The (also sometimes called the '''Gaelic languages''' or collectively '''Gaelic''') are one of two major divisions of modern-day ''' (''Gaeilge''), '''
Scottish Gaelic ''' (''Gàidhlig''), and '''
Manx ''' (''Gaelg'').
Shelta is sometimes mistakenly thought to be a Goidelic language when it is, in fact, a ''
Cant '' based on Irish and
English , with a primarily English-based syntax.
- ''kw'' was originally retained in this branch (later losing its Labialization and becoming plain as opposed to Brythonic , where ---''kw'' became [p . This sound change is found in Gaulish as well, so Brythonic and Gaulish are sometimes collectively known as "P-Celtic". (In Celtiberian , ---''kw'' is also retained, so the term "Q-Celtic" could be applied to it as well, although Celtiberian is not a Goidelic language.)
Although Irish and Manx are often referred to as Irish Gaelic and Manx Gaelic — and it is correct to describe them as Goidelic or Gaelic languages — this is unnecessary because the words Irish and Manx only ever refer to these languages whereas
Scots by itself refers to a
Germanic Language . The word Gaelic by itself is somewhat ambiguous, but most often refers to Scottish Gaelic and it is the word that Scottish Gaelic speakers themselves use when speaking English. Furthermore, due to the peculiar politics of language and national identity, some Irish speakers are offended by the use of the word ''Gaelic'' by itself to refer to Irish. For knowledgable Irish people, Gaelic is specifically Northern Irish Gaelic - and this is the origin of the English word Gaelic.
Similarly, some Scottish Gaelic speakers also find offensive the use of the obsolete word (i.e. "Irish") to refer to their language. This term was used in
Scotland since at least the late
15th Century to refer to Gaelic, which had previously been called ''Scottis''. The modern form of the latter term, ''Scots'', is now used to refer to the
Anglic Language Scots .
The names used in languages themselves (''Gaeilge'' in Irish, ''Gaelg'' in Manx, and ''Gàidhlig'' in Scottish Gaelic) are derived from Old Irish ''Goideleg'', which in itself is from the originally more-or-less derogative term ''Goidel'' meaning "pirate, raider" in
Old Welsh . The Goidels called themselves various names according to their tribal/clan affiliations, but the most general seems to have been the name rendered in
Latin as ''Scoti''. This word may be related to the Modern Irish word ''scoth'' meaning "best, 'the pick of the bunch'".
The family tree of the Goidelic languages is as follows:
Goidelic languages were once restricted to
Ireland , but sometime between the
3rd Century and the
6th Century a group of the Irish Celts known to the Romans as ''Scoti'' began migrating from Ireland to what is now
Scotland and eventually assimilated the
Picts (a group of peoples who may have originally spoken a
Brythonic Language ) who lived there. Manx, the former common language of the
Isle Of Man , is closely akin to the Gaelic spoken in north east Ireland and the now extinct Gaelic of
Galloway (in southwest Scotland), with heavy influence from Old Norse because of the
Viking invasions.
Shelta , a
Cant spoken by the
Irish Traveller s, is considered its own language even though it is based largely on Irish. Goidelic languages may once have been common on the Atlantic coast of Europe and there is evidence that they were spoken in the region of
Galicia in modern
Spain and Portugal, around Marseille, at the head waters of the Seine, in the Celtic heartlands of Switzerland, Austria and so on, and in
Galatia . The Goidelic languages had their own unique script, known as
Ogham , in use from at least the 5th century until the 15th, especially for carving on wood or stone.
The oldest written Goidelic language is
Primitive Irish , which is attested in
Ogham inscriptions up to about the
4th Century AD.
Old Irish is found in the margins of
Latin religious
Manuscript s from the
6th Century to the
10th Century .
Middle Irish , the ancestor of the modern Goidelic languages, is the name for the language as used from the 10th to the
16th Century . A form of Middle Irish was used as a literary language in Ireland and Scotland until the
17th Century , and often in both countries well into the
18th Century ; the
Ethnologue gives the name "Hiberno-Scottish Gaelic" to this purely written language. Often called Classical Irish, the modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic written forms
which there are at least four are merely modernisations (in general in parallel, sometimes in different directions) of the 'classical' language. As long as this written language was the norm, Ireland was always considered the Gaelic homeland to the Scottish literati.
