Irish language
Encyclopedia
Irish also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language
of the Indo-European
language family, originating in Ireland
and historically spoken by the Irish people
. Irish is now spoken as a first language
by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language
of a larger proportion of the population. In February 2011, Pat Carey
, then Ireland's Minister for Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs, stated: "The Irish language is an important part of who we are. It is an important part of where we have come from and where we are going". Irish enjoys constitutional
status as the national and first official language of the Republic of Ireland
. It is an official language of the European Union
and an officially recognised minority language in Northern Ireland. A speaker of the language may be called a Gaeilgeoir both in Irish and in English.
Irish was the predominant language of the Irish people for most of their recorded history, and they brought their Gaelic speech with them to other countries, notably Scotland and the Isle of Man where it gave rise to Scottish Gaelic and Manx
. It has the oldest vernacular literature
in Western Europe. It began to decline under English and British rule after the seventeenth century. The nineteenth century saw a dramatic decrease in the number of speakers especially after the Great Famine of 1845–1852 (where Ireland lost half its population either to emigration or death). Irish-speaking areas were especially hard hit. By the end of British rule, the language was spoken by less than 15% of the national population. Since then, Irish speakers (Gaeilgeoirí) have been in the minority except in areas collectively known as Gaeltacht
aí (singular: Gaeltacht). Ongoing efforts have been made to preserve, promote and revive the language.
Estimates of fully native speakers range from 40,000 to 80,000 people. In the Republic, there are just over 72,000 people who use Irish as a daily language outside of education as a spoken vernacular, as well as a larger minority of the population who are fluent but do not use it on a daily basis. While census figures indicate 1.66 million people in the Republic with some knowledge, a significant percentage of these know only a little Irish. Numerous Irish speakers reside in Britain
, the United States
and other countries.
of , the form used in classical Modern Irish. Older spellings of this include in Classical Irish [ge:ʝəlˠg] and [goiðelˠg] in Old Irish
. The modern spelling results from the deletion of the silent dh in the middle of Gaedhilge.
Other forms of the name found in the various modern Irish dialects, in addition to south Connacht mentioned above, include ([ˈɡeːlʲɪc]) or ([ˈɡeːl̪ˠəɡ]) in Ulster Irish
and northern Connacht Irish and ([ˈɡeːl̪ˠɪŋ/ˈɡeːl̪ˠɪn]) in Munster Irish
.
) or when discussion of Irish is confused to mean Hiberno-English
, the form of English as spoken in Ireland. Scottish Gaelic is often referred to in English as simply Gaelic. Outside Ireland, the term Gaelic or "Irish Gaelic" is also frequently used for the Irish language. The archaic term Erse (from Erische), originally a Scots
form of the word Irish applied in Scotland (by Lowlanders) to all of the Goidelic languages, is no longer used for any Goidelic language.
inscriptions from the fourth century AD; this stage of the language is known as Primitive Irish. These writings have been found throughout Ireland and the west coast of Great Britain
. Primitive Irish transitioned into Old Irish through the 5th century. Old Irish, dating from the sixth century, used the Latin alphabet
and is attested primarily in marginalia
to Latin manuscripts. By the 10th century Old Irish evolved into Middle Irish, which was spoken throughout Ireland and in Scotland
and the Isle of Man
. It is the language of a large corpus of literature, including the famous Ulster Cycle
. From the 12th century Middle Irish began to evolve into modern Irish in Ireland, into Scottish Gaelic in Scotland, and into the Manx language
in the Isle of Man. Early Modern Irish, dating from the thirteenth century, was the literary language of both Ireland and Gaelic-speaking Scotland, and is attested by such writers as Geoffrey Keating
. Modern Irish emerged from the literary language known as Early Modern Irish in Ireland and as Classical Gaelic
in Scotland; this was used through the 18th century.
From the eighteenth century the language went into a decline, rapidly losing ground to English due in part to restrictions dictated by British rule – a conspicuous example of the process known by linguists as language shift
. In the mid-nineteenth century it lost a large portion of its speakers to death and emigration resulting from poverty, particularly in the wake of the Great Famine (1845–1849).
At the end of the nineteenth century, members of the Gaelic Revival
movement made efforts to encourage the learning and use of Irish in Ireland. Particular emphasis was placed at that point on the folk tradition, which in Irish is particularly rich, but efforts were also made to develop journalism and a modern literature.
, pronounced with the back of the tongue pulled back towards the soft palate) and one "slender" (palatalized
, pronounced with the middle of the tongue pushed up towards the hard palate). While broad-slender pairs are not unique to Irish (Russian
has something similar), they can pose a problem for English-speakers.
Diphthongs: iə, uə, əi, əu.
s, the verb–subject–object word order, and the use of two different forms for "to be".
None of these features are peculiar to Irish, however. All of them occur in other Celtic languages as well as in non-Celtic languages: morphosyntactically triggered initial consonant mutation
s are found in Fula
and Shoshoni; VSO word order is found in Classical Arabic
and Biblical Hebrew; and Portuguese
, Spanish
, Italian
, Catalan
and Galician
have two different forms for "to be". The use of prepositional pronouns recalls the Semitic languages
, as well as some lesser-known European languages such as Venetian
.
The situation is complicated by dialect variations, by a recommended standard and by what appears to be a colloquial simplification of both grammar and pronunciation by fluent speakers in the urban context.
The adjective normally follows the noun (the possessive adjectives are an exception), but there are a certain number of adjectives and particles which may function as prefixes.
Irish nouns may be masculine or feminine (the neuter having disappeared). To a certain degree the gender difference is indicated by specific word endings, -án and -ín being masculine and -óg feminine.
Another feature of Irish grammar that is shared with other Celtic languages is the use of prepositional pronouns , which are essentially conjugated prepositions. For example, the word for "at" is , which in the first person singular becomes "at me". When used with the verb ("to be") indicates possession; this is the equivalent of the English verb "to have".
"I have a book." (Literally, "there is a book at me.") "You have a book." "He has a book." "She has a book." "We have a book." "You (plural) have a book." "They have a book."
In Irish, there are two classes of initial consonant mutation
s:
Mutations are often the only way to distinguish similar grammatical forms. For example, the only way (apart from context) in which the possessive pronouns "her," "his" and "their" can be distinguished is through initial mutations, since all these meanings are represented by the same word a. It is seen here in apposition to the word bróg (shoe):
Modern Irish typically uses the basic Latin Alphabet
and so is similar to the English alphabet
without the letters j,k,q,w,x,y,z. However, some anglicised words with no unique Irish meaning use those letters: for instance, 'Jeep' is written as 'Jíp'. Some words take a letter(s) not traditionally used and replace it with the closest phonetic sound, e.g. 'phone'>'Fón'. The written language looks rather daunting to those unfamiliar with it. Once understood, the orthography is relatively straightforward.
Modern Irish has only one diacritic
sign, the acute accent
(á é í ó ú), known in Irish as the "long mark", plural . In English this is frequently referred to simply as the , where the adjective is used as a noun. It serves to lengthen the sound of the vowels and in some cases also changes their quality. For example, in Munster Irish (Kerry), a is /a/ or /ɑ/ and á is /ɑː/ in "law" but in Ulster Irish (Donegal), á tends to be /æː/. (Traditional orthography had an additional diacritic a dot over some consonants to indicate lenition
. In modern Irish, the letter h suffixed to a consonant indicates that the consonant is lenited. Thus, for example, 'Gaelaċ' [see illustration] has become 'Gaelach').
Around the time of World War II, Séamas Daltún, in charge of (the official translations department of the Irish government), issued his own guidelines about how to standardise Irish spelling and grammar. This de facto standard was subsequently approved of by the State and called the Official Standard or . It simplified and standardised the orthography. Many words had silent letters removed and vowel combination brought closer to the spoken language. Where multiple versions existed in different dialects for the same word, one or more were selected.
Examples: → , "Irish language" ( or is still used in books written in dialect by Munster authors, or as a facetious name for the Munster dialect) → , "Louth" → , "food"
The standard spelling does not always reflect every dialect's pronunciation. For example, in standard Irish, bia, "food", has the genitive bia. But in Munster Irish, the genitive is pronounced /bʲiːɟ/. For this reason, the spelling is still used by the speakers of some dialects, in particular those that show a meaningful and audible difference between (nominative case) and (genitive case) "of food, food's". In Munster, the latter spelling regularly produces the pronunciation /bʲiːɟ/ because final -idh, -igh regularly delenites to -ig in Munster pronunciation. Another example would be the word crua, meaning "hard". This pronounced /kruəɟ/ in Munster, in line with the pre-Caighdeán spelling, cruaidh. In Munster, ao is pronounced /eː/ and aoi pronounced /iː/, but the new spellings of saoghal, "life, world", genitive: saoghail, have become saol, genitive saoil. This produces irregularities in the matchup between the spelling and pronunciation in Munster, because the word is pronounced /sˠeːl̪ˠ/, genitive /sˠeːlʲ/.
The dot-above diacritic
, called a or (often shortened to ), derives from the punctum delens used in medieval manuscripts to indicate deletion, similar to crossing out unwanted words in handwriting today. From this usage it was used to indicate the lenition
of s (from /s/ to /h/) and f (from /f/ to zero
) in Old Irish texts.
Lenition of c, p, and t was indicated by placing the letter h after the affected consonant; lenition of other sounds was left unmarked. Later both methods were extended to be indicators of lenition of any sound except l and n, and two competing systems were used: lenition could be marked by a or by a postposed h. Eventually, use of the predominated when texts were written using Gaelic letters, while the h predominated when writing using Roman letters.
Today the Gaelic script
and the are rarely used except where a "traditional" style is required, e.g. the motto on the University College Dublin
coat of arms or the symbol of the Irish Defence Forces, The Irish Defence Forces cap badge
. Letters with the are available in Unicode
and Latin-8 character sets (see Latin Extended Additional chart).
There are a number of distinct dialect
s of Irish. Roughly speaking, the three major dialect areas coincide with the provinces of Munster
, Connacht
and Ulster
. Records of some dialects of Leinster
were made by the Irish Folklore Commission
among other bodies prior to their extinction. Newfoundland, in eastern Canada, is also seen to have (or have had) a minor dialect of Irish, closely resembling the Munster Irish spoken during the 16th to 17th centuries (see Newfoundland Irish
).
near Dungarvan
in County Waterford
and Muskerry and Cape Clear Island in the western part of County Cork
. The most important subdivision in Munster is that between Decies Irish (Na Déise) (spoken in Waterford) and the rest of Munster Irish.
Some typical features of Munster Irish are:
and the Aran Islands
. Much closer to the larger Connacht Gaeltacht is the dialect spoken in the smaller region on the border between Galway and Mayo . The northern Mayo dialect of Erris
and Achill is in grammar and morphology
essentially a Connacht dialect, but shows some similarities to Ulster Irish due to large-scale immigration of dispossessed people following the Plantation of Ulster
.
