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 kw was originally retained in this branch (later losing its
labialization and becoming plain [k]), as opposed to
Brythonic, where
kw became [p]. This sound change is found in
Gaulish as well, so Brythonic and Gaulish are sometimes collectively known as "P-Celtic". (In
Celtiberian,
kw is also retained, so the term "Q-Celtic" could be applied to it as well, although Celtiberian is not a Goidelic language.)
| Proto-Celtic | Gaulish | Welsh | Breton | Irish | Scottish Gaelic | Manx | English gloss | | *kwennos | pennos | pen | penn | ceann | ceann | kione | "head" |
| *kwetwar- | petuarios | pedwar | pevar | ceathair | ceithir | kiare | "four" |
| *kwenkwe | pinpetos | pump | pemp | cúig | còig | queig | "five" |
| *kweis | pis | pwy | piv | cé (older cia) | cò/cia | quoi | "who" |
Another significant difference between Goidelic and Brythonic languages is the transformation of
an, am to a denasalized vowel with lengthening,
é, before an originally voiceless stop or fricative, cf. Old Irish
éc "death",
écath "fish hook",
dét "tooth",
cét "hundred" vs. Welsh
angau,
angad,
dant, and
cant. Otherwise:
*the nasal is retained before a vowel, jod,
w,
m, and a liquid:
**Old Irish
ban "woman" (< banom)
**Old Irish
gainethar "he/she is born" (< gan-je-tor)
**Old Irish
ainb "ignorant" (< anwiss)
*the nasal passes to
en before another
n:
**Old Irish
benn "peak" (< banno) (vs. Welsh
bann)
**Middle Irish
ro-geinn "finds a place" (< ganne) (vs. Welsh
gannaf)
*the nasal passes to
in, im before a voiced stop
**Old Irish
imb "butter" (vs. Breton
amann, Cornish
amanyn)
**Old Irish
ingen "nail" (vs. Old Welsh
eguin)
**Old Irish
tengae "tongue" (vs. Welsh
tafod)
**Old Irish
ing "strait" (vs. Middle Welsh
eh-ang "wide")
Although Irish and Manx are often referred to as Irish Gaelic and Manx Gaelic (and they are Goidelic or Gaelic languages) the use of the word
Gaelic is unnecessary because the words Irish and Manx only ever refer to these languages whereas
Scots by itself refers to a
Germanic language and
Scottish can refer to things not at all Gaelic. The word Gaelic by itself is 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.
The family tree of the Goidelic languages is as follows:
*Goidelic
**
Primitive Irish, ancestral to:
**
Old Irish, ancestral to:
**
Middle Irish, ancestral to:
***
Irish***
Scottish Gaelic***
ManxGoidelic 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 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.
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 [
1]) with
English, sparking hopes that Scottish Gaelic can be saved from extinction and perhaps even revived.
Manx is technically extinct, although attempts to revive it continue and it is still used in ceremonies such as
Tynwald Day. A small minority of the Manx people, estimated to be not more than 2,000, can speak the language, although the person considered to be the last true native speaker,
Ned Maddrell, died in
1974. Although a Gaelic language, closely related to its Irish and Scottish sister languages, the Manx language also borrowed heavily from the
Old Norse language introduced by Viking raiders centuries ago, as well as middle English and Welsh.
All the other living Celtic languages belong to the
Brythonic branch of Celtic, which includes
Welsh (
Cymraeg),
Breton (
Brezhoneg), and
Cornish (
Kernowek).
Pictish was the ancient language of much of modern day
Scotland, but its exact relation to the other Celtic languages is not certain. These are sometimes incorrectly referred to as "Gaelic". For extinct Celtic languages of the European mainland, see
Continental Celtic languages.
There are also two
mixed 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
*
Canadian Gaelic*
Gaelicization*
Galwegian Gaelic*
Highland Clearances*
Highland Land League*
Irish Land League*
Ethnologue file on Goidelic languages*
:Scottish Gaelic Wikipedia*
:Irish language Wikipedia*
:Manx Wikipedia*
Comparison of Irish and Scottish Gaelic
