History
Irish is a Celtic language, as is Scottish Gaelic, Manx Gaelic (Manx), Welsh, Breton and Cornish. The Gaelic languages come from Old Irish and the other three Celtic languages come from British. There were other Celtic languages spoken on the European Mainland, but they died out around 1,500 years ago. The Celtic languages are believed to have come from Common Celtic, which came from Indo-European itself. Irish is one of the oldest and most historic written languages in the world. The earliest evidence of this is preserved in Ogham inscriptions dating from the fifth century.
Middle Irish
During the Middle Irish period (900-1200 AD) some loanwords came from the Scandinavian language, words like 'pingin' (penny), and 'margadh' (market), but Scandinavian had little effect on the syntax of the Irish language. This was a period of strife and conflict but, despite that, the Gaelic literary culture never failed and we have many manuscripts that survive from the Middle Irish era.
Irish from 1200-1600
The Anglo Normans began settling in Scotland at the end of the eleventh century and in Ireland in the last third of the twelfth century. The Anglo Norman conquest started a period of multilingualism in Ireland, but Irish remained in the ascendancy and, gradually, the Normans began to speak Irish. By the start of the sixteenth century most of the people of Ireland were Irish speakers again. Among the words that the Anglo Normans introduced into Irish are 'giúistís' (justice), 'bardas' (corporation), 'cúirt' (court), 'garsún' (boy), and many, many more.
1200-1600 are the dates of Classical Modern Irish. This was not the ordinary speech of the period but a cultivated standardized language developed in the lay schools for scholars and poets throughout Ireland and Scotland. The spoken language of the same period is called Early Modern Irish, but the speech of the people underwent many changes from the start to the end of this period.
The decline of Irish
Although the majority of the people had Irish, English, however, was necessary for administrative and legal affairs. Irish, therefore, never became an administrative language, and the Irish speaking community never achieved political independence again.
The status of Irish as a major language was lost. But Irish continued as the language of the greater part of the rural population and, for a time, of the working classes in towns. From the middle of the eighteenth century, as the penal laws were relaxed, and a greater social and economic mobility became possible for the native Irish, the more prosperous members of the Irish-speaking community began to adopt an Anglicized way of life and to take up English. This increased during and after the Great Famine (1846–1848). The language was on the point of extinction.
The revival
At the start of the eighteenth century scholars started to become interested in the language and in its literature. Many people understood that Spoken Irish was declining. Thomas Davis, in 1843, was among those who publicly declared that Irish is a "national language". This terminology was again used in the constitutions of 1922 and 1937. The Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language, which was established in 1876, managed to gain recognition for Irish at every level of the education system from primary school level to university. In the year 1893 Dubhghlas de hÍde, Eoin Mac Néill, Father Eoghan Ó Gramhnaigh and others established Conradh na Gaeilge, or the Gaelic League. Within a couple of years they managed to create a mass movement of support for the Irish language. A start was made to bringing the grammar of the written language into line with the spoken modern language. A result of these efforts was the Official Standard which the Government of Ireland published in 1958.
Irish in the twentieth and twenty first Century
The image of the Irish language has changed a great deal in recent years, which is evident by the number of people who speak and learn the language, not only in Ireland but around the world. The Irish language is the language of the community in Gaeltacht regions and the language is also gaining strength in places outside the Gaeltacht. According to the Census of 2006, 1.66 million people in the Republic of Ireland can speak Irish, compared with 1.57 in 2002. According to the 2001 Northern Ireland Census 10.4% claim to have some knowledge of Irish. Surveys have long shown a deep affection towards the Irish language amongst the community all over the country and this is not confined to people who speak Irish.
The Irish language was also associated in the past with rural life and traditional work such as farming and fishing, but this perception is changing as well. The first ‘city Gaeltacht’ was established on the Shaws Road in Belfast at the end of the Sixties and the language has been becoming increasingly stronger since then in other cities such as Derry and Dublin. There are now opportunites to speak Irish in an urban setting that did not exist in the past, and this is helping the language greatly.don teanga.
More information on the Irish language can be found at www.gaeilge.ie