Features in Connemara Irish differing from the official standard include a preference for verbal nouns ending in , e.g. instead of , "weakening". The non-standard pronunciation of the Cois Fharraige area with lengthened vowels and heavily reduced endings gives it a distinct sound. Distinguishing features of Connacht and Ulster dialect include the pronunciation of word final broad bh and mh as [w], rather than as [vˠ] in Munster. For example ("mountain") is pronounced [ʃlʲiəw] in Connacht and Ulster as opposed to [ʃlʲiəβ] in the south. In addition Connacht and Ulster speakers tend to include the "we" pronoun rather than use the standard compound form used in Munster e.g. is used for "we were" instead of .
Like in Munster Irish, when before -nn, -m, -rr, -rd, -ll and so on, in monosyllabic words and in the stressed syllable of multisyllabic words where the syllable is followed by a consonant, some short vowels are lengthened while others are diphthongised, thus ceann [kʲɑ:n] "head", cam [kɑ:m] "crooked", gearr [gʲɑ:r] "short", ord [ourd] "sledgehammer", gall [gɑ:l] "foreigner, non-Gael", iontas [i:ntəs] "a wonder, a marvel", etc.
The present-day Irish of Meath (in Leinster) is a special case. It belongs mainly to the Connemara dialect. The Irish-speaking community in Meath is mostly a group of Connemara speakers who moved there in the 1930s after a land reform campaign spearheaded by Máirtín Ó Cadhain (who subsequently became one of the greatest modernist writers in the language).
Irish President Douglas Hyde
was one of the last of speakers of the Roscommon
dialect of Irish.
dialects today is that of the Rosses
, which has been used extensively in literature by such authors as the brothers Séamus Ó Grianna and Seosamh Mac Grianna, locally known as Jimí Fheilimí and Joe Fheilimí. This dialect is essentially the same as that in Gweedore
( = Inlet of Streaming Water), and used by native singers Enya
and Máire Brennan and their siblings in Clannad
( = Family from the Dobhar [a section of Gweedore]) Na Casaidigh
, and Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh from another local band Altan.
Ulster Irish sounds very different and shares several features with southern dialects of Scottish Gaelic and Manx Gaelic, as well as having lots of characteristic words and shades of meanings. However, since the demise of those Irish dialects spoken natively in what is today Northern Ireland, it is probably an exaggeration to see present-day Ulster Irish as an intermediary form between Scottish Gaelic and the southern and western dialects of Irish. Northern Scottish Gaelic has many non-Ulster features in common with Munster Irish.
One noticeable trait of Ulster Irish, Manx Gaelic and Scots Gaelic is the use of the negative particle in place of the Munster and Connacht . Though southern Ulster Irish tends to use more than cha(n), cha(n) has almost ousted ní in northernmost dialects (e.g. Rosguill
and Tory Island
), though even in these areas "is not" is more common than chan fhuil or cha bhfuil.
Another noticeable trait is the pronunciation of the first person singular verb ending -im as -am, also common to Ulster, Man and Scotland (Munster/Connacht/Leinster siúlaim "I walk", Ulster siúlam).
, which is taught in most schools in Ireland, though with strong influences from local dialects. It was published by the translators in Dáil Éireann in the 1950s.
Its development in the 1950s and 1960s had two purposes. One was to simplify Irish spelling, which had retained its Classical spelling, by removing many silent letters, and to give a standard written form that was mutually intelligible by speakers with different dialects. Though many aspects of the Caighdeán are essentially those of Connacht Irish, this was simply because this is the central dialect which forms a "bridge", as it were, between the North and South. In reality, dialect speakers pronounce words as in their own dialect, as the spelling simply reflects the pronunciation of Classical Irish. For example, "head" in early modern Irish was pronounced [kʲenːˠ]. The spelling has been retained, but the word is variously pronounced [kʲaunˠ] in the South, [kʲɑːnˠ] in Connacht, and [kʲænːˠ] in the North. "small" was [bʲɛɡˠ] in early modern Irish, and is now [bʲɛɡˠ] in Waterford Irish, [bʲɔɡˠ] in Cork-Kerry Irish, varies between [bʲɔɡˠ] and [bʲæɡˠ] in the West, and is [bʲœɡˠ] in the North.
The simplification was weighted in favour of the Western dialect. For example, the early modern Irish , dative case [lʲebʷɨʝ] "bed" is pronounced [lʲabʷə] as well as [lʲabʷɨɡʲ] in Waterford Irish, [lʲabʷɨɡʲ] in Cork-Kerry Irish, [lʲæbʷə] in Connacht Irish ([lʲæːbʷə] in Cois Fharraige Irish), and [lʲæbʷi] in the North. Native speakers from the North and South may consider that leabaidh should be the representation in the Caighdeán rather than actual . However, is the historically correct nominative form and arguably preferable to the historically incorrect yet common use of the dative form for the nominative.
On the other hand, in other cases the Caighdeán retained classical spellings even when none of the dialects had retained the corresponding pronunciation. For example, it has retained the Classical Irish spelling of "on, for, etc." and "at, by, of, etc.". The first is pronounced [ɛɾʲ] throughout the Goidelic-speaking world (and is written in Manx, and in Scottish Gaelic), and should be written either or in Irish. The second is pronounced [iɡʲ] in the South, and [eɡʲ] in the North and West. Again, Manx and Scottish Gaelic reflect this pronunciation much more clearly than Irish does (Manx , Scottish ).
In many cases, however, the Caighdeán can only refer to the Classical language, in that every dialect is different, as happens in the personal forms of "at, by, of, etc."
Another purpose was to create a grammatically regularised or "simplified" standard which would make the language more accessible for the majority English speaking school population. In part this is why the Caighdeán is not universally respected by native speakers, in that it makes simplified language an ideal, rather than the ideal that native speakers traditionally had of their dialects (or of the Classical dialect if they had knowledge of that). Of course, this was not the original aim of the developers, who rather saw the "school-version" Caighdeán as a means of easing second-language learners into the task of learning "full" Irish. The Caighdeán verb system is a prime example, with the reduction in irregular verb forms and personal forms of the verb – except for the first persons. However, once the word "standard" becomes used, the forms represented as "standard" take on a power of their own, and therefore the ultimate goal has become forgotten in many circles.
The Caighdeán is in general spoken by non-native speakers, frequently from the capital, and is sometimes also called "Dublin Irish" or "Urban Irish". As it is taught in many Irish-Language schools (where Irish is the main, or sometimes only, medium of instruction), it is also sometimes called "Gaelscoil
Irish". The so-called "Belfast Irish", spoken in that city's Gaeltacht Quarter
is the Caighdeán heavily influenced by Ulster Irish and Belfast English.
In recent decades contacts between speakers of different dialects have become more frequent and the differences between the dialects are less noticeable.
as the national and first official language of the Republic of Ireland (with English
being a second official language). In 1938, the founder of Conradh na Gaeilge
(The Gaelic League), Douglas Hyde, was inaugurated as the first President of Ireland
. The record of his delivering his auguration Declaration of Office in Roscommon Irish
remains almost the only surviving remnant of anyone speaking in that dialect.
From the foundation of the Irish Free State
in 1922 (see also History of the Republic of Ireland
), the Irish Government
required a degree of proficiency in Irish for all those who became newly appointed to civil service
positions (including postal workers, tax officials, agricultural inspectors, etc.). Proficiency in just one official language for entrance to the public service was introduced in 1974, in part through the actions of protest organizations like the Language Freedom Movement
.
Though the First Official Language requirement was also dropped for wider public service jobs, Irish remains a required subject of study in all schools within the Republic which receive public money (see also Education in the Republic of Ireland
). Those wishing to teach in primary schools in the State must also pass a compulsory examination called "Scrúdú Cáilíochta sa Ghaeilge". The need for a pass in Leaving Certificate
Irish or English for entry to the Gardaí
(police) was introduced in September 2005, although applicants are given lessons in the language during the two years of training. All official documents of the Irish Government must be published in both Irish and English or Irish alone (this is according to the official languages act 2003, which is enforced by "An Comisinéir Teanga", the Irish language ombudsman).
The National University of Ireland
requires all students wishing to embark on a degree course in the NUI federal system to pass the subject of Irish in the Leaving Certificate or GCE/GCSE Examinations. Exemptions are made from this requirement for students born outside of the Republic of Ireland, those who were born in the Republic but completed primary education outside it, and students diagnosed with dyslexia
.
The National University of Ireland, Galway
is required to appoint people who are competent in the Irish language, as long as they meet all other respects of the vacancy they are appointed to. This requirement is laid down by the University College Galway Act, 1929 (Section 3). It is expected that the requirement may be repealed in due course.
For a number of years there has been vigorous debate in political, academic and other circles about the failure of most students in the mainstream (English-medium) schools to achieve competence in the language, even after fourteen years. The concomitant decline in the number of traditional native speakers has also been a cause of great concern.
There is, however, a growing body of Irish speakers in the cities. Most of these are products of an independent education system in which Irish is the sole language of instruction. Such schools are known at the primary level as Gaelscoil
eanna and are supported by a number of secondary colleges. These Irish-medium schools send a much higher proportion of students on to tertiary level than do the mainstream schools, and it seems increasingly likely that, within a generation, habitual users of Irish will typically be members of an urban, middle-class and highly educated minority.
Even though modern parliamentary legislation is supposed to be issued in both Irish and English, in practice it is frequently only available in English. This is notwithstanding that Article 25.4 of the Constitution of Ireland requires that an "official translation" of any law in one official language be provided immediately in the other official language—if not already passed in both official languages.
s, or in the plural Irish Gaeltachtaí. While the Gaeltacht's fluent Irish speakers, whose numbers have been estimated by scholar Donncha Ó hÉallaithe at twenty or thirty thousand, are a minority of the total number of fluent Irish speakers, they represent a higher concentration of Irish speakers than other parts of the country and it is only in Gaeltacht areas (in especial the more strongly Irish-speaking ones) that Irish continues to be a natural vernacular of the general population.
There are Gaeltacht regions in:
Smaller ones also exist in counties Mayo
(), Meath
(), Waterford
(), and Cork
().
To summarise the extent of the survival: (See Hindley, 'The Death of the Irish Language', Map 7: Irish speakers by towns and distinct electoral divisions, census 1926.) Irish remains as a natural vernacular in the following areas: south Connemara, from a point west of Spiddal, covering Inverin, Carraroe, Rosmuck, and the islands; the Aran Islands; northwest Donegal in the area around Gweedore, including Rannafast, Gortahork, the surrounding townlands and Tory Island; in the townland of Rathcarn, Co. Meath.
Gweedore
,County Donegal is the largest Gaeltacht parish in Ireland.
The numerically and socially strongest Gaeltacht areas are those of South Connemara, the west of the Dingle Peninsula and northwest Donegal, in which the majority of residents use Irish as their primary language. These areas are often referred to as the ("true Gaeltacht") and collectively have a population just under 20,000.
Irish summer colleges are attended by tens of thousands of Irish teenagers annually. Students live with Gaeltacht families, attend classes, participate in sports, go to céilithe
and are obliged to speak Irish. All aspects of Irish culture and tradition are encouraged.
