Goidelic languages

The Goidelic languages (also sometimes called the Gaelic languages or collectively Gaelic) are one of two major divisions of modern-day Insular Celtic languages (the other being the Brythonic languages). There are three attested Goidelic languages: Irish (Gaeilge), Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig), and Manx (Gaelg). Shelta is sometimes mistakenly thought to be a Goidelic language when it is, in fact, a cant based on Irish and English, with a primarily English-based syntax.

The Goidelic branch is also known as Q-Celtic, because Proto-Celtic *k^w was originally retained in this branch (later losing its labialization and becoming plain as opposed to Brythonic, where *k^w became [p. This sound change is found in Gaulish as well, so Brythonic and Gaulish are sometimes collectively known as "P-Celtic". (In Celtiberian, *k^w is also retained, so the term "Q-Celtic" could be applied to it as well, although Celtiberian is not a Goidelic language.)

Proto-Celtic	Gaulish	Welsh	Breton	Irish	Scottish Gaelic	Manx	English gloss
*k^wennos	pennos	pen	penn	ceann	ceann	kione	"head"
*k^wetwar-	petuarios	pedwar	pevar	ceathair	ceithir	kiare	"four"
*k^wenk^we	pinpetos	pump	pemp	cúig	còig	queig	"five"
*k^weis		pwy	piv	cé (older cia)	cò/cia	quoi	"who"

Nomenclature

Although Irish and Manx are often referred to as Irish Gaelic and Manx Gaelic (and they are Goidelic or Gaelic languages) the use of the word Gaelic is unnecessary because the words Irish and Manx only ever refer to these languages whereas Scots by itself refers to a Germanic language and Scottish can refer to things not at all Gaelic. The word Gaelic by itself is somewhat ambiguous, but most often refers to Scottish Gaelic and it is the word that Scottish Gaelic speakers themselves use when speaking English.

Furthermore, due to the peculiar politics of language and national identity, some Irish speakers are offended by the use of the word Gaelic by itself to refer to Irish.

Similarly, some Scottish Gaelic speakers also find offensive the use of the obsolete word Erse (from Erisch, "Irish") to refer to their language. This term was used in Scotland since at least the late 15th century to refer to Gaelic, which had previously been called Scottis.

The names used in languages themselves (Gaeilge in Irish, Gaelg in Manx, and Gàidhlig in Scottish Gaelic) are derived from Old Irish Goídeleg, which in itself is from the originally more-or-less derogative term Goídel meaning "pirate, raider" in Old Welsh. The Goidels called themselves various names according to their tribal/clan affiliations, but the most general seems to have been the name rendered in Latin as Scoti.

Classification

The family tree of the Goidelic languages is as follows:

Goidelic
- Primitive Irish, ancestral to:
- Old Irish, ancestral to:
- Middle Irish, ancestral to:

History and range

Goidelic languages were once restricted to Ireland, but sometime between the 3rd century and the 6th century a group of the Irish Celts known to the Romans as Scoti began migrating from Ireland to what is now Scotland and eventually assimilated the Picts (a group of peoples who may have originally spoken a Brythonic language) who lived there. Manx, the former common language of the Isle of Man, is closely akin to the Gaelic spoken in north east Ireland and the now extinct Gaelic of Galloway (in southwest Scotland), with heavy influence from Old Norse because of the Viking invasions.

The oldest written Goidelic language is Primitive Irish, which is attested in ogham inscriptions up to about the 4th century AD. Old Irish is found in the margins of Latin religious manuscripts from the 6th century to the 10th century. Middle Irish, the ancestor of the modern Goidelic languages, is the name for the language as used from the 10th to the 16th century. A form of Middle Irish was used as a literary language in Ireland and Scotland until the 17th century, and often in both countries well into the 18th century. This is often called Classical Irish while the Ethnologue gives the name "Hiberno-Scottish Gaelic" to this purely written language. As long as this written language was the norm, Ireland was considered the Gaelic homeland to the Scottish literati.

