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As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as both Irish and Manx, developed out of Old Irish, and it remains, to a degree, mutually intelligible with Irish. [3] It became a distinct spoken language sometime in the 13th century in the Middle Irish period, although a common literary language was shared by the Gaels of both Ireland and ...
The Goidelic language currently spoken in Scotland is Scottish Gaelic. It is widely spoken in the Outer Hebrides, and also in parts of the Inner Hebrides and Scottish Highlands, and by some people in other areas of Scotland. It was formerly spoken over a far wider area than today, even in the recent past, as evidenced by placenames.
Irish, Manx and Scottish Gaelic form the Goidelic languages, while Welsh, Cornish and Breton are Brittonic. All of these are Insular Celtic languages , since Breton, the only living Celtic language spoken in continental Europe, is descended from the language of settlers from Britain.
Canadian Gaelic dialects of Scottish Gaelic are still spoken by Gaels in parts of Atlantic Canada, primarily on Cape Breton Island and nearby areas of Nova Scotia. In 2011, there were 1,275 Gaelic speakers in Nova Scotia, [20] and 300 residents of the province considered a Gaelic language their "mother tongue." [21]
The Welsh language spoken in West Wales may still retain some influences of its Goidelic speaking past – the same applies to Cornish spoken in Western Cornwall and the English dialect of Merseyside Scouse. [Please give examples to illustrate this.] English and especially Highland English have numerous words of both Scottish Gaelic and Irish ...
The two comparatively "major" Gaelic nations in the modern era are Ireland (which had 71,968 "daily" Irish speakers and 1,873,997 people claiming "some ability of Irish", as of the 2022 census) [1] and Scotland (58,552 fluent "Gaelic speakers" and 92,400 with "some Gaelic language ability" in the 2001 census). [56]
The most obvious phonological difference between Irish and Scottish Gaelic is that the phenomenon of eclipsis in Irish is diachronic (i.e. the result of a historical word-final nasal that may or may not be present in modern Irish) but fully synchronic in Scottish Gaelic (i.e. it requires the actual presence of a word-final nasal except for a tiny set of frozen forms).
What is known as Scottish Gaelic is essentially the Gaelic spoken in the Outer Hebrides and on Skye. Generally speaking, the Gaelic spoken across the Western Isles is similar enough to be classed as one major dialect group, [citation needed] although there is still regional variation.