Irish language
[10] Linguistic analyses of Irish speakers are therefore based primarily on the number of daily users in Ireland outside the education system, which in 2022 was 20,261 in the Gaeltacht and 51,707 outside it, totalling 71,968.Irish has no regulatory body but An Caighdeán Oifigiúil, the standard written form, is guided by a parliamentary service and new vocabulary by a voluntary committee with university input.During this time, the Irish language absorbed some Latin words, some via Old Welsh, including ecclesiastical terms: examples are easpag (bishop) from episcopus, and Domhnach (Sunday, from dominica).The National University of Ireland 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 examinations.[52] In 2009, a paper suggested that within a generation, non-Gaeltacht habitual users of Irish might typically be members of an urban, middle class, and highly educated minority.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.[67] The 30-page document published by the Government of Ireland 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 phases to improve 9 main areas: The general goal for this strategy was to increase the number of daily speakers from 83,000 to 250,000 by the end of its run.[71] 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.[75] 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 An Dream Dearg.The Irish language was carried abroad in the modern period by a vast diaspora, chiefly to Great Britain and North America, but also to Australia, New Zealand and Argentina.The Gaelic revival, which started in Ireland in the 1890s, found a response abroad, with branches of Conradh na Gaeilge being established in all the countries to which Irish speakers had emigrated.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.Features in Connacht Irish differing from the official standard include a preference for verbal nouns ending in -achan, e.g. lagachan instead of lagú, "weakening".In addition Connacht and Ulster speakers tend to include the "we" pronoun rather than use the standard compound form used in Munster, e.g. bhí muid is used for "we were" instead of bhíomar.This can be seen in ceann [cɑːn̪ˠ] "head", cam [kɑːmˠ] "crooked", gearr [ɟɑːɾˠ] "short", ord [ouɾˠd̪ˠ] "sledgehammer", gall [gɑːl̪ˠ] "foreigner, non-Gael", iontas [ˈiːn̪ˠt̪ˠəsˠ] "a wonder, a marvel", etc.In South Connemara, for example, there is a tendency to replace word-final /vʲ/ with /bʲ/, in word such as sibh, libh and dóibh (pronounced respectively as "shiv," "liv" and "dófa" in the other areas).In addition to a vocabulary typical of other area of Connacht, one also finds Ulster words like amharc (meaning "to look"), nimhneach (painful or sore), druid (close), mothaigh (hear), doiligh (difficult), úr (new), and tig le (to be able to – i.e. a form similar to féidir).Linguistically, the most important of the Ulster dialects today is that which is spoken, with slight differences, in both Gweedore (Gaoth Dobhair = Inlet of Streaming Water) and The Rosses (na Rossa).One noticeable trait of Ulster Irish, Scots Gaelic and Manx is the use of the negative particle cha(n) in place of the Munster and Connacht ní.[87][88] Another noticeable trait is the pronunciation of the first person singular verb ending -(a)im as -(e)am, also common to the Isle of Man and Scotland (Munster/Connacht siúlaim "I walk", Ulster siúlam).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.East Leinster showed the same diphthongisation or vowel lengthening as in Munster and Connacht Irish in words like poll (hole), cill (monastery), coill (wood), ceann (head), cam (crooked) and dream (crowd).[89] 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.By the late 15th century it consisted of an area along the coast from Dalkey, south of Dublin, to the garrison town of Dundalk, with an inland boundary encompassing Naas and Leixlip in the Earldom of Kildare and Trim and Kells in County Meath to the north.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.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 Conradh na Gaeilge, and accompanied by renewed literary activity.[126][127] However, contemporary Irish uses the full Latin alphabet, with the previously unused letter used in modern loanwords; ⟨v⟩ occurs in a small number of (mainly onomatopoeic) native words and colloquialisms.The use of Gaelic type and the overdot today is restricted to when a traditional style is consciously being used, e.g. Óglaiġ na h-Éireann on the Irish Defence Forces cap badge (see above).Extending the use of the overdot to Roman type would theoretically have the advantage of making Irish texts significantly shorter, e.g. gheobhaidh sibh "you (pl.)
Irish language (disambiguation)Classical GaelicGa languageStandard IrishRepublic of IrelandUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandEuropean UnionIrelandIrish peopleLanguage familyIndo-EuropeanCelticInsular CelticGoidelicPrimitive IrishOld IrishMiddle IrishEarly Modern IrishAn Caighdeán OifigiúilConnacht IrishLeinster IrishMunster IrishNewfoundland IrishUlster IrishWriting systemIrish alphabetIrish BrailleISO 639-1ISO 639-2ISO 639-3GlottologLinguasphereUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in DangerUnicodeCeltic languageIndo-European language familyindigenousfirst languageEnglishlinguistic imperialismGaeltachtNorthern IrelandIrish Americansfirst language at homeIrish historytook it with them to other regionsScotlandIsle of ManScottish GaelicCanadaNewfoundlandunique dialectLatin scriptone of the oldest vernacular literaturesWestern EuropeConnachtMunsterspeechorthographystandardisedLatin alphabetlettersstandard Latin alphabetloanwordsconstitutionalnational and first official languagelanguages of the European UnionForas na GaeilgeStandardgenitiveEndonymsUlsterGaelic of ScotlandHiberno-EnglishHistory of the Irish languagemarginaliaOld Welshecclesiastical termsUlster CycleManx languageGaelic-speaking ScotlandGeoffrey KeatingCatholic Churchdiglossiatransitional bilingualismUnited StatesGreat FamineGaelic revivalConradh na GaeilgeChurch of IrelandMuircheartach Ó CíongaBishop BedellmonoglotStatus of the Irish languageConstitution of IrelandDouglas HydePresident of IrelandRoscommonGrafton StreetDublinIrish Free StateHistory of the Republic of IrelandCivil Service of the Republic of Irelandpostal workerstax collectorsGarda SíochánaLanguage Freedom MovementEducation in the Republic of IrelandLeaving CertificateNational University of IrelanddyslexiaNUI GalwayCreggsCounty GalwayManchán MaganNo BéarlaGaelscoileannaDuolingoMichael D. HigginsDepartment of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and MediaGalway-Mayo Institute of TechnologyThe Irish TimesFoinseConnemaraDingle Peninsula