HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Although
Irish Gaelic Irish (Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was th ...
,
Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as ...
, and
Manx Gaelic Manx ( or , pronounced or ), also known as Manx Gaelic, is a Gaelic language of the insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family. Manx is the historical language of the Manx people ...
are closely related as
Goidelic The Goidelic or Gaelic languages ( ga, teangacha Gaelacha; gd, cànanan Goidhealach; gv, çhengaghyn Gaelgagh) form one of the two groups of Insular Celtic languages, the other being the Brittonic languages. Goidelic languages historical ...
Celtic languages The Celtic languages (usually , but sometimes ) are a group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch of the Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward ...
(or Gaelic languages), they are different in many ways. While most
dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...
s are not immediately
mutually comprehensible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as a ...
(although many individual words and phrases are), speakers of the three languages can rapidly develop
mutual intelligibility In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as ...
.


Phonetic and grammatical differences

The spoken dialects of Irish and Scottish Gaelic are most similar to one another in
Ulster Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kin ...
and southwestern
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...
, regions of close geographical proximity to one another. It is thought that the extinct dialect of
Galwegian Gaelic Galwegian Gaelic (also known as Gallovidian Gaelic, Gallowegian Gaelic, or Galloway Gaelic) is an extinct dialect of Scottish Gaelic formerly spoken in southwest Scotland. It was spoken by the people of Galloway and Carrick until the ear ...
, spoken in
Galloway Galloway ( ; sco, Gallowa; la, Gallovidia) is a region in southwestern Scotland comprising the historic counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire. It is administered as part of the council area of Dumfries and Galloway. A native or ...
in the far south of Scotland, was very similar to
Ulster Irish Ulster Irish ( ga, Gaeilig Uladh, IPA=, IPA ga=ˈɡeːlʲɪc ˌʊlˠuː) is the variety of Irish spoken in the province of Ulster. It "occupies a central position in the Gaelic world made up of Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man". Ulster Ir ...
and Manx. While the dialects of northern Scotland and southern
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...
tend to differ the most from one another in terms of vocabulary, they do share some features which are absent in other dialect areas lying between them. For example, in both
Munster Irish Munster Irish () is the dialect of the Irish language spoken in the province of Munster. Gaeltacht regions in Munster are found in the Gaeltachtaí of the Dingle Peninsula in west County Kerry, in the Iveragh Peninsula in south Kerry, in Cap ...
and the Gaelic of the north of Scotland, historically short vowels have been diphthongised or lengthened before fortis
sonorants In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels are ...
. An example of this is the word "children of the family". In Munster Irish and northern Scottish Gaelic it is pronounced whereas in Ulster and
County Mayo County Mayo (; ga, Contae Mhaigh Eo, meaning "Plain of the yew trees") is a county in Ireland. In the West of Ireland, in the province of Connacht, it is named after the village of Mayo, now generally known as Mayo Abbey. Mayo County Counci ...
it is and in
Connemara Connemara (; )( ga, Conamara ) is a region on the Atlantic coast of western County Galway, in the west of Ireland. The area has a strong association with traditional Irish culture and contains much of the Connacht Irish-speaking Gaeltacht, ...
; the Manx form is in the north and in the south. In addition, slender coronal stops ( and in Scottish Gaelic; and in Irish), are affricated (such as and ) in Mayo and Donegal, the southern Highlands and in Manx, but not in Munster or the northern Highlands. In the verb ''tá'' of Standard Irish, northern Scotland and Central-Southern Munster agree in leniting the initial , thus one hears in
County Waterford County Waterford ( ga, Contae Phort Láirge) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Munster and is part of the South-East Region. It is named after the city of Waterford. Waterford City and County Council is the local authority for t ...
and
