Celtic subfamily of Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man
"Gaelic language" redirects here. For the Gaelic language spoken in Scotland, seeScottish Gaelic. For the Gaelic language spoken in Ireland, seeIrish language.
Gaelic, by itself, is sometimes used to refer to Scottish Gaelic, especially in Scotland, and therefore is ambiguous.Irish andManx are sometimes referred to as Irish Gaelic and Manx Gaelic (as they are Goidelic or Gaelic languages), but the use of the wordGaelic is unnecessary because the terms Irish and Manx, when used to denote languages, always refer to those languages.[citation needed] This is in contrast toScottish Gaelic, for which "Gaelic" distinguishes the language from theGermanic language known asScots.[citation needed] In English, it is common to have distinct pronunciations of the word, with ScottishGaelic pronounced/ˈɡælɪk/ compared to Irish and ManxGaelic pronounced/ˈɡeɪlɪk/.
Theendonyms (Gaeilge,Gaelic andGaolainn in Irish,Gaelg in Manx andGàidhlig in Scottish Gaelic) are derived fromOld IrishGoídelc, which in turn is derived fromOld WelshGuoidel meaning "wild men, savages".[3][4] The medieval mythology of theLebor Gabála Érenn places its origin in an eponymous ancestor of theGaels and the inventor of the language,Goídel Glas.
Goidelic language and culture would eventually become dominant in the Pictish area and far northern parts of the Brittonic area.
During the historical era, Goidelic was restricted toIreland and, possibly, the west coast ofScotland. Medieval Gaelic literature tells us that the kingdom ofDál Riata emerged in western Scotland during the 6th century. The mainstream view is that Dál Riata was founded by Irish migrants, but this is not universally accepted. ArchaeologistEwan Campbell says there is no archaeological evidence for a migration or invasion, and suggests strong sea links helped maintain a pre-existing Gaelic culture on both sides of theNorth Channel.[7]
Dál Riata grew in size and influence, and Gaelic language and culture was eventually adopted by the neighbouringPicts (a group of peoples who may have spokena Brittonic language) who lived throughoutScotland.[8] Manx, the language of theIsle of Man, is closely akin to the Gaelic spoken in theHebrides, the Irish spoken in northeast and eastern Ireland, and the now-extinctGalwegian Gaelic ofGalloway (in southwest Scotland), with some influence from Old Norse through theViking invasions and from the previous British inhabitants.
The oldest written Goidelic language isPrimitive Irish, which is attested inOgham inscriptions from about the 4th century. The forms of this speech are very close, and often identical, to the forms ofGaulish recorded before and during the time of theRoman Empire.[citation needed] The next stage,Old Irish, is found inglosses (i.e. annotations) toLatinmanuscripts—mainly religious and grammatical—from the 6th to the 10th century, as well as in archaic texts copied or recorded inMiddle Irish texts. Middle Irish, the immediate predecessor of the modern Goidelic languages, is the term for the language as recorded from the 10th to the 12th century; a great deal of literature survives in it, including the early Irish law texts.
Classical Gaelic, otherwise known asEarly Modern Irish,[9] covers the period from the 13th to the 18th century, during which time it was used as a literary standard[10] in Ireland and Scotland.[11] This is often calledClassical Irish, whileEthnologue gives the name "Hiberno-Scottish Gaelic" to this standardised written language. As long as this written language was the norm, Ireland was considered the Gaelic homeland to the Scottishliterati.
Laterorthographic divergence has resulted in standardisedpluricentristic orthographies. Manx orthography, which was introduced in the 16th and 17th centuries, was based loosely on English and Welsh orthography, and so never formed part of this literary standard.
Proto-Goidelic, or Proto-Gaelic, is the proposedproto-language for all branches of Goidelic. It is proposed as the predecessor of Goidelic, which then began to separate into different dialects before splitting during theMiddle Irish period into the separate languages ofIrish,Manx, andScottish Gaelic.[12][13][14][15]
Irish is one of theRepublic of Ireland's two official languages along withEnglish. Historically the predominant language of the island, it is now mostly spoken in parts of the south, west, and northwest. The legally defined Irish-speaking areas are called theGaeltacht; all government institutions of the Republic, in particular theparliament (Oireachtas), itsupper house (Seanad) andlower house (Dáil), and theprime minister (Taoiseach) have official names in this language, and some are only officially referred to by their Irish names even in English. At present, theGaeltachtaí are primarily found in CountiesCork,Donegal,Mayo,Galway,Kerry, and, to a lesser extent, inWaterford andMeath. In the Republic of Ireland 1,774,437 (41.4% of the population aged three years and over) regard themselves as able to speak Irish to some degree.[16] Of these, 77,185 (1.8%) speak Irish on a daily basis outside school.[16] Irish is also undergoing a revival inNorthern Ireland and has been accorded some legal status there under the 1998Good Friday Agreement but its official usage remains divisive to certain parts of the population. The 2001 census inNorthern Ireland showed that 167,487 (10.4%) people "had some knowledge of Irish".[citation needed] Combined, this means that around one in three people (c. 1.85 million) on the island of Ireland can understand Irish at some level.
