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Irish (Standard Irish: Gaeilge), also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic (/ ˈ ɡ eɪ l ɪ k / GAY-lik), [3] [4] [5] is a Celtic language of the Indo-European language family. [4] [6] [7] [8] [3] It is a member of the Goidelic languages of the Insular Celtic sub branch of the family and is indigenous to the island of Ireland. [9]
Other aspects of Irish morphology, while typical for an Insular Celtic language, are not typical for Indo-European, such as the presence of inflected prepositions and the initial consonant mutations. Irish syntax is also rather different from that of most Indo-European languages, due to its use of the verb–subject–object word order. [1]
There are a number of languages used in Ireland. Since the late 18th century, English has been the predominant first language, displacing Irish. A large minority claims some ability to use Irish, [2] and it is the first language for a small percentage of the population.
As in other parts of Ireland, Irish was the main language in the region of present-day Northern Ireland for most of its recorded history [citation needed].The historic influence of the Irish language in Northern Ireland can be seen in many place names, for example the name of Belfast first appears in the year 668, and the Lagan even earlier ("Logia", Ptolemy's Geography 2,2,8).
The earliest written form of the Irish language is known to linguists as Primitive Irish. [5] Primitive Irish is known only from fragments, mostly personal names, [6] inscribed on stone in the Ogham alphabet. The earliest of such inscriptions probably date from the 3rd or 4th century. [1]
Where the phonology is defined, as in the various Irish-language articles, we often do use a phonemic transcription. If you think our transcription should be more precise, we can discuss it here and update the transclusions if we make changes. — kwami ( talk ) 20:30, 26 March 2011 (UTC) [ reply ]