Although few children native to the Isle of Man speak Manx as a first language, there has been a steady increase in the number of speakers since the death of Ned Maddrell in 1974.

Manx is often cited as a good example of language revitalization efforts; in 2015, around 1,800 people had varying levels of second-language conversational ability.

It has been suggested that a little-documented Brythonic language (i.e. related to modern Welsh, Cornish and Breton) may have been spoken on the Isle of Man before the arrival of Christian missionaries from Ireland in the early Middle Ages.

Although there is some evidence in the form of runic inscriptions that Norse was used by some of these settlers, the Vikings who settled around the Irish Sea and West Coast of Scotland soon became Gaelic speaking Norse–Gaels.

During the 9th century AD, the Gaelic of the inhabitants of the Isle of Man, like those of Scotland and the North of Ireland, may have been significantly influenced by Norse speakers.

Barrow also promoted the use of English in churches; he considered that it was a superior language for reading the Bible; however, because the majority of ministers were monolingual Manx speakers, his views had little practical impact.

[10] Since the language was used by so few people, it had low linguistic "prestige", and parents tended not to teach Manx to their children, thinking it would be useless to them compared with English.

By the middle of the 20th century, only a few elderly native speakers remained (the last of them, Ned Maddrell, died on 27 December 1974), but by then a scholarly revival had begun and a few people had started teaching it in schools.

[18] These individuals were spread roughly uniformly over the island: in Douglas 566 people professed an ability to speak, read or write Manx; 179 in Peel, 146 in Onchan, and 149 in Ramsey.

[17] Traditional Manx given names have experienced a marked resurgence on the island, especially Moirrey and Voirrey (Mary), Illiam (William), Orry (from the Manx king Godred Crovan of Norse origin), Breeshey/Breesha (Bridget), Aalish/Ealish (Alice), Juan (Jack), Ean (John), Joney (Joan), Fenella (Fionnuala), Pherick (Patrick) and Freya (from the Norse goddess) remain popular.

[30] For the purpose of strengthening its contribution to local culture and community, Manx is recognised under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and in the framework of the British-Irish Council.

The playgroup organisation Mooinjer Veggey, which operates the Bunscoill Ghaelgagh, runs a series of preschool groups that introduce the language.

[39] Unstressed Middle Irish word-final syllable [iʝ] (-⟨(a)idh, (a)igh⟩) has developed to [iː] (-⟨ee⟩) in Manx, as in kionnee "buy" (cf.

[43] In finite verb forms before full nouns (as opposed to pronouns) [əð] became [ax] in Manx, as in Southern Irish, e.g. voyllagh [ˈvɔlax] "would praise" (cf.

[47] In both the North and the South, there is a tendency to insert a short [d] before a word-final [n] in monosyllabic words, as in [sleᵈn] for slane "whole" and [beᵈn] for ben "woman".

In the corpus of the late spoken language, there is also one example of the eclipsis (nasalisation) of /ɡ/: the sentence Ta mee er ngeddyn yn eayn ("I have found the lamb"), where ⟨ng⟩ is pronounced /n/.

Only the future, conditional, preterite, and imperative can be formed directly by inflecting the main verb, but even in these tenses, the periphrastic formation is more common in Late Spoken Manx.

[75] The result is an inconsistent and only partially phonemic spelling system, similar to English orthography and completely incomprehensible to readers of Irish and Scottish Gaelic.

While Manx uses 24 letters (the ISO basic Latin alphabet, excluding ⟨x⟩ and ⟨z⟩), covering a similar range of phonemes, all three make use of many digraphs and trigraphs.

To fill gaps in recorded Manx vocabulary, revivalists have referred to modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic for words and inspiration.

Ayr Ain, t'ayns Niau; Casherick dy rou dt'ennym; Di jig dty Reereeaght; Dt'aigney dy rou jeant er y Talloo myr ta ayns Niau; Cur dooin nyn Arran jiu as gagh laa; As leih dooin nyn Loghtyn, myr ta shin leih dauesyn ta janoo loghtyn ny noi shin; As ny leeid shin ayns Miolagh; Agh livrey shin veih olk; Son liats y Reereeaght y Phooar as y Ghloyr, son dy bragh as dy bragh.

[88] With the coming of Protestantism, Manx spoken tales slowly disappeared, while a tradition of carvals, Christian ballads, developed with religious sanction.

The first published literature in Manx was The Principles and Duties of Christianity (Coyrie Sodjey), translated by Bishop of Sodor and Man Thomas Wilson.

When the Anglican church authorities started to produce written literature in the Manx language in the 18th century, the system developed by John Philips was further "anglicised"; the one feature retained from Welsh orthography was the use of ⟨y⟩ to represent /ə/ (e.g. cabbyl [kaːβəl] "horse" and cooney [kuːnə] "help" as well as /ɪ/ (e.g. fys [fɪz] "knowledge"), though it is also used to represent [j], (e.g. y Yuan [ə juːan] "John" (vocative), yeeast [jiːəst] "fish").

[92] In the time of Bishop Wilson it had been a constant source of complaint among the Manx clergy that they were the only church in Christendom that had no version of the Bible in the vulgar tongue.

Wilson set to work to remedy the defect, and, with the assistance of some of his clergy, managed to get some of the Bible translated, and the Gospel of St. Matthew printed.

The Gospel and Conaant Noa nyn Jiarn as Saualtagh Yeesey Creest were produced in 1763 and 1767, respectively, by the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (SPCK).

Yn Vible Casherick "The Holy Bible" of the Old and New Testaments was published as one book by the SPCK in 1775, effectively fixing the modern orthography of Manx, which has changed little since.

Jenner claims that some bowdlerisation had occurred in the translation, e.g. the occupation of Rahab the prostitute is rendered as ben-oast[citation needed] "a hostess, female inn-keeper.

There was a translation of the Psalmyn Ghavid ("Psalms of David") in metre in Manx by the Rev John Clague, vicar of Rushen, which was printed with the Book of Common Prayer of 1768.