According to data compiled by the Irish Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, only one quarter of households in officially Gaeltacht areas possess a fluency in Irish. The author of a detailed analysis of the survey, Donncha Ó hÉallaithe of the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology
, described the Irish language policy followed by Irish governments a "complete and absolute disaster". The Irish Times
, referring to his analysis published in the Irish language newspaper Foinse
, quoted him as follows: "It is an absolute indictment of successive Irish Governments that at the foundation of the Irish State there were 250,000 fluent Irish speakers living in Irish-speaking or semi Irish-speaking areas, but the number now is between 20,000 and 30,000."
Prior to the establishment of the Northern Ireland state in 1921, Irish was recognised as a school subject and as "Celtic" in some third level institutions. Between 1921 and 1972, Northern Ireland had devolved government. During those years the political party holding power in the Stormont Parliament
, the Ulster Unionist Party
(UUP), was hostile to the language. In broadcasting, there was an exclusion on the reporting of minority cultural issues, and Irish was excluded from radio and television for almost the first fifty years of the previous devolved government. The language received a degree of formal recognition in Northern Ireland
from the United Kingdom, under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement
, and then, in 2003, by the Government's ratification in respect of the language of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
. The British government promised to create legislation encouraging the language as part of the 2006 St Andrews Agreement
.
, only co-decision regulations must be available in Irish for the moment, due to a renewable five-year derogation on what has to be translated, requested by the Irish Government when negotiating the language's new official status. Any expansion in the range of documents to be translated will depend on the results of the first five-year review and on whether the Irish authorities decide to seek an extension. The Irish government has committed itself to train the necessary number of translators and interpreters and to bear the related costs.
Before Irish became an official language it was afforded the status of treaty language and only the highest-level documents of the EU had been made available in Irish.
, chiefly to Britain
and North America, but also to Australia
, New Zealand
and Argentina
.
The first large movements began in the 17th century, largely as a result of the Cromwellian conquest
, which saw many Irish sent to the West Indies. Irish emigration to America
was well established by the 18th century, and was reinforced in the 1840s by thousands fleeing from the Famine. This flight also affected Britain. Up until that time most emigrants spoke Irish as their first language, though English
was steadily establishing itself as the primary language. Irish speakers had first arrived in Australia in the late 18th century as convicts and soldiers, and many Irish-speaking settlers followed, particularly in the 1860s. New Zealand also received some of this influx. Argentina was the only non-English speaking country to receive large numbers of Irish emigrants, and it is likely that some of them spoke Irish.
Relatively few of the emigrants were literate in Irish, but many manuscripts arrived in America, and it was there that the first Irish-language newspaper was established. In Australia, too, the language found its way into print. The Gaelic Revival
, which started in Ireland in the 1890s, found a response abroad, with branches of the Gaelic League being established in all the countries to which Irish speakers had emigrated.
The decline of Irish in Ireland and a slowing of emigration help ensure a decline in the language abroad, along with natural attrition in the host countries. Despite this, a handful of enthusiasts continued to learn and cultivate Irish in diaspora countries and elsewhere, a trend which strengthened in the second half of the 20th century. Today the language is taught at tertiary level in North America, Australia and Europe
, and Irish speakers outside Ireland contribute to journalism and literature in the language.
Goidelic languages
The Goidelic languages or Gaelic languages are one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic languages, the other consisting of the Brythonic languages. Goidelic languages historically formed a dialect continuum stretching from the south of Ireland through the Isle of Man to the north of Scotland...
of the Indo-European
Indo-European
Indo-European may refer to:* Indo-European languages** Aryan race, a 19th century and early 20th century term for those peoples who are the native speakers of Indo-European languages...
language family, originating in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and historically spoken by the Irish people
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
. Irish is now spoken as a first language
First language
A first language is the language a person has learned from birth or within the critical period, or that a person speaks the best and so is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity...
by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language
Second language
A second language or L2 is any language learned after the first language or mother tongue. Some languages, often called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second languages or lingua francas ....
of a larger proportion of the population. In February 2011, Pat Carey
Pat Carey
Pat Carey is a former Irish Fianna Fáil politician. He was a Teachta Dála for the Dublin North West constituency from 1997 to 2011. He served as the Minister for Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs from 2010–11, and also as Government Chief Whip from 2008–10.-Early and private life:Carey...
, then Ireland's Minister for Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs, stated: "The Irish language is an important part of who we are. It is an important part of where we have come from and where we are going". Irish enjoys constitutional
Constitution of Ireland
The Constitution of Ireland is the fundamental law of the Irish state. The constitution falls broadly within the liberal democratic tradition. It establishes an independent state based on a system of representative democracy and guarantees certain fundamental rights, along with a popularly elected...
status as the national and first official language of the Republic of Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
. It is an official language of the European Union
Languages of the European Union
The languages of the European Union are languages used by people within the member states of the European Union. They include the twenty-three official languages of the European Union along with a range of others...
and an officially recognised minority language in Northern Ireland. A speaker of the language may be called a Gaeilgeoir both in Irish and in English.
Irish was the predominant language of the Irish people for most of their recorded history, and they brought their Gaelic speech with them to other countries, notably Scotland and the Isle of Man where it gave rise to Scottish Gaelic and Manx
Manx language
Manx , also known as Manx Gaelic, and as the Manks language, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, historically spoken by the Manx people. Only a small minority of the Island's population is fluent in the language, but a larger minority has some knowledge of it...
. It has the oldest vernacular literature
Early Irish literature
-The earliest Irish authors:It is unclear when literacy first came to Ireland. The earliest Irish writings are inscriptions, mostly simple memorials, on stone in the ogham alphabet, the earliest of which date to the fourth century...
in Western Europe. It began to decline under English and British rule after the seventeenth century. The nineteenth century saw a dramatic decrease in the number of speakers especially after the Great Famine of 1845–1852 (where Ireland lost half its population either to emigration or death). Irish-speaking areas were especially hard hit. By the end of British rule, the language was spoken by less than 15% of the national population. Since then, Irish speakers (Gaeilgeoirí) have been in the minority except in areas collectively known as Gaeltacht
Gaeltacht
is the Irish language word meaning an Irish-speaking region. In Ireland, the Gaeltacht, or an Ghaeltacht, refers individually to any, or collectively to all, of the districts where the government recognises that the Irish language is the predominant language, that is, the vernacular spoken at home...
aí (singular: Gaeltacht). Ongoing efforts have been made to preserve, promote and revive the language.
Estimates of fully native speakers range from 40,000 to 80,000 people. In the Republic, there are just over 72,000 people who use Irish as a daily language outside of education as a spoken vernacular, as well as a larger minority of the population who are fluent but do not use it on a daily basis. While census figures indicate 1.66 million people in the Republic with some knowledge, a significant percentage of these know only a little Irish. Numerous Irish speakers reside in Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and other countries.
Irish
In (the official written standard) the name of the language is (ˈɡeːlʲɟə). Before the spelling reform of 1948, this form was spelled ; originally this was the genitiveGenitive case
In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
of , the form used in classical Modern Irish. Older spellings of this include in Classical Irish [ge:ʝəlˠg] and [goiðelˠg] in Old Irish
Old Irish language
Old Irish is the name given to the oldest form of the Goidelic languages for which extensive written texts are extant. It was used from the 6th to the 10th centuries, by which time it had developed into Middle Irish....
. The modern spelling results from the deletion of the silent dh in the middle of Gaedhilge.
Other forms of the name found in the various modern Irish dialects, in addition to south Connacht mentioned above, include ([ˈɡeːlʲɪc]) or ([ˈɡeːl̪ˠəɡ]) in Ulster Irish
Ulster Irish
Ulster Irish is the dialect of the Irish language spoken in the Province of Ulster. The largest Gaeltacht region today is in County Donegal, so that the term Donegal Irish is often used synonymously. Nevertheless, records of the language as it was spoken in other counties do exist, and help provide...
and northern Connacht Irish and ([ˈɡeːl̪ˠɪŋ/ˈɡeːl̪ˠɪn]) in Munster Irish
Munster Irish
Munster Irish is the dialect of the Irish language spoken in the province of Munster. Gaeltacht regions in Munster are found in the Dingle Peninsula Gaeltacht of west Kerry, in the Iveragh Peninsula in south Kerry, in Cape Clear Island off the coast of west Cork, in West Muskerry; Coolea,...
.
English
In European English, the language is usually referred to as Irish. The term Irish Gaelic is often used when English speakers discuss the relationship among the three Goidelic languages (Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and ManxManx language
Manx , also known as Manx Gaelic, and as the Manks language, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, historically spoken by the Manx people. Only a small minority of the Island's population is fluent in the language, but a larger minority has some knowledge of it...
) or when discussion of Irish is confused to mean Hiberno-English
Hiberno-English
Hiberno-English is the dialect of English written and spoken in Ireland .English was first brought to Ireland during the Norman invasion of the late 12th century. Initially it was mainly spoken in an area known as the Pale around Dublin, with Irish spoken throughout the rest of the country...
, the form of English as spoken in Ireland. Scottish Gaelic is often referred to in English as simply Gaelic. Outside Ireland, the term Gaelic or "Irish Gaelic" is also frequently used for the Irish language. The archaic term Erse (from Erische), originally a Scots
Scots language
Scots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...
form of the word Irish applied in Scotland (by Lowlanders) to all of the Goidelic languages, is no longer used for any Goidelic language.
History
Written Irish is first attested in OghamOgham
Ogham is an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to write the Old Irish language, and occasionally the Brythonic language. Ogham is sometimes called the "Celtic Tree Alphabet", based on a High Medieval Bríatharogam tradition ascribing names of trees to the individual letters.There are roughly...
inscriptions from the fourth century AD; this stage of the language is known as Primitive Irish. These writings have been found throughout Ireland and the west coast of Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
. Primitive Irish transitioned into Old Irish through the 5th century. Old Irish, dating from the sixth century, used the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
and is attested primarily in marginalia
Marginalia
Marginalia are scribbles, comments, and illuminations in the margins of a book.- Biblical manuscripts :Biblical manuscripts have liturgical notes at the margin, for liturgical use. Numbers of texts' divisions are given at the margin...
to Latin manuscripts. By the 10th century Old Irish evolved into Middle Irish, which was spoken throughout Ireland and in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
and the Isle of Man
Isle of Man
The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...
. It is the language of a large corpus of literature, including the famous Ulster Cycle
Ulster Cycle
The Ulster Cycle , formerly known as the Red Branch Cycle, one of the four great cycles of Irish mythology, is a body of medieval Irish heroic legends and sagas of the traditional heroes of the Ulaid in what is now eastern Ulster and northern Leinster, particularly counties Armagh, Down and...
