10.1 Introduction

When in 55 bce the standard-bearer of the 10th legion leapt into the sea at Richborough and led Caesar’s forces ashore onto British soil, not only did he bring permanent social and political change to Britain but also enormous linguistic change to the speakers of Celtic languages in Britain and Ireland. Like all defining moments, it is easy to make too much of them, for not only had contact between Britain and Rome been ongoing for many years already before Caesar landed in Britain, but at this stage, the Romans did not stay; they reappeared briefly in the following year and then it was not until 43 ce under Claudius that the Romans made their presence in Britain permanent. Nevertheless, it provides one of a number of useful staging points from which to survey the history of the Celtic languages in Britain and Ireland. This one is, however, particularly significant as it is the point at which Britain entered the Roman world, where it was to remain for the next five centuries; and the influence of Rome was to be much longer lasting than that.

This will be the format of the first part of this chapter: a tour of Britain and Ireland, pausing at key points both historical and geographical from which we may consider the development of the Celtic languages. The second part of the chapter then goes on to examine a number of features of the Celtic languages in greater detail. A language is defined as Celtic by reference to a number of diagnostic features which are shared by all Celtic languages. Among them, certain phonological features are significant: the most important is probably the gradual loss of /p/ in all environments (e.g. Old Irish athair ‘father’, Gaulish ater < *pater, Old Irish íasc ‘fish’, Welsh Wysg (river name (English Usk)) < *eisko- < *peisko‑). Another important feature is the change of /g^w/ to /b/ (e.g. Old Irish bó ‘cow’, Middle Welsh bu < *g^wou-, Old Irish ben ‘woman’, Welsh ben(yw), Gaulish bnanom < *g^wen‑); for a full list, see McCone (Reference McCone1996:37–65) and Russell (Reference Russell1995:10–14). The standard historical grammar remains Pedersen (Reference Pedersen1909–13, abridged and translated into English as Lewis and Pedersen Reference Lewis and Pedersen1974). There are a number of volumes discussing the Celtic languages: Ball and Fife (Reference Ball and Fife1993), MacAulay (Reference MacAulay1992), Russell (Reference Russell1995), Ball and Müller (Reference Ball and Müller2009), and some focusing on one language group: McCone et al. (Reference McCone, McManus, Ó Háinle, Willams and Breatnach1994, on Goidelic), Ternes (Reference Ternes2011, on Brittonic). For studies from an Indo-European perspective, see also the essays in Klein, Joseph and Matthias Fritz (Reference Klein, Joseph and Matthias Fritz2017) by Eska, Russell, Stifter, Stüber, Wodtko, and Vath and Ziegler.

10.2 Development of the Celtic Languages

It may be appropriate, before we return to the standard-bearer of the 10th legion, to consider the overall range of the discussion. Celtic languages were originally spoken throughout Britain and Ireland, and their history is in one sense a narrative of westward retreat to the extent that, by the seventeenth century, a snapshot would show Celtic languages spoken in Cornwall (Cornish), Wales (Welsh), Isle of Man (Manx), western and northern Scotland (Scottish Gaelic), and Ireland (Irish). Since then, both Cornish and Manx have died out in terms of native speakers at least (both languages have strong revival movements, see Davies-Deacon and Sayers, this volume). Before the seventeenth century, Cumbric (spoken in Cumbria) and Pictish (if this is Celtic, spoken in Scotland) had already died out completely. To complete the picture, Breton is still spoken in Brittany; it is genetically related to Cornish and Welsh and its presence on the continent is due to southerly migration in the sixth and seventh centuries. In the classical period, Celtic languages were spoken throughout western Europe, notably in Gaul, northern Italy and parts of Spain. The interrelationship of these languages has been subject to debate: geographically it is conventional to classify them as ‘insular’ languages (Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Cumbric) and ‘continental’ languages (Gaulish, Lepontic, Celtiberian), and this has been taken to reflect genetic origins as well. Within the insular group it is less controversial to make a distinction between Goidelic languages (Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx) and Brittonic languages (Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Cumbric; British is used here to refer to the language spoken in Britain at the time of the Roman occupation, the notional ancestor of the Brittonic languages). However, another relationship has been proposed whereby the Brittonic group is seen to be more closely related to Gaulish (the Gallo-Brittonic hypothesis: Koch Reference Koch, Le Menn and Le Moing1992; cf. Schrijver Reference Schrijver1995:463–5). Within Goidelic the separation of the dialects seems to have been a gradual and relatively late phenomenon; there is no evidence for differentiation between Scottish Gaelic and Irish before the twelfth century, though any differences may have been concealed by the use of a standard literary language. Within Brittonic, Cornish and Breton form a close group; further north, the precise relationship between Welsh (perhaps northern Welsh), Cumbric and Pictish is uncertain and problematic (on the latter, see Rodway Reference Rodway2020).

