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[129] [130] 6,000 people (0.3%) in Northern Ireland claim to use Irish as their main home language according to the 2021 UK Census with 71,900 people being able to speak Irish (circa 4% of population) and 228,600 people overall in the state (12.4%) having some knowledge of the language. It is the second most spoken language in Northern Ireland.
The main aim of the strategy was stated to be to increase the number of daily Irish speakers in Ireland to 250,000 by 2030. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] In the 2011 census this number was 77,185. By the time of the 2016 census , more than a quarter of the life of the strategy having passed, it had dropped to 73,803, and in the 2022 census , it had dropped ...
As in other parts of Ireland, Irish was the main language in the region of present-day Northern Ireland for most of its recorded history [citation needed].The historic influence of the Irish language in Northern Ireland can be seen in many place names, for example the name of Belfast first appears in the year 668, and the Lagan even earlier ("Logia", Ptolemy's Geography 2,2,8).
In July 2003, the Official Languages Act was signed, declaring Irish an official language, requiring public service providers to make services available in the language, which affected advertising, signage, announcements, public reports, and more. [42] In 2007, Irish became an official working language of the European Union. [42]
Irish (Standard Irish: Gaeilge), also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic (/ ˈ ɡ eɪ l ɪ k / GAY-lik), [3] [4] [5] is a Celtic language of the Indo-European language family. [4] [6] [7] [8] [3] It is a member of the Goidelic language group of the Insular Celtic sub branch of the family and is indigenous to the island of Ireland. [9]
English is the most commonly used language, with 84% [40] of the population calling it their mother tongue. Irish is the first official language of the state, with 11% [40] calling it their mother tongue. Irish is the main language of the Gaeltacht regions, where 102,973 people lived as of 2022. The main sign language used is Irish Sign Language.
Irish Sign Language (ISL) is the sign language of most of Ireland. It has little relation to either spoken Irish or English, and is more closely related to French Sign Language (LSF). Northern Ireland Sign Language is used in Northern Ireland, and is related to both ISL and BSL in various ways. ISL is also used in Northern Ireland.
The Irish language (Irish: an Ghaeilge), or Gaelic, is a native language of the island of Ireland. [13] It was spoken predominantly throughout what is now Northern Ireland before the Ulster Plantations in the 17th century and most place names in Northern Ireland are anglicised versions of a Gaelic name. Today, the language is associated with ...