Languages of Ireland

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Languages of Ireland
europa.eu
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There are a number of languages used in

English has been the predominant first language, displacing Irish. A large minority claims some ability to use Irish,[2]
and it is the first language for a small percentage of the population.

In the Republic of Ireland, under the Constitution of Ireland, both languages have official status, with Irish being the national and first official language.[3]

In Northern Ireland, English is the primary language for 95% of the population, and de facto official language, while Irish is recognised as an official language and Ulster Scots is recognised as a minority language under the Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act 2022.[4][5]

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Languages

Prehistoric languages

The earliest linguistic records in Ireland are of

Iron Age Ireland before then are now irretrievable, although there are some claims of traces in Irish toponymy.[6]

Modern languages

diacritics
are mostly absent.

English

Main articles: English language, Hiberno-English, and Ulster English

Roman Catholic Church
. This greatly assisted the waves of immigrants forced to seek new lives in the US and throughout the Empire after the Famine. Since then the various local Hiberno-English dialects comprise the vernacular language throughout the island.

The 2002 census found that 103,000 British citizens were living in the Republic of Ireland, along with 11,300 from the US and 8,900 from Nigeria, all of whom would speak other dialects of English.[7] The 2006 census listed 165,000 people from the UK, and 22,000 from the US.[8] The 2016 census reported a decline in UK nationals to the 2002 level: 103,113.[9]

Irish

Main articles: Irish language, List of Irish-language media, and Gaelic revival

The original Primitive Irish was introduced by Celtic speakers. Primitive Irish gradually evolved into Old Irish, spoken between the 5th and the 10th centuries, and then into Middle Irish. Middle Irish was spoken in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man through the 12th century, when it began to evolve into modern Irish in Ireland, Scottish Gaelic in Scotland, and the Manx language in the Isle of Man. Today, Irish is recognized as the first official language of the Republic of Ireland and is officially recognized in the European Union. Communities that speak Irish as their first language, generally in sporadic regions on the island's west coast, are collectively called the Gaeltacht.

In the 2016 Irish census, 8,068 census forms were completed in Irish, and just under 74,000 of the total (1.7%) said they spoke it daily. The total number of people who answered 'yes' to being able to speak Irish to some extent in April 2016 was 1,761,420, 39.8 percent of respondents.[2]

Bilingual road signs in Scariff, County Clare

Although the use of Irish in educational and broadcasting contexts has increased notably with the 600 plus Irish-language primary/secondary schools and creches [

Dáil
debates are to be recorded in Irish also. In 2007, Irish became the 21st official language of the European Union.

Ulster Scots

Main article:
Ulster Scots dialects

Ulster Scots, sometimes called

Ulster Scots Agency, a cross-border body. Its status as an independent language as opposed to a dialect of Scots has been debated.[12]

Shelta

Main articles: Shelta and Irish Travellers

Shelta is a

Irish Traveller community. It is known as Gammon to Irish speakers and Shelta by the linguistic community. It is a mixture of English and Irish, with Irish being the lexifier language.[13]

Shelta is a secret language, with a refusal by the Travellers to share with non-travellers, named "Buffers".[14] When speaking Shelta in front of Buffers, Travellers will disguise the structure so as to make it seem like they aren't speaking Shelta at all.[15] There is fear that if outsiders know the entirety of the language, it will be used to bring further discrimination to the Traveller community.[16]

Sign languages

Main articles: Irish Sign Language and Northern Ireland Sign Language

Irish Sign Language (ISL) is the sign language of most of Ireland. It has little relation to either spoken Irish or English, and is more closely related to French Sign Language (LSF).

Northern Ireland Sign Language is used in Northern Ireland, and is related to both ISL and BSL in various ways. ISL is also used in Northern Ireland.

Immigrant languages

Dublin Connolly railway station to celebrate Chinese New Year. There are over 15,000 Chinese
-speakers in Ireland.
Shop in Dublin selling Eastern European food, with signage in Russian, Lithuanian, Latvian and Polish.

With increased immigration into Ireland, there has been a substantial increase in the number of people speaking languages. The table below gives figures from the 2016 census of population usually resident and present in the state who speak a language other than English, Irish or a sign language at home.[17]

Extinct languages

None of these languages were spoken by a majority of the population, but are of historical interest, giving loan words to Irish and Hiberno-English.

The Cathach of St. Columba, a 6th-century psalter in Vulgar Latin, produced in Ireland.

Latin

Roman Catholic church for services until the Vatican II reforms in 1962–65. Latin is still used in a small number of churches in Dublin,[18] Cork, Limerick and Stamullen.[19]

Norman language

Norman invasion of Ireland of 1169. From Norman derived "Law French", a few words of which continue to be used today for certain legal purposes in both jurisdictions on the island.[citation needed
]

Yola

Main article:
Forth and Bargy dialect

Yola was a language which evolved from Middle English, surviving in County Wexford
up to the 19th century.

Fingallian

Main article: Fingallian

Fingallian was similar to Yola but spoken in Fingal up until the mid-19th century.

