|
 |
How close is Gaelic to English? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| ilcommunication Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6693 days ago 115 posts - 162 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 9 of 41 10 May 2010 at 9:37am | IP Logged | ||
|
I've heard fluent Irish spoken once, and it sounded like something from another planet. From what I can tell, there are so few points of similarity between Irish and English, so they're not close at all. Anyway, Irish is an awesome language, one of the coolest sounding I've heard...if I lived in Ireland I'd start learning it in a second.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 41 10 May 2010 at 10:20am | IP Logged | ||
|
I have only learned the absolute basics of Irish Gaelic, but I can see that the morphology, syntax and idiomatics all are lightyears away from English, whereas there are a fair amount of loanwords. The problem is that these loanwords mostly are changed so much that you can't use this information for anything practical. For instance 'grammar' is "gramadach", 'scool' is "scoil" and an irishman is an "éireannach". However an English person is a "sasanach" (from 'Saxon'), and when I read about the same word in Scottish Gaelic there was a note that this word has a somewhat ominous and/or derogatory ring to it. Heaven knows why ... Edited by Iversen on 10 May 2010 at 10:26am 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 11 of 41 10 May 2010 at 3:19pm | IP Logged | ||
|
In terms of grammar, phraseology and phonology, Gaelic is about as similar to English as Hindi is -- the Celtic and Indic tribes are thought to have left the Indo-European heartlands at a similar point in history and there are a lot of similarities even now between the two language families.
Gaelic has a lot of vocabulary cognate with English, and this is mostly terms derived from Latin and/or French in an official context -- court (both royal and law courts), church and parliament -- and a lot of it is far enough from English to be of little use to anyone with a broad understanding of multiple languages and the processes of language change. As for "sassanach", it's not derogatory in Scottish Gaelic -- it is the one and only word for an Englishman. When borrowed into English or Lowland Scots, however, it has come to be considered derogatory. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Khublei Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Yugoslavia homestayperu.net Joined 5348 days ago 90 posts - 141 votes Speaks: English*, Irish*, Spanish Studies: Russian, Khasi, French, Albanian | Message 12 of 41 10 May 2010 at 5:53pm | IP Logged | ||
I once read a paper on the similarities between Hindi and Irish. Would love to find it again, was very interesting. My Swedish friend says I sound like I'm speaking Chinese when I speak Irish. It's that different. But if you speak even a little bit of it Irish people will be very impressed! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Declan1991 Tetraglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6440 days ago 233 posts - 359 votes Speaks: English*, German, Irish, French | Message 13 of 41 10 May 2010 at 6:29pm | IP Logged | ||
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Smart Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5340 days ago 352 posts - 398 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Latin, French Studies: German | Message 14 of 41 12 May 2010 at 7:01am | IP Logged | ||
|
I would love to learn both of them (Irish & Scottish) but it looks to be a language I would somewhat struggle with. Perhaps I should try and see if it is. :)
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Patchy Newbie Joined 5129 days ago 25 posts - 46 votes Speaks: English* | Message 15 of 41 10 November 2010 at 10:07pm | IP Logged | ||
Well, that's why most people (not included those indoctrinated in deviant terminology initiated by the Irish education system) call it Gaelic. To me and most people, saying 'I speak Irish' is like saying 'I speak Australian' or 'I speak New York'. That's part of why I and most older-generation Gaelic-speakers in the west of Ireland call the language we speak 'Gaelic'. Another reason is that that's what it was always known as (everywhere, both in and outside of Ireland) until the Irish education board decided to call it 'Irish' to give it a nationalistic slant. 'Just a thought. Patchy. PS: Check us out on www.irishgaelictranslator.com Edited by Patchy on 10 November 2010 at 10:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| irishpolyglot Nonaglot Senior Member Ireland fluentin3months Joined 5634 days ago 285 posts - 892 votes Speaks: Irish, English*, French, Esperanto, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Sign Language Studies: Mandarin | Message 16 of 41 11 November 2010 at 4:10am | IP Logged | ||
|
Here's my basic summary of the Irish language for those unsure about it. I find it frustrating that in English I usually have to say "(Irish) Gaelic" when I say I speak it, but in all other languages people get it immediately that I don't mean Hiberno English when I say irlandés/irlandais etc.
The official name is Irish, and is recognised as such by the European Union (i.e. outside of the Irish education system). "Most people" calling it Gaelic means nothing more than most people on the other side of the planet with zero familiarity with it... I'd understand Gaelic as meaning Scottish Gaelic myself. Irish does have a few Anglicisms for obvious proximity reasons, but I like loan words from other languages. Room for example is "seomra", taken from the French chambre (for those unsure, "se" has the "sh" sound, as in the name Sean). 4 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
