] A primer was prepared on her behalf byChristopher Nugent, 6th Baron Delvin.[11]
The grammar of Early Modern Irish is laid out in a series of grammaticaltracts written by native speakers and intended to teach the most cultivated form of the language to studentbards, lawyers, doctors, administrators, monks, and so on in Ireland and Scotland. The tracts were edited and published byOsborn Bergin as a supplement toÉriu between 1916 and 1955 under the titleIrish Grammatical Tracts.[12] and some with commentary and translation byLambert McKenna in 1944 asBardic Syntactical Tracts.[13][7]
Theneuter gender is gone (formerly neuter nouns transition mostly to masculine, occasionally feminine categories) – but some historically neuter nouns may still optionally causeeclipsis of a following complement (eg.lá n-aon "one day"), as they did in Old Irish. The distinction between preposition + accusative to show motion toward a goal (e.g.san gcath "into the battle") and preposition + dative to show non–goal-oriented location (e.g.san chath "in the battle") is lost during this period in the spoken language, as is the distinction betweennominative andaccusative case in nouns, but they are kept in Classical Gaelic. The Classical Gaelic standard also requires the use of accusative fordirect object of the verb if it is different in form from the nominative.
Verb endings are also in transition.[1] The ending-ann (which spread from conjunct forms of Old Irish n-stem verbs likebenaid, ·ben "(he) hits, strikes"), today the usual 3rd person ending in the present tense, was originally just an alternative ending found only in verbs independent position, i.e. after particles such as the negative, but it started to appear in independent forms in 15th century prose and was common by 17th century. Thus Classical Gaelic originally hadmolaidh "[he] praises" versusní mhol orní mholann "[he] does not praise", whereas later Early Modern and Modern Irish havemolann sé andní mholann sé.[3] This innovation was not followed inScottish Gaelic, where the ending-ann has never spread,[14][15] but the present and future tenses were merged:glacaidh e "he will grasp" butcha ghlac e "he will not grasp".[16]
The fully stressed personal pronouns (which developed during Middle Irish out of Old Irish pronouns that were reserved for copular predicatives) are allowed in object and optionally in subject positions. If the subject is a 1st or 2nd person pronoun stated explicitly, the 3rd person form of the verb is used – most verb forms can take either the synthetic or analytic form, for example "I will speak" can be expressed aslaibheórad (1st sg. form) orlaibheóraidh mé (3rd sg. form and 1st sg. pronounmé). The singular form is also used with 1st and 2nd person plural pronouns (laibheóraidh sinn "we will speak",laibheóraidh sibh "ye will speak") but the 3rd person plural form is used whenever a 3rd person plural subject is expressed (laibheóraid na fir "the men will speak").
With regards to the pronouns Classical Gaelic (as well as Middle Irish) shows signs ofsplit ergativity – the pronouns are divided into two sets with partialergative-absolutive alignment. The forms used for direct object of transitive verbs (the "object" pronouns) are also used:
The 3rd usage above disappeared in Modern Irish and even in Classical Gaelic the unmarked and more common pattern is to use the "subject" pronouns like with transitive verbs.
The 3rd person subject pronouns are always optional and often dropped in poetry. The infix pronouns inherited from Old Irish are still optionally used in poetry for direct objects, but their use was likely outdated in speech already in the beginning of the Early Modern period.
The first book printed in any Goidelic language was published in 1567 in Edinburgh, a translation ofJohn Knox's 'Liturgy' bySéon Carsuel,Bishop of the Isles. He used a slightly modified form of the Classical Gaelic and also used theRoman script. In 1571, the first book in Irish to be printed in Ireland was aProtestant 'catechism', containing a guide to spelling and sounds in Irish.[18] It was written by John Kearney, treasurer of St. Patrick's Cathedral. The type used was adapted to what has become known as the Irish script. This was published in 1602-3 by the printer Francke. TheChurch of Ireland (a member of theAnglican communion) undertook the first publication of Scripture in Irish. The first Irish translation of the New Testament was begun byNicholas Walsh,Bishop of Ossory, who worked on it until his murder in 1585. The work was continued by John Kearny, his assistant, and Dr.Nehemiah Donellan,Archbishop of Tuam, and it was finally completed byWilliam Daniel (Uilliam Ó Domhnaill), Archbishop of Tuam in succession to Donellan. Their work was printed in 1602. The work of translating the Old Testament was undertaken byWilliam Bedel (1571–1642), Bishop ofKilmore, who completed his translation within the reign ofCharles the First, however it was not published until 1680, in a revised version byNarcissus Marsh (1638–1713), Archbishop of Dublin. William Bedell had undertaken a translation of theBook of Common Prayer in 1606. An Irish translation of the revised prayer book of 1662 was effected by John Richardson (1664–1747) and published in 1712.
ISO 639-3 gives the name "Hiberno-Scottish Gaelic" (and the codeghc) to cover Classical Gaelic. The code was introduced in the 15th edition ofEthnologue, with the language being described as "[a]rchaic literary language based on 12th century Irish, formerly used by professional classes in Ireland until the 17th century and Scotland until the 18th century."[19]
But what was achieved in the second half of the twelfth century was something completely radical: the formal adoption of vernacular speech as the basis for a new literary standard. (...) If what they observed of the language at that time had been written down and identified according to regions, and if the manuscripts containing their observations had survived the vicissitudes of the intervening centuries, we would have to-day a fascinating and unique collection of descriptive linguistic material. However, what the poets did was to co-ordinate this material to produce a prescriptive grammar.
Níor tháinig an foirceann-(e)ann chun cinn in Albain, agus diomaite den fhoirmmaireann a thuigtear mar aidiacht anois in abairtí de chineálnach maireann ní heol dúinn a leithéid a bheith sa teanga labhartha ann: go deimhin, tuairimíonn [J. Gleasure] gur seift a bhí i bhforás fhoirmeacha cónasctha-(e)ann an láith. i nGaeilge na hÉireann leis an idirdhealú ar an fháistineach a neartú.[The ending-(e)ann hasn't appeared in Scotland, and apart from the formmaireann which is understood as an adjective now in utterances of the typenach maireann we are not aware of its likes existing in the spoken language: indeed, [J. Gleasure] opines that the system of the present conjunct ending-(e)ann in Irish was a device to strengthen the distinction from the future tense.]
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