County Tipperary County Tipperary ( ga, Contae Thiobraid Árann) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. The county is named after the town of Tipperary, and was established in the early 13th century, shortly after ...
, and in northern Scotland. West Munster also lenites the , but only after the preverb "that" e.g. "the man that's standing at the door" (Standard Irish , Scottish Gaelic ). The closest to Scottish Gaelic in modern Irish is the dialect currently spoken in
County Donegal County Donegal ( ; ga, Contae Dhún na nGall) is a county of Ireland in the province of Ulster and in the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the town of Donegal in the south of the county. It has also been known as County Tyrcon ...
, as illustrated by the sentence "How are you?". :
Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as ...
: (plural/formal) or (singular/informal), Lewis dialect (plural/formal) (singular/informal) ( < ) :
Ulster Irish Ulster Irish ( ga, Gaeilig Uladh, IPA=, IPA ga=ˈɡeːlʲɪc ˌʊlˠuː) is the variety of Irish spoken in the province of Ulster. It "occupies a central position in the Gaelic world made up of Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man". Ulster Ir ...
: (plural) (singular), spelt in 'dialect spelling' as :
Connacht Irish Connacht Irish () is the dialect of the Irish language spoken in the province of Connacht. Gaeltacht regions in Connacht are found in Counties Mayo (notably Tourmakeady, Achill Island and Erris) and Galway (notably in parts of Connemara and o ...
: (plural), (singular), in colloquial speech :
Munster Irish Munster Irish () is the dialect of the Irish language spoken in the province of Munster. Gaeltacht regions in Munster are found in the Gaeltachtaí of the Dingle Peninsula in west County Kerry, in the Iveragh Peninsula in south Kerry, in Cap ...
: (plural), (singular), , ''Sibh'' is used in both Irish and Scottish Gaelic for the plural "you", while Scottish Gaelic xcept for the far southalso uses as a formal version of "you" (much like French uses ; see "
T–V distinction The T–V distinction is the contextual use of different pronouns that exists in some languages and serves to convey formality or familiarity. Its name comes from the Latin pronouns '' tu'' and '' vos''. The distinction takes a number of forms ...
"). Modern Irish does not use this formal/informal distinction when addressing people. The use of as 'polite' you is a retention from the Classical Irish usage of the plural personal pronouns to refer to the singular in polite communication, thus "we" for "I, me" and "you (plural)" for "you/thou". is used in Scottish Gaelic when speaking to an individual friend, family member, or a younger person. The negative particle in Scottish Gaelic, Manx and Northern Ulster Irish is ''cha/chan'' (, = "is not"; ''chan'' is from the Old Irish emphatic negative ). In standard Irish the negative particle is ( = "is not", a contraction of ); is a retention of the normal Old Irish negative; these are illustrated by the sentence "I have no money": :Scottish Gaelic: :Ulster Irish: :Manx: :Standard Irish: Scottish Gaelic speakers may also sound as if they were using the Irish phrase, as can frequently be shortened to . The Classical Irish digraph is still used in Scottish Gaelic spelling but is now obsolete in Irish, except in southern dialect writing, as a means to distinguish the vowel when followed by a broad consonant from the regular dialect development to in the same environment, thus "bird" in comparison to "died; passed on). is now used instead of in Standard Irish. Both and existed in Classical Irish, to a large extent showing nominal case differences (with varying with in the dative of -words), however in both Scotland and Ireland,
spelling reform A spelling reform is a deliberate, often authoritatively sanctioned or mandated change to spelling rules. Proposals for such reform are fairly common, and over the years, many languages have undergone such reforms. Recent high-profile examples a ...
s and standardisation (which took place in Ireland under the auspices of the
government of Ireland The Government of Ireland ( ga, Rialtas na hÉireann) is the cabinet that exercises executive authority in Ireland. The Constitution of Ireland vests executive authority in a government which is headed by the , the head of government. The govern ...
during the 20th century, and much earlier in Scotland) independently went for different versions. At times Scottish writers used the spelling to represent how the combination is pronounced in northern dialects, writing instead of , the southern form. Manx spelling, based mainly on English, shows that is also the underlying form in Manx, the word being spelled .


Eclipsis

The most obvious phonological difference between Irish and Scottish Gaelic is that the phenomenon of
eclipsis Irish, like all modern Celtic languages, is characterized by its initial consonant mutations. These mutations affect the initial consonant of a word under specific morphological and syntactic conditions. The mutations are an important tool ...
in Irish is
diachronic Synchrony and diachrony are two complementary viewpoints in linguistic analysis. A ''synchronic'' approach (from grc, συν- "together" and "time") considers a language at a moment in time without taking its history into account. Synchronic l ...
(i.e. the result of a historical word-final nasal that may or may not be present in modern Irish) but fully
synchronic Synchronic may refer to: * ''Synchronic'' (film), a 2019 American science fiction film starring Jamie Dornan and Anthony Mackie * Synchronic analysis, the analysis of a language at a specific point of time * Synchronicity, the experience of two or ...
in Scottish Gaelic (i.e. it requires the actual presence of a word-final nasal except for a tiny set of frozen forms). Eclipsis is shown in Irish orthography but not in Scottish Gaelic as it is conditioned by the actual environment. For example, this means that phrases like Standard Irish , standard Scottish Gaelic , Manx is pronounced as follows in different parts of the Gaelic speaking world: *Southern Irish: *Western and Northern Irish: *Scottish Gaelic (casual pronunciation, especially
Lewis Lewis may refer to: Names * Lewis (given name), including a list of people with the given name * Lewis (surname), including a list of people with the surname Music * Lewis (musician), Canadian singer * "Lewis (Mistreated)", a song by Radiohead ...
): , more commonly further south, with fully voiced . An example of diachronic-type eclipsis are the numbers: *Irish: "year" > "8 years" *Scottish Gaelic: > In conservative speech, Scottish Gaelic feminine nouns also slenderise in the dative (prepositional) case, giving , and so a different final consonant. This feature is uncommon today except in more formal registers and is ignored here.


Orthographic differences

There are a number of distinctive
orthographical An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...
(written) differences. The spellings of both languages have been reformed in recent decades, which has led to further divergence, though conversely more recent spelling reforms in Scottish Gaelic have reduced the divergences to some extent. One difference is that the accent is written as a
grave accent The grave accent () ( or ) is a diacritical mark used to varying degrees in French, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian and many other western European languages, as well as for a few unusual uses in English. It is also used in other languages usin ...
( gd, links=no, stràc throm, "heavy stroke/accent") in Scottish Gaelic, as opposed to the
acute accent The acute accent (), , is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accent in the Latin and Greek alphabets, precomposed ...
(, "long (sign)" used in Irish; hence the word for "welcome" is written as in Scottish Gaelic and in Irish as . Irish does not use the grave accent, while until recently Scottish Gaelic used the grave and acute accents to differentiate between open and closed vowel sounds. However, recent spelling reform has meant that only grave accents are now in Scottish Gaelic, leaving phonemic distinctions unmarked. Another difference in Scottish Gaelic is that the aspirate linker is always hyphenated, while in Irish it is attached to the beginning of the word, as illustrated by the languages' respective names for each other: :Scottish Gaelic — , :Standard Irish — , Additionally, while the linkers and are usually hyphenated in both languages, in Irish they are attached to the beginning of words whose first letter is capitalised; in Scottish Gaelic they are always hyphenated. A number of letter combinations are possible in written Irish which are not found in Scottish Gaelic e.g. , . Irish uses where Scottish Gaelic uses , although itself was once common in written Irish, as was in Scottish Gaelic – both being used in Classical Gaelic. In the combinations and , Irish now uses and , while Scottish Gaelic uses and both and , despite there being no phonetic difference between the two languages. Most obvious differences in spelling result from the deletion of silent lenited digraphs (mainly , , and ) in Irish in spelling reforms, which was only sometimes done in Scottish Gaelic. Overall,
Scottish Gaelic orthography Scottish Gaelic orthography has evolved over many centuries and is heavily etymologizing in its modern form. This means the orthography tends to preserve historical components rather than operating on the principles of a phonemic orthography wh ...
is more conservative than that of Irish.


List of Irish and Scottish Gaelic cognates


Differences in vocabulary

Differences can also be seen in words used for geographical features. For example, "hill" and "mountain" are usually "cnoc" (''Knocknapeasta'') and "sliabh" (''Slieve Donard'') respectively in Ireland, but "càrn" (''Cairn Gorm'') and "beinn" (''Ben Nevis'') in Scotland. Additionally, "inbhir," meaning "river mouth" and usually Anglicized as "inver" (for example ''Inverness'' or ''Inveraray''), very common in Scotland, is almost never seen in Ireland.


Comparison of text

Article 1 of the
UDHR The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, i ...
in the languages:


See also

*
Irish language Irish (Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Comparison of Irish and Scottish Gaelic
Gaelic Gaelic is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". As a noun it refers to the group of languages spoken by the Gaels, or to any one of the languages individually. Gaelic languages are spoken in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, an ...
Goidelic languages Scottish Gaelic language Irish language