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Irish Language: Jump To Navigationjump To Search

Irish, also known as Gaeilge, is a Goidelic language of the Celtic language family. It originated and was historically spoken on the island of Ireland. While English has been the primary language for most Irish residents since the 19th century, Irish is still spoken as a first language in some areas and is understood to some degree by over 1.85 million people across Ireland. Irish has the oldest vernacular literature in Western Europe and has influenced other Celtic languages like Scottish Gaelic and Manx. It is spoken in three major dialects across Ireland and also has a standardized written form.

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26 views

Irish Language: Jump To Navigationjump To Search

Irish, also known as Gaeilge, is a Goidelic language of the Celtic language family. It originated and was historically spoken on the island of Ireland. While English has been the primary language for most Irish residents since the 19th century, Irish is still spoken as a first language in some areas and is understood to some degree by over 1.85 million people across Ireland. Irish has the oldest vernacular literature in Western Europe and has influenced other Celtic languages like Scottish Gaelic and Manx. It is spoken in three major dialects across Ireland and also has a standardized written form.

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JianhengMok
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Irish language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Jump to navigationJump to search
For other uses, see Irish language (disambiguation).
"Gaoidhealg" redirects here. For the shared literary form that was in use from the 13th
century to the 16th-18th centuries, see Classical Gaelic.

Irish[1][2][3]

Standard Irish: Gaeilge

Pronunciation [ˈɡeːlʲɟə]

Native to Ireland

Ethnicity Irish

Native speakers L1 speakers: 170,000 (daily usage outside education:


73,000) (2019)[4]
L2 speakers: unknown (The total number of persons (aged
3 and over) who could speak Irish in April 2016 was
1,761,420)
According to the 2001 Census, 658,103 people (36% of
the population) had "some knowledge of Irish" in
Northern Ireland
18,815 in the United States

Language family Indo-European

• Celtic
o Insular Celtic
▪ Goidelic
▪ Irish[1][2][3]

Early forms Primitive Irish

• Old Irish
o Middle Irish
▪ Early Modern Irish

Standard forms An Caighdeán Oifigiúil (written only)

Dialects • Munster Irish


• Connacht Irish
• Ulster Irish (West and East sub-dialects)

Writing system Latin (Irish alphabet)


Irish Braille

Official status

Official language in Ireland[a]


European Union

Recognised minority United Kingdom


language in

Language codes

ga
ISO 639-1

gle
ISO 639-2

gle
ISO 639-3

iris1253
Glottolog

ELP Irish

50-AAA
Linguasphere

Proportion of respondents who said they could speak Irish in the Republic of
Ireland and Northern Ireland censuses of 2011
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support,
you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead
of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.
Irish (Gaeilge in Standard Irish) is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of
the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language
family.[1][3][5][6] Irish originated on the island of Ireland and was the population's first
language until the late 18th century. Although English has been the first language of
most residents of the island since the early 19th century, Irish is spoken as a first
language in broad areas of counties Cork, Donegal, Galway, and Kerry, as well as
smaller areas of counties Mayo, Meath, and Waterford. It is also spoken by a larger
group of habitual but non-traditional speakers, mostly in urban areas where the majority
are second-language speakers. Daily users outside the education system number
around 73,000 (1.5%), and over 1.85 million (37%) people across the island claim to be
at least somewhat proficient with the language.
For most of recorded Irish history, Irish was the dominant language of the Irish people,
who took it with them to other regions such as Scotland and the Isle of Man,
where Middle Irish gave rise to Scottish Gaelic and Manx. It was also for a period
spoken widely across Canada, with an estimated 200,000-250,000 daily Canadian
speakers of Irish in 1890.[7] On the island of Newfoundland, a unique dialect of Irish
developed. With a basic written form known as Ogham dating back to at least the 4th
century CE and written Irish in a Latin script since the 5th century CE, Irish has the
oldest vernacular literature in Western Europe. On the island, the language has three
major dialects: Munster, Connacht and Ulster. All three have distinctions in their speech
and orthography. There is also a "standard written form" devised by a parliamentary
commission in the 1950s. The distinct Irish alphabet, a variant of the Latin alphabet with
18 letters, has been succeeded by the standard Latin alphabet (albeit with 7-8 letters
used primarily in loanwords).

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