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The term Irish Gaelic may be seen when English speakers discuss the relationship between the three Goidelic languages (Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx). Gaelic is a collective term for the Goidelic languages, [6] [23] [7] [10] [24] and when the context is clear it may be used without qualification to refer to each language individually.
- Names of The Language
- Relationship to Other Languages
- Dialects
- The Official Standard
- Decline and Revival
- Origin of Writing in Ireland
- The Ogham Alphabet
- Gaelic Script
- Modern Irish Alphabet
- Irish Pronunciation
Irish is known as Irish, Gaelic or Irish Gaelic in English. The official standard name in Irish is Gaeilge /ˈɡeːlʲɟə/. Before the 1948 spelling reform, this was spelled Gaedhilge. In Middle Irish the name was spelled Gaoidhealg, in Classical Irish it was Gaoidhealg [ˈɡeːʝəlˠɡ], and it was Goídelcin Old Irish. In Ulster and northern Connacht, Irish ...
Irish is a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages, also known as Q-Celtic. It is closely related to Manx (Gaelg/Gailck) and Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig), the other Goidelic languages. There is some degree of mutual intelligibility between them, particular between the Scottish Gaelic of Islay and Argyll, Ulster Irish, and Manx. The grammar ...
There are three main dialects of Irish: Munster (An Mhumhain), Connacht (Connachta) and Ulster (Ulaidh). The Munster dialect is spoken mainly in Kerry (Ciarraí) and Muskerry (Múscraí) in the western part of County Cork (Contae Chorcaí). The Connacht dialect is spoken mainly in Connemara (Conamara), the Aran Islands (Oileáin Árann) and Tourmakeady (...
During the 1950s and 1960s a standardised form of Irish, known the An Caighdeán Oifigiúil(The Official Standard) was developed. It combines elements from the three major dialects and its pronunciation is based on the Connacht dialect. This is the form of the language taught in most schools.
Between the 17th and early 20th centuries, the Irish language was gradually replaced by English in most parts of Ireland. Famine and migration in the 19th and 20th centuries led to its further decline. However when the Republic of Ireland came into being in 1922, Irish was adopted as an official language, along with English, and the government and ...
Irish first began to appear in writing in Ogham inscriptions between the 4th and 6th centuries AD. When St Patrick introduced Christianity to Ireland in the 5th century, Irish writers began to write in Latin, and at the same time Irish literature written in the Latin alphabet began to appear. The Viking invasions of the 9th and 10th centuries led t...
The Ogham alphabet was used to write Archaic Irish, Old Welsh and Latin and Ogham inscriptions have been found in various parts of Ireland and the British Isles. More information about Ogham
The Gaelic Script originated in medieval manuscripts as a variant of the Latin alphabet. It was used for printing Irish until quite recently and is still used on road signs and public notices throughout Ireland. More information about the Gaelic Script
Today Irish is usually written with a version of the Latin alphabet similar to the one used for Scottish Gaelic, though a spelling reform in 1957 eliminated some of the silent letters which are still used in Scottish Gaelic. Hear the Irish alphabet: The letters j (jé), k (ká), q (cú), v (vé), w (wae), x (ex), y (yé) and z (zae) do not occur in nati...
Notes
1. Consonants are broad when preceded and/or followed by a, o or u, and slender when preceded and/or followed by e or i. 2. Lenition (séimhiú) is a change in soundthat occurs to the beginning of words caused by a preceding word,such as a preposition. Lenition is indicated by adding an h afterthe initial consonant. For example, the Irish for shoe isbróg, [brok] but my shoe is mo bhróg[mɔ vrok]. 3. Eclipsis (urú) happens after certain words, suchas i, which means "in". Eclipsis in indicated bya...
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What is the difference between Gaelic and Goidelic?
What is a Goidelic language?
What is the difference between Irish and Gaelic?
Is Irish a Gaelic language?
Goidelic languages, one of two groups of the modern Celtic languages; the group includes Irish, Manx, and Scottish Gaelic. The Goidelic languages originated in Ireland and are distinguished from the other group of Insular Celtic tongues—the Brythonic—by the retention of the sound q (later.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Scottish Gaelic is written with 18 letters of the Latin alphabet. Traditionally each letter is named after a tree or shrub, however the names are no longer used. Inscriptions in Ogham have been found in Scotland, however it is not certain what language they are in. Some may be in Gaelic, others in Pictish.
The term “Gaelic” takes its name from the Gaels, a group of settlers that arrived in Scotland from Ireland around the 6 th century, though both Irish and Scottish Gaelic began to develop prior to the settlement of the Gaels in Scotland. The Gaelic and Irish languages are both rooted in Ogham, an ancient Irish alphabet that evolved into ...
Gàidhlig has its own unique alphabet, known as the Gaelic script, which consists of 18 letters. The language has a complex grammatical structure with a variety of verb forms and noun declensions. It also features mutations, where the initial sounds of words change depending on grammatical context.
A comparison of the Celtic languages. The six Celtic languages currently spoken are divided into two branches: Goidelic or Gaelic, and Brythonic or British. The former branch consists of Irish, Manx and Scottish Gaelic, while the latter branch includes Welsh, Cornish and Breton. While there are many similarities between the languages in each ...
