The Irish Language
An overview
The Gaelic languages - Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx - are the only Q-Celtic languages to survive to modern times. (The other branch, P-Celtic, is represented by Welsh, Breton and formerly Cornish.) Although they have developed from a common root the differences between them, particularly in their written forms, are now sufficient for linguists to consider them to be separate languages. However, the reality is more complex and suggests a continuum. Fluent speakers of any one of them, when exposed to another, experience difficulties comparable to those that, say, a Cockney might have with rich, native, idiomatic Geordie, Black Country or Liverpudlian.
Irish speaking Donegal fishermen have been speaking Gaelic
to boatmen from the Scottish isles from time immemorial and Manx speaking seamen used that language to communicate with people in south Kerry at least up until the First World War, yet more recently native Irish speakers from the various Gaelthachtaí have become, to a great extent, mutually incomprehensible due to the lack of regular, ongoing interaction. This situation has now been greatly alleviated by the creation of Raidió na Gaeltachta, the national Irish medium radio station. Unfortunately, a side effect of this was to intensify the isolation of Irish dialects from Scottish ones, which are scarcely represented.
Several urban myths exist concerning the name(s) of this language. Here, we attempt to correct some of them. The Americans and the English tend to use the proper noun Gaelic
, especially when referring to the Irish and Scottish branches. It should be noted that this is not its self a Gaelic
word but the anglicisation of one or more of the Gaelic
ones, as discussed below. Whilst it is not actually incorrect, the more specific forms Irish
, Scottish Gaelic
and Manx
have currency and are to be recommended for clarity. The Irish, whilst speaking English, call their version Irish
, and refer to the dialects in forms such as Ballyvourney Irish, Coolea Irish, Múscraí Irish, Munster Irish, Connacht Irish, Ulster Irish and so on. It is unusual in the extreme for an Irish person to refer to the language as Gaelic
.
When speaking the language itself, however, its name varies between the dialects. In the province of Munster (Cúige Mumhan) it is called An Ghaeluinn, which may also be spelled An Ghaelainn or An Ghaoluinn. (Pronounced guay-ling
, not gway-lun
.) This was also true of the southern part of the province of Leinster (Cúige Laighin) when the language was spoken there. In the province of Connacht (Cúige Chonnacht) it is called An Ghaeilge. This form has been adopted, with little or no linguistic justification, as the official
name for the language in Ireland but that adoption in no way diminishes the validity of the other names. In the province of Ulster (Cúige Uladh) it is called An Ghaeilic. In the Isle of Man (Oileán Mhanann) it is called Yn Ghailc or Yn Ghailg. In Scotland (Alba) it is called An Ghàidhlig.
It is important to note that it is perfectly correct to use one's native dialect name for the language when refering to another dialect. For example, a Munster man or woman might refer to Gaoluinn na hAlban or Gaoluinn Mhanann whilst someone from Steòrnabhagh might have cause to mention Gàidhlig Mhúsgraí Uí Fhloinn.
On the subject of the Gaelthacht (Irish speaking district) of Músgraí Uí Fhloinn / Múscraí Uí Fhloinn, this area is often referred to as the West-Cork Gaeltacht, the Ballyvourney Gaeltacht or the Coolea Gaeltacht. These descriptions are innacurate, however, as Baile Mhúirne (Ballyvourney) and Cúil Aodha (Coolea) are only two of the parishes in this locality, and West Cork really refers to the area further south in the county. It is, perhaps, better called the Mid-Cork Gaelthacht.
As for anglicisations wrongly percieved as Irish, other examples include potcheen, which is an anglicisation of poitín, the personal name Caitlin (pronounced kayt-lin
), which is a two thirds-anglicised form of Cáitlín (pronounced, approximately, caut-leen
), colleen/cailín, Connemara/Conamara, crack/craic, Oonagh/Úna, Shiela/Síle, Maura/Máire and Shawn/Seán. As a rule, if it's spelt the way it sounds to an English-speaker's ear, it's probably an anglicisation. On the other hand, the personal name Niall is indeed an Irish one, but is correctly pronounced nee-al
. (Compare to Liam or words such as ciall, nia and grian.) The pronunciation nile
is an anglicisation.
The notion that surnames starting with Mc are of Irish origin, whilst those starting with Mac are of Scottish is an old wive's tale — which she probably found on the shore under the seaweed!
