The Celtic language, Irish
Irish is a Celtic language that belongs to the Goidelic branch of insular Celtic. The language is often referred to as Gaelic, Irish Gaelic, Erse, but is commonly known as Irish (MustGoTravel, 2020). The Irish language was brought to Ireland and Britain by the iron age Celts, who occupied Central Europe 3,000 years ago (Irelandseye, 2018). Ireland was invaded throughout the early years of the language, and between the 17th and early 20th centuries, the Irish language started to decline (Omniglot, 2020). Emigration and the potato famine during the 19th and 20th centuries led to a further decline in the language, and English progressively replaced the language in many parts of Ireland (Omniglot, 2020). In 1922, the Republic of Ireland was established and adopted both Irish, and English as the two official languages of Ireland (Omniglot, 2020)
The Celtic language, Irish, is a living language that is a commonly spoken language throughout the world. Irish is primarily spoken in Ireland and has speakers in the UK or northwestern part of Europe. There is also present-day Irish speakers in Canada, Australia, and the United States of America (Omniglot, 2020). In Ireland, there are 1.76 million people who speak the native language, Irish. Although the number of speakers is large, only 73,803 people claim to speak the language daily, and 111, 473 speak the language once a week (Omniglot, 2020). The main concentration of Irish speakers are scattered across the west coast of Ireland in an Irish-speaking area known as Gaeltacht (MustGoTravel, 2020). Irish is spoken as a first language throughout Ireland in Galway, Kerry, Cork, Donegal, Waterford, Mayo, and Meath (Wikipedia, 2020). A UK census discovered that 184,898 or 10.7% of the population in Northern Ireland have some awareness of the Irish language, and 104,943 can speak the language. Northern Ireland has a small percentage of native Irish speakers and has officially recognized Irish as the minority language (MustGoTravel, 2020). A small population of 1,895 people in Australia claims the Irish language as their native language (Omniglot, 2020). According to a recent census, data shows that Irish in the United States is the 76th “most common home language,” as 22,279 people speak Irish. The population of Irish speakers in the United States are mainly located in Massachusetts, New York, California, and Illinois (Walsh & Dhúda, 2015).
The language Irish has evolved over the centuries and has established varieties of the language that people speak today. Old Irish was Irelands language during the “Golden Age” and its classical phase that is dated back to the AD period. Middle Irish developed during the Viking period from Old Irish (Nolan, 2008). Modern or Classical Modern Irish began to be spoken and is the variety that is spoken most often throughout the world. Irish has three main dialects that are spoken, such as Munster, Connacht, and Ulster. Muster is expressed in the southern part of Ireland, Connacht is spoken the western part of Ireland, and Ulster is primarily used in the northern parts of Ireland (Nickel, 2012). Irish used to have a fourth dialect called Leinster Irish, which was spoken in the eastern region but has died out as a distinct dialect (Nickel, 2012). In Irish, when learning the language, there isn’t a specific dialect a speaker should learn. All Irish-speakers are speaking the same language, but each dialect has its own unique style in which they use different words for the same concept (Nickel, 2012).
The earliest written records of Irish go back to the early Christian Period when Latin was used as the written medium (Irelandseye, 2018). Ogham was another form of the Irish language in written form that was inscribed on stones. This alphabet of Ogham was used to write Old Welsh, Archaic Irish, and Latin. Gaelic script was also part of the Irish writing system, which is a variant of the Latin alphabet. Gaelic was used for Irish printing until the language adopted a new form of writing, but the Gaelic Script is continuously used in Ireland for public notices and road signs (Omniglot, 2020). Irish today is written in the Modern Irish alphabet, which is written similarly to the Latin alphabet.