Hiberno-Yiddish

Main article: Yiddish

Hiberno-Yiddish was spoken by Irish Jews until recently,[when?] when most switched to English. It was based on Lithuanian Yiddish.

Language education

Republic of Ireland

In primary schools, most pupils are taught to speak, read and write in

Arabic, Japanese and Russian. Some schools also offer Ancient Greek, Hebrew Studies and Latin
at second level.

Students who did not immigrate to Ireland before the age of ten may receive an exemption from learning Irish. Pupils with learning difficulties can also seek exemption. A recent study has revealed that over half of those pupils who got exemption from studying Irish went on to study a Continental European language.[21] The following is a list of foreign languages taken at Leaving Certificate level in 2007, followed by the number as a percentage of all students taking Mathematics for comparison (mathematics is a mandatory subject).[22]

Language Higher Level Ordinary Level Total candidates % of Maths
L1 English 31,078 17,277 48,355 98.79%
L2 Irish 13,831 25,662 44,018 89.94%
L2 French 13,770 14,035 27,805 56.695%
L2 German 4,554 2,985 7,539 15.372%
L2 Spanish 1,533 1,127 2,660 5.424%
L2 Italian 140 84 224 0.457%
Latin 111 111 0.226%
L2 Japanese 90 90 0.184%
L2 Arabic
 117 13 130 0.265%
L2 Russian 181 181 0.369%
L2 Latvian 32 32 0.065%
L2 Lithuanian 61 61 0.125%
L2 Dutch 16 16 0.033%
L2 Portuguese 27 27 0.055%
L2 Polish 53 53 0.108%
L2 Romanian 25 25 0.051%

Northern Ireland

Main articles:
Irish gaelic, Irish language in Northern Ireland, and Ulster Irish
Further information: Languages of the United Kingdom § Northern Ireland

The predominant language in the education system in Northern Ireland is English, with Irish-medium schools teaching exclusively in the Irish language. The ULTACH Trust coordinates the promotion of Irish in English-medium schools. In the GCSE and A Level qualification, Irish is the 3rd most chosen modern language in Northern Ireland, and in the top ten in the UK. Intakes in GCSE Irish and A Level Irish are increasing, and the usage of the language is also increasing.

References

  1. ^ "SPECIAL EUROBAROMETER 386 Europeans and their Languages" (PDF). Ec.europa.eu. Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 January 2016.
  2. ^ a b c "Irish Language and the Gaeltacht - CSO - Central Statistics Office". www.cso.ie. Retrieved 29 January 2023.
  3. ^ http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/cons/en/html#part2 Irish Constitution. Article 8
  4. ^ "Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act 2022".
  5. ^ "Language and identity laws could spell significant change". BBC News. 11 December 2022.
  6. ^ D. Ó Corrain, 'A future for Irish placenames', in: A. Ó Maolfabhail, The placenames of Ireland in the third millennium, Ordnance Survey for the Place names Commission, Dublin (1992), p. 44.
  7. ^ "It's in the blood. The Citizenship referendum in Ireland". Threemonkeysonline.com. 1 June 2004. Retrieved 10 September 2017.
  8. ^ . 25 March 2009 https://web.archive.org/web/20090325005303/http://www.cso.ie/census/documents/Final%20Principal%20Demographic%20Results%202006.pdf. Archived from the original on 25 March 2009. Retrieved 10 September 2017. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  9. ^ "UK - CSO - Central Statistics Office".
  10. ^ "Broadcasting Act 2001" (PDF). 14 October 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 October 2009. Retrieved 10 September 2017.
  11. ^ "Official Languages Act 2003" (PDF). Oireachtas na hÉireann. 30 October 2003. Retrieved 8 June 2011.
  12. ^ "Aw Ae Oo—Scots in Scotland and Ulster" (PDF). Scots-online.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 April 2017. Retrieved 10 September 2017.
  13. ISBN 978-90-272-5271-5
    .
  14. ISBN 978-90-272-5271-5
    .
  15. ISBN 978-90-272-5271-5
    .
  16. ISBN 0-85389-493-0
    .
  17. ^ "Population Usually Resident and Present in the State who Speak a Language other than English or Irish at Home 2011 to 2016 by Birthplace, Language Spoken, Age Group and CensusYear".
  18. ^ "The Parish of St Kevin, Harrington Street - Archdiocese of Dublin". Stkevinsdublin.ie. Retrieved 10 September 2017.
  19. ^ "The Latin Mass Society of Ireland » Mass Listings". Latinmassireland.com. Retrieved 10 September 2017.
  20. ^ "TEANGACHA SA CHURACLAM IAR-BHUNOIDEACHAIS : plécháipéis : Samhain 2003" (PDF). Ncca.ie. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 October 2017. Retrieved 10 September 2017.
  21. ^ "Irish language opt-outs soar". Independent.ie. Retrieved 10 September 2017.
  22. ^ Results of Exams in 2007 Archived 19 November 2007 at the Wayback Machine Using mathematics as comparison, as its examination is near-universal at some level and had the largest number of candidates in 2007.

External links

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