One of Caesar’s reasons for invading Britain was to safeguard control of Gaul; all too often he had found that the Gauls were receiving reinforcements from Britain and that when under pressure their leaders might take refuge in Britain (Caesar, BG, V.1, II.14). Some Gaulish kings also ruled in Britain (Caesar, BG, II.4) and Tacitus tells us that there was little difference between the languages of Britain and Gaul (Tacitus, Agricola, 11). The early history of the Celtic languages, then, is closely linked to the continent: not only were Celtic languages spoken in continental Europe as well as in Britain but also our first glimpses of the Celtic languages of Britain and Ireland come through the eyes of the classical world. For it is precisely that contact which gave the speakers of Celtic languages the wherewithal to speak with their own voice and be heard; contact with the Greek colonies of southern Gaul and with Rome taught them to write. For the Britons, then, the arrival of the Romans marked a watershed in a number of respects, of which, as Tacitus stresses, literacy was perhaps one of the most important. It would probably be many centuries before they applied those literary skills regularly to writing their own languages (there are a few inscriptions written in British found at Bath; Tomlin Reference Tomlin1987, Reference Tomlin and Cunliffe1988; Schrijver Reference Schrijver, de Hoz and Luján2006; Mullen Reference Mullen2007, and elsewhere), but even writing in Latin, they (and classical writers before them) had to devise ways of writing their own names and places. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that most of the evidence for the earliest stages of the Celtic languages in Britain and Ireland is onomastic (e.g. personal names: Boudicca, Caratacus, Mandubracius; tribal names: Catuvellauni, Brigantes; place names: Camulodunum, Verulamium, Camboglanna, all of which have been fitted into Latin declensional patterns). Place names and tribal names are also supplied by the geographer Ptolemy writing in Greek at the end of the first century ce, who also provided the earliest information about Ireland (Parsons and Sims-Williams Reference Parsons and Sims-Williams2000). The evidence for Celtic in mainland Europe at this period is more substantial (Russell Reference Russell1995:2–6; Lambert Reference Lambert2003; Vath and Ziegler Reference Vath and Ziegler2017:1170–5; Eska Reference Eska2017:1266–9; on the debate over Tartessian, Eska Reference Eska2014). Longer exposure to Greek and Roman literacy had given rise to a vernacular literacy: Gaulish inscriptions written in Greek script are found in southern Gaul from the first and second centuries bce and in various types of Roman script further north in Gaul from the first century bce onwards (Lambert Reference Lambert2003). In Spain, the area around modern Zaragoza (notably Botorrita) seems to have been inhabited by Celtiberians, speakers of a Celtic language; they produced inscriptions probably based on Roman models written in a local version of the Phoenician script of southern Spain. Northern Italy has produced perhaps the oldest extant Celtic inscriptions in Lepontic, possibly dating from as early as the sixth century bce; they are written in a script derived from the northern Etruscan script. Though this continental material is tangential to our prime purpose, it is important to note that for the early period, the weight of evidence is firmly loaded towards the continent in contrast to the exiguous evidence from Britain and Ireland. By contrast, with the increasing power of Rome, Celtic languages had begun to die out in continental Europe by the time of the disintegration of the Roman Empire (Breton being a later re-importation from south-west Britain (Guy Reference Guy2014)).

It is far from clear how the linguistic situation in Roman Britain evolved during the period of the occupation (D. E. Evans Reference Evans, Temporini and Haase1983; Schrijver Reference Schrijver, Filppula, Klemola and Pitkänen2002). The natives spoke British when the Romans arrived; the place name and personal name evidence is sufficient to show that. But it is less clear how effective Romanisation was in teaching Latin to the natives and eradicating British. It is in part a question of geography: south-east Britain was far more heavily Romanised than further west or north, though the decrease in Romanisation would not have been even; areas of heavy militarisation, such as Hadrian’s Wall or around York and Chester, would have produced more highly Latinate areas. Similarly, towns would have been more Romanised than the countryside. Social gradience too would have been a factor: those aspiring to civic office and high status would have spoken Latin, but the question is whether, or until when, they continued to speak British at home. The evidence for the Brittonic languages shows that British survived in the west, but precisely how far east and in what density it still extended by the fourth or fifth centuries is unclear. It is striking and well known that Old English contains very few Celtic loanwords, and it has been argued that the English settlers largely came into contact with speakers of Latin rather than of British. However, such a view may not do justice to an extremely complicated sociolinguistic situation in southern Britain. To judge from elsewhere in the Roman empire, and especially from Gaul, bi- and multilingualism seems to have been extremely common (Adams Reference Adams2003:184–99, 455–7, 687–724), and it is far more likely that the Romanised inhabitants of southern Britain spoke and were literate in Latin on formal occasions and continued to speak British at home or on the farm. The very low level of British loanwords in Old English may, therefore, have been a function of the source of the borrowings – they were borrowing words from the élite in contexts where Latin was being spoken – and may tell us less about the distribution of British at this period (on Latin in late Roman Britain, see Adams Reference Adams2007:577–623, 651–5; Reference Adams2016:398–428).