Irish

Irish is one of Ireland's two official languages (along with English) and is still fairly widely spoken in the south, west and north west of Ireland. The legally defined Irish-speaking areas are called the Gaeltacht; all government institutions of the Republic of Ireland (in particular, the Parliament, its upper and lower houses, and the Prime Minister) are officially named in this language, even in English. At present, Irish is primarily spoken in Counties Cork, Donegal, Mayo, Galway, Kerry and, to a lesser extent, in Waterford and Meath. Irish is also undergoing a revival in Northern Ireland and has been accorded some legal status there under the 1998 Belfast Agreement. Approximately 260,000 people in the Republic of Ireland can speak the Irish language fluently, while close to 80,000 (mainly in the Gaeltacht) speak Irish as a first, day to day language. Over a million citizens of the Republic of Ireland have some understanding in Irish (ranging from minimum to almost fluent). Before the Irish potato famine of the 1840s, the language was spoken by the vast majority of the population, but the famine and emigration led to a decline which has only begun to reverse very recently. The census figures do not take into account those Irish who have emigrated, and it has been estimated (rightly or wrongly) that there are more native speakers of Irish in Great Britain, the US, Australia and other parts of the world than there are in Ireland itself.

The Irish language has been officially recognised as a working language by the European Union. Ireland's national language is the 21st to be given such recognition by the EU and previously had the status of a treaty language.

Scottish Gaelic

Some people in the north and west of Scotland and the Hebrides still speak Scottish Gaelic, but because of its minimal official recognition and because of large-scale emigration from those parts of Scotland, the language has been in decline. There are now believed to be approximately 1,000 native speakers of Scottish Gaelic in Nova Scotia and 60,000 in Scotland.

Its historical range was much larger. For example, it was the everyday language of most of the rest of the Highlands until little more than a century ago. Galloway had also been a Goidelic-speaking region, but the Galwegian language has been extinct there for approximately three centuries. It is believed to have been home to dialects that were transitional between Scottish Gaelic and the two other Goidelic languages. Most other areas of the Lowlands also spoke forms of Gaelic, the only exceptions being the area which lies on the south-eastern part of the modern border with England - the area called Lothian in the Middle Ages - and the far north-east (parts of Caithness), Orkney and Shetland.

The very word Scotland in fact takes its name from the Latin word for a Gael, Scotus. So Scotland originally meant Land of the Scots, or Land of the Gaels. Moreover, until late in the 15th century, it was solely the Gaelic language used in Scotland which in English was called Scottish or - more authentically - Scottis. Scottis continued to be the English name for the language, although it was gradually superseded by the word Erse, an act of cultural disassociation which contributed to the language's declining status. In the early 16th century the dialects of Middle English which had developed in Lothian and had come to be spoken elsewhere in the Kingdom of Scotland themselves appropriated the name Scots. By the seventeenth century Gaelic speakers were restricted largely to the Highlands and the Hebrides. Furthermore, the culturally repressive measures taken against the rebellious highland communities by the British crown following the 2nd Jacobite Rebellion of 1746 caused still further decline in the language's use - to a large extent by enforced emigration. Even more decline followed in the 19th and early 20th centuries

The Scottish Parliament has afforded the language a secure statutory status and equal respect (but not full equality in legal status within Scots Law ^*) with English, sparking hopes that Scottish Gaelic can be saved from extinction and perhaps even revived.

Manx

Manx is technically extinct, although attempts to revive it continue and it is still used in ceremonies such as Tynwald Day. A small minority of the Manx people, estimated to be not more than 2,000, can speak the language, although the person considered to be the last true native speaker, Ned Maddrell, died in 1974. Although a Gaelic language, closely related to its Irish and Scottish sister languages, the Manx language also borrowed heavily from the Old Norse language introduced by Viking raiders centuries ago, as well as middle English and Welsh.

Other Celtic languages

All the other living Celtic languages belong to the Brythonic branch of Celtic, which includes Welsh (Cymraeg), Breton (Brezhoneg), and Cornish (Kernowek). Pictish was the ancient language of much of modern day Scotland, but its exact relation to the other Celtic languages is not certain. These are sometimes incorrectly referred to as "Gaelic". For extinct Celtic languages of the European mainland, see Continental Celtic languages.

There are also two mixed languages that are not specifically Goidelic languages as such, but have a strong input from them:

Bungee language in Canada, a Métis mix of Scottish Gaelic and Cree language
Shelta, a mix of Irish language and English

External links

Goidelic languages | Celtic languages

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