. From the 12th century Middle Irish began to evolve into modern Irish in Ireland, into Scottish Gaelic in Scotland, and into the Manx language
Manx language
Manx , also known as Manx Gaelic, and as the Manks language, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, historically spoken by the Manx people. Only a small minority of the Island's population is fluent in the language, but a larger minority has some knowledge of it...
in the Isle of Man. Early Modern Irish, dating from the thirteenth century, was the literary language of both Ireland and Gaelic-speaking Scotland, and is attested by such writers as Geoffrey Keating
Geoffrey Keating
Seathrún Céitinn, known in English as Geoffrey Keating, was a 17th century Irish Roman Catholic priest, poet and historian. He was born in County Tipperary c. 1569, and died c. 1644...
. Modern Irish emerged from the literary language known as Early Modern Irish in Ireland and as Classical Gaelic
Classical Gaelic
Classical Gaelic is the term used in Scotland for the shared literary form that was in use in Scotland and Ireland 13th to the 18th century. The language is that of Early Modern Irish...
in Scotland; this was used through the 18th century.
From the eighteenth century the language went into a decline, rapidly losing ground to English due in part to restrictions dictated by British rule – a conspicuous example of the process known by linguists as language shift
Language shift
Language shift, sometimes referred to as language transfer or language replacement or assimilation, is the progressive process whereby a speech community of a language shifts to speaking another language. The rate of assimilation is the percentage of individuals with a given mother tongue who speak...
. In the mid-nineteenth century it lost a large portion of its speakers to death and emigration resulting from poverty, particularly in the wake of the Great Famine (1845–1849).
At the end of the nineteenth century, members of the Gaelic Revival
Gaelic Revival
The Gaelic revival was the late-nineteenth-century national revival of interest in the Irish language and Irish Gaelic culture...
movement made efforts to encourage the learning and use of Irish in Ireland. Particular emphasis was placed at that point on the folk tradition, which in Irish is particularly rich, but efforts were also made to develop journalism and a modern literature.
Phonology
In pronunciation, Irish most closely resembles its nearest relatives, Scottish Gaelic and Manx. One notable feature is that consonants (except /h/) come in pairs, one "broad" (velarizedVelarization
Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant.In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of three diacritics:...
, pronounced with the back of the tongue pulled back towards the soft palate) and one "slender" (palatalized
Palatalization
In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....
, pronounced with the middle of the tongue pushed up towards the hard palate). While broad-slender pairs are not unique to Irish (Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
has something similar), they can pose a problem for English-speakers.
| Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals... |
Coronal Coronal consonant Coronal consonants are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. Only the coronal consonants can be divided into apical , laminal , domed , or subapical , as well as a few rarer orientations, because only the front of the tongue has such... |
Dorsal Dorsal consonant Dorsal consonants are articulated with the mid body of the tongue . They contrast with coronal consonants articulated with the flexible front of the tongue, and radical consonants articulated with the root of the tongue.-Function:... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Labio- velar |
Labio- dental Labiodental consonant In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.-Labiodental consonant in IPA:The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Dental | Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Post- alveolar Postalveolar consonant Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
||||||
| broad Velarization Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant.In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of three diacritics:... |
slender Palatalization In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate.... |
broad Velarization Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant.In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of three diacritics:... |
broad Velarization Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant.In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of three diacritics:... |
slender Palatalization In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate.... |
broad Velarization Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant.In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of three diacritics:... |
broad Velarization Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant.In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of three diacritics:... |
slender Palatalization In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate.... |
slender Palatalization In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate.... |
slender Palatalization In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate.... |
broad Velarization Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant.In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of three diacritics:... |
|||
| Plosives | voiceless Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate... |
pˠ | pʲ | t̪ˠ | tʲ | c | k | ||||||
| voiced Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate... |
bˠ | bʲ | d̪ˠ | dʲ | ɟ | ɡ | |||||||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... / Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
voiceless Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate... |
fˠ | fʲ | sˠ | ʃ | ç | x | h | |||||
| voiced Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate... |
w | vʲ | j | ɣ | |||||||||
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
mˠ | mʲ | n̪ˠ | nʲ | ɲ | ŋ | |||||||
| Tap Flap consonant In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.-Contrast with stops and trills:... |
ɾˠ | ɾʲ | |||||||||||
| Lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
l̪ˠ | lʲ | |||||||||||
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... | Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel... | Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... |
iː | uː | |
| Near-close Near-close vowel A near-close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a near-close vowel is that the tongue is positioned similarly to a close vowel, but slightly less constricted. Near-close vowels are sometimes described as lax variants of the fully close vowels... |
ɪ | ʊ | |
| Close-mid Close-mid vowel A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel... |
eː | oː | |
| Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel... |
ə (only unstressed) |
||
| Open-mid Open-mid vowel An open-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from an open vowel to a mid vowel... |
ɛ | ɔ | |
| Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... |
a | ɑː |
Diphthongs: iə, uə, əi, əu.
Grammar
The grammar of Irish shares with other Celtic languages a number of features which, while not unique, are unusual in an Indo-European context. The grammatical features most unfamiliar to English speakers of the language are the initial consonant mutationIrish initial mutations
Irish, like all modern Celtic languages, is characterized by its initial consonant mutations. These mutations affect the initial consonant of a word under specific morphological and syntactic conditions...
s, the verb–subject–object word order, and the use of two different forms for "to be".
None of these features are peculiar to Irish, however. All of them occur in other Celtic languages as well as in non-Celtic languages: morphosyntactically triggered initial consonant mutation
Consonant mutation
Consonant mutation is when a consonant in a word changes according to its morphological and/or syntactic environment.Mutation phenomena occur in languages around the world. A prototypical example of consonant mutation is the initial consonant mutation of all modern Celtic languages...
s are found in Fula
Fula language
The Fula or Fulani language is a language of West Africa. It is spoken as a first language by the and related groups from Senegambia and Guinea to Cameroon and Sudan...
and Shoshoni; VSO word order is found in Classical Arabic
Classical Arabic
Classical Arabic , also known as Qur'anic or Koranic Arabic, is the form of the Arabic language used in literary texts from Umayyad and Abbasid times . It is based on the Medieval dialects of Arab tribes...
and Biblical Hebrew; and Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
and Galician
Galician language
Galician is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community located in northwestern Spain, where it is co-official with Castilian Spanish, as well as in border zones of the neighbouring territories of Asturias and Castile and León.Modern Galician and...
have two different forms for "to be". The use of prepositional pronouns recalls the Semitic languages
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...
, as well as some lesser-known European languages such as Venetian
Venetian language
Venetian or Venetan is a Romance language spoken as a native language by over two million people, mostly in the Veneto region of Italy, where of five million inhabitants almost all can understand it. It is sometimes spoken and often well understood outside Veneto, in Trentino, Friuli, Venezia...
.
The situation is complicated by dialect variations, by a recommended standard and by what appears to be a colloquial simplification of both grammar and pronunciation by fluent speakers in the urban context.
Syntax
Irish is a VSO (verb–subject–object) language, and uses two verbs "to be". One of these, the copula (known in Irish as ), is used to describe the permanent identity or characteristic of a person or thing as opposed to temporary aspects.The adjective normally follows the noun (the possessive adjectives are an exception), but there are a certain number of adjectives and particles which may function as prefixes.
Morphology
Irish is an inflected language, having, in its standard form, the following cases: common (the old nominative and accusative), vocative and genitive. In Munster dialects a dative form persisted, though this has been largely discarded by younger speakers. The present inflectional system represents a radical simplification of the grammar of Old Irish.Irish nouns may be masculine or feminine (the neuter having disappeared). To a certain degree the gender difference is indicated by specific word endings, -án and -ín being masculine and -óg feminine.
Another feature of Irish grammar that is shared with other Celtic languages is the use of prepositional pronouns , which are essentially conjugated prepositions. For example, the word for "at" is , which in the first person singular becomes "at me". When used with the verb ("to be") indicates possession; this is the equivalent of the English verb "to have".
"I have a book." (Literally, "there is a book at me.") "You have a book." "He has a book." "She has a book." "We have a book." "You (plural) have a book." "They have a book."
Mutations
Irish shares with other Celtic languages a feature known as mutation, whereby initial and final consonants may change to express nuances of grammatical relationship and meaning. Mutation affects verbs, nouns and adjectives. Certain consonants may be capable of changing in two ways, depending on the context.In Irish, there are two classes of initial consonant mutation
Consonant mutation
Consonant mutation is when a consonant in a word changes according to its morphological and/or syntactic environment.Mutation phenomena occur in languages around the world. A prototypical example of consonant mutation is the initial consonant mutation of all modern Celtic languages...
s:
- LenitionLenitionIn linguistics, lenition is a kind of sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word lenition itself means "softening" or "weakening" . Lenition can happen both synchronically and diachronically...
(in Irish, "softening") describes the change of stops into fricatives. Indicated in old orthography by a written above the changed consonant, this is now shown in writing by adding an -h:- "throw!" – "I threw" (this is an example of the lenition as a past-tense marker, which is caused by the use of , although it is now usually omitted)
- "market", "market-place", "bargain" – "the man of the street" (word for word "Tadhg of the market-place"; here we see the lenition marking the genitive case of a masculine noun)
- "Seán, John" – "O John!" (here we see lenition as part of what is called the vocative case – in fact, the vocative lenition is triggered by the or vocative marker before )
- Eclipsis (in Irish) covers the voicing of voiceless stops, as well as the nasalisation of voiced stops.
- "father" – "our Father"
- "start", "at the start"
- "Galway" – "in Galway"
Mutations are often the only way to distinguish similar grammatical forms. For example, the only way (apart from context) in which the possessive pronouns "her," "his" and "their" can be distinguished is through initial mutations, since all these meanings are represented by the same word a. It is seen here in apposition to the word bróg (shoe):
- their shoe – a mbróg (eclipsis)
- his shoe – a bhróg (lenition)
- her shoe – a bróg (unchanged)
Orthography
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
and so is similar to the English alphabet
English alphabet
The modern English alphabet is a Latin alphabet consisting of 26 letters and 2 ligatures – the same letters that are found in the Basic modern Latin alphabet:...
without the letters j,k,q,w,x,y,z. However, some anglicised words with no unique Irish meaning use those letters: for instance, 'Jeep' is written as 'Jíp'. Some words take a letter(s) not traditionally used and replace it with the closest phonetic sound, e.g. 'phone'>'Fón'. The written language looks rather daunting to those unfamiliar with it. Once understood, the orthography is relatively straightforward.
Modern Irish has only one diacritic
Diacritic
A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός . Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave are often called accents...
sign, the acute accent
Acute accent
The acute accent is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts.-Apex:An early precursor of the acute accent was the apex, used in Latin inscriptions to mark long vowels.-Greek:...
(á é í ó ú), known in Irish as the "long mark", plural . In English this is frequently referred to simply as the , where the adjective is used as a noun. It serves to lengthen the sound of the vowels and in some cases also changes their quality. For example, in Munster Irish (Kerry), a is /a/ or /ɑ/ and á is /ɑː/ in "law" but in Ulster Irish (Donegal), á tends to be /æː/. (Traditional orthography had an additional diacritic a dot over some consonants to indicate lenition
Lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a kind of sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word lenition itself means "softening" or "weakening" . Lenition can happen both synchronically and diachronically...
. In modern Irish, the letter h suffixed to a consonant indicates that the consonant is lenited. Thus, for example, 'Gaelaċ' [see illustration] has become 'Gaelach').
Around the time of World War II, Séamas Daltún, in charge of (the official translations department of the Irish government), issued his own guidelines about how to standardise Irish spelling and grammar. This de facto standard was subsequently approved of by the State and called the Official Standard or . It simplified and standardised the orthography. Many words had silent letters removed and vowel combination brought closer to the spoken language. Where multiple versions existed in different dialects for the same word, one or more were selected.
Examples: → , "Irish language" ( or is still used in books written in dialect by Munster authors, or as a facetious name for the Munster dialect) → , "Louth" → , "food"
The standard spelling does not always reflect every dialect's pronunciation. For example, in standard Irish, bia, "food", has the genitive bia. But in Munster Irish, the genitive is pronounced /bʲiːɟ/. For this reason, the spelling is still used by the speakers of some dialects, in particular those that show a meaningful and audible difference between (nominative case) and (genitive case) "of food, food's". In Munster, the latter spelling regularly produces the pronunciation /bʲiːɟ/ because final -idh, -igh regularly delenites to -ig in Munster pronunciation. Another example would be the word crua, meaning "hard". This pronounced /kruəɟ/ in Munster, in line with the pre-Caighdeán spelling, cruaidh. In Munster, ao is pronounced /eː/ and aoi pronounced /iː/, but the new spellings of saoghal, "life, world", genitive: saoghail, have become saol, genitive saoil. This produces irregularities in the matchup between the spelling and pronunciation in Munster, because the word is pronounced /sˠeːl̪ˠ/, genitive /sˠeːlʲ/.
The dot-above diacritic
Dot (diacritic)
When used as a diacritic mark, the term dot is usually reserved for the Interpunct , or to the glyphs 'combining dot above' and 'combining dot below'...
, called a or (often shortened to ), derives from the punctum delens used in medieval manuscripts to indicate deletion, similar to crossing out unwanted words in handwriting today. From this usage it was used to indicate the lenition
Lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a kind of sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word lenition itself means "softening" or "weakening" . Lenition can happen both synchronically and diachronically...
of s (from /s/ to /h/) and f (from /f/ to zero
Null morpheme
In morpheme-based morphology, a null morpheme is a morpheme that is realized by a phonologically null affix . In simpler terms, a null morpheme is an "invisible" affix. It is also called a zero morpheme; the process of adding a null morpheme is called null affixation, null derivation or zero...
) in Old Irish texts.
Lenition of c, p, and t was indicated by placing the letter h after the affected consonant; lenition of other sounds was left unmarked. Later both methods were extended to be indicators of lenition of any sound except l and n, and two competing systems were used: lenition could be marked by a or by a postposed h. Eventually, use of the predominated when texts were written using Gaelic letters, while the h predominated when writing using Roman letters.
Today the Gaelic script
Gaelic script
Gaelic type, sometimes called Irish character, Irish type, or Gaelic script, is a family of insular typefaces devised for printing Irish and used between the 16th and 20th centuries. Sometimes all Gaelic typefaces are called Celtic or uncial, though most Gaelic types are not uncials...
and the are rarely used except where a "traditional" style is required, e.g. the motto on the University College Dublin
University College Dublin
University College Dublin ) - formally known as University College Dublin - National University of Ireland, Dublin is the Republic of Ireland's largest, and Ireland's second largest, university, with over 1,300 faculty and 17,000 students...
coat of arms or the symbol of the Irish Defence Forces, The Irish Defence Forces cap badge
Irish Defence Forces cap badge
The Irish Defence Forces Cap Badge is – in distinction to the practice in British, Commonwealth, and many other militaries around the world – common to all services and corps...
. Letters with the are available in Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
and Latin-8 character sets (see Latin Extended Additional chart).
Dialects
Irish is represented by several traditional dialects and by various varieties of urban Irish, the latter influenced in grammar and phonology by both traditional Irish and by English. Differences between the dialects make themselves felt in stress, intonation, vocabulary and structural features.There are a number of distinct dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s of Irish. Roughly speaking, the three major dialect areas coincide with the provinces of Munster
Munster
Munster is one of the Provinces of Ireland situated in the south of Ireland. In Ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial purposes...
, Connacht
Connacht
Connacht , formerly anglicised as Connaught, is one of the Provinces of Ireland situated in the west of Ireland. In Ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for...
and Ulster
Ulster
Ulster is one of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the north of the island. In ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial...
. Records of some dialects of Leinster
Leinster
Leinster is one of the Provinces of Ireland situated in the east of Ireland. It comprises the ancient Kingdoms of Mide, Osraige and Leinster. Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the historic fifths of Leinster and Mide gradually merged, mainly due to the impact of the Pale, which straddled...
were made by the Irish Folklore Commission
Irish Folklore Commission
The Irish Folklore Commission was set up in 1935 by the Irish Government to study and collect information on the folklore and traditions of Ireland....
among other bodies prior to their extinction. Newfoundland, in eastern Canada, is also seen to have (or have had) a minor dialect of Irish, closely resembling the Munster Irish spoken during the 16th to 17th centuries (see Newfoundland Irish
Newfoundland Irish
Newfoundland Irish is an extinct dialect of the Irish language specific to the island of Newfoundland, Canada. It was very similar to Munster Irish, as spoken in the southeast of Ireland, due to mass immigration from the counties Waterford, Wexford, Kilkenny, Tipperary, and Cork.-Irish settlement...
).
Munster
Munster Irish is mainly spoken in the Gaeltacht areas of Kerry , RingRing, County Waterford
Ring is a Gaeltacht region on a peninsula in the western half of County Waterford, Ireland, approximately seven miles south of Dungarvan town.Ring has many town lands but the main village is situated in Baile na nGall...
near Dungarvan
Dungarvan
Dungarvan is a town and harbour on the south coast of Ireland in the province of Munster. Dungarvan is the county town and administrative centre of County Waterford. The town's Irish name means "Garbhan's fort", referring to Saint Garbhan who founded a church there in the seventh century...
in County Waterford
County Waterford
*Abbeyside, Affane, Aglish, Annestown, An Rinn, Ardmore*Ballinacourty, Ballinameela, Ballinamult, Ballinroad, Ballybeg, Ballybricken, Ballyduff Lower, Ballyduff Upper, Ballydurn, Ballygunner, Ballylaneen, Ballymacarbry, Ballymacart, Ballynaneashagh, Ballysaggart, Ballytruckle, Bilberry, Bunmahon,...
and Muskerry and Cape Clear Island in the western part of County Cork
County Cork
County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...
. The most important subdivision in Munster is that between Decies Irish (Na Déise) (spoken in Waterford) and the rest of Munster Irish.
Some typical features of Munster Irish are:
- The use of endings to show person on verbs in parallel with a pronominal subject system, thus "I must" is in Munster as well as , while other dialects prefer ( means "I"). "I was and you were" is as well as in Munster, but more commonly in other dialects. Note that these are strong tendencies, and the personal forms Bhíos etc. are used in the West and North, particularly when the words are last in the clause.
- Use of independent/dependent forms of verbsDependent and independent verb formsIn the Goidelic languages, dependent and independent verb forms are distinct verb forms; each tense of each verb exists in both forms. Verbs are often preceded by a particle which marks negation, or a question, or has some other force. The dependent verb forms are used after a particle, while...
that are not included in the Standard. For example, "I see" in Munster is , which is the independent form – Northern Irish also uses a similar form, tchím), whereas "I do not see" is , feicim being the dependent form, which is used after particles such as ní "not"). Chím is replaced by feicim in the Standard. Similarly, the traditional form preserved in Munster I give/ is / in the Standard; I get/ is /. - When before -nn, -m, -rr, -rd, -ll and so on, in monosyllabic words and in the stressed syllable of multisyllabic words where the syllable is followed by a consonant, some short vowels are lengthened while others are diphthongDiphthongA diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
ised, thus ceann [kʲaun] "head", cam [kɑum] "crooked", gearr [ɡʲaːr] "short", ord [oːrd] "sledgehammer", gall [ɡɑul] "foreigner, non-Gael", iontas [uːntəs] "a wonder, a marvel", compánach [kəumˈpɑːnəx] "companion, mate", etc. - A copular construction involving "it" is frequently used. Thus "I am an Irish person" can be said is Éireannach mé and Éireannach is ea mé in Munster; there is a subtle difference in meaning, however, the first choice being a simple statement of fact, while the second brings emphasis onto the word Éireannach. In effect the construction is a type of "fronting".
- Both masculine and feminine words are subject to lenition after insan (sa/san) "in the", den "of the" and don "to/for the" : sa tsiopa, "in the shop", compared to the Standard sa siopa (the Standard lenites only feminine nouns in the dative in these cases).
- Eclipsis of f after sa: sa bhfeirm, "in the farm", instead of san fheirm.
- Eclipsis of t and d after preposition + singular article, with all prepositions except after insan, den and don: ar an dtigh "on the house", ag an ndoras "at the door".
- StressStress (linguistics)In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
falls in general found on the second syllable of a word when the first syllable contains a short vowel, and the second syllable contains a long vowel, diphthong, or is -(e)ach, e.g. ("pin"), as opposed to in Connacht and Ulster.
Connacht
The strongest dialect of Connacht Irish is to be found in ConnemaraConnemara
Connemara is a district in the west of Ireland consisting of a broad peninsula between Killary Harbour and Kilkieran Bay in the west of County Galway.-Overview:...
and the Aran Islands
Aran Islands
The Aran Islands or The Arans are a group of three islands located at the mouth of Galway Bay, on the west coast of Ireland. They constitute the barony of Aran in County Galway, Ireland...
. Much closer to the larger Connacht Gaeltacht is the dialect spoken in the smaller region on the border between Galway and Mayo . The northern Mayo dialect of Erris
Erris
Erris is a barony in northwestern County Mayo in Ireland consisting of over , much of which is mountainous blanket bog. It has extensive sea coasts along its west and north boundaries. The main towns are Belmullet and Bangor Erris. The name Erris derives from the Irish 'Iar Ros' meaning 'western...
and Achill is in grammar and morphology
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
essentially a Connacht dialect, but shows some similarities to Ulster Irish due to large-scale immigration of dispossessed people following the Plantation of Ulster
Plantation of Ulster
The Plantation of Ulster was the organised colonisation of Ulster—a province of Ireland—by people from Great Britain. Private plantation by wealthy landowners began in 1606, while official plantation controlled by King James I of England and VI of Scotland began in 1609...
.
Features in Connemara Irish differing from the official standard include a preference for verbal nouns ending in , e.g. instead of , "weakening". The non-standard pronunciation of the Cois Fharraige area with lengthened vowels and heavily reduced endings gives it a distinct sound. Distinguishing features of Connacht and Ulster dialect include the pronunciation of word final broad bh and mh as [w], rather than as [vˠ] in Munster. For example ("mountain") is pronounced [ʃlʲiəw] in Connacht and Ulster as opposed to [ʃlʲiəβ] in the south. In addition Connacht and Ulster speakers tend to include the "we" pronoun rather than use the standard compound form used in Munster e.g. is used for "we were" instead of .