See Also: Irish language
Irish is one of Ireland's two official languages (along with
English ) and is still fairly widely spoken in the south, west and north west of Ireland. The legally defined Irish-speaking areas are called the
Gaeltacht . At present, Irish is primarily spoken in Counties
Cork ,
Donegal ,
Mayo ,
Galway ,
Kerry and, to a lesser extent, in
Waterford and
Meath .
Irish is also undergoing a revival in
Northern Ireland and has been accorded some legal status there under the
1998 Belfast Agreement . Approximately 260,000 people in the Republic of Ireland can speak the Irish language fluently, while close to 80,000 (mainly in the
Gaeltacht ) speak Irish as a first, day to day language. Over a million citizens of the Republic of Ireland have some understanding in Irish (ranging from minimum to almost fluent). Before the Irish
Potato Famine of the 1840s, the language was spoken by the vast majority of the population, but the famine and emigration led to a decline which has only begun to reverse very recently. The census figures do not take into account those Irish who have emigrated, and it has been estimated (rightly or wrongly) that there are more native speakers of Irish in Great Britain, the US, Australia and other parts of the world than there are people in Ireland itself.
The Irish language has been officially recognised as a working language by the
European Union . Ireland's national language is the 21st to be given such recognition by the EU and previously had the status of a treaty language.
See Also: Scottish Gaelic language
Some people in the north and west of Scotland and the
Hebrides still speak Scottish Gaelic, but because of its minimal official recognition and because of large-scale emigration from those parts of Scotland, the language has been in decline. There are now believed to be approximately 1,000 native speakers of Scottish Gaelic in
Nova Scotia and 60,000 in
Scotland .
Its historical range was much larger. For example, it was the everyday language of most of the rest of the Highlands until little more than a century ago.
Galloway had also been a Goidelic-speaking region, but the
Galwegian Language 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. Most other areas of the
Lowlands also spoke forms of Gaelic, the only exceptions being the area which lies on the south-eastern part of the modern border with
England - the area called
Lothian in the
Middle Ages - and the far north-east (parts of
Caithness ),
Orkney and
Shetland .
The very word ''Scotland'' in fact takes its name from the Latin word for a Gael, ''Scotus''. So ''Scotland'' or ''Scotia'' originally meant ''Land of the Gaels''. Moreover, until late in the
15th Century , it was solely the Gaelic language used in Scotland which in English was called ''Scottish'' or - more authentically - ''Scottis''. ''Scottis'' continued to be the English name for the language, although it was gradually superseeded by the word ''Erse'', an act of cultural disassociation which contributed to the language's declining status. In the early
16th Century the dialects of
Middle English which had developed in Lothian and had come to be spoken elsewhere in the Kingdom of Scotland themselves appropriated the name
Scots . By the
Seventeenth Century Gaelic speakers were restricted largely to the
Highlands and the
Hebrides . Furthermore, the culturally repressive measures taken against the rebellious highland communities by the British crown following the 2nd
Jacobite Rebellion of
1746 caused still further decline in the language's use - to a large extent by enforced emmigration. Even more decline followed in the
19th and early
20th centuries
The , sparking hopes that Scottish Gaelic can be saved from extinction and perhaps even revived.
See Also: Manx language
Manx is technically extinct, although attempts to revive it continue and it is still used in ceremonies such as
Tynwald Day . A small minority of the Manx people, estimated to be not more than 2,000, can speak the language, although the person considered to be the last true native speaker,
Ned Maddrell , died in
1974 . Although a Gaelic language, closely related to its Irish and Scottish sister languages, the Manx language also borrowed heavily from the
Old Norse language introduced by Viking raiders centuries ago, as well as middle English and Welsh.
All the other living Celtic languages belong to the
Brythonic branch of Celtic, which includes
Welsh (''Cymraeg''),
Breton (''Brezhoneg''), and
Cornish (''Kernowek'').
Pictish was the ancient language of much of modern day
Scotland , but its exact relation to the other Celtic languages is not certain. These are sometimes incorrectly referred to as "Gaelic". For extinct Celtic languages of the European mainland, see
Continental Celtic Languages .
There are also two
Mixed Language s that are not specifically Goidelic languages as such, but have a strong input from them:
