Irish language

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).

[28] Increasing interest in emigrating to the United States and Canada was also a driver, as fluency in English allowed the new immigrants to get jobs in areas other than farming.

Important writers of the Gaelic revival include Peadar Ua Laoghaire, Patrick Pearse (Pádraig Mac Piarais) and Pádraic Ó Conaire.

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.

[53] 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.

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.

[76] The status of Irish 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.

On YouTube, channels such as Briathra - The Irish Language and TG Lurgan offer a wealth of instructional videos ranging from pronunciation guides to grammar explanations.

TG Lurgan[88], in particular, is known for its unique approach of transforming popular songs into Irish versions, promoting both the language and cultural pride through music.

Platforms incorporating AI can provide personalized learning experiences, adaptive lessons, and instant feedback, fostering a more engaging educational environment.

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).

[91][92] 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).

[93] 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.

[130][131] 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.)

The distribution of the Irish language in 1871
Bilingual sign in Grafton Street , Dublin
Bilingual road signs in Creggs , County Galway
The percentage of respondents who said they spoke Irish daily outside the education system in the 2011 census in the State. [ needs update ]
Dublin airport sign in both English and Irish languages
A sign for the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure in Northern Ireland, in English, Irish and Ulster Scots .
The Pale – According to Statute of 1488
The official symbol of the Irish Defence Forces, showing a Gaelic typeface with dot diacritics