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Irish (
Standard Irish Standard may refer to: Symbols * Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs * Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification Norms, conventions or requirements * Standard (metrology), an object t ...
: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the
Insular Celtic Insular Celtic languages are the group of Celtic languages of Brittany, Great Britain, Ireland, and the Isle of Man. All surviving Celtic languages are in the Insular group, including Breton, which is spoken on continental Europe in Brittany, ...
branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the
Indo-European language family The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...
. Irish is indigenous to the
island of Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...
and was the population's
first language A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother to ...
until the 19th century, when
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...
gradually became dominant, particularly in the last decades of the century. Irish is still spoken as a first language in a small number of areas of certain counties such as
Cork Cork or CORK may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container ***Wine cork Places Ireland * Cork (city) ** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...
,
Donegal Donegal may refer to: County Donegal, Ireland * County Donegal, a county in the Republic of Ireland, part of the province of Ulster * Donegal (town), a town in County Donegal in Ulster, Ireland * Donegal Bay, an inlet in the northwest of Ireland b ...
,
Galway Galway ( ; ga, Gaillimh, ) is a City status in Ireland, city in the West Region, Ireland, West of Ireland, in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht, which is the county town of County Galway. It lies on the River Corrib between Lo ...
, and Kerry, as well as smaller areas of counties Mayo, Meath, and
Waterford "Waterford remains the untaken city" , mapsize = 220px , pushpin_map = Ireland#Europe , pushpin_map_caption = Location within Ireland##Location within Europe , pushpin_relief = 1 , coordinates ...
. 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 in
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...
outside the education system number around 73,000 (1.5%), and the total number of persons (aged 3 and over) who claimed they could speak Irish in April 2016 was 1,761,420, representing 39.8% of respondents. For most of recorded
Irish history The first evidence of human presence in Ireland dates to around 33,000 years ago, with further findings dating the presence of homo sapiens to around 10,500 to 7,000 BC. The receding of the ice after the Younger Dryas cold phase of the Quaterna ...
, Irish was the dominant language of the
Irish people The Irish ( ga, Muintir na hÉireann or ''Na hÉireannaigh'') are an ethnic group and nation native to the island of Ireland, who share a common history and culture. There have been humans in Ireland for about 33,000 years, and it has bee ...
, who took it with them to other regions, such as
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...
and the
Isle of Man ) , anthem = " O Land of Our Birth" , image = Isle of Man by Sentinel-2.jpg , image_map = Europe-Isle_of_Man.svg , mapsize = , map_alt = Location of the Isle of Man in Europe , map_caption = Location of the Isle of Man (green) in Europ ...
, where
Middle Irish Middle Irish, sometimes called Middle Gaelic ( ga, An Mheán-Ghaeilge, gd, Meadhan-Ghàidhlig), is the Goidelic language which was spoken in Ireland, most of Scotland and the Isle of Man from AD; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old Engl ...
gave rise to
Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as ...
and Manx. It was also, for a period, spoken widely across
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...
, with an estimated 200,000–250,000 daily Canadian speakers of Irish in 1890. On the island of
Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...
, a unique dialect of Irish developed before falling out of use in the early 20th century. With a
writing system A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable fo ...
, Ogham, dating back to at least the 4th century AD, which was gradually replaced by
Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern ...
since the 5th century AD, Irish has the oldest vernacular literature in
Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
. On the island, the language has three major dialects:
Munster Munster ( gle, an Mhumhain or ) is one of the provinces of Ireland, in the south of Ireland. In early Ireland, the Kingdom of Munster was one of the kingdoms of Gaelic Ireland ruled by a "king of over-kings" ( ga, rí ruirech). Following t ...
,
Connacht Connacht ( ; ga, Connachta or ), is one of the provinces of Ireland, in the west of Ireland. Until the ninth century it consisted of several independent major Gaelic kingdoms ( Uí Fiachrach, Uí Briúin, Uí Maine, Conmhaícne, and ...
and
Ulster Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kin ...
. All three have distinctions in their speech and
orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...
. There is also a "
standard written form The Standard Written Form or SWF ( kw, Furv Skrifys Savonek) of the Cornish language is an orthography standard that is designed to "provide public bodies and the educational system with a universally acceptable, inclusive, and neutral orthograph ...
" devised by a parliamentary commission in the 1950s. The traditional
Irish alphabet Irish orthography is very etymological which allows the same written form to represent all dialects of Irish and remain regular. For example, ("head") may be read in Mayo and Ulster, in Galway, or in Munster. A spelling reform in the ...
, a variant of the
Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...
with 18
letters Letter, letters, or literature may refer to: Characters typeface * Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet. * Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alpha ...
, has been succeeded by the standard Latin alphabet (albeit with 7–8 letters used primarily in
loanwords A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...
). Irish has constitutional status as the national and first official language of the
Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern side of the island. ...
, and is also an official language of
Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is #Descriptions, variously described as ...
and among the official languages of the European Union. The public body Foras na Gaeilge is responsible for the promotion of the language throughout the island. Irish has no regulatory body but the standard modern written form is guided by a parliamentary service and new vocabulary by a voluntary committee with university input. The modern-day areas of Ireland where Irish is still spoken daily as a first language are collectively known as the .


Names


In Irish

In ("The Official ritten Standard") the name of the language is , from the South Connacht form, spelled prior the spelling reform of 1948, which was originally the
genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can a ...
of , the form used in Classical Gaelic. The modern spelling results from the deletion of the silent in . Older spellings include in Classical Gaelic and in
Old Irish Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic ( sga, Goídelc, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ga, Sean-Ghaeilge; gd, Seann-Ghàidhlig; gv, Shenn Yernish or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive writte ...
.
Goidelic The Goidelic or Gaelic languages ( ga, teangacha Gaelacha; gd, cànanan Goidhealach; gv, çhengaghyn Gaelgagh) form one of the two groups of Insular Celtic languages, the other being the Brittonic languages. Goidelic languages historical ...
, used to refer to the language family, is derived from the Old Irish term. Endonyms of the language in the various modern Irish dialects include: in Galway, // in Mayo and
Ulster Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kin ...
, and / in
Munster Munster ( gle, an Mhumhain or ) is one of the provinces of Ireland, in the south of Ireland. In early Ireland, the Kingdom of Munster was one of the kingdoms of Gaelic Ireland ruled by a "king of over-kings" ( ga, rí ruirech). Following t ...
, as well as in Waterford to reflect local realisation of word final as . also has a wider meaning, including the Gaelic of Scotland and the Isle of Man, as well as of Ireland. When required by the context, these are distinguished as , and respectively.


In English

In English (including
Hiberno-English Hiberno-English (from Latin '' Hibernia'': "Ireland"), and in ga, Béarla na hÉireann. or Irish English, also formerly Anglo-Irish, is the set of English dialects native to the island of Ireland (including both the Republic of Ireland ...
) the language is usually referred to as ''Irish'', as well as ''Gaelic'' and ''Irish Gaelic''. The term ''Irish Gaelic'' may be seen when English speakers discuss the relationship between the three Goidelic languages (Irish,
Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as ...
and Manx). ''Gaelic'' is a collective term for the Goidelic languages, and when the context is clear it may be used without qualification to refer to each language individually. When the context is specific but unclear, the term may be qualified, as Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic or Manx Gaelic. Historically the name "Erse" was also sometimes used in Scots and then in English to refer to Irish; as well as Scottish Gaelic. ''Goidelic'' is a synonym of Gaelic, used mainly in linguistic typology and
historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include: # to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages # ...
. Goidelic and Brittonic together constitute the
Insular Celtic languages Insular Celtic languages are the group of Celtic languages of Brittany, Great Britain, Ireland, and the Isle of Man. All surviving Celtic languages are in the Insular group, including Breton, which is spoken on continental Europe in Brittany ...
.