Regions where respondents stated they could speak Irish from 2011
Despite the ascent in Ireland of the English and Anglicised ruling classes following the 1607Flight of the Earls (and the disappearance of much of the Gaelic nobility), Irish was spoken by the majority of the population until the later 18th century, with a huge impact from theGreat Famine of the 1840s. Disproportionately affecting the classes among whom Irish was the primary spoken language, famine and emigration precipitated a steep decline in native speakers, which only recently has begun to reverse.[17]
The Irish language has been recognised as an official and working language of theEuropean Union.[18] Ireland's national language was the twenty-third to be given such recognition by the EU and previously had the status of a treaty language.[19]
Some people in the north and west of mainland Scotland and many people in theHebrides still speak Scottish Gaelic, but the language has been in decline. There are now believed to be approximately 60,000 native speakers of Scottish Gaelic inScotland, plus around 1,000 speakers of theCanadian Gaelic dialect inNova Scotia.
Its historical range was much larger. For example, it was the everyday language of most of the rest of theScottish Highlands until little more than a century ago.Galloway was once also a Gaelic-speaking region, but theGalwegian dialect has been extinct there for approximately three centuries. It is believed to have been home to dialects that were transitional between Scottish Gaelic and the two other Goidelic languages. While Gaelic was spoken across theScottish Borders andLothian during the earlyHigh Middle Ages it does not seem to have been spoken by the majority and was likely the language of the ruling elite, land-owners and religious clerics. Some other parts of theScottish Lowlands spokeCumbric, and othersScots Inglis, the only exceptions being theNorthern Isles ofOrkney andShetland whereNorse was spoken. Scottish Gaelic was introduced across North America with Gaelic settlers. Their numbers necessitated North American Gaelic publications and print media from Cape Breton Island to California.
Scotland, known as Alba in Insular Celtic languages, takes its English language name from the Latin word for 'Gael',Scotus, pluralScoti (of uncertain etymology).[20]Scotland originally meantLand of the Gaels in a cultural and social sense. (In early Old English texts,Scotland referred to Ireland.)[21] Until late in the 15th century,Scottis inScottish English (orScots Inglis) was used to refer only to Gaelic, and the speakers of this language who were identified asScots. As the ruling elite became Scots Inglis/English-speaking,Scottis was gradually associated with the land rather than the people, and the wordErse ('Irish') was gradually used more and more as an act of culturo-political disassociation, with an overt implication that the language was not really Scottish, and therefore foreign. This was something of a propaganda label, as Gaelic has been in Scotland for at least as long as English, if not longer.
In the early 16th century the dialects of northernMiddle English, also known asEarly Scots, which had developed inLothian and had come to be spoken elsewhere in theKingdom of Scotland, themselves later appropriated the nameScots. By the 17th century Gaelic speakers were restricted largely to the Highlands and the Hebrides. Furthermore, the culturally repressive measures taken against the rebellious Highland communities byThe Crown following the secondJacobite Rebellion of 1746 caused still further decline in the language's use – to a large extent by enforced emigration (e.g. theHighland Clearances). Even more decline followed in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
TheScottish Parliament has afforded the language a secure statutory status and "equal respect" (but not full equality in legal status underScots law)[22] with English, sparking hopes that Scottish Gaelic can be saved from extinction and perhaps even revitalised.
Long the everyday language of most of theIsle of Man, Manx began to decline sharply in the 19th century. The last monolingual Manx speakers are believed to have died around the middle of the 19th century; in 1874 around 30% of the population were estimated to speak Manx, decreasing to 9.1% in 1901 and 1.1% in 1921.[23] The last native speaker of Manx,Ned Maddrell, died in 1974.
At the end of the 19th century arevival of Manx began, headed by the Manx Language Society (Yn Çheshaght Ghailckagh). Both linguists and language enthusiasts searched out the last native speakers during the 20th century, recording their speech and learning from them. In the2011 United Kingdom census, there were 1,823 Manx speakers on the island, representing 2.27% of the population of 80,398, following a steady increase in the number of speakers.[24]
Today Manx is the sole medium for teaching at five of the island's pre-schools by a company namedMooinjer veggey ("little people"), which also operates the sole Manx-medium primary school, theBunscoill Ghaelgagh. Manx is taught as a second language at all of the island's primary and secondary schools and also at theUniversity College Isle of Man andCentre for Manx Studies.
Comparison of Goidelic numbers, including Old Irish. Welsh numbers have been included for a comparison between Goidelic and Brythonic branches.
No.
Goidelic
Brythonic
Old Irish
Irish
Scottish Gaelic
Manx
Welsh
1
óen
aon
aon
*un
un
2
dá
dó
dà
*daa
‡dau
3
trí
trí
trì
tree
‡tri
4
cethair
ceathair
ceithir
kiare
‡pedwar
5
cóic
cúig
còig
queig
pump
6
sé
sé
sia
shey
chwech
7
secht
seacht
seachd
shiaght
saith
8
ocht
ocht
ochd
hoght
wyth
9
noí
naoi
naoi
nuy
naw
10
deich
deich
deich
jeih
deg
11
óen déac
aon déag
aon deug
nane-jeig
unarddeg
12
dá dhéac/dhéuc
dó dhéag
dà dheug
daa-yeig
deuddeg
20
fichi
fiche
fichead
feed
ugain
100
cét
céad
ceud
keead
cant
*un anddaa are no longer used in counting. Instead thesuppletive formsnane andjees are normally used for counting. For comparative purposes, the historic forms are listed in the table above.
In the Welsh numbers, in cases where there are differences between masculine and feminine forms (marked ‡), the masculine forms are given.
There are several languages that show Goidelic influence, although they are not Goidelic languages themselves:
Shelta language is sometimes thought to be a Goidelic language, but is in fact acant based on Irish andEnglish, with a primarily Irish-based grammar and English-basedsyntax.
Water feature commemorating the first supply of water by gravitation toPortmahomack in 1887. It carries an inscription in poor Gaelic, "Uisce Tobar Na Baistiad" (which, if it readUisge Tobar a' Bhaistidh would translate as "Water of the Well of Baptism")
^Robert D. Borsley; Ian G. Roberts (1996).The Syntax of the Celtic Languages: A Comparative Perspective. Cambridge University Press. p. 2.ISBN978-0-521-48160-1.
^Robert D. Borsley; Ian G. Roberts (1996).The Syntax of the Celtic Languages: A Comparative Perspective. Cambridge University Press. p. 3.ISBN978-0-521-48160-1.
^Koch, John.The Gododdin of Aneirin, Celtic Studies Publications, 1997, p. xcvii, note 2
^Koch, John (ed).Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2006, p. 739
^Gillies, William (1993). "Scottish Gaelic". In Martin J. Ball; James Fife (eds.).The Celtic languages. London: Routledge. pp. 145–227.ISBN0-415-01035-7.
^Adam Fox; Daniel Woolf (2003).The Spoken Word: Oral Culture in Britain, 1500–1850. Manchester University Press. p. 197.ISBN978-0-7190-5747-2.
^Lynch, Michael (2001).The Oxford Companion to Scottish History. Oxford University Press. p. 255.ISBN978-0-19-211696-3.
^Trudgill, Peter (1984).Language in the British Isles. Cambridge University Press. p. 289.ISBN978-0-521-28409-7.
^Green, Antony Dubach (15 May 1997).The Prosodic Structure of Irish, Scots Gaelic, and Manx (PhD thesis).doi:10.7282/T38W3C3K.
^Green, Antony Dubach (12 April 1996). "Some effects of the Weight-to-Stress Principle and grouping harmony in the Goidelic languages".CiteSeerX10.1.1.387.8008.
^Oxford English Dictionary: Scot,n.1. The source of the late Latin word is obscure. There is no evidence that it represents the native name of any Gaelic-speaking people (the IrishScot, an Irishman, pl.Scuit, appears to be a learned word from Latin), nor does it exist in Welsh, though Welshmen in writing Latin have from the earliest times usedScoti as the rendering ofGwyddel (Gaels). [...]. Retrieved 11 October 2010
