The (also sometimes called, particularly in colloquial situations, the '''Gaelic languages''' or collectively '''Gaelic''') have historically been part of a ''' (''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 Labialisation 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.)
A form of
Early Modern Irish , known as ''Classical Gaelic'', was used as a literary language in Ireland until the 17th century and in Scotland until the 18th century. Later orthographic divergence is the result of more recent orthographic reforms resulting in standardised
Pluricentric Diasystem s. Manx orthography is based on English and Welsh and was introduced in 1610 by John Phillips, the Welsh-born Bishop of Sodor and Mann.
- ''an, am'' to a denasalised vowel with lengthening, ''é'', before an originally voiceless stop or fricative, cf. Old Irish ''éc'' "death", ''écath'' "fish hook", ''dét'' "tooth", ''cét'' "hundred" vs. Welsh ''angau'', ''angad'', ''dant'', and ''cant''. Otherwise:
- the nasal is retained before a vowel, jod, ''w'', ''m'', and a liquid:
- ---Old Irish ''ban'' "woman" (< banom)
- ---Old Irish ''gainethar'' "he/she is born" (< gan-je-tor)
- ---Old Irish ''ainb'' "ignorant" (< anwiss)
- the nasal passes to ''en'' before another ''n'':
- ---Old Irish ''benn'' "peak" (< banno) (vs. Welsh ''bann'')
- ---Middle Irish ''ro-geinn'' "finds a place" (< ganne) (vs. Welsh ''gannaf'')
- the nasal passes to ''in, im'' before a voiced stop
- ---Old Irish ''imb'' "butter" (vs. Breton ''aman(en)n'', Cornish ''amanyn'')
- ---Old Irish ''ingen'' "nail" (vs. Old Welsh ''eguin'')
- ---Old Irish ''tengae'' "tongue" (vs. Welsh ''tafod'')
- ---Old Irish ''ing'' "strait" (vs. Middle Welsh ''eh-ang'' "wide")
Although Irish and Manx are often referred to as Irish Gaelic and Manx Gaelic (and they are Goidelic or Gaelic languages) the use of the word ''Gaelic'' is unnecessary because the words Irish and Manx only ever refer to these languages whereas
Scots by itself refers to a
Germanic Language and
Scottish can refer to things not at all Gaelic. The word ''Gaelic'' by itself is thus somewhat ambiguous.
Furthermore, due to the politics of language and national identity, some Irish speakers are offended by the use of the word ''Gaelic'' by itself to refer to Irish. Others may feel use of the term strengthens feelings of solidarity among speakers of the sister languages.
Similarly, some Scottish Gaelic speakers also find offensive the use of the obsolete word (from Erisch, "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 names used in languages themselves (''Gaeilge'' in Irish, ''Gaelg'' in Manx, and ''Gàidhlig'' in Scottish Gaelic) are derived from Old Irish ''Goídeleg'', which in itself is from the originally more-or-less derogative term ''Goídel'' 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 .
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 1 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.
The oldest written Goidelic language is and in some cases well into the
18th Century . This is often called Classical Irish while the
Ethnologue gives the name "Hiberno-Scottish Gaelic" to this purely written language. As long as this written language was the norm, Ireland was 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 northwest of Ireland. The legally defined Irish-speaking areas are called the
Gaeltacht ; all government institutions of the
Republic Of Ireland (in particular, the
Parliament (''Oireachtas''), its
Upper House (''Seanad'') and
Lower House (''Dáil''), and the
Prime Minister (''Taoiseach'')) are officially named in this language, even in English. 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, as well as many in the North, while close to 80,000 (mainly in the
Gaeltacht ) speak Irish as their primary everyday 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, as well as an implication by the English ruling classes that Irish was for the ignorant, led to a decline which has begun to reverse only 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 in Ireland itself.
The Irish language has been officially recognised as a working language by the
European Union . Ireland's national language is the twenty-first 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 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'' originally meant ''Land of the Scots'', or ''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 superseded 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 northern
Middle English , also known as
Early Scots , which had developed in Lothian and had come to be spoken elsewhere in the Kingdom of Scotland themselves later 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 emigration. 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, or Manx Gaelic, is the native language of the Isle of Man. Like Scottish Gaelic, its origins lie in Old Irish but it has developed its own unique peculiarities which make it different but still closely related to Irish and Scottish Gaelic.
Up until the 1800s English was a foreign language to most Manx people, although it would be used for trade and administration purposes. However, due to economic, social and political pressures, the language suffered an enormous decline to such an extent that by 1961 only 165 people claimed to speak the language. However, by the time the last native speaker of Manx, Ned Maddrell, died in 1974, a revival in interest had begun. This interest has recently gathered pace to the extent in the 2001 census 2.2% of people in the Island could speak Manx, of whom 47% were under the age of 20. Moreover, in the
Mori opinion poll carried out in the Island in 2002, 19% of people expressed an interest in learning the language and a further 5% were extremely keen on learning it.
Today Manx is used as the sole medium for teaching at five of the Island's pre-schools by a company named , which also operates the sole Manx primary school - the . Manx is taught as a second language at all of the Island's primary and secondary schools and also at the
Isle Of Man College and
Centre For Manx Studies .
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:
