What is Gaelic?
One of the challenges of working with Gaelic is that most people in the world know almost nothing about it.
So, this blog post is aimed at people who may have only recently realized that Gaelic is a Thing.
Why go back to square one? Regular blog readers may know these facts about Gaelic already, but it doesn’t hurt to keep putting them out there for the sake of increasing awareness. Increasing positive awareness of the language is so important that it’s needed to achieve language revitalization. It’s part of the first level of the Language Revitalization EGIDS Scale based on work by Joshua Fishman (see Table 3 and Table 4 in my article on Gaelic revitalization in Nova Scotia).
What Is Gaelic?
So here are four of the most basic answers to the basic question “What is Gaelic?”:
1) Gaelic is a Celtic language.
Celtic is the name of a language family. The Celtic languages are Indo-European, like the Romance and Germanic languages. Six Celtic languages are spoken in the 21st century. They are divided into 2 branches, the Brythonic or Brittonic branch, and the Goidelic branch:
Celtic Languages of the 21st Century
Welsh (Cymraeg) is spoken in areas of Wales and Patagonia (Argentina). Breton (Brezhoneg) is spoken in areas of Brittany in France. Cornish (Kernowek) is spoken by groups of people in Cornwall.
Irish (Gaeilge) is spoken in areas of Ireland (Éire) and Northern Ireland. Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) is spoken in areas of Scotland and Nova Scotia. Manx Gaelic (Gaelg) is spoken in the Isle of Man.
2) Scottish Gaelic is a real, natural, human language.
Gaelic is the Scottish Gaelic language. It is a real, natural, human language with written literature, a documented oral literature, grammar and vocabulary, and textbooks and dictionaries. Some people in Scotland still hate Gaelic and want to see it destroyed, and they are fond of claiming that it’s not a proper language. But we won’t listen to them.
An Tuil, a major anthology of 20th century Gaelic poetry
3) Scottish Gaelic is not the same thing as Scots.
Scottish Gaelic and Scots are totally different languages. Scots is the language that was used by the poet Robert Burns in his famous song “Auld Lang Syne” (translated “Old Long Since” or “Old Times” in English).
Scots and English are in the Germanic language family, which also includes German, Dutch, and Afrikaans, as well as Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, and Faroese. Scots and English are closely related in the Germanic language family, and so many English speakers can understand some Scots.
In contrast, the Scottish Gaelic language is in the Celtic language family (see #1 above). Scottish Gaelic is not related to English, except insofar as they are both Indo-European:
The “tree” of Indo-European languages
4) Scottish Gaelic is similar to Irish.
You could call Irish a sister language to Scottish Gaelic. They developed from a common ancestor language. Although they are closely related, most Irish dialects are not “mutually intelligible” with Scottish Gaelic–this means that speakers of each dialect cannot understand each other (although the understanding can be improved with practice). The Irish language is called “Gaeilge” in Irish.
Exactly how similar are Scottish Gaelic and Irish? Someone has created a Wikipedia entry on the “Comparison of Scottish Gaelic and Irish” which gives the following helpful comparisons:
The closest to Scottish Gaelic in modern Irish is the dialect currently spoken in County Donegal, as illustrated by the sentence “How are you?”:
Scottish Gaelic — Ciamar a tha sibh? (plural/formal) or Ciamar a tha thu? (singular/informal), Lewis dialect Dè mar a tha sibh? (plural/formal) Dè mar a tha thu? (singular/informal) (dè < cad è)
Ulster Irish — Cad é mar atá sibh? (plural) or Cad é mar atá tú? (singular), spelt in ‘dialect spelling’ as Caidé mar a tá sibh/tú?
Connacht Irish — Cén chaoi a bhfuil sibh? (plural) or Cén chaoi a bhfuil tú? (singular), in colloquial speech Ce chuil sib/tú
Munster Irish — Conas táthaoi (plural) or Conas taoi? (singular), Conas tánn sibh/tú?, Conas atá sibh/tú?
So there you have it, four of the most basic ways to answer the question “What is Gaelic?” I hope this sparks your interest and inspires you to dig a little deeper!
Very well done…gle mhath! Nonetheless, although the orthography of Irish Gaelic is different from Scottish Gaelic the two languages are as close as Italian and Spanish. Orally, I think, particularly people in the North (Ulster) can understand Scots Gaelic well. The real crisis is 1) intermarriage with non-Gaelic speakers 2) the fall off of the birth rate of native Gaels. I hope Gaelic does not die but it may be heading to the fate of Cornish and may exist in the future is an folklorish way only.
Thank you very much for your comments. Glad you are finding this post interesting! Tha bratach na Gàidhlig ann — there is a Gaelic flag! I wrote a blog post about it a few weeks ago: https://gaelic.co/gaelic-flag/
Do you think more people would knowabout Gaelic if there were a Gaelic flag
Seriously, this was interesting. I know a wee bit about the Welsh language due to my interest in that culture’s mythology (thanks to Lloyd Alexander) but I didn’t realize it was from a different branch of the Celtic language tree from the Gaelic languages.
It is a pity that this needs to be done. Nevertheless it does. Well written, clear and succinct. Many people need to read this because the ignorance that exists is pretty big.
Tapadh leat! It seems to me that the ignorance that exists is the outcome of a deliberate effort to erase the language from communities and from histories. Unfortunately it succeeded in so many ways. So basic awareness (and fact-based awareness, not misty myth-based awareness) is something that we need to work really hard to (re)build.
I am an Ulster Gael from Co.Derry and have little difficulty in understanding Gaidhlig. It does take a few minutes to acclimatise the ear to the sound. An teanga abú/an teunga abù
Math fhèin, tapadh leat!
Wanting to know if there is a Irish Gaelic DVD available using a phonetic pronunciation of words, sentences and especially the nuances, and what is reason for such promotion of the scottish version and hardly a mention of the Irish Emily?
Thank you for your comment! I don’t know about Irish-language DVDs, but there is a great website with lots of YouTube pronunciation videos, called “Bitesize Irish,” that I can recommend. They have lots of great blog posts. My fellow Tattoo Handbook author Audrey Nickel, The Geeky Gaeilgeoir, recommends some other pronunciation resources in this blog post.
Why do I promote Scottish Gaelic and hardly mention Irish, Joseph? My entire blog is focused on Gaelic rather than Irish because it’s a Gaelic blog, not an Irish blog. Have a look at some of my other posts! I am a Scottish Gaelic language specialist – I have spent most of my adult life learning and researching Gaelic, and I have a Ph.D. in the study of Scottish Gaelic language revitalization. On the other hand, I have never studied Irish formally; I can somewhat understand it in written form, but cannot quite speak it. My Manx (Gaelg) is marginally better (having taken 2 hours of Manx classes when visiting the Isle of Man)!
In addition to my own book, The Scottish Gaelic Tattoo Handbook, my publishing company also publishes em>The Irish Gaelic Tattoo Handbook by author Audrey Nickel, which is focused on the Irish language. It does not contain pronunciation advice but feel free to check it out!
Tha seo nas ceart na mise! Glè mhath a’ h-Emily.