Like in Munster Irish, when before -nn, -m, -rr, -rd, -ll and so on, in monosyllabic words and in the stressed syllable of multisyllabic words where the syllable is followed by a consonant, some short vowels are lengthened while others are diphthongised, thus ceann [kʲɑ:n] "head", cam [kɑ:m] "crooked", gearr [gʲɑ:r] "short", ord [ourd] "sledgehammer", gall [gɑ:l] "foreigner, non-Gael", iontas [i:ntəs] "a wonder, a marvel", etc.
The present-day Irish of Meath (in Leinster) is a special case. It belongs mainly to the Connemara dialect. The Irish-speaking community in Meath is mostly a group of Connemara speakers who moved there in the 1930s after a land reform campaign spearheaded by Máirtín Ó Cadhain (who subsequently became one of the greatest modernist writers in the language).
Irish President Douglas Hyde
Douglas Hyde
Douglas Hyde , known as An Craoibhín Aoibhinn , was an Irish scholar of the Irish language who served as the first President of Ireland from 1938 to 1945...
was one of the last of speakers of the Roscommon
Roscommon
Roscommon is the county town of County Roscommon in Ireland. Its population at the 2006 census stood at 5,017 . The town is located near the junctions of the N60, N61 and N63 roads.-History:...
dialect of Irish.
Ulster
Linguistically the most important of the UlsterUlster
Ulster is one of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the north of the island. In ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial...
dialects today is that of the Rosses
The Rosses
The Rosses is a geographical and social region in the west of County Donegal, Ireland, centred around the town of Dungloe, which acts as the educational, shopping and civil centre for the area...
, which has been used extensively in literature by such authors as the brothers Séamus Ó Grianna and Seosamh Mac Grianna, locally known as Jimí Fheilimí and Joe Fheilimí. This dialect is essentially the same as that in Gweedore
Gweedore
Gweedore is an Irish-speaking district located on the Atlantic coast of County Donegal, part of the Province of Ulster in Ireland. Gweedore stretches some 16 miles from Meenaclady in the north to Crolly in the south and around 9 miles from Dunlewey in the east to Magheraclogher in the west, and...
( = Inlet of Streaming Water), and used by native singers Enya
Enya
Enya is an Irish singer, instrumentalist and songwriter. Enya is an approximate transliteration of how Eithne is pronounced in the Donegal dialect of the Irish language, her native tongue.She began her musical career in 1980, when she briefly joined her family band Clannad before leaving to...
and Máire Brennan and their siblings in Clannad
Clannad
Clannad are an Irish musical group, from Gaoth Dobhair, County Donegal. Their music has been variously described as bordering on folk and folk rock, Irish, Celtic and New Age, often incorporating elements of an even broader spectrum of smooth jazz and Gregorian chant...
( = Family from the Dobhar [a section of Gweedore]) Na Casaidigh
Na Casaidigh
Na Casaidigh or The Cassidys in English are an Irish traditional group. They have been based in Dublin for many years, but they originally hail from Gweedore, County Donegal. The group consists of brothers Aongus, Seathrún, Ciarán, Fionntán, Feargus, and Odhrán...
, and Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh from another local band Altan.
Ulster Irish sounds very different and shares several features with southern dialects of Scottish Gaelic and Manx Gaelic, as well as having lots of characteristic words and shades of meanings. However, since the demise of those Irish dialects spoken natively in what is today Northern Ireland, it is probably an exaggeration to see present-day Ulster Irish as an intermediary form between Scottish Gaelic and the southern and western dialects of Irish. Northern Scottish Gaelic has many non-Ulster features in common with Munster Irish.
One noticeable trait of Ulster Irish, Manx Gaelic and Scots Gaelic is the use of the negative particle in place of the Munster and Connacht . Though southern Ulster Irish tends to use more than cha(n), cha(n) has almost ousted ní in northernmost dialects (e.g. Rosguill
Rosguill
Rosguill is a peninsula situated in north-north-west County Donegal, Ireland. Lying between the peninsulae of Fanad to the east and Horn Head to the west, Rosguill is a dichotomy of heathland and ocean...
and Tory Island
Tory Island
Toraigh is an inhabited island 14.5 km off the northwest coast of County Donegal, Ireland. It is also known in Irish as Oileán Thoraigh, Oileán Thoraí or Oileán Thúr Rí.-Language:The main spoken language on the island is Irish, but English is also understood...
), though even in these areas "is not" is more common than chan fhuil or cha bhfuil.
Another noticeable trait is the pronunciation of the first person singular verb ending -im as -am, also common to Ulster, Man and Scotland (Munster/Connacht/Leinster siúlaim "I walk", Ulster siúlam).
An Caighdeán Oifigiúil
An Caighdeán Oifigiúil ("The Official Standard"), often shortened to An Caighdeán, is the standard languageStandard language
A standard language is a language variety used by a group of people in their public discourse. Alternatively, varieties become standard by undergoing a process of standardization, during which it is organized for description in grammars and dictionaries and encoded in such reference works...
, which is taught in most schools in Ireland, though with strong influences from local dialects. It was published by the translators in Dáil Éireann in the 1950s.
Its development in the 1950s and 1960s had two purposes. One was to simplify Irish spelling, which had retained its Classical spelling, by removing many silent letters, and to give a standard written form that was mutually intelligible by speakers with different dialects. Though many aspects of the Caighdeán are essentially those of Connacht Irish, this was simply because this is the central dialect which forms a "bridge", as it were, between the North and South. In reality, dialect speakers pronounce words as in their own dialect, as the spelling simply reflects the pronunciation of Classical Irish. For example, "head" in early modern Irish was pronounced [kʲenːˠ]. The spelling has been retained, but the word is variously pronounced [kʲaunˠ] in the South, [kʲɑːnˠ] in Connacht, and [kʲænːˠ] in the North. "small" was [bʲɛɡˠ] in early modern Irish, and is now [bʲɛɡˠ] in Waterford Irish, [bʲɔɡˠ] in Cork-Kerry Irish, varies between [bʲɔɡˠ] and [bʲæɡˠ] in the West, and is [bʲœɡˠ] in the North.
The simplification was weighted in favour of the Western dialect. For example, the early modern Irish , dative case [lʲebʷɨʝ] "bed" is pronounced [lʲabʷə] as well as [lʲabʷɨɡʲ] in Waterford Irish, [lʲabʷɨɡʲ] in Cork-Kerry Irish, [lʲæbʷə] in Connacht Irish ([lʲæːbʷə] in Cois Fharraige Irish), and [lʲæbʷi] in the North. Native speakers from the North and South may consider that leabaidh should be the representation in the Caighdeán rather than actual . However, is the historically correct nominative form and arguably preferable to the historically incorrect yet common use of the dative form for the nominative.
On the other hand, in other cases the Caighdeán retained classical spellings even when none of the dialects had retained the corresponding pronunciation. For example, it has retained the Classical Irish spelling of "on, for, etc." and "at, by, of, etc.". The first is pronounced [ɛɾʲ] throughout the Goidelic-speaking world (and is written in Manx, and in Scottish Gaelic), and should be written either or in Irish. The second is pronounced [iɡʲ] in the South, and [eɡʲ] in the North and West. Again, Manx and Scottish Gaelic reflect this pronunciation much more clearly than Irish does (Manx , Scottish ).
In many cases, however, the Caighdeán can only refer to the Classical language, in that every dialect is different, as happens in the personal forms of "at, by, of, etc."
- Munster : agùm [əˈɡʷumʷ], agùt [əˈɡʷut̪ʷ], igè [ɨˈɡʲe], icì [ɨˈkʲi], agùing [əˈɡʷuŋʲ] / aguìng [əˈɡʷiŋʲ] (West Cork/Kerry agùin [əˈɡʷunʲ] / aguìn [əˈɡʷinʲ]), agùibh/aguìbh [əˈɡʷuβʲ] / [əˈɡʷiβʲ], acù [ə'kʷu]
- Connacht : am [amʷ] (agam [ˈaɡʷəmʷ]), ad [ˈad̪ʷ] (agad [ˈaɡʷəd̪ʷ]), aige [ˈeɡʲɨ], aici [ˈekʲɨ], ainn [aɲʲ] (againn [ˈaɡʷɨɲʲ]), aguí [ˈaɡʷi], acab [ˈakʷəbə]
- Ulster : aigheam [ɛimʷ], aighead [ɛid̪ʷ], aige [ˈeɡʲɨ], aicí [ˈekʲi], aighinn [ɛiɲʲ] , aighif [ɛiɸʲ], acú [ˈakʷu]
- Caighdeán : [ˈaɡʷəmʷ], agat [ˈaɡʷət̪ʷ], aige [ˈeɡʲɨ], aici [ˈekʲɨ], againn [ˈaɡʷɨɲʲ], agaibh [ˈaɡʷɨβʲ], acu [ˈakʷu] / [ˈakʷə]
Another purpose was to create a grammatically regularised or "simplified" standard which would make the language more accessible for the majority English speaking school population. In part this is why the Caighdeán is not universally respected by native speakers, in that it makes simplified language an ideal, rather than the ideal that native speakers traditionally had of their dialects (or of the Classical dialect if they had knowledge of that). Of course, this was not the original aim of the developers, who rather saw the "school-version" Caighdeán as a means of easing second-language learners into the task of learning "full" Irish. The Caighdeán verb system is a prime example, with the reduction in irregular verb forms and personal forms of the verb – except for the first persons. However, once the word "standard" becomes used, the forms represented as "standard" take on a power of their own, and therefore the ultimate goal has become forgotten in many circles.
The Caighdeán is in general spoken by non-native speakers, frequently from the capital, and is sometimes also called "Dublin Irish" or "Urban Irish". As it is taught in many Irish-Language schools (where Irish is the main, or sometimes only, medium of instruction), it is also sometimes called "Gaelscoil
Gaelscoil
A gaelscoil is an Irish-medium primary school in Ireland, of a sort found outside the traditionally Irish-speaking regions, especially in urban areas....
Irish". The so-called "Belfast Irish", spoken in that city's Gaeltacht Quarter
Gaeltacht quarter
A Neo-Gaeltacht is an area where Irish is the predominant spoken language, but is not part of the officially defined or traditional Gaeltacht areas.-Belfast:...
is the Caighdeán heavily influenced by Ulster Irish and Belfast English.
Comparisons
The differences between dialects are considerable, and have led to recurrent difficulties in defining standard Irish. A good example is the greeting "How are you?". Just as this greeting varies from region to region, and between social classes, among English speakers, this greeting varies among Irish speakers:- Ulster: ("What is it as you are?" Note: or and sometimes are alternative renderings of )
- Connacht: ("What way [is it] that you are?")
- Munster: or ("How are you?" – conas was originally cia nós "what custom/way")
- "Standard" Irish: ("How are you?")
In recent decades contacts between speakers of different dialects have become more frequent and the differences between the dialects are less noticeable.
