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Irish (Standard Irish: Gaeilge), also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic (/ ˈ ɡ eɪ l ɪ k / ⓘ GAY-lik), [3] [4] [5] is a Celtic language of the Indo-European language family. [4] [6] [7] [8] [3] It is a member of the Goidelic languages of the Insular Celtic sub branch of the family and is indigenous to the island of Ireland. [9]
It is believed that Irish remained the majority tongue as late as 1800 [19] but became a minority language during the 19th century. [20] It is an important part of Irish nationalist identity, marking a cultural distance between Irish people and the English. [21] [22] [23]
One of the most important aspects of Irish phonology is that almost all consonants (except /h/) come in pairs, a "broad" and a "slender" pronunciation. Broad consonants are either velarized ( ˠ; back of tongue is pulled back and slightly up in the direction of the soft palate during articulation) or simply velar (for example, /k ɡ/).
Gaelic, by itself, is sometimes used to refer to Scottish Gaelic, especially in Scotland, and therefore is ambiguous.Irish and Manx are sometimes referred to as Irish Gaelic and Manx Gaelic (as they are Goidelic or Gaelic languages), but the use of the word Gaelic is unnecessary because the terms Irish and Manx, when used to denote languages, always refer to those languages.
Middle Irish was spoken in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man through the 12th century, when it began to evolve into modern Irish in Ireland, Scottish Gaelic in Scotland, and the Manx language in the Isle of Man. Today, Irish is recognized as the first official language of the Republic of Ireland and is officially recognized in the European ...
clabber, clauber (from clábar) wet clay or mud; curdled milk. clock O.Ir. clocc meaning "bell"; into Old High German as glocka, klocka [15] (whence Modern German Glocke) and back into English via Flemish; [16] cf also Welsh cloch but the giving language is Old Irish via the hand-bells used by early Irish missionaries.
The two comparatively "major" Gaelic nations in the modern era are Ireland (which had 71,968 "daily" Irish speakers and 1,873,997 people claiming "some ability of Irish", as of the 2022 census) [1] and Scotland (58,552 fluent "Gaelic speakers" and 92,400 with "some Gaelic language ability" in the 2001 census). [56]
A Gaeilgeoir (an Irish speaker) wearing a Fáinne. The Fáinne lapel pins were, at first, a limited success. They appealed mainly to Nationalists and Republicans, for whom the language was generally learnt as adults as a second language. The appeal to people for whom Irish was the native tongue was limited.