History

Written Irish is first attested in inscriptions from the 4th century AD, a stage of the language known as
Primitive Irish Primitive Irish or Archaic Irish ( ga, Gaeilge Ársa), also called Proto-Goidelic, is the oldest known form of the Goidelic languages. It is known only from fragments, mostly personal names, inscribed on stone in the ogham alphabet in Ireland ...
. These writings have been found throughout Ireland and the west coast of Great Britain. Primitive Irish underwent a change into
Old Irish Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic ( sga, Goídelc, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ga, Sean-Ghaeilge; gd, Seann-Ghàidhlig; gv, Shenn Yernish or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive writte ...
through the 5th century. Old Irish, dating from the 6th century, used the
Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...
and is attested primarily in marginalia to Latin manuscripts. During this time, the Irish language absorbed some
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
words, some via
Old Welsh Old Welsh ( cy, Hen Gymraeg) is the stage of the Welsh language from about 800 AD until the early 12th century when it developed into Middle Welsh.Koch, p. 1757. The preceding period, from the time Welsh became distinct from Common Brittonic ...
, including ecclesiastical terms: examples are (bishop) from , and (Sunday, from ). By the 10th century, Old Irish had evolved into
Middle Irish Middle Irish, sometimes called Middle Gaelic ( ga, An Mheán-Ghaeilge, gd, Meadhan-Ghàidhlig), is the Goidelic language which was spoken in Ireland, most of Scotland and the Isle of Man from AD; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old Engl ...
, which was spoken throughout Ireland,
Isle of Man ) , anthem = " O Land of Our Birth" , image = Isle of Man by Sentinel-2.jpg , image_map = Europe-Isle_of_Man.svg , mapsize = , map_alt = Location of the Isle of Man in Europe , map_caption = Location of the Isle of Man (green) in Europ ...
and parts of
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...
. It is the language of a large corpus of literature, including the Ulster Cycle. From the 12th century, Middle Irish began to evolve into modern Irish in Ireland, into
Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as ...
in Scotland, and into the
Manx language Manx ( or , pronounced or ), also known as Manx Gaelic, is a Gaelic language of the insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family. Manx is the historical language of the Manx pe ...
in the
Isle of Man ) , anthem = " O Land of Our Birth" , image = Isle of Man by Sentinel-2.jpg , image_map = Europe-Isle_of_Man.svg , mapsize = , map_alt = Location of the Isle of Man in Europe , map_caption = Location of the Isle of Man (green) in Europ ...
.
Early Modern Irish Early Modern Irish ( ga, Gaeilge Chlasaiceach, , Classical Irish) represented a transition between Middle Irish and Modern Irish. Its literary form, Classical Gaelic, was used in Ireland and Scotland from the 13th to the 18th century. External ...
, dating from the 13th century, was the basis of the literary language of both Ireland and Gaelic-speaking Scotland. Modern Irish, as attested in the work of such writers as Geoffrey Keating, may be said to date from the 17th century, and was the medium of popular literature from that time on. From the 18th century on, the language lost ground in the east of the country. The reasons behind this shift were complex but came down to a number of factors: * Discouragement of its use by the Anglo-Irish administration. * The Catholic church supported the use of English over Irish. * The spread of bilingualism from the 1750s onwards. The change was characterised by
diglossia In linguistics, diglossia () is a situation in which two dialects or languages are used (in fairly strict compartmentalization) by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety (labeled ...
(two languages being used by the same community in different social and economic situations) and transitional bilingualism (monoglot Irish-speaking grandparents with bilingual children and monoglot English-speaking grandchildren). By the mid-18th century, English was becoming a language of the Catholic middle class, the Catholic Church and public intellectuals, especially in the east of the country. Increasingly, as the value of English became apparent, the prohibition of Irish in schools had the sanction of parents.Ó Gráda 2013. Once it became apparent that emigration to the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
and
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...
was likely for a large portion of the population, the importance of learning English became relevant. This allowed the new immigrants to get jobs in areas other than farming. It has been estimated that, due to the emigration to the United States because of the Great Famine, anywhere from a quarter to a third of the immigrants were Irish speakers. Irish was not marginal to Ireland's modernisation in the 19th century, as is often assumed. In the first half of the century there were still around three million people for whom Irish was the primary language, and their numbers alone made them a cultural and social force. Irish speakers often insisted on using the language in law courts (even when they knew English), and Irish was also common in commercial transactions. The language was heavily implicated in the "devotional revolution" which marked the standardisation of Catholic religious practice and was also widely used in a political context. Down to the time of the Great Famine and even afterwards, the language was in use by all classes, Irish being an urban as well as a rural language. This linguistic dynamism was reflected in the efforts of certain public intellectuals to counter the decline of the language. At the end of the 19th century, they launched the Gaelic revival in an attempt to encourage the learning and use of Irish, although few adult learners mastered the language. The vehicle of the revival was the Gaelic League (), and particular emphasis was placed on the folk tradition, which in Irish is particularly rich. Efforts were also made to develop journalism and a modern literature. Although it has been noted that the
Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...
played a role in the decline of the Irish language before the Gaelic Revival, the Protestant
Church of Ireland The Church of Ireland ( ga, Eaglais na hÉireann, ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Kirk o Airlann, ) is a Christian church in Ireland and an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the sec ...
also made only minor efforts to encourage use of Irish in a religious context. An Irish translation of the Old Testament by Leinsterman , commissioned by Bishop Bedell, was published after 1685 along with a translation of the New Testament. Otherwise, Anglicisation was seen as synonymous with 'civilising' the native Irish. Currently, modern day Irish speakers in the church are pushing for language revival. It has been estimated that there were around 800,000 monoglot Irish speakers in 1800, which dropped to 320,000 by the end of
the famine The Famine was an American death metal band formed in Arlington, Texas in 2007. They were signed to Solid State Records. History Formation and three-song EP The band initially formed with three of the original members of Embodyment in ...
, and under 17,000 by 1911.
Seán Ó hEinirí Seán Ó hEinirí (Seán Ó hInnéirghe, 26 March 1915 – 26 July 1998), known in English as John Henry, was an Irish seanchaí and a native of Cill Ghallagáin, County Mayo. He is known for his storytelling. Notably, Seán was a monoling ...
, of
Cill Ghallagáin Cill Ghallagáin (anglicised as Kilgalligan) is a small Gaeltacht coastal townland and village in the northwest corner of Kilcommon Parish, County Mayo, Republic of Ireland, an area of in size. Off the northern coast of this townland li ...
, County Mayo, who died 26 July 1998, was possibly the last monolingual Irish speaker.


Status and policy


Ireland

Irish is recognised by the Constitution of Ireland as the national and first official language of
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...
(English being the other official language). Despite this, almost all government business and debates are conducted in English. In 1938, the founder of (Gaelic League), Douglas Hyde, was inaugurated as the first
President of Ireland The president of Ireland ( ga, Uachtarán na hÉireann) is the head of state of Ireland and the supreme commander of the Irish Defence Forces. The president holds office for seven years, and can be elected for a maximum of two terms.Constitu ...
. The record of his delivering his inaugural ''Declaration of Office'' in
Roscommon Roscommon (; ) is the county town and the largest town in County Roscommon in Ireland. It is roughly in the centre of Ireland, near the meeting of the N60, N61 and N63 roads. The name Roscommon is derived from Coman mac Faelchon who buil ...
Irish is one of only a few recordings of that dialect. In the 2016 census, 10.5% of respondents stated that they spoke Irish, either daily or weekly, while over 70,000 people (4.2%) speak it as a habitual daily means of communication. From the foundation of the
Irish Free State The Irish Free State ( ga, Saorstát Éireann, , ; 6 December 192229 December 1937) was a state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independence between ...
in 1922 (see History of the Republic of Ireland), a degree of proficiency in Irish was required of all those newly appointed to the Civil Service of the Republic of Ireland, including
postal worker A postal worker is one who works for a post office, such as a mail carrier. In the U.S., postal workers are represented by the National Association of Letter Carriers, AFL–CIO, National Postal Mail Handlers Union – NPMHU, the National Associat ...
s, tax collectors, agricultural inspectors,
Garda Síochána (; meaning "the Guardian(s) of the Peace"), more commonly referred to as the Gardaí (; "Guardians") or "the Guards", is the national police service of Ireland. The service is headed by the Garda Commissioner who is appointed by the Irish Gove ...
(police), etc. By law if a Garda was stopped and addressed in Irish he had to respond in Irish as well. Proficiency in just one official language for entrance to the public service was introduced in 1974, in part through the actions of protest organisations like the Language Freedom Movement. Although the Irish requirement was also dropped for wider public service jobs, Irish remains a required subject of study in all schools within the Republic which receive public money (see Education in the Republic of Ireland). Those wishing to teach in primary schools in the State must also pass a compulsory examination called . The need for a pass in
Leaving Certificate A secondary school leaving qualification is a document signifying that the holder has fulfilled any secondary education requirements of their locality, often including the passage of a final qualification examination. For each leaving certifica ...
Irish or English for entry to the Garda Síochána was introduced in September 2005, and recruits are given lessons in the language during their two years of training. The most important official documents of the Irish government must be published in both Irish and English or Irish alone (in accordance with the Official Languages Act 2003, enforced by , the Irish language ombudsman). The
National University of Ireland The National University of Ireland (NUI) ( ga, Ollscoil na hÉireann) is a federal university system of ''constituent universities'' (previously called '' constituent colleges'') and ''recognised colleges'' set up under the Irish Universit ...
requires all students wishing to embark on a degree course in the NUI federal system to pass the subject of Irish in the Leaving Certificate or GCE/
GCSE The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification in a particular subject, taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. State schools in Scotland use the Scottish Qualifications Certificate instead. Private sc ...
examinations. Exemptions are made from this requirement for students born outside of the Ireland, those who were born in the Republic but completed primary education outside it, and students diagnosed with
dyslexia Dyslexia, also known until the 1960s as word blindness, is a disorder characterized by reading below the expected level for one's age. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may include difficulties in spelling words, r ...
. NUI Galway is required to appoint people who are competent in the Irish language, as long as they are also competent in all other aspects of the vacancy to which they are appointed. This requirement is laid down by the University College Galway Act, 1929 (Section 3). The university faced controversy, however, in 2016 when it was announced that the next president of the university would not have any Irish language ability, staged a number of protests against this decision. It was announced in September 2017 that Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh, a fluent Irish speaker, would be NUIG's 13th president. For a number of years there has been vigorous debate in political, academic and other circles about the failure of most students in mainstream (English-medium) schools to achieve competence in the language, even after fourteen years of teaching as one of the three main subjects. The concomitant decline in the number of traditional native speakers has also been a cause of great concern. In 2007, filmmaker
Manchán Magan Manchán Magan is an Irish writer, traveller, author, and television programme maker. Career Magan has made over 70 travel documentaries focusing on issues of world cultures and globalisation, 12 of them packaged under the Global Nomad series wit ...
found few speakers and some incredulity while speaking only Irish in Dublin. He was unable to accomplish some everyday tasks, as portrayed in his documentary ''
No Béarla ''No Béarla'' is a four-part documentary style programme broadcast on Irish language television channel TG4 and produced by Dearg Films RTÉ/TG4. It follows presenter Manchán Magan as he journeys throughout Ireland attempting to show that Ir ...
''. There is, however, a growing body of Irish speakers in urban areas, particularly in
Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...
. Many have been educated in schools in which Irish is the language of instruction: such schools are known as at primary level. These Irish-medium schools send a much higher proportion of pupils on to third-level education than do "mainstream" schools, and it seems increasingly possible that, within a generation, non-Gaeltacht habitual users of Irish will typically be members of an urban, middle class and highly educated minority. Parliamentary legislation is supposed to be available in both Irish and English but is frequently only available in English. This is notwithstanding that Article 25.4 of the Constitution of Ireland requires that an "official translation" of any law in one official language be provided immediately in the other official language, if not already passed in both official languages. In November 2016, it was reported that many people worldwide were learning Irish through the
Duolingo Duolingo ( ) is an American educational technology company which produces learning apps and provides language certification. On its main app, users can practice vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and listening skills using spaced repetition. D ...
app. Irish president Michael Higgins officially honoured several volunteer translators for developing the Irish edition, and said the push for Irish language rights remains an "unfinished project".


Gaeltacht

There are rural areas of Ireland where Irish is still spoken daily to some extent as a
first language A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother to ...
. These regions are known individually and collectively as the ''
Gaeltacht ( , , ) are the districts of Ireland, individually or collectively, where the Irish government recognises that the Irish language is the predominant vernacular, or language of the home. The ''Gaeltacht'' districts were first officially reco ...
'' (plural ). While the fluent Irish speakers of these areas, whose numbers have been estimated at 2030,000, are a minority of the total number of fluent Irish speakers, they represent a higher concentration of Irish speakers than other parts of the country and it is only in ''Gaeltacht'' areas that Irish continues to be spoken as a community vernacular to some extent. According to data compiled by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, ''Gaeltacht'', Sport and Media, only 1/4 of households in ''Gaeltacht'' areas are fluent in Irish. The author of a detailed analysis of the survey, Donncha Ó hÉallaithe of the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, described the Irish language policy followed by Irish governments as a "complete and absolute disaster". ''
The Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is considered a newspaper ...
'', referring to his analysis published in the Irish language newspaper , quoted him as follows: "It is an absolute indictment of successive Irish Governments that at the foundation of the Irish State there were 250,000 fluent Irish speakers living in Irish-speaking or semi Irish-speaking areas, but the number now is between 20,000 and 30,000." In the 1920s, when the
Irish Free State The Irish Free State ( ga, Saorstát Éireann, , ; 6 December 192229 December 1937) was a state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independence between ...
was founded, Irish was still a vernacular in some western coastal areas. In the 1930s, areas where more than 25% of the population spoke Irish were classified as ''Gaeltacht''. Today, the strongest ''Gaeltacht'' areas, numerically and socially, are those of South Connemara, the west of the Dingle Peninsula, and northwest Donegal, where many residents still use Irish as their primary language. These areas are often referred to as the (true ''Gaeltacht''), a term originally officially applied to areas where over 50% of the population spoke Irish. There are larger ''Gaeltacht'' regions in County Galway (), including Connemara (), the Aran Islands (),
Carraroe Carraroe (in Irish, and officially, , meaning 'the red quarter') is a village in County Galway, Ireland, in the Irish-speaking region (Gaeltacht) of Connemara. It is known for its traditional fishing boats, the Galway Hookers. Its population ...
() and Spiddal (), on the west coast of
County Donegal County Donegal ( ; ga, Contae Dhún na nGall) is a county of Ireland in the province of Ulster and in the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the town of Donegal in the south of the county. It has also been known as County Tyrcon ...
(), and on the Dingle () and Iveragh Peninsulas () in
County Kerry County Kerry ( gle, Contae Chiarraí) is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and forms part of the province of Munster. It is named after the Ciarraige who lived in part of the present county. The population of the co ...
(). Smaller ones also exist in counties Mayo (), Meath (),
Waterford "Waterford remains the untaken city" , mapsize = 220px , pushpin_map = Ireland#Europe , pushpin_map_caption = Location within Ireland##Location within Europe , pushpin_relief = 1 , coordinates ...
(), and
Cork Cork or CORK may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container ***Wine cork Places Ireland * Cork (city) ** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...
().
Gweedore Gweedore ( ; officially known by its Irish language name, ) is an Irish-speaking district and parish located on the Atlantic coast of County Donegal in the north-west of Ireland. Gweedore stretches some from Glasserchoo in the north to Croll ...
(), County Donegal, is the largest ''Gaeltacht'' parish in Ireland. Irish language summer colleges in the ''Gaeltacht'' are attended by tens of thousands of teenagers annually. Students live with Gaeltacht families, attend classes, participate in sports, go to ' and are obliged to speak Irish. All aspects of Irish culture and tradition are encouraged.


Policy


Official Languages Act 2003

The Act was passed 14 July 2003 with the main purpose of improving the amount and quality of public services delivered in Irish by the government and other public bodies. Compliance with the Act is monitored by the '' An Coimisinéir Teanga'' (Irish Language Commissioner) which was established in 2004 and any complaints or concerns pertaining to the Act are brought to them. There are 35 sections included in the Act all detailing different aspects of the use of Irish in official documentation and communication. Included in these sections are subjects such as Irish language use in official courts, official publications, and placenames. The Act was recently amended in December 2019 in order to strengthen the already preexisting legislation. All changes made took into account data collected from online surveys and written submissions.


Official Languages Scheme 2019-2022

The Official Languages Scheme was enacted 1 July 2019 and is an 18-page document that adheres to the guidelines of the ''Official Languages Act 2003''. The purpose of the Scheme is to provide services through the mediums of Irish and/or English. According to the ''Department of the Taoiseach,'' it is meant to "develop a sustainable economy and a successful society, to pursue Ireland's interests abroad, to implement the Government's Programme and to build a better future for Ireland and all her citizens."


20-Year Strategy for the Irish Language 2010-2030

The Strategy was produced on 21 December 2010 and will stay in action until 2030; it aims to target language vitality and revitalization of the Irish language. The 30-page document published by the
Government of Ireland The Government of Ireland ( ga, Rialtas na hÉireann) is the cabinet that exercises executive authority in Ireland. The Constitution of Ireland vests executive authority in a government which is headed by the , the head of government. The govern ...
details the objectives it plans to work towards in an attempt to preserve and promote both the Irish language and the Gaeltacht. It is divided into four separate phases with the intention of improving 9 main areas of action including: * "Education" * "The ''Gaeltacht''" * "Family Transmission of the Language - Early Intervention" * "Administration, Services and Community" * "Media and Technology" * "Dictionaries" * "Legislation and Status" * "Economic Life" * "Cross-cutting Initiatives" The general goal for this strategy is to increase the amount of speakers from 83,000 to 250,000 by the end of its run.


Northern Ireland

Before the partition of Ireland in 1921, Irish was recognised as a school subject and as "Celtic" in some third level institutions. Between 1921 and 1972,
Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is #Descriptions, variously described as ...
had devolved government. During those years the political party holding power in the
Stormont Parliament The Parliament of Northern Ireland was the home rule legislature of Northern Ireland, created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which sat from 7 June 1921 to 30 March 1972, when it was suspended because of its inability to restore o ...
, the
Ulster Unionist Party The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it led unionist opposition to the Irish Home Rule m ...
(UUP), was hostile to the language. The context of this hostility was the use of the language by nationalists. In broadcasting, there was an exclusion on the reporting of minority cultural issues, and Irish was excluded from radio and television for almost the first fifty years of the previous devolved government. After the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the language gradually received a degree of formal recognition in Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom, and then, in 2003, by the British government's ratification in respect of the language of the
European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) is a European treaty (CETS 148) adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe. However, th ...
. In the 2006 St Andrews Agreement the British government promised to enact legislation to promote the language and in 2022 it approved legislation to Irish an official language alongside English, the bill is currently awaiting
Royal assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in oth ...
. The Irish language has often been used as a bargaining chip during government formation in Northern Ireland, prompting protests from organisations and groups such as .


European Parliament

Irish became an official language of the EU on 1 January 2007, meaning that MEPs with Irish fluency can now speak the language in the
European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the Legislature, legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven Institutions of the European Union, institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and in ...
and at committees, although in the case of the latter they have to give prior notice to a simultaneous interpreter in order to ensure that what they say can be interpreted into other languages. While an official language of the European Union, only co-decision regulations were available until 2022, due to a five-year derogation, requested by the Irish Government when negotiating the language's new official status. The Irish government had committed itself to train the necessary number of translators and interpreters and to bear the related costs. This derogation ultimately came to an end on January 1, 2022, making Irish a fully recognised EU language for the first time in the state's history. Before Irish became an official language it was afforded the status of treaty language and only the highest-level documents of the EU were made available in Irish.


Outside Ireland

The Irish language was carried abroad in the modern period by a vast
diaspora A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. Historically, the word was used first in reference to the dispersion of Greeks in the Hellenic world, and later Jews after ...
, chiefly to
Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It ...
and North America, but also to
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...
,
New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...
and
Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...
. The first large movements began in the 17th century, largely as a result of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, which saw many Irish sent to the
West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...
. Irish emigration to the United States was well established by the 18th century, and was reinforced in the 1840s by thousands fleeing from
the Famine The Famine was an American death metal band formed in Arlington, Texas in 2007. They were signed to Solid State Records. History Formation and three-song EP The band initially formed with three of the original members of Embodyment in ...
. This flight also affected Britain. Up until that time most emigrants spoke Irish as their first language, though English was establishing itself as the primary language. Irish speakers had first arrived in Australia in the late 18th century as convicts and soldiers, and many Irish-speaking settlers followed, particularly in the 1860s. New Zealand also received some of this influx. Argentina was the only non-English-speaking country to receive large numbers of Irish emigrants, and there were few Irish speakers among them. Relatively few of the emigrants were literate in Irish, but manuscripts in the language were brought to both Australia and the United States, and it was in the United States that the first newspaper to make significant use of Irish was established: . In Australia, too, the language found its way into print. The Gaelic revival, which started in Ireland in the 1890s, found a response abroad, with branches of being established in all the countries to which Irish speakers had emigrated. The decline of Irish in Ireland and a slowing of emigration helped to ensure a decline in the language abroad, along with natural attrition in the host countries. Despite this, small groups of enthusiasts continued to learn and cultivate Irish in diaspora countries and elsewhere, a trend which strengthened in the second half of the 20th century. Today the language is taught at tertiary level in North America, Australia and Europe, and Irish speakers outside Ireland contribute to journalism and literature in the language. There are significant Irish-speaking networks in the United States and Canada; figures released for the period 2006–2008 show that 22,279 Irish Americans claimed to speak Irish at home. The Irish language is also one of the languages of the Celtic League, a non-governmental organisation that promotes
self-determination The right of a people to self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international law (commonly regarded as a '' jus cogens'' rule), binding, as such, on the United Nations as authoritative interpretation of the Charter's norms. It sta ...
, Celtic identity and culture in
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...
,
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...
,
Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...
,
Brittany Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period ...
,
Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a Historic counties of England, historic county and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people ...
and the
Isle of Man ) , anthem = " O Land of Our Birth" , image = Isle of Man by Sentinel-2.jpg , image_map = Europe-Isle_of_Man.svg , mapsize = , map_alt = Location of the Isle of Man in Europe , map_caption = Location of the Isle of Man (green) in Europ ...
, known collectively as the Celtic nations. Irish was spoken as a community language until the early 20th century on the
island of Newfoundland Newfoundland (, ; french: link=no, Terre-Neuve, ; ) is a large island off the east coast of the North American mainland and the most populous part of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It has 29 percent of the province's land ...
, in a form known as
Newfoundland Irish The Irish language was once widely spoken on the island of Newfoundland before largely disappearing there by the early 20th century.Newfoundland English.


Usage

The 2016 census data shows:
The total number of people who answered 'yes' to being able to speak Irish in April 2016 was 1,761,420, a slight decrease (0.7 per cent) on the 2011 figure of 1,774,437. This represents 39.8 per cent of respondents compared with 41.4 in 2011... Of the 73,803 daily Irish speakers (outside the education system), 20,586 (27.9%) lived in Gaeltacht areas.


Daily Irish speakers in Gaeltacht areas between 2011 and 2016

In 1996, the 3 electoral divisions in the State where Irish has the most daily speakers were An Turloch (91%+), Scainimh (89%+), Min an Chladaigh (88%+).


Dialects

Irish is represented by several traditional
dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...
s and by various varieties of "urban" Irish. The latter have acquired lives of their own and a growing number of native speakers. Differences between the dialects make themselves felt in stress, intonation, vocabulary and structural features. Roughly speaking, the three major dialect areas which survive coincide roughly with the provinces of
Connacht Connacht ( ; ga, Connachta or ), is one of the provinces of Ireland, in the west of Ireland. Until the ninth century it consisted of several independent major Gaelic kingdoms ( Uí Fiachrach, Uí Briúin, Uí Maine, Conmhaícne, and ...
(),
Munster Munster ( gle, an Mhumhain or ) is one of the provinces of Ireland, in the south of Ireland. In early Ireland, the Kingdom of Munster was one of the kingdoms of Gaelic Ireland ruled by a "king of over-kings" ( ga, rí ruirech). Following t ...
() and
Ulster Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kin ...
(). Records of some dialects of
Leinster Leinster ( ; ga, Laighin or ) is one of the provinces of Ireland, situated in the southeast and east of Ireland. The province comprises the ancient Kingdoms of Meath, Leinster and Osraige. Following the 12th-century Norman invasion of ...
(') were made by the Irish Folklore Commission and others.
Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...
, in eastern Canada, had a form of Irish derived from the Munster Irish of the later 18th century (see
Newfoundland Irish The Irish language was once widely spoken on the island of Newfoundland before largely disappearing there by the early 20th century.Connemara and the Aran Islands. Much closer to the larger Connacht Gaeltacht is the dialect spoken in the smaller region on the border between Galway () and Mayo (). There are a number of differences between the popular South Connemara form of Irish, the Mid-Connacht/Joyce Country form (on the border between Mayo and Galway) and the Achill and Erris forms in the north of the province. Features in Connacht Irish differing from the official standard include a preference for verbal nouns ending in , e.g. instead of , "weakening". The non-standard pronunciation of the area with lengthened vowels and heavily reduced endings gives it a distinct sound. Distinguishing features of Connacht and Ulster dialect include the pronunciation of word-final as , rather than as in Munster. For example, ("mountain") is pronounced in Connacht and Ulster as opposed to in the south. In addition Connacht and Ulster speakers tend to include the "we" pronoun rather than use the standard compound form used in Munster, e.g. is used for "we were" instead of . As in Munster Irish, some short vowels are lengthened and others diphthongised before , in monosyllabic words and in the stressed syllable of multisyllabic words where the syllable is followed by a consonant. This can be seen in ' "head", ' "crooked", ' "short", ' "sledgehammer", ' "foreigner, non-Gael", ' "a wonder, a marvel", etc. The form , when occurring at the end of words like '', tends to be pronounced as ː In South Connemara, for example, there is a tendency to replace word-final with , in word such as ', ' and ' (pronounced respectively as "shiv," "liv" and "" in the other areas). This placing of the B-sound is also present at the end of words ending in vowels, such as ' () and ' (). There is also a tendency to omit in ', ' and ', a characteristic also of other Connacht dialects. All these pronunciations are distinctively regional. The pronunciation prevalent in the Joyce Country (the area around Lough Corrib and Lough Mask) is quite similar to that of South Connemara, with a similar approach to the words ', ' and ' and a similar approach to pronunciation of vowels and consonants but there are noticeable differences in vocabulary, with certain words such as ' (difficult) and ' being preferred to the more usual ' and '. Another interesting aspect of this sub-dialect is that almost all vowels at the end of words tend to be pronounced as ː ' (other), ' (feet) and ' (done) tend to be pronounced as ', ' and ' respectively. The northern Mayo dialect of Erris () and Achill () is in grammar and morphology essentially a Connacht dialect but shows some similarities to Ulster Irish due to large-scale immigration of dispossessed people following the
Plantation of Ulster The Plantation of Ulster ( gle, Plandáil Uladh; Ulster-Scots: ''Plantin o Ulstèr'') was the organised colonisation ('' plantation'') of Ulstera province of Irelandby people from Great Britain during the reign of King James I. Most of th ...
. For example, words ending - have a much softer sound, with a tendency to terminate words such as ' and ' with , giving ' and ' respectively. In addition to a vocabulary typical of other area of Connacht, one also finds Ulster words like ' (meaning "to look"), ' (painful or sore), ' (close), ' (hear), ' (difficult), ' (new), and ' (to be able to – i.e. a form similar to '). Irish President Douglas Hyde was possibly one of the last speakers of the
Roscommon Roscommon (; ) is the county town and the largest town in County Roscommon in Ireland. It is roughly in the centre of Ireland, near the meeting of the N60, N61 and N63 roads. The name Roscommon is derived from Coman mac Faelchon who buil ...
dialect of Irish.


Munster

Munster Irish is the dialect spoken in the Gaeltacht areas of the counties of
Cork Cork or CORK may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container ***Wine cork Places Ireland * Cork (city) ** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...
(), Kerry (), and
Waterford "Waterford remains the untaken city" , mapsize = 220px , pushpin_map = Ireland#Europe , pushpin_map_caption = Location within Ireland##Location within Europe , pushpin_relief = 1 , coordinates ...
(). The Gaeltacht areas of Cork can be found in
Cape Clear Island Clear Island or Cape Clear Island (officially known by its Irish name: Cléire, and sometimes also called Oileán Chléire) is an island off the south-west coast of County Cork in Ireland. It is the southernmost inhabited part of Ireland and ha ...
() and Muskerry (); those of Kerry lie in and Iveragh Peninsula; and those of Waterford in Ring () and Old Parish (), both of which together form Gaeltacht na nDéise. Of the three counties, the Irish spoken in Cork and Kerry is quite similar while that of Waterford is more distinct. Some typical features of Munster Irish are: # The use of
synthetic Synthetic things are composed of multiple parts, often with the implication that they are artificial. In particular, 'synthetic' may refer to: Science * Synthetic chemical or compound, produced by the process of chemical synthesis * Synthetic ...
verbs in parallel with a pronominal subject system, thus "I must" is / in Munster, while other dialects prefer ( means "I"). "I was and you were" is / in Munster but more commonly in other dialects. Note that these are strong tendencies, and the personal forms ''bhíos'' etc. are used in the West and North, particularly when the words are last in the clause. # Use of independent/dependent forms of verbs that are not included in the Standard. For example, "I see" in Munster is , which is the independent form – Ulster Irish also uses a similar form, ', whereas "I do not see" is , ' being the dependent form, which is used after particles such as ' ("not"). ' is replaced by ' in the Standard. Similarly, the traditional form preserved in Munster "I give"/ is / in the Standard; I get/ is /. # When before and so on, in monosyllabic words and in the stressed syllable of multisyllabic words where the syllable is followed by a consonant, some short vowels are lengthened while others are diphthongised, in ' "head", ' "crooked", ' "short", ' "sledgehammer", ' "foreigner, non-Gael", ' "a wonder, a marvel", ' "companion, mate", etc. # A copular construction involving "it" is frequently used. Thus "I am an Irish person" can be said ' and ' in Munster; there is a subtle difference in meaning, however, the first choice being a simple statement of fact, while the second brings emphasis onto the word ''Éireannach''. In effect the construction is a type of " fronting". # Both masculine and feminine words are subject to lenition after ' ('/') "in the", ' "of the" and ' "to/for the" : ', "in the shop", compared to the Standard ' (the Standard lenites only feminine nouns in the dative in these cases). # Eclipsis of after ': ', "in the farm", instead of '. # Eclipsis of and after preposition + singular article, with all prepositions except after ', ' and ': ' "on the house", ' "at the door". # Stress is generally on the second syllable of a word when the first syllable contains a short vowel, and the second syllable contains a long vowel or diphthong, or is -, e.g. is pronounced iəˈɾˠaːn̪ˠopposed to �ciəɾˠaːn̪ˠin Connacht and Ulster.


Ulster

Ulster Irish is the dialect spoken in the Gaeltacht regions of Donegal. These regions contain all of Ulster's communities where Irish has been spoken in an unbroken line back to when the language was the dominant language of Ireland. The Irish-speaking communities in other parts of Ulster are a result of language revival – English-speaking families deciding to learn Irish. Census data shows that 4,130 people speak it at home. Linguistically, the most important of the
Ulster Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kin ...
dialects today is that which is spoken, with slight differences, in both
Gweedore Gweedore ( ; officially known by its Irish language name, ) is an Irish-speaking district and parish located on the Atlantic coast of County Donegal in the north-west of Ireland. Gweedore stretches some from Glasserchoo in the north to Croll ...
( = Inlet of Streaming Water) and The Rosses (). Ulster Irish sounds quite different from the other two main dialects. It shares several features with southern dialects of
Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as ...
and Manx, as well as having many characteristic words and shades of meanings. However, since the demise of those Irish dialects spoken natively in what is today Northern Ireland, it is probably an exaggeration to see present-day Ulster Irish as an intermediary form between Scottish Gaelic and the southern and western dialects of Irish. Northern Scottish Gaelic has many non-Ulster features in common with Munster Irish. One noticeable trait of Ulster Irish, Scots Gaelic and Manx is the use of the negative particle in place of the Munster and Connacht . Though southern Donegal Irish tends to use more than ''cha(n)'', ''cha(n)'' has almost ousted ' in northernmost dialects (e.g. Rosguill and
Tory Island Tory Island, or simply Tory (officially known by its Irish name ''Toraigh''),Toraigh/Tory Island

Leinster

Down to the early 19th century and even later, Irish was spoken in all twelve counties of Leinster. The evidence furnished by placenames, literary sources and recorded speech indicates that there was no Leinster dialect as such. Instead, the main dialect used in the province was represented by a broad central belt stretching from west Connacht eastwards to the Liffey estuary and southwards to Wexford, though with many local variations. Two smaller dialects were represented by the Ulster speech of counties Meath and Louth, which extended as far south as the
Boyne valley The River Boyne ( ga, An Bhóinn or ''Abhainn na Bóinne'') is a river in Leinster, Ireland, the course of which is about long. It rises at Trinity Well, Newberry Hall, near Carbury, County Kildare, and flows towards the Northeast through Co ...
, and a Munster dialect found in Kilkenny and south Laois. The main dialect had characteristics which survive today only in the Irish of Connacht. It typically placed the stress on the first syllable of a word, and showed a preference (found in placenames) for the pronunciation where the standard spelling is . The word (hill) would therefore be pronounced . Examples are the placenames Crooksling () in County Dublin and Crukeen () in Carlow. East Leinster showed the same diphthongisation or vowel lengthening as in Munster and Connacht Irish in words like (hole), (monastery), (wood), (head), (crooked) and (crowd). A feature of the dialect was the pronunciation of , which generally became ːin east Leinster (as in Munster), and ːin the west (as in Connacht). Early evidence regarding colloquial Irish in east Leinster is found in ''The Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge'' (1547), by the English physician and traveller Andrew Borde. The illustrative phrases he uses include the following:


The Pale

The Pale The Pale ( Irish: ''An Pháil'') or the English Pale (' or ') was the part of Ireland directly under the control of the English government in the Late Middle Ages. It had been reduced by the late 15th century to an area along the east coast ...
() was an area around late medieval Dublin under the control of the English government. By the late 15th century it consisted of an area along the coast from Dalkey, south of
Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...
, to the garrison town of
Dundalk Dundalk ( ; ga, Dún Dealgan ), meaning "the fort of Dealgan", is the county town (the administrative centre) of County Louth, Ireland. The town is on the Castletown River, which flows into Dundalk Bay on the east coast of Ireland. It is h ...
, with an inland boundary encompassing Naas and Leixlip in the Earldom of Kildare and
Trim Trim or TRIM may refer to: Cutting * Cutting or trimming small pieces off something to remove them ** Book trimming, a stage of the publishing process ** Pruning, trimming as a form of pruning often used on trees Decoration * Trim (sewing), ...
and Kells in County Meath to the north. In this area of "Englyshe tunge" English had never actually been a dominant language – and was moreover a relatively late comer; the first colonisers were Normans who spoke Norman French, and before these Norse. The Irish language had always been the language of the bulk of the population. An English official remarked of the Pale in 1515 that "all the common people of the said half counties that obeyeth the King's laws, for the most part be of Irish birth, of Irish habit and of Irish language". With the strengthening of English cultural and political control, language change began to occur but this did not become clearly evident until the 18th century. Even then, in the decennial period 1771–81, the percentage of Irish speakers in Meath was at least 41%. By 1851 this had fallen to less than 3%.See Fitzgerald 1984.


General decline

English expanded strongly in Leinster in the 18th century but Irish speakers were still numerous. In the decennial period 1771–81 certain counties had estimated percentages of Irish speakers as follows (though the estimates are likely to be too low): :Kilkenny 57% :Louth 57% :Longford 22% :Westmeath 17% The language saw its most rapid initial decline in counties Dublin, Kildare, Laois, Wexford, and Wicklow. In recent years, County Wicklow has been noted as having the lowest percentage of Irish speakers of any county in Ireland, with only 0.14% of its population claiming to have passable knowledge of the language. The proportion of Irish-speaking children in Leinster went down as follows: 17% in the 1700s, 11% in the 1800s, 3% in the 1830s, and virtually none in the 1860s. The Irish census of 1851 showed that there were still a number of older speakers in County Dublin. Sound recordings were made between 1928 and 1931 of some of the last speakers in Omeath, County Louth (now available in digital form). The last known traditional native speaker in Omeath, and in Leinster as a whole, was Annie O'Hanlon (née Dobbin), who died in 1960. Her dialect was, in fact, a branch of the Irish of south-east Ulster.


Urban use from the middle ages to the 19th century

Irish was spoken as a community language in Irish towns and cities down to the 19th century. In the 16th and 17th centuries it was widespread even in Dublin and the Pale. The English administrator
William Gerard Sir William Gerard (1518–1581) was an Elizabethan statesman, who had a distinguished record of government service in England, Wales and most notably in Ireland. He sat in the House of Commons for Chester for many years, and was Vice-President ...
(1518–1581) commented as follows: "All English, and the most part with delight, even in Dublin, speak Irish," while the
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...
historian
Richard Stanihurst Richard Stanyhurst (1547–1618) was an Anglo-Irish alchemist, translator, poet and historian, who was born in Dublin. Life His father, James Stanyhurst, was Recorder of Dublin, and Speaker of the Irish House of Commons in 1557, 1560 and 1568. ...
(1547–1618) lamented that "When their posterity became not altogether so wary in keeping, as their ancestors were valiant in conquering, the Irish language was free dennized in the English Pale: this canker took such deep root, as the body that before was whole and sound, was by little and little festered, and in manner wholly putrified". The Irish of Dublin, situated as it was between the east Ulster dialect of Meath and Louth to the north and the Leinster-Connacht dialect further south, may have reflected the characteristics of both in phonology and grammar. In County Dublin itself the general rule was to place the stress on the initial vowel of words. With time it appears that the forms of the dative case took over the other case endings in the plural (a tendency found to a lesser extent in other dialects). In a letter written in Dublin in 1691 we find such examples as the following: ' (accusative case, the standard form being '), ' (accusative case, the standard form being ') and ' (genitive case, the standard form being '). English authorities of the Cromwellian period, aware that Irish was widely spoken in Dublin, arranged for its official use. In 1655 several local dignitaries were ordered to oversee a lecture in Irish to be given in Dublin. In March 1656 a converted Catholic priest, Séamas Corcy, was appointed to preach in Irish at Bride's parish every Sunday, and was also ordered to preach at
Drogheda Drogheda ( , ; , meaning "bridge at the ford") is an industrial and port town in County Louth on the east coast of Ireland, north of Dublin. It is located on the Dublin–Belfast corridor on the east coast of Ireland, mostly in County Louth ...
and
Athy Athy ( ; ) is a market town at the meeting of the River Barrow and the Grand Canal in south-west County Kildare, Ireland, 72 kilometres southwest of Dublin. A population of 9,677 (as of the 2016 census) makes it the sixth largest town in Kild ...
. In 1657 the English colonists in Dublin presented a petition to the Municipal Council complaining that in Dublin itself "there is Irish commonly and usually spoken". There is contemporary evidence of the use of Irish in other urban areas at the time. In 1657 it was found necessary to have an Oath of Abjuration (rejecting the authority of the Pope) read in Irish in
Cork Cork or CORK may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container ***Wine cork Places Ireland * Cork (city) ** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...
so that people could understand it. Irish was sufficiently strong in early 18th century Dublin to be the language of a coterie of poets and scribes led by Seán and Tadhg Ó Neachtain, both poets of note. Scribal activity in Irish persisted in Dublin right through the 18th century. An outstanding example was Muiris Ó Gormáin (Maurice Gorman), a prolific producer of manuscripts who advertised his services (in English) in ''Faulkner's Dublin Journal''. There were still an appreciable number of Irish speakers in
County Dublin "Action to match our speech" , image_map = Island_of_Ireland_location_map_Dublin.svg , map_alt = map showing County Dublin as a small area of darker green on the east coast within the lighter green background of ...
at the time of the 1851 census. In other urban centres the descendants of medieval Anglo-Norman settlers, the so-called
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...
, were Irish-speaking or bilingual by the 16th century. The English administrator and traveller Fynes Moryson, writing in the last years of the 16th century, said that "the English Irish and the very citizens (excepting those of Dublin where the lord deputy resides) though they could speak English as well as we, yet commonly speak Irish among themselves, and were hardly induced by our familiar conversation to speak English with us". In Galway, a city dominated by Old English merchants and loyal to the Crown up to the Irish Confederate Wars (1641–1653), the use of the Irish language had already provoked the passing of an Act of Henry VIII (1536), ordaining as follows: ::''Item, that every inhabitant within oure said towne alwayendeavour themselfes to speake English, and to use themselfes after the English facon; and, speciallye, that you, and every one of you, doe put your children to scole, to lerne to speke English...'' The demise of native cultural institutions in the seventeenth century saw the social prestige of Irish diminish, and the gradual Anglicisation of the middle classes followed. The census of 1851 showed, however, that the towns and cities of Munster still had significant Irish-speaking populations. Much earlier, in 1819, James McQuige, a veteran
Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...
lay preacher in Irish, wrote: "In some of the largest southern towns, Cork,
Kinsale Kinsale ( ; ) is a historic port and fishing town in County Cork, Ireland. Located approximately south of Cork City on the southeast coast near the Old Head of Kinsale, it sits at the mouth of the River Bandon, and has a population of 5,281 ( ...
and even the Protestant town of Bandon, provisions are sold in the markets, and cried in the streets, in Irish". Irish speakers constituted over 40% of the population of Cork even in 1851.


Modern urban usage

The late 18th and 19th centuries saw a reduction in the number of Dublin's Irish speakers, in keeping with the trend elsewhere. This continued until the end of the 19th century, when the Gaelic revival saw the creation of a strong Irish–speaking network, typically united by various branches of the , and accompanied by renewed literary activity. By the 1930s Dublin had a lively literary life in Irish. Urban Irish has been the beneficiary, from the last decades of the 20th century, of a rapidly expanding system of , teaching entirely through Irish. As of 2019 there are 37 such primary schools in Dublin alone. It has been suggested that Ireland's towns and cities are acquiring a critical mass of Irish speakers, reflected in the expansion of Irish language media. Many are younger speakers who, after encountering Irish at school, made an effort to acquire fluency, while others have been educated through Irish and some have been raised with Irish. Those from an English-speaking background are now often described as ("new speakers") and use whatever opportunities are available (festivals, "pop-up" events) to practise or improve their Irish. It has been suggested that the comparative standard is still the Irish of the Gaeltacht, but other evidence suggests that young urban speakers take pride in having their own distinctive variety of the language. A comparison of traditional Irish and urban Irish shows that the distinction between broad and slender consonants, which is fundamental to Irish phonology and grammar, is not fully or consistently observed in urban Irish. This and other changes make it possible that urban Irish will become a new dialect or even, over a long period, develop into a creole (i.e. a new language) distinct from Gaeltacht Irish. It has also been argued that there is a certain elitism among Irish speakers, with most respect being given to the Irish of native Gaeltacht speakers and with "Dublin" (i.e. urban) Irish being under-represented in the media. This, however, is paralleled by a failure among some urban Irish speakers to acknowledge grammatical and phonological features essential to the structure of the language.


Standardisation

There is no single official standard for pronouncing the Irish language. Certain dictionaries, such as , provide a single pronunciation. Online dictionaries such as ''Foclóir Béarla-Gaeilge'' provide audio files in the three major dialects. The differences between dialects are considerable, and have led to recurrent difficulties in conceptualising a "standard Irish." In recent decades contacts between speakers of different dialects have become more frequent and the differences between the dialects are less noticeable. ("The Official Standard"), often shortened to , is a standard for the spelling and grammar of written Irish, developed and used by the Irish government. Its rules are followed by most schools in Ireland, though schools in and near Irish-speaking regions also use the local dialect. It was published by the translation department of in 1953 and updated in 2012 and 2017.


Phonology

In pronunciation, Irish most closely resembles its nearest relatives,
Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as ...
and Manx. One notable feature is that consonants (except ) come in pairs, one "broad" ( velarised, pronounced with the back of the tongue pulled back towards the soft palate) and one "slender" ( palatalised, pronounced with the middle of the tongue pushed up towards the hard palate). While broad–slender pairs are not unique to Irish (being found, for example, in Russian), in Irish they have a grammatical function. Diphthongs: .


Syntax and morphology

Irish is a fusional, VSO, nominative-accusative language. Irish is neither
verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...
nor satellite framed, and makes liberal use of deictic verbs. Nouns decline for 3 numbers:
singular Singular may refer to: * Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms * Singular homology * SINGULAR, an open source Computer Algebra System (CAS) * Singular or sounder, a group of boar ...
, dual (only in conjunction with the number "two"),
plural The plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the ...
; 2
genders Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures us ...
: masculine, feminine; and 4 cases: nomino-
accusative The accusative case ( abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘ ...
(), vocative (),
genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can a ...
(), and prepositional- locative (), with fossilised traces of the older
accusative The accusative case ( abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘ ...
.
Adjective In linguistics, an adjective ( abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ...
s agree with nouns in
number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual number ...
,
gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most culture ...
, and
case Case or CASE may refer to: Containers * Case (goods), a package of related merchandise * Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component * Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books * Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to ca ...
. Adjectives generally follow nouns, though some precede or
prefix A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Adding it to the beginning of one word changes it into another word. For example, when the prefix ''un-'' is added to the word ''happy'', it creates the word ''unhappy''. Particul ...
nouns.
Demonstrative Demonstratives ( abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic; their meaning depending on a particular fram ...
adjective In linguistics, an adjective ( abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ...
s have
proximal Standard anatomical terms of location are used to unambiguously describe the anatomy of animals, including humans. The terms, typically derived from Latin or Greek roots, describe something in its standard anatomical position. This position ...
, medial, and
distal Standard anatomical terms of location are used to unambiguously describe the anatomy of animals, including humans. The terms, typically derived from Latin or Greek roots, describe something in its standard anatomical position. This position pro ...
forms. The prepositional- locative case is called the
dative In grammar, the dative case ( abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob ...
by convention, though it originates in the Proto-Celtic ablative. Verbs conjugate for 3 tenses: past, present, future; 2 aspects: perfective,
imperfective The imperfective (abbreviated or more ambiguously ) is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a ge ...
; 2 numbers:
singular Singular may refer to: * Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms * Singular homology * SINGULAR, an open source Computer Algebra System (CAS) * Singular or sounder, a group of boar ...
,
plural The plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the ...
; 4 moods: indicative,
subjunctive The subjunctive (also known as conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of the utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude towards it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality s ...
,
conditional Conditional (if then) may refer to: *Causal conditional, if X then Y, where X is a cause of Y *Conditional probability, the probability of an event A given that another event B has occurred *Conditional proof, in logic: a proof that asserts a co ...
, imperative; 2 relative forms, the present and future relative; and in some verbs,
independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independe ...
and dependent forms. Verbs conjugate for 3
persons A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...
and an impersonal form which is
actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), lit ...
-free; the 3rd person singular acts as a person-free personal form that can be followed or otherwise refer to any person or number. There are two verbs for "to be", one for inherent qualities with only two forms, "present" and "past" and "conditional", and one for transient qualities, with a full complement of forms except for the verbal adjective. The two verbs share the one verbal noun. Irish verb formation employs a mixed system during conjugation, with both
analytic Generally speaking, analytic (from el, ἀναλυτικός, ''analytikos'') refers to the "having the ability to analyze" or "division into elements or principles". Analytic or analytical can also have the following meanings: Chemistry * ...
and
synthetic Synthetic things are composed of multiple parts, often with the implication that they are artificial. In particular, 'synthetic' may refer to: Science * Synthetic chemical or compound, produced by the process of chemical synthesis * Synthetic ...
methods employed depending on tense, number, mood and person. For example, in the official standard, present tense verbs have conjugated forms only in the 1st person and autonomous forms (ie. molaim 'I praise', molaimid 'we praise', moltar 'is praised, one praises' ), whereas all other persons are conveyed analytically (ie. molann sé 'he praises', molann sibh 'you praise'). The ratio of analytic to synthetic forms in a given verb paradigm varies between the various tenses and moods. The conditional, imperative and past habitual forms prefer synthetic forms in most persons and numbers, whereas the subjunctive, past, future and present forms prefer mostly analytical forms. The meaning of the
passive voice A passive voice construction is a grammatical voice construction that is found in many languages. In a clause with passive voice, the grammatical subject expresses the ''theme'' or '' patient'' of the main verb – that is, the person or thing ...
is largely conveyed through the autonomous verb form, however there also exist other structures analogous to the
passival The passive voice in English is a grammatical voice whose syntax is marked by a subject followed by a stative verb complemented by a past participle. For example: :The enemy was defeated. :Caesar was stabbed. In each instance of a passive voi ...
and
resultative In linguistics, a resultative (abbreviated ) is a form that expresses that something or someone has undergone a change in state as the result of the completion of an event. Resultatives appear as predicates of sentences, and are generally composed ...
constructions. There are also a number of preverbal particles marking the negative,
interrogative An interrogative clause is a clause whose form is typically associated with question-like meanings. For instance, the English sentence "Is Hannah sick?" has interrogative syntax which distinguishes it from its declarative counterpart "Hannah is ...
,
subjunctive The subjunctive (also known as conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of the utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude towards it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality s ...
,
relative clause A relative clause is a clause that modifies a noun or noun phraseRodney D. Huddleston, Geoffrey K. Pullum, ''A Student's Introduction to English Grammar'', CUP 2005, p. 183ff. and uses some grammatical device to indicate that one of the argument ...
s, etc. There is a verbal noun and verbal adjective. Verb forms are highly regular, many grammars recognise only 11 irregular verbs. Prepositions inflect for
person A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...
and
number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual number ...
. Different prepositions
govern A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...
different cases. In Old and Middle Irish, prepositions
govern A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...
ed different cases depending on intended
semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...
; this has disappeared in Modern Irish except in fossilised form. Irish has no verb to express having; instead, the word ("at", etc.) is used in conjunction with the transient "be" verb : * "I have a book." (Literally, "there is a book at me," cf. Russian У меня есть книга, Finnish ''minulla on kirja'', French ''le livre est à moi'') * "You (singular) have a book." * "He has a book." * "She has a book." * "We have a book." * "You (plural) have a book." * "They have a book." Numerals have 3 forms: abstract, general and ordinal. The numbers from 2 to 10 (and these in combination with higher numbers) are rarely used for people, numeral nominals being used instead: * "Two." * "Two books." * "Two people, a couple", "Two men", "Two women". *, (free variation) "Second." Irish has both decimal and vigesimal systems: 10: 20: 30: vigesimal – ; decimal – 40: v. ; d. 50: v. ; d. (also: "half-hundred") 60: v. ; d. 70: v. ; d. 80: v. ; d. 90: v. ; d. 100: v. ; d. A number such as 35 has various forms: "15 and 20" "5 and 30" "15 on 20" "5 on 30" "15 of 20 (genitive)" "5 of 30 (genitive)" "20 and 15" "30 and 5" The latter is most commonly used in mathematics.


Initial mutations

In Irish, there are two classes of initial consonant mutations, which express grammatical relationship and meaning in verbs, nouns and adjectives: * Lenition () describes the change of stops into
fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in ...
s. Indicated in Gaelic type by a (an
overdot When used as a diacritic mark, the term dot is usually reserved for the '' interpunct'' ( · ), or to the glyphs "combining dot above" ( ◌̇ ) and "combining dot below" ( ◌̣ ) which may be combined with some letters of t ...
) written above the consonant, it is shown in
Roman type In Latin script typography, roman is one of the three main kinds of historical type, alongside blackletter and italic. Roman type was modelled from a European scribal manuscript style of the 15th century, based on the pairing of inscriptional c ...
by adding an . ** "throw!" – "I threw" (lenition as a past-tense marker, caused by the particle , now generally omitted) ** "requirement" – "lack of the requirement" (lenition marking the genitive case of a masculine noun) ** "John" – "John!" (lenition as part of the vocative case, the vocative lenition being triggered by , the vocative marker before ) *
Eclipsis Irish, like all modern Celtic languages, is characterized by its initial consonant mutations. These mutations affect the initial consonant of a word under specific morphological and syntactic conditions. The mutations are an important tool ...
() covers the voicing of voiceless stops, and nasalisation of voiced stops. ** "Father" – "our Father" ** "start", "at the start" ** "Galway" – "in Galway" Mutations are often the only way to distinguish grammatical forms. For example, the only non-contextual way to distinguish
possessive pronouns A possessive or ktetic form (abbreviated or ; from la, possessivus; grc, κτητικός, translit=ktētikós) is a word or grammatical construction used to indicate a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict owne ...
"her," "his" and "their", is through initial mutations since all meanings are represented by the same word . * his shoe – (lenition) * their shoe – (eclipsis) * her shoe – (unchanged) Due to
initial mutation Consonant mutation is change in a consonant in a word according to its morphological or syntactic environment. Mutation occurs in languages around the world. A prototypical example of consonant mutation is the initial consonant mutation of ...
,
prefix A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Adding it to the beginning of one word changes it into another word. For example, when the prefix ''un-'' is added to the word ''happy'', it creates the word ''unhappy''. Particul ...
es,
clitic In morphology and syntax, a clitic (, backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a ...
s,
suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carr ...
es,
root In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the su ...
inflection In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and ...
, ending morphology,
elision In linguistics, an elision or deletion is the omission of one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase. However, these terms are also used to refer more narrowly to cases where two words are run toget ...
,
sandhi Sandhi ( sa, सन्धि ' , "joining") is a cover term for a wide variety of sound changes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries. Examples include fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of one sound depending on near ...
, epenthesis, and
assimilation Assimilation may refer to: Culture * Cultural assimilation, the process whereby a minority group gradually adapts to the customs and attitudes of the prevailing culture and customs ** Language shift, also known as language assimilation, the prog ...
; the beginning, core, and end of words can each change radically and even simultaneously depending on context.


Orthography

Ogham was the
writing system A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable fo ...
used to write
Primitive Irish Primitive Irish or Archaic Irish ( ga, Gaeilge Ársa), also called Proto-Goidelic, is the oldest known form of the Goidelic languages. It is known only from fragments, mostly personal names, inscribed on stone in the ogham alphabet in Ireland ...
and
Old Irish Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic ( sga, Goídelc, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ga, Sean-Ghaeilge; gd, Seann-Ghàidhlig; gv, Shenn Yernish or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive writte ...
until
Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern ...
was introduced in the 8th century CE. The main
typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are thousands o ...
used to write Irish was Gaelic type () until it was replaced by
Roman type In Latin script typography, roman is one of the three main kinds of historical type, alongside blackletter and italic. Roman type was modelled from a European scribal manuscript style of the 15th century, based on the pairing of inscriptional c ...
() in the mid-20th century. The traditional Irish
alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...
() consists of 18 letters: . It does not contain , although they are used in modern
loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because ...
s. occurs in a small number of (mainly
onomatopoeic Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', ''m ...
) native words and
colloquialism Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom normally employed in conversa ...
s. Vowels may be
accented A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
with an
acute accent The acute accent (), , is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accent in the Latin and Greek alphabets, precomposed ...
(; Irish and
Hiberno-English Hiberno-English (from Latin '' Hibernia'': "Ireland"), and in ga, Béarla na hÉireann. or Irish English, also formerly Anglo-Irish, is the set of English dialects native to the island of Ireland (including both the Republic of Ireland ...
: "long (sign)"), but it is ignored for purposes of alphabetisation. It lengthens vowels (and changes their quality), e.g. is and is . The
overdot When used as a diacritic mark, the term dot is usually reserved for the '' interpunct'' ( · ), or to the glyphs "combining dot above" ( ◌̇ ) and "combining dot below" ( ◌̣ ) which may be combined with some letters of t ...
was used in traditional
orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...
( "dot of lenition", "struck", or "lenition") to indicated lenition, currently a following is used for this purpose, i.e. are equivalent to . In Old Irish, it was only used for , while the following was used for ; lenition of other letters was not indicated. Later the two systems spread to the entire set of lenitable consonants and competed with each other. Eventually the following was used in Roman type and the overdot was used in Gaelic type, although extending its use to Roman type would theoretically have the advantage of making Irish texts significantly shorter, e.g. "you (pl.) will get" would become . Letters with an overdot are available in
Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...
and Latin-8 character sets. The use of Gaelic type and the overdot today is restricted to when a traditional style is consciously being used, e.g. the
Irish Defence Forces cap badge The Irish Defence Forces Cap Badge (or "FF badge" as it is sometimes called) is common to all services and corps of the Irish Defence Forces. Although principally associated with the Irish Army (Defence Force regulations in fact describe it as "the ...
() (see above).


Spelling reform

Around the time of the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
, Séamas Daltún, in charge of (the official translations department of the
Irish government The Government of Ireland ( ga, Rialtas na hÉireann) is the cabinet that exercises executive authority in Ireland. The Constitution of Ireland vests executive authority in a government which is headed by the , the head of government. The gover ...
), issued his own guidelines about how to standardise Irish
spelling Spelling is a set of conventions that regulate the way of using graphemes (writing system) to represent a language in its written form. In other words, spelling is the rendering of speech sound (phoneme) into writing (grapheme). Spelling is on ...
and
grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes doma ...
. This
de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with '' de jure'' ("by l ...
standard was subsequently approved by the State and developed into , which simplified and standardised the orthography and grammar by removing inter-dialectal silent letters and simplifying vowel combinations. Where multiple versions existed in different dialects for the same word, one or more were selected, for example: * → , "Louth" (see
County Louth Historic Names This is a list of the historical names for 'Louth', the village and county in Ireland. The Placenames Branch, Dept. of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht undertakes research into the placenames of Ireland to provide authoritative Irish language ve ...
) * → , "food" * → , "Irish language" does not reflect all dialects to the same degree, e.g. "food" (genitive , pronounced in Munster, reflecting the pre-Caighdeán spelling because - fortiate to - in Munster pronunciation). For this reason, the pre-Caighdeán spellings are used by some speakers to reflect the dialectal differentiation of ( nomino-
accusative case The accusative case ( abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘t ...
) "food" and (
genitive case In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can a ...
) "food's". Another example would be "hard", pronounced in Munster, in line with the pre-Caighdeán spelling, . In Munster, and are pronounced and , respectively, but "life, world" (genitive ) became (genitive ) in , which does not reflect the Munster pronunciation (genitive ).


Example text

Article 1 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt ...


See also

* , Anglicisms in Irish * , a course in basic spoken Irish * Comparison of Scottish Gaelic and Irish * , Irish language Society * Dictionary of the Irish Language * Goidelic substrate hypothesis * Hiberno-Latin, a variety of
Medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functioned ...
used in Irish monasteries. It included Greek, Hebrew and Celtic neologisms. *
Irish language outside Ireland The Irish language originated in Ireland and has historically been the dominant language of the Irish people. They took it with them to a number of other countries, and in Scotland and the Isle of Man it gave rise to Scottish Gaelic and Manx, res ...
* Irish name and
Place names in Ireland The vast majority of placenames in Ireland are anglicisations of Irish language names; that is, adaptations of the Irish names to English phonology and spelling. However, some names come directly from the English language, and a handful come fr ...
*
Irish words used in the English language Irish language words used in English in modern Ireland without being assimilated to English forms include: * Amhrán na bhFiann: National Anthem of Ireland (literally "Soldiers Song") ** pronounced * Áras an Uachtaráin: Residence of the P ...
* Irish, a subject of the Junior Cycle examination in Secondary schools in Ireland *
List of artists who have released Irish-language songs {{Use dmy dates, date=April 2022 The following is a partial list of a few music artists who have released songs in the Irish language. Modern music * Aeons * Altan * Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh * Anúna * Autamata * The Irish Roots Cafe house band * ...
* List of English words of Irish origin * List of Ireland-related topics *
List of Irish-language given names This list of Irish-language given names shows Irish language (''Gaeilge'') given names and Anglicized or Latinized forms, with English equivalents. Some English-language names derive directly from the Irish: Kathleen = Caitlín, Shaun = Seán. S ...
*
List of Irish-language media The following is a list of media available in the Irish language. Television Current channels TG4 TG4, originally known as Teilifís na Gaeilge (TnaG), broadcasts on terrestrial television in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland ...
*
Modern literature in Irish Although Irish has been used as a literary language for more than 1,500 years (see Irish literature), and modern literature in Irish dates – as in most European languages – to the 16th century, modern Irish literature owes much of its popular ...
*
Status of the Irish language The official status of the Irish language remains high in the Republic of Ireland. This reflects the dominance of the language in Irish cultural and social history until the nineteenth century and its role in Irish cultural identity. In April 2 ...
, a detailed account of the current state of the language. *


Notes


References


Citations


Bibliography

* Caerwyn Williams, J.E. & Ní Mhuiríosa, Máirín (ed.). '. An Clóchomhar Tta 1979. * McCabe, Richard A.. ''Spenser's Monstrous Regiment: Elizabethan Ireland and the Poetics of Difference''.
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...
2002. . * Hickey, Raymond. ''The Dialects of Irish: Study of a Changing Landscape''.
Walter de Gruyter Walter de Gruyter GmbH, known as De Gruyter (), is a German scholarly publishing house specializing in academic literature. History The roots of the company go back to 1749 when Frederick the Great granted the Königliche Realschule in Be ...
, 2011. . * Hickey, Raymond. ''The Sound Structure of Modern Irish''. De Gruyter Mouton 2014. . * De Brún, Pádraig. ''Scriptural Instruction in the Vernacular: The Irish Society and its Teachers 1818–1827''. Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies 2009. * Doyle, Aidan, ''A History of the Irish Language: From the Norman Invasion to Independence'', Oxford, 2015. * Fitzgerald, Garrett, 'Estimates for baronies of minimal level of Irish-speaking amongst successive decennial cohorts, 117–1781 to 1861–1871,’ Volume 84, ''
Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy The ''Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy'' (''PRIA'') is the journal of the Royal Irish Academy, founded in 1785 to promote the study of science, polite literature, and antiquities Antiquities are objects from antiquity, especially t ...
'' 1984. * Garvin, Tom, ''Preventing the Future: Why was Ireland so poor for so long?'', Gill and MacMillan, 2005. * Hindley, Reg (1991, new ed.). ''The Death of the Irish Language: A Qualified Obituary''.
Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law ...
. * McMahon, Timothy G.. ''Grand Opportunity: The Gaelic Revival and Irish Society, 1893–1910''. Syracuse University Press 2008. * Ó Gráda, Cormac. '' in ''Dublin Review of Books'', Issue 34, 6 May 2013: * Kelly, James & Mac Murchaidh, Ciarán (eds.). ''Irish and English: Essays on the Linguistic and Cultural Frontier 1600–1900''. Four Courts Press 2012. * Ní Mhunghaile, Lesa. 'An Eighteenth Century Irish scribe's private library: Muiris Ó Gormáin's books' in ''
Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy The ''Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy'' (''PRIA'') is the journal of the Royal Irish Academy, founded in 1785 to promote the study of science, polite literature, and antiquities Antiquities are objects from antiquity, especially t ...
'', Volume 110C, 2010, pp. 239–276. * Ní Mhuiríosa, Máirín. ‘’ in ', ed. Seán Ó Mórdha. 1981. * Ó hÓgáin, Dáithí. ''Labhrann Laighnigh: Téacsanna agus Cainteanna ó Shean-Chúige Laighean''. Coiscéim 2011. * Ó Laoire, Muiris. ''Language Use and Language Attitudes in Ireland' in ''Multilingualism in European Bilingual Contexts : Language Use and Attitudes'', ed. David Lasagabaster and Ángel Huguet. Multilingual Matters Ltd. 2007. * Shibakov, Alexey. ''Irish Word Forms / Irische Wortformen''. epubli 2017. * Williams, Nicholas. 'Na Canúintí a Theacht chun Solais' in ', ed. Kim McCone and others. Maigh Nuad 1994.


External links


Discover Irish
*
Learning Irish?
" '' BBC''
programmes

Irish Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words
(from Wiktionary'
Swadesh-list appendix


Grammar and pronunciation


Learn Irish
Grammar with audio and pronunciation

nbsp;– Irish Gaelic Arts, Culture, And History Alive Worldwide Today
Trinity College Dublin The Irish Language Synthesiser


Dictionaries


– Dictionaries and terminology resource


{{DEFAULTSORT:Irish Language Languages attested from the 4th century Fusional languages Goidelic languages Languages of Northern Ireland Languages of Ireland Verb–subject–object languages Vertical vowel systems Languages of the Republic of Ireland