Republic of Ireland
Irish is given recognition by the Constitution of IrelandConstitution of Ireland
The Constitution of Ireland is the fundamental law of the Irish state. The constitution falls broadly within the liberal democratic tradition. It establishes an independent state based on a system of representative democracy and guarantees certain fundamental rights, along with a popularly elected...
as the national and first official language of the Republic of Ireland (with English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
being a second official language). In 1938, the founder of Conradh na Gaeilge
Conradh na Gaeilge
Conradh na Gaeilge is a non-governmental organisation that promotes the Irish language in Ireland and abroad. The motto of the League is Sinn Féin, Sinn Féin amháin .-Origins:...
(The Gaelic League), Douglas Hyde, was inaugurated as the first President of Ireland
President of Ireland
The President of Ireland is the head of state of Ireland. The President is usually directly elected by the people for seven years, and can be elected for a maximum of two terms. The presidency is largely a ceremonial office, but the President does exercise certain limited powers with absolute...
. The record of his delivering his auguration Declaration of Office in Roscommon Irish
County Roscommon
County Roscommon is a county in Ireland. It is located in the West Region and is also part of the province of Connacht. It is named after the town of Roscommon. Roscommon County Council is the local authority for the county...
remains almost the only surviving remnant of anyone speaking in that dialect.
From the foundation of the Irish Free State
Irish Free State
The Irish Free State was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand...
in 1922 (see also History of the Republic of Ireland
History of the Republic of Ireland
The Irish state originally came into being in 1922 as the Irish Free State, a dominion of the British Commonwealth, having seceded from the United Kingdom under the Anglo-Irish Treaty. It comprises of 26 of Ireland's 32 counties...
), the Irish Government
Irish Government
The Government of Ireland is the cabinet that exercises executive authority in Ireland.-Members of the Government:Membership of the Government is regulated fundamentally by the Constitution of Ireland. The Government is headed by a prime minister called the Taoiseach...
required a degree of proficiency in Irish for all those who became newly appointed to civil service
Civil service of the Republic of Ireland
The Civil Service of Ireland is the collective term for the permanent staff of the Departments of State and certain State Agencies who advise and work for the Government of Ireland. It consists of two broad components, the Civil Service of the Government and the Civil Service of the State...
positions (including postal workers, tax officials, agricultural inspectors, etc.). Proficiency in just one official language for entrance to the public service was introduced in 1974, in part through the actions of protest organizations like the Language Freedom Movement
Language Freedom Movement
Founded in 1966, the Language Freedom Movement was an organization dedicated to the opposition of the state-sponsored revival of the Irish language in the Republic of Ireland with backing by such notable figures as Irish-speaking writers Séamus Ó Grianna and John B...
.
Though the First Official Language requirement was also dropped for wider public service jobs, Irish remains a required subject of study in all schools within the Republic which receive public money (see also Education in the Republic of Ireland
Education in the Republic of Ireland
The levels of education in Ireland are primary, secondary and higher education. In recent years further education has grown immensely. Growth in the economy since the 1960s has driven much of the change in the education system. Education in Ireland is free at all levels, including college , but...
). Those wishing to teach in primary schools in the State must also pass a compulsory examination called "Scrúdú Cáilíochta sa Ghaeilge". The need for a pass in Leaving Certificate
Leaving Certificate
The Leaving Certificate Examinations , commonly referred to as the Leaving Cert is the final examination in the Irish secondary school system. It takes a minimum of two years preparation, but an optional Transition Year means that for those students it takes place three years after the Junior...
Irish or English for entry to the Gardaí
Garda Síochána
, more commonly referred to as the Gardaí , is the police force of Ireland. The service is headed by the Commissioner who is appointed by the Irish Government. Its headquarters are located in the Phoenix Park in Dublin.- Terminology :...
(police) was introduced in September 2005, although applicants are given lessons in the language during the two years of training. All official documents of the Irish Government must be published in both Irish and English or Irish alone (this is according to the official languages act 2003, which is enforced by "An Comisinéir Teanga", the Irish language ombudsman).
The National University of Ireland
National University of Ireland
The National University of Ireland , , is a federal university system of constituent universities, previously called constituent colleges, and recognised colleges set up under the Irish Universities Act, 1908, and significantly amended by the Universities Act, 1997.The constituent universities are...
requires all students wishing to embark on a degree course in the NUI federal system to pass the subject of Irish in the Leaving Certificate or GCE/GCSE Examinations. Exemptions are made from this requirement for students born outside of the Republic of Ireland, those who were born in the Republic but completed primary education outside it, and students diagnosed with dyslexia
Dyslexia
Dyslexia is a very broad term defining a learning disability that impairs a person's fluency or comprehension accuracy in being able to read, and which can manifest itself as a difficulty with phonological awareness, phonological decoding, orthographic coding, auditory short-term memory, or rapid...
.
The National University of Ireland, Galway
National University of Ireland, Galway
The National University of Ireland, Galway is a constituent university of the National University of Ireland...
is required to appoint people who are competent in the Irish language, as long as they meet all other respects of the vacancy they are appointed to. This requirement is laid down by the University College Galway Act, 1929 (Section 3). It is expected that the requirement may be repealed in due course.
For a number of years there has been vigorous debate in political, academic and other circles about the failure of most students in the mainstream (English-medium) schools to achieve competence in the language, even after fourteen years. The concomitant decline in the number of traditional native speakers has also been a cause of great concern.
There is, however, a growing body of Irish speakers in the cities. Most of these are products of an independent education system in which Irish is the sole language of instruction. Such schools are known at the primary level as Gaelscoil
Gaelscoil
A gaelscoil is an Irish-medium primary school in Ireland, of a sort found outside the traditionally Irish-speaking regions, especially in urban areas....
eanna and are supported by a number of secondary colleges. These Irish-medium schools send a much higher proportion of students on to tertiary level than do the mainstream schools, and it seems increasingly likely that, within a generation, habitual users of Irish will typically be members of an urban, middle-class and highly educated minority.
Even though modern parliamentary legislation is supposed to be issued in both Irish and English, in practice it is frequently only available in English. This is notwithstanding that Article 25.4 of the Constitution of Ireland requires that an "official translation" of any law in one official language be provided immediately in the other official language—if not already passed in both official languages.
Gaeltacht
There are parts of Ireland where Irish is still spoken as a traditional, native language used daily. These regions are known collectively as GaeltachtGaeltacht
is the Irish language word meaning an Irish-speaking region. In Ireland, the Gaeltacht, or an Ghaeltacht, refers individually to any, or collectively to all, of the districts where the government recognises that the Irish language is the predominant language, that is, the vernacular spoken at home...
s, or in the plural Irish Gaeltachtaí. While the Gaeltacht's fluent Irish speakers, whose numbers have been estimated by scholar Donncha Ó hÉallaithe at twenty or thirty thousand, are a minority of the total number of fluent Irish speakers, they represent a higher concentration of Irish speakers than other parts of the country and it is only in Gaeltacht areas (in especial the more strongly Irish-speaking ones) that Irish continues to be a natural vernacular of the general population.
There are Gaeltacht regions in:
- County GalwayCounty GalwayCounty Galway is a county in Ireland. It is located in the West Region and is also part of the province of Connacht. It is named after the city of Galway. Galway County Council is the local authority for the county. There are several strongly Irish-speaking areas in the west of the county...
, including ConnemaraConnemaraConnemara is a district in the west of Ireland consisting of a broad peninsula between Killary Harbour and Kilkieran Bay in the west of County Galway.-Overview:...
, the Aran IslandsAran IslandsThe Aran Islands or The Arans are a group of three islands located at the mouth of Galway Bay, on the west coast of Ireland. They constitute the barony of Aran in County Galway, Ireland...
, CarraroeCarraroeAn Cheathrú Rua is a village in County Galway, Ireland. The village is within the Irish-speaking region of Connemara, and is famous for its traditional fishing boats known as Galway Hookers. Its population is widely dispersed over Carraroe peninsula between Greatman's Bay and Casla Bay...
and SpiddalSpiddalSpiddal is a village on the shore of Galway Bay in County Galway in Ireland. It is west of Galway city on the R336 road. Spiddal is on the eastern side of the county's Gaeltacht near Connemara, and is a tourist centre with a scenic beach, harbour, and shore fishing.-The village:The Mac...
; - on the west coast of County DonegalCounty DonegalCounty Donegal is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Border Region and is also located in the province of Ulster. It is named after the town of Donegal. Donegal County Council is the local authority for the county...
; in the part which is known as Tyrconnell ; - Dingle PeninsulaDingle PeninsulaThe Dingle Peninsula is the northernmost of the major peninsulae in County Kerry. Its ends beyond the town of Dingle at Dunmore Head, the westernmost point of Ireland.-Name:...
and Iveragh PeninsulaIveragh PeninsulaThe Iveragh Peninsula is located in County Kerry in Ireland. It is the largest peninsula in southwestern Ireland. A mountain range, the Macgillycuddy's Reeks, lies in the centre of the peninsula...
in County KerryCounty KerryKerry means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich. In Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective...
.
Smaller ones also exist in counties Mayo
County Mayo
County Mayo is a county in Ireland. It is located in the West Region and is also part of the province of Connacht. It is named after the village of Mayo, which is now generally known as Mayo Abbey. Mayo County Council is the local authority for the county. The population of the county is 130,552...
(), Meath
County Meath
County Meath is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Mid-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the ancient Kingdom of Mide . Meath County Council is the local authority for the county...
(), Waterford
County Waterford
*Abbeyside, Affane, Aglish, Annestown, An Rinn, Ardmore*Ballinacourty, Ballinameela, Ballinamult, Ballinroad, Ballybeg, Ballybricken, Ballyduff Lower, Ballyduff Upper, Ballydurn, Ballygunner, Ballylaneen, Ballymacarbry, Ballymacart, Ballynaneashagh, Ballysaggart, Ballytruckle, Bilberry, Bunmahon,...
(), and Cork
County Cork
County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...
().
To summarise the extent of the survival: (See Hindley, 'The Death of the Irish Language', Map 7: Irish speakers by towns and distinct electoral divisions, census 1926.) Irish remains as a natural vernacular in the following areas: south Connemara, from a point west of Spiddal, covering Inverin, Carraroe, Rosmuck, and the islands; the Aran Islands; northwest Donegal in the area around Gweedore, including Rannafast, Gortahork, the surrounding townlands and Tory Island; in the townland of Rathcarn, Co. Meath.
Gweedore
Gweedore
Gweedore is an Irish-speaking district located on the Atlantic coast of County Donegal, part of the Province of Ulster in Ireland. Gweedore stretches some 16 miles from Meenaclady in the north to Crolly in the south and around 9 miles from Dunlewey in the east to Magheraclogher in the west, and...
,County Donegal is the largest Gaeltacht parish in Ireland.
The numerically and socially strongest Gaeltacht areas are those of South Connemara, the west of the Dingle Peninsula and northwest Donegal, in which the majority of residents use Irish as their primary language. These areas are often referred to as the ("true Gaeltacht") and collectively have a population just under 20,000.
Irish summer colleges are attended by tens of thousands of Irish teenagers annually. Students live with Gaeltacht families, attend classes, participate in sports, go to céilithe
Céilidh
In modern usage, a céilidh or ceilidh is a traditional Gaelic social gathering, which usually involves playing Gaelic folk music and dancing. It originated in Ireland, but is now common throughout the Irish and Scottish diasporas...
and are obliged to speak Irish. All aspects of Irish culture and tradition are encouraged.
According to data compiled by the Irish Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, only one quarter of households in officially Gaeltacht areas possess a fluency in Irish. The author of a detailed analysis of the survey, Donncha Ó hÉallaithe of the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology
Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology
Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology is a third level institute of education and is based at five locations in the west of Ireland.-Galway Campus:...
, described the Irish language policy followed by Irish governments a "complete and absolute disaster". The Irish Times
The Irish Times
The Irish Times is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Kevin O'Sullivan who succeeded Geraldine Kennedy in 2011; the deputy editor is Paul O'Neill. The Irish Times is considered to be Ireland's newspaper of record, and is published every day except Sundays...
, referring to his analysis published in the Irish language newspaper Foinse
Foinse
-History:Foinse was first published in October 1996 as a weekly Saturday newspaper. It was published in Carraroe, County Galway and printed in Tralee. It was first published in October 1996....
, quoted him as follows: "It is an absolute indictment of successive Irish Governments that at the foundation of the Irish State there were 250,000 fluent Irish speakers living in Irish-speaking or semi Irish-speaking areas, but the number now is between 20,000 and 30,000."
Northern Ireland
Parliament of Northern Ireland
The Parliament of Northern Ireland was the home rule legislature of Northern Ireland, created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which sat from 7 June 1921 to 30 March 1972, when it was suspended...
, the Ulster Unionist Party
Ulster Unionist Party
The Ulster Unionist Party – sometimes referred to as the Official Unionist Party or, in a historic sense, simply the Unionist Party – is the more moderate of the two main unionist political parties in Northern Ireland...
(UUP), was hostile to the language. In broadcasting, there was an exclusion on the reporting of minority cultural issues, and Irish was excluded from radio and television for almost the first fifty years of the previous devolved government. The language received a degree of formal recognition in Northern Ireland
Irish language in Northern Ireland
The Irish language is a minority language in Northern Ireland. The dialect spoken there is known as Ulster Irish....
from the United Kingdom, under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement
Belfast Agreement
The Good Friday Agreement or Belfast Agreement , sometimes called the Stormont Agreement, was a major political development in the Northern Ireland peace process...
, and then, in 2003, by the Government's ratification in respect of the language of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages is a European treaty adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe...
. The British government promised to create legislation encouraging the language as part of the 2006 St Andrews Agreement
St Andrews Agreement
The St Andrews Agreement was an agreement between the British and Irish Governments and the political parties in relation to the devolution of power to Northern Ireland...
.
European Union
Irish became an official language of the EU on 1 January 2007 meaning that MEPs with Irish fluency can now speak the language in the EU Parliament in Europe and at committees although in the case of the latter they have to give prior notice to a simultaneous interpreter in order to ensure that what they say can be interpreted into other languages. While an official language of the European UnionLanguages of the European Union
The languages of the European Union are languages used by people within the member states of the European Union. They include the twenty-three official languages of the European Union along with a range of others...
, only co-decision regulations must be available in Irish for the moment, due to a renewable five-year derogation on what has to be translated, requested by the Irish Government when negotiating the language's new official status. Any expansion in the range of documents to be translated will depend on the results of the first five-year review and on whether the Irish authorities decide to seek an extension. The Irish government has committed itself to train the necessary number of translators and interpreters and to bear the related costs.
Before Irish became an official language it was afforded the status of treaty language and only the highest-level documents of the EU had been made available in Irish.
Outside Ireland
The Irish language was carried abroad in the modern period by a vast diasporaDiaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
, chiefly to Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
and North America, but also to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
and Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
.
The first large movements began in the 17th century, largely as a result of the Cromwellian conquest
Cromwellian conquest of Ireland
The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland refers to the conquest of Ireland by the forces of the English Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Cromwell landed in Ireland with his New Model Army on behalf of England's Rump Parliament in 1649...
, which saw many Irish sent to the West Indies. Irish emigration to America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
was well established by the 18th century, and was reinforced in the 1840s by thousands fleeing from the Famine. This flight also affected Britain. Up until that time most emigrants spoke Irish as their first language, though English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
was steadily establishing itself as the primary language. Irish speakers had first arrived in Australia in the late 18th century as convicts and soldiers, and many Irish-speaking settlers followed, particularly in the 1860s. New Zealand also received some of this influx. Argentina was the only non-English speaking country to receive large numbers of Irish emigrants, and it is likely that some of them spoke Irish.
Relatively few of the emigrants were literate in Irish, but many manuscripts arrived in America, and it was there that the first Irish-language newspaper was established. In Australia, too, the language found its way into print. The Gaelic Revival
Gaelic Revival
The Gaelic revival was the late-nineteenth-century national revival of interest in the Irish language and Irish Gaelic culture...
, which started in Ireland in the 1890s, found a response abroad, with branches of the Gaelic League being established in all the countries to which Irish speakers had emigrated.
The decline of Irish in Ireland and a slowing of emigration help ensure a decline in the language abroad, along with natural attrition in the host countries. Despite this, a handful of enthusiasts continued to learn and cultivate Irish in diaspora countries and elsewhere, a trend which strengthened in the second half of the 20th century. Today the language is taught at tertiary level in North America, Australia and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, and Irish speakers outside Ireland contribute to journalism and literature in the language.
See also
- BéarlachasBéarlachasBéarlachas is an Irish term for a variety of words and phrases used in the language that are perceived to be either excessively influenced by English or to be English. This influence may vary between simple anglicisms to a process of interlanguage forms...
, Anglicisms in Irish - Buntús CainteBuntús CainteBuntús Cainte was a programme aimed at teaching the Irish language that was broadcast on Raidió Teilifís Éireann in Ireland, beginning in 1967. The show was designed to appeal to young viewers, and was lively and humorous. The programme was presented by Máire O’Neill and Aileen Geoghegan...
, a course in basic spoken Irish - Cumann GaelachCumann GaelachAn Cumann Gaelach is a student society typically found in most colleges and universities in Ireland. Many of the groups were founded in the early 1900s as part of a wider revival of the language, which saw the establishment of national groups such as Conradh na Gaeilge...
, Irish language Society - Dictionary of the Irish LanguageDictionary of the Irish LanguageDictionary of the Irish Language: Based Mainly on Old and Middle Irish Materials , published by the Royal Irish Academy, is the definitive dictionary of the origins of the Irish language, specifically the Old Irish and Middle Irish stages; the modern language is not included...
- Differences between Scottish Gaelic and IrishDifferences between Scottish Gaelic and IrishScottish Gaelic is closely related to Irish. Most dialects are not immediately mutually comprehensible, though many individual words and phrases are, and speakers of the two languages can rapidly develop mutual intelligibility....
- Gaelic RevivalGaelic RevivalThe Gaelic revival was the late-nineteenth-century national revival of interest in the Irish language and Irish Gaelic culture...
- Goidelic substrate hypothesis
- Hiberno-LatinHiberno-LatinHiberno-Latin, also called Hisperic Latin, was a learned sort of Latin literature created and spread by Irish monks during the period from the sixth century to the tenth century.-Vocabulary and Influence:...
, a variety of Medieval LatinMedieval LatinMedieval Latin was the form of Latin used in the Middle Ages, primarily as a medium of scholarly exchange and as the liturgical language of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, but also as a language of science, literature, law, and administration. Despite the clerical origin of many of its authors,...
used in Irish monasteries. It included Greek, Hebrew and Celtic neologisms. - Irish nameIrish nameA formal Irish-language name consists of a given name and a surname. Surnames in Irish are generally patronymic in etymology, although they are no longer literal patronyms, as Icelandic names are...
and Place names in IrishPlace names in IrishThe vast majority of placenames in Ireland are anglicisations of Irish language names; that is, adaptations of the Irish names to English phonology and spelling. However, some names come directly from the English language, and a handful come from Old Norse and Ulster Scots... - Irish words used in the English languageIrish words used in the English languageIrish words used in English in modern Ireland without being assimilated to English forms include:* Amhrán na bhFiann: National Anthem of Ireland ** pronounced * Áras an Uachtaráin: Residence of the President** pronounced...
- Language Freedom MovementLanguage Freedom MovementFounded in 1966, the Language Freedom Movement was an organization dedicated to the opposition of the state-sponsored revival of the Irish language in the Republic of Ireland with backing by such notable figures as Irish-speaking writers Séamus Ó Grianna and John B...
- List of artists who have released Irish language songs
- List of English words of Irish origin
- List of Ireland-related topics
- List of Irish-language given names
- List of Irish-language media
- Modern literature in IrishModern literature in IrishAlthough Irish has been used as a literary language for more than 1500 years , and in a form intelligible to contemporary speakers since at least the sixteenth century, modern literature in Irish owes much to the Gaelic Revival, a cultural movement which began in the late nineteenth century.-Early...
- Status of the Irish languageStatus of the Irish languageIrish is the main community and household language of 3% of the population of the Republic of Ireland . Estimates of fully native speakers range from 40,000 up to 80,000 people...
External links
General links
- Irish phrasebook at Wiktravel
- BCI: Irish language media stats
- Discover Irish
- Foras na Gaeilge – Official promotional body for the Irish language throughout the island of Ireland
- Gaeilge ar an ghréasán Irish online resources
- 'Gael-Taca (Corcaigh)'
- "Learning Irish?," BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
- "Social Network for learners, teachers and speakers,"
- The Irish Language And The Irish People Report
- "Learn Irish online easily with a new Irish word each day,"
- Gaelscoil stats
- Irish language Fund for Overseas Institutions
- Irish language schedule for Electric Picnic
- Giotaí and Top 40 Offigiúla na hÉireann programmes
- Irish Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words (from Wiktionary's Swadesh-list appendix)
Grammar and pronunciation
- A dialect of Donegal (a phonological description of the dialect of GlentiesGlentiesGlenties is a village in the northwest of Ireland in central County Donegal. It is situated where two glens meet, northwest of the Blue Stack Mountains, near the confluence of two rivers. Glenties is the largest centre of population in the parish of Iniskeel...
by E. C. Quiggin, from 1906) - An Gael Magazine – Irish Gaelic Arts, Culture, And History Alive Worldwide Today
- A short Irish and Breton phrase list with Japanese translation(Renewal) incl sound file
- Braesicke's Gramadach na Gaeilge (Engl. translation)
- Die araner mundart (a phonological description of the dialect of the Aran IslandsAran IslandsThe Aran Islands or The Arans are a group of three islands located at the mouth of Galway Bay, on the west coast of Ireland. They constitute the barony of Aran in County Galway, Ireland...
by F. N. Finck, from 1899)