The linguistic consequences of the influx of Latin speakers, and later of Germanic speakers, has been the subject of significant debate: how Latinised were the populations of different parts of Britain? To what extent was Old and later English influenced by Celtic? We know, of course, that in subsequent centuries English was to exercise considerable, and at some periods overwhelming, influence on the Celtic languages spoken in these islands (cf. on medieval Welsh, Russell Reference Russell2019). But at this early period, the evidence is difficult to assess. The application of different models of language contact have allowed some progress, but much can hang on whether we are to think in terms of superstrate/substrate models (Schrijver Reference Schrijver, Filppula, Klemola and Pitkänen2002) or whether at some periods there were phases of stable bilingualism (Russell Reference Russell2011; see also Parsons Reference Parsons2011, 2023). There has also been considerable discussion on the influence of Celtic on English (essays in Higham Reference Higham2007; the volumes edited by Tristram Reference Tristram1997–2006, Reference Tristram2006, Reference Tristram2007; Filppula et al. Reference Filppula, Klemola and Pitkänen2002, Reference Filppula, Klemola and Paulasto2008; Filppula and Klemola Reference Filppula and Klemola2009). Work is ongoing in all these fields, especially in trying to make progress beyond the gathering and discussion of loanwords; while this is an important start, identifying morphological and syntactic features is more important (see, e.g. Russell Reference Russell2011:150–3 on the rise of a pluperfect tense in Brittonic languages, modelled on the Latin pluperfect subjunctive).

At the period of the English invasions (fifth to sixth centuries), the western side of Britain was still largely British speaking. In addition, there were Irish-speaking settlements in Cornwall and in south and north Wales, and also in Scotland. Further north, the British-speaking continuum extended north of the Roman walls, where it came into contact not only with the Irish settlers in the west of Scotland but also with speakers of Pictish. Pictish has remained something of an enigma, mostly because the linguistic remains are so thin that they defy classification: Forsyth (Reference Forsyth1997) argued that it was Brittonic Celtic, but a more recent analysis of the inscriptions is more sceptical and argues that it may not even be Indo-European (Rodway Reference Rodway2020).

The inexorable westwards movement of English speakers saw the gradual fragmentation of this continuum into the individual languages familiar to us today. The northern range, generally known as Cumbric, was spoken in southern Scotland, northern England in the three kingdoms of Strathclyde (south-west Scotland), Gododdin (south-east Scotland between the Forth and the Tyne), and in Rheged (the basin of the Solway and the Eden valley) (Price Reference Price and Price2000). Evidence for the language is preserved largely in place names which indicate a Brittonic language (e.g. Lanark (cf. Welsh llanerch ‘glade’), Pencaitland (Welsh pen ‘head, top’, coedlan ‘copse’), Melrose (Welsh moel ‘bald’, rhos ‘headland’)). In addition, there was a very strong literary tradition reflected in early Welsh literature in works by Aneirin and Taliesin which probably derive from the ‘old north’.

Further south, the survival rate of Brittonic languages was higher, in part at least because English settlers did not in the first instance push as far into the western peninsulas as they had done further north (on the phonological development of the Brittonic languages more generally, see Jackson Reference Jackson1953; Schrijver Reference Schrijver1995, Reference Schrijver2011; on the early epigraphic material from Britain, see Sims-Williams Reference Sims-Williams2003). While the process of settlement was gradual, the eventual effect was to create, at least geographically, a south-west group of speakers of a Brittonic language separate from those in Wales. The south-west Brittonic group was the ancestor of Cornish and Breton, which cannot be distinguished until the high medieval period (Schrijver Reference Schrijver2011). Economic decline and the westward movement of the English may have in part been responsible for the migrations of south-west Brittonic speakers to Brittany, though it is possible that the incursions from Ireland may have also encouraged migration (Guy Reference Guy2014). It is clear that Cornish and Breton are more closely related to each other than either is to Welsh; see, for example, the following isoglosses: /ntl ntr/ > Welsh /θl θr/ only (e.g. Welsh cethr ‘spike’, Middle Cornish centr < Latin centrum), /iyá/ > Old Welsh /aia/, Cornish and Breton /oia/ (e.g. Welsh haearn ‘iron’, Old Cornish hoern, Breton hoiarn < *iyárno- < *isarno‑) (see Russell Reference Russell1995:129 for further examples). Distinctions between Cornish and Breton only arise later, such as the eleventh-century Cornish assibilation of final ‑/d/ to ‑/z/ (usually spelt ‑s in Middle Cornish) (e.g. Middle Cornish cas, Welsh cad ‘battle’ < *katu‑).

