13 Fun and Interesting Facts About the Irish Language
1. Gaeilge, the Irish language or Irish Gaelic as it is often referred to in English, (not to be confused with Scots Gaelic) is the first official language of the Republic of Ireland and an official language of the European Union and is simply referred to as Irish.
2. The Irish language is one of the oldest Indo-European languages, a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages, also known as Q-Celtic, along with Manx, and Scots Gaelic.
3. Although Irish is the official language of the Republic of Ireland, and a minority language in Northern Ireland, most people speak English daily.
4. The Gaeltacht refers to areas where the Irish language is still spoken on a daily basis and these can be found in Counties Cork, Donegal, Galway, Kerry, Meath, Mayo, and Waterford.
5. Up to the 1800 Acts of Union, Irish was the most widely spoken language on the island. The Union with England marked the beginning of the decline of the language. The public, state-funded National School System, founded in 1831 with an aim to provide a non-denominational education for the poor of Ireland prohibited the use of the language in schools until 1871.
6. The Great Famine of 1846-48 affected the poor, mostly Irish speakers, one million people died and another million emigrated further contributing to the decline of the language. Irish became associated with poverty and English, the language of the wealthy and prestigious.
7. It was not until 1900 and the Gaelic Revival of the late 19th Century that Irish became part of the National School Curriculum. It has been a required subject since then.
8. According to the 2016 Census 1,761,320 people or 39.8% of the population over the age of 3 claim to be able to speak the Irish language, most likely due to the fact that Irish is a compulsory subject in the public school system. Outside of the educational system, only about 74,000 people claim to speak it on a daily basis.
9. There are 3 main Irish language dialects, Munster, Ulster, and Connacht. Each dialect differs slightly in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. In 1958 The Caighdean (The Official Standard for written Irish) was published.
10. Raidió na Gaeltachta (the Irish Language Radio Station based in the Gaeltachts) began broadcasting on 2 April 1972 and TG4 (the Irish language public service television network) launched on 31 October 1996.
11. Standard Irish uses the Latin Alphabet and contains 18 letters,
a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, u.
The vowels may be accented with a síneadh fada, which lengthens the sound, á, é, í, ó, ú.
Consonants may be broad or slender and in certain grammatical environments involve a system of initial consonant mutations; lenition and eclipsis.
12. Today the Irish language is taught in Universities in North America, Australia, and Europe and about 22,000 people in the United States claim to speak the language at home. The North American Gaeltacht in rural Ontario, Canada is the first official Gaeltacht area outside of Ireland.
13. There are no words for “Yes” or “No” in the Irish Language, Questions are answered with a positive or negative form of the verb. Irish uses the Verb-Subject-Object sentence structure, eg “Shiúl me abhaile” . Walked I home = I walked home. A feature of Celtic Languages, only about 8% of world languages use this structure and it often confuses English learners. Luckily there are only 11 irregular verbs to deal with compared to about 80 in English.
If you are interested in the Irish Language, check out TG4 or Raidió na Gaeltachta and have a listen. Maybe you’d like to take it one step further and take some classes. Head on over to Gaeilge go Deo and check out Ranganna Gaeilge, online classes via Zoom. A new series will be starting in mid-November. Subscribe and stay tuned.
2 Comments
Oreena
Maith thú Jacinta. An-suimiúil go deo. ☘
keyesjmb
Grma, Oreena