Cornish is less well attested than any other Brittonic language apart from Cumbric (Williams Reference Williams2011, see also Davies-Deacon and Sayers, this volume). There are a few glosses in Old Cornish and some personal names and saints’ names from the tenth century. The earliest important source is the Vocabularium Cornicum (c. 1100), a glossary of Old Cornish based on a Latin–Old English glossary. Any more detailed evidence for Cornish had to wait until the Middle and late Cornish literary texts dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Jackson Reference Jackson1953:59–62; the standard grammar is Lewis Reference Lewis1946 (German translation and updated in Zimmer Reference Zimmer1990)). The place name evidence is an important source for the language and is especially helpful in tracing the erosion of the language through the county (Padel Reference Padel1985).

By contrast, Welsh is far better attested from an early period (see Willis, this volume). Much of Old Welsh is in the form of single words, phrase or verses glossing Latin texts or as marginalia; the earliest Old Welsh is a series of memoranda in the Lichfield Gospels. The Book of Llandaf, a twelfth-century collection of charters, contains material dating as early as the seventh century. Nevertheless, all in all, Old Welsh is very thinly attested and we have to wait until Middle Welsh (1250 onwards) for the great outpouring of early Welsh literature which permits a full understanding of the language (the standard grammar is D. S. Evans Reference Evans1964; see Schumacher Reference Schumacher2011 for a recent linguistic discussion). In linguistic terms, the phonological changes which mark out Middle Welsh from Old Welsh are relatively slight (perhaps because our knowledge of Old Welsh is so thin), and as much related to orthography as to anything more substantive. In terms of morphology, the verbal system probably innovated most in that there is a steady process of replacing synthetic forms with analytic ones; for example, the growth of a periphrastic present (originally probably continuous) to replace a synthetic form which was used as a future (e.g. Middle Welsh daw ‘he comes’: Modern Welsh y mae ef yn dod ‘he comes’ beside daw ‘he will come’).

One feature of Middle Welsh to receive attention recently is the evidence for dialectal variation in the medieval period (Thomas Reference Thomas, Byrne, Henry and Ó Siadhail1989, Reference Thomas1993). In broad terms, it is difficult to go beyond a basic north/south distinction with some greyer areas in between, but it does raise questions about how deeply embedded some dialectal features are. For it is possible that some features of southern Welsh are more closely related to features in Cornish and Breton; for example, the tendency for suffixes to contain /y/ between the stem and suffix (e.g. north Welsh blewiach ‘fine hair’: south Welsh blewach) seems to be a predominantly northern feature which is not shared by southern Welsh (nor by Cornish and Breton). While it might be going too far to suggest that southern Welsh should be grouped dialectically with south-west Brittonic (in arboreal terms), the evidence might be better explained by thinking in terms of a dialect continuum running from northern Britain to Cornwall (and onwards to Brittany), where different isoglosses group different areas together. Links between north Wales and further north are of course less easy to establish given the paucity of evidence, though early literary traditions would speak for strong links. In these respects, as was observed earlier, the sea may have proved to be a less challenging obstacle than the mountains of mid Wales or the Lake District.

Across the Irish Sea from Britain, Ireland had to a large extent remained outside the influence of Rome. Ptolemy included a section on the place names and tribal names of Ireland mainly derived from merchants and traders. However, it is troubling that relatively few of them correspond to later names (e.g. Auteinoi = Úaithni, Bououinda = Bóind (River Boyne)). The last example is, nevertheless, sufficient to show that Celtic speakers were already present in Ireland in this period: Bououinda < *bou- ‘cow’ (cf. Old Irish bó), ‑ouinda /winda/ ‘white’ (cf. Old Irish find, Welsh gwyn, Gaulish Vindo-). In both a geographical and cultural sense, Ireland remained on the fringe: despite Agricola’s belief in 82 ce that he could conquer Ireland with just one legion (Tacitus, Agricola, 24), it did not, unlike most of Britain, become part of the Roman empire, even though there is plentiful evidence for trading contacts which almost certainly brought with them the beginnings of Latinate culture and literacy. While a few loanwords of a military and commercial nature may have entered Irish in the next few centuries (e.g. míl < Latin miles, long < (navis) longa, ór < aurum, etc.), it was the arrival of Christianity in Ireland which marked a significant increase in the level of contact with the Latinate world. From the fourth century onwards there had been Irish settlements in Wales and these may have been instrumental in the introduction of Christianity. Nevertheless, the important date is 431, when Palladius came to Ireland as bishop to minister to those Irish who believed in Christ; he was shortly followed by Patrick. At this period the literate culture was Latinate but, in addition to names in Latin texts, the vernacular language can be seen emerging on both sides of the Irish Sea in the Ogam inscriptions of the fifth and sixth centuries. The Ogam script involves for each letter a set of lines or notches cut in a particular direction in relation to a stem-line (McManus Reference McManus1991). Despite appearances, it is thought to be Latinate in origin, deriving from the classification of letters established by the Latin grammarians of the first to fourth centuries ce (McManus Reference McManus1991:19–27). The Ogam inscriptions are of prime importance for the linguist as they span the period of the fundamental developments in Irish which changed it from a language comparable in structure to Latin or Greek into a neo-Celtic language which has undergone loss of final syllables and a fundamentally rearranged syllable structure (Koch Reference Koch1995); for example, we may compare CVNORIX (Wroxeter) with its Old Irish descendant Conrí, or even more spectacularly, VEDDELLEMETTO (Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny) with Old Irish Feidlimid (early Modern Irish Feidhlimidh). In terms of morphology, however, the Ogam inscriptions are less informative; a funerary inscription usually contains names in the genitive and little more. A few lexical items are attested; for example MAQI ‘son’ (= Old Irish gen. sg. meic), INIGENA ‘daughter’ (= Old Irish ingen), ANM ‘name’ (= Old Irish ainm), VELITAS ‘poet’ (Old Irish fili, gen. sg. filed), but no verbs. For strings of Old Irish, we have to wait until the seventh century, by which point most of the important phonological developments had already taken place. The Ogam inscriptions do show some development, and forms can be found to exemplify some of the changes during this period; for example, the ending of the genitive singular feminine originally *‑/iya:s/ developed to Old Irish ‑/e/, and many of the intermediate stages can be seen in Ogam (relevant segment in bold): ‑/iya:s/ (e.g. MAQI ERCIAS) > ‑/iyas/ (shortening of unaccented long vowels) > ‑/e(y)as/ (raising, e.g. MAQI RITEAS) > ‑/e(y)ah/ > ‑/e(y)a/ (final ‑/s/ to ‑/h/ and resegmentation of /h/ to next word, e.g. MAQI ESEA) > ‑/e/ (loss of final syllable, e.g. MAQI RITE) (for full discussion, see McCone Reference McCone1996:105–25).

The language of the period from 700 to 900 is generally called Old Irish, sometimes for convenience sub-divided into early Old Irish (700–800) and classical Old Irish (800–900) (the standard grammar of Old Irish is Thurneysen Reference Thurneysen, Binchy and Bergin1946; on the Goidelic languages generally, see the essays in McCone et al. Reference McCone, McManus, Ó Háinle, Willams and Breatnach1994 (in Irish); Russell Reference Russell and Cróinín2005; on phonology, see McCone Reference McCone1994 and Reference McCone1996; Sims-Williams Reference Sims-Williams2003:296–350; Stifter Reference Stifter2017). Evidence for this stage of the language from contemporary sources is relatively thin on the ground; it largely consists of glosses and short commentary on Latin biblical and grammatical texts, some of it written on the continent by Irish monks and not in Ireland itself. In addition, there are occasional Irish verses added in the margins of Latin texts. However, most of the material attributed to the Old Irish period is found in the great manuscript collections of the twelfth to sixteenth centuries, such as Lebor na hUidre ‘The Book of the Dun Cow’, and the Book of Leinster. Linguistically, the material can be problematic in that in the process of copying it has been subject to alteration and modernisation.

Two general and interrelated aspects of Old Irish are worthy of comment. The remains of the language, as it has come down to us, is remarkably free from dialectal variation. Though some features have been adduced to suggest regional variation, there is little which can unequivocally be put down to dialect variation (Ahlqvist Reference Ahlqvist and Fisiak1988; see also Kelly Reference Kelly, Meid, Ölberg and Schmeja1982; Russell Reference Russell and Cróinín2005:439–43; Murray Reference Murray2005). In part this is because of the exiguous nature of the sources; but it is also in part due to our inability to localise much of our material. Yet given the fragmented nature of early Irish political structures and the way languages work, it would be extraordinary if there were not regional variation. As far as one can tell, the ‘standard’ Old Irish which has been preserved seems to represent the rise of one dialect rather than, for example, like classical Modern Irish, a standard which admitted forms from different areas. It has been further suggested that the pre-eminent dialect was that of the northern Uí Néill, who were prominent in the northern half of Ireland in the seventh and eighth centuries. It also seems to have been more than a Schriftsprache, a written standard; the orthographical variation suggests that it represented an élite register, spoken as well as written. This view is supported by the fact that in some of the contemporary collections of glosses, traces of lower registers can be detected, for example confusion of tense formants between weak and strong verbs, the interpretation of single verbs as compounds betraying an underlying understanding of the verbal system in which simple verbs are thought of as the basic structures (McCone Reference McCone1985). Interestingly, many of the lower register features attested in the glosses are next found in Middle Irish, the stage of the language between 900 and 1200 (approximately between the arrival of the Vikings and the arrival of the Normans).

Taking the long historical view, Middle Irish has been characterised as the chaos between the order of Old Irish and early Modern Irish, but that would probably be to misunderstand the linguistic developments in progress. There is no doubt that the Irish of this period seems much more diverse and less amenable to the imposition of tidy patterns. There may be practical reasons for this: there is vastly more evidence for Middle Irish and much of it remains unedited. There may also be historical reasons. We have seen how Old Irish largely belonged to an élite register with only occasional glimpses of the lower registers that were much closer to Middle Irish. It is possible that the emergence of Middle Irish is a consequence of the removal of that top register of élite language; to what extent this can be explained as the long-term impact of the arrival of the Vikings is debatable (Breatnach Reference Breatnach1994:225–6). There are no significant linguistic changes which indelibly mark the shift into Middle Irish. Phonologically, even in Old Irish unaccented vowels had been moving towards an indistinct pronunciation /ə/; in Middle Irish that shift was completed but with consequences: for example, declensional patterns where distinctions were marked by variation in the quality of final vowels were gradually replaced by more distinct consonant-stem markers – this was particularly the case in maintaining number distinctions in nominatives and accusatives. In addition, the gradual loss of the neuter gender brought about a reassigning of gender to originally neuter nouns. There were consequences too for the verbal system, where pretonic vowel distinctions were also lost, leading to a loss of distinction between infixed pronouns. There was also a steady process of simplification, with simple verbs (often deriving from the prototonic form of a compound – see below for further discussion) replacing compounds; where in Old Irish compound verbs had been used to infix unaccented object pronouns, in Middle Irish and beyond, simple verbs began to be used with independent accented object pronouns (see also Doyle, this volume, for further discussion of Irish).

From the fifth century onwards, Scotland was settled from Ireland (as indeed were Cornwall and Wales). Linguistically, the Irish spoken by these settlers remained indistinguishable from the Irish of Ireland until about the thirteenth century, and to this day southern dialects of Scottish Gaelic have much in common with northern dialects of Irish to the extent that it may make sense to talk of a dialect continuum. The earliest evidence for Scottish Gaelic is found in the Gaelic entries in the twelfth-century Book of Deer (associated with the abbey of Deer in Buchan). These entries are, apart from some orthographical differences, indistinguishable from Middle Irish. Furthermore, access to the spoken language of the period from the twelfth to the seventeenth century remains difficult as most of it is written in a standardised form of early Modern Irish. One exception is the early-sixteenth-century Book of the Dean of Lismore, which is written in an orthography that is in line with the conventions of contemporary Scots spelling and allows us to see some of the changes which had affected the Scottish Gaelic of this period, such as the regular loss of fricatives and the diphthongisation of the flanking vowels (e.g. breour ‘powerful’ (= early Modern Irish brioghmhar), awir ‘material’ (= adhbhar), fai^tw ‘looking’ (= feathamh); see Nance, this volume, on Scottish Gaelic).

The earliest evidence for Manx is even later. John Phillips’ translation of the Book of Common Prayer and his Bible translations appeared in the early seventeenth century though they were not printed until 1894. The precise linguistic relationship of Manx to Scottish Gaelic and Irish has been debated: it seems generally to be more closely related to Scottish Gaelic, though Norse influence has been canvassed as a possible explanation of the distinctive features of Manx (Williams Reference Williams1994). One difficulty is its relative isolation; with the loss of the Irish dialects of Co. Down and the loss of Gaelic in Galloway, it is far less easy to locate it in its proper dialectal framework (see Davies-Deacon and Sayers, this volume, on Manx).

So much for the broad historical overview. It remains to consider a number of features of Celtic languages in Britain and Ireland so as to bring the general comments into sharper relief. The features under discussion, stress accent, lenition and mutations, loss of final syllables, and aspects of the verbal system, are ones which are often highlighted as being in some sense peculiar to Celtic.

10.3 Features of the Celtic Languages

11.1 Introduction

Scottish Gaelic is a Celtic language closely related to Irish and Manx. These languages form the Goidelic family of Celtic languages. Scottish Gaelic is usually referred to by speakers simply as ‘Gaelic’ [ɡalɪk]. The Goidelic language family, and the Irish language, are also sometimes referred to as ‘Gaelic’ but pronounced [ɡeɪlɪk]. Here, I discuss the language Scottish Gaelic and refer to it as ‘Gaelic’ as is customary in the community. Gaelic had 57,602 speakers in Scotland according to the most recently available data from the 2011 census (i.e. roughly 1% of the population; Scottish Government 2015a). Although the majority of Gaelic speakers reside in Scotland, there is also a sizeable population in Nova Scotia, Canada. In this chapter, I first outline the historical context of Gaelic in Scotland (Section 11.2). Section 11.3 describes the contemporary situation of the language and its speakers, including those in Canada. In Section 11.4, I outline the major linguistic characteristics of Gaelic, and finally Section 11.5 describes recent research into linguistic innovation in Gaelic.

11.2 Historical Context

This section outlines the history of Gaelic in Scotland (see also Russell, this volume). For Gaelic in Canada see Section 11.3.4. For more in-depth information and discussion, see McLeod (Reference McLeod2020). Gaelic was originally the Irish language of migrants and colonisers who travelled back and forth between Ireland and Scotland from around the fifth century ce (Campbell Reference Campbell2001; Dumville Reference Dumville, Baoill and McGuire2002). Their language expanded across much of Scotland from the early medieval kingdom of Dál Riata in Argyll (MacKinnon Reference MacKinnon1974:14). The Latin name for Gaelic-speaking people in Scotland was the Scotti, and their language was the ‘Scottish’ language. Between the fifth to eleventh centuries Gaelic-speaking people gradually achieved political, religious and cultural supremacy over previously mainly Pictish-speaking Scotland (Woolf Reference Woolf2007). By 1000 ce, it is thought that the majority of the people living in what is now Scotland were Gaelic-speaking, with areas of Cumbric, Norse, Old English and possibly Pictish remaining (MacKinnon Reference MacKinnon1974:15). Ó Maolalaigh (Reference Ó Maolalaigh and Forsyth2008b:187) argues that there is evidence of Scottish Gaelic being linguistically distinct from Irish in the twelfth-century text The Book of Deer. When Scottish Gaelic came to be recognised as a socially distinct language is a slightly different question. Horsburgh (Reference Horsburgh, Baoill and McGuire2002:239) suggests this occurred in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, through the translation of religious texts into a distinctly Scottish language.

From the eleventh century onwards, the political, cultural and geographical prestige of Gaelic has largely declined. There are several possible reasons for this (Withers Reference Withers1984:19). Firstly, the Scottish court was moved from the Highlands to English-speaking Lothian. Secondly, religious practices were increasingly oriented southwards towards the Roman Catholic Church and away from Celtic Christianity. Also, in 1071 the Scottish king Malcolm married an English-speaking wife who knew no Gaelic. Finally, the medieval period was marked by a cultural change from tribalism to feudalism and increasing trade with the English-speaking south. Around the 1300s, we begin to see a division of Scotland into Highlands and Lowlands appearing in texts (MacInnes Reference MacInnes and Gillies1989:90). This ideological and geographical distinction was first created around a linguistic division. Significantly, during the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries, Gaelic gradually stopped being referred to as the ‘Scottish’ language and started being called ‘Irish’, marking a weakened association between Gaelic and Scottish national identity (Withers Reference Withers1984:22).

In the eighteenth century two large political events had significant consequences for Gaelic. Firstly, the Act of Union in 1707 linked Scotland and England under one parliament. This further aligned the Scottish court with the English-speaking south (Ó Néill Reference Ó Néill and Néill2005:341). Secondly, in 1746 the Jacobite army lost the Battle of Culloden over the English/Scottish throne, despite support from many Highland clans (Withers Reference Withers1984:104). After Culloden, wearing Highland tartan and playing the pipes was forbidden, and large areas of land were divided into private estates.

As well as official policies, an effective measure for anglicising Gaelic speakers was a general cultural downgrading, referred to by McIntyre (Reference McIntyre2009:144) as ‘a nearly 400-year pogrom of cultural genocide’. The culture of Gaelic-speaking Scotland, which was traditionally and simplistically viewed as an oral song and story-telling culture, became portrayed as inferior and impoverished (MacKinnon Reference MacKinnon1974:43). Highland areas have been referred to as subject to ‘internal colonialism’ in the British Isles and within Scotland (Connell Reference Connell2004; Hechter Reference Hechter1999). The internal colonialism model describes how the Highlands were made a ‘peripheral’ region with systematic disadvantage in terms of economic development and social capital, and othering in terms of cultural heritage. When schools were first built in an organised way in Gaelic-speaking areas, the education provided was largely in English. The aim of such schools, mostly run by Christian charities, was to educate the local people in English (MacKinnon Reference MacKinnon1991:74).

Dividing highland Scotland into large private estates after Culloden paved the way for what has come to be known as the ‘Highland Clearances’. From the mid eighteenth century until the late nineteenth century, communities across highland Scotland were moved from economically valuable land into other places. Sometimes, this was to less valuable land in nearby areas, sometimes to lowland cities such as Glasgow, or sometimes to Canada, Australia or New Zealand (Hunter Reference Hunter2010; Richards Reference Richards2012). Similar to Ireland, the nineteenth century also witnessed a potato famine in highland Scotland and subsequent loss of mainly Gaelic-speaking life. The legacy of these events remains to this day. For example, Chalmers and Danson (Reference Chalmers, Danson and McLeod2006:240) report that the Highlands and Islands is one of the least densely populated regions in the EU, with an average of 9 people per km², compared to the EU average of 116 people per km². Chalmers and Danson demonstrate that this sparse population and lack of access to resources has led to unequal development across Scotland in recent times.

The events of the medieval period and subsequent centuries led to a gradual decline in Gaelic usage across much of Scotland. In the twentieth century this decline became more rapid: widespread social and economic change opened up travel and employment opportunities outside the Highlands as never before. Increased mobility and changing economic circumstances, coupled with the cultural persecution of previous centuries and gradual erosion of Gaelic’s prestige, have led to some of the most severe drops in speaker numbers happening very recently: in 1881 the census recorded 231,594 Gaelic speakers, which dropped to 57,602 in 2011 (Scottish Government 2015a)

11.3 Current Context

The most recent available figures on numbers of Gaelic speakers come from the 2011 census. This census indicated that there were 57,602 people in Scotland who could speak, read or write Gaelic, down from 58,552 in 2001. There is a tendency towards an ageing population – in the 2011 census, 45 per cent of Gaelic speakers were aged fifty and over (37% of the total Scottish population is aged fifty and over; Scottish Government 2015a:13). The number of Gaelic speakers recorded in the census from 1881–2011 can be found in Figure 11.1. More detailed analysis of Gaelic in the 2011 census is available in Scottish Government (2015a, 2015b).

Figure 11.1 Number of Gaelic speakers in Scotland according to UK national censuses.

Since the later part of the twentieth century, Gaelic has been undergoing a targeted programme of revitalisation in Scotland. Several authors have used the term ‘Gaelic renaissance’ to refer to the period from around the 1980s to the present where Gaelic enjoys unprecedented (in modern times) political support, funding and cultural promotion (Macdonald Reference Macdonald1997; Oliver Reference Oliver2002). Institutional support for Gaelic increased after Scottish devolution in 1997 and the appointment of a minister responsible for Gaelic (Oliver Reference Oliver2002:15). The Gaelic Language Act in 2005 formalised a desire to secure ‘the status of Gaelic as an official language of Scotland commanding equal respect to the English language’ (Scottish Parliament 2005). The Act contained legislation for the formation of a public body, Bòrd na Gàidhlig, responsible for the protection and promotion of Gaelic, and the drawing up and implementation of Gaelic Language Plans.

Gaelic Language Plans are produced by organisations when requested to do so by the Bòrd, or they can choose to do so. Language Plans allow an organisation to develop a strategy for an increase in the use and promotion of Gaelic. National Gaelic Plans are produced every five years to set short-, medium- and long-term strategy for revitalisation. The most recent national plan states two clear aims: ‘Increase the use of Gaelic’ and ‘Increase the learning of Gaelic’ (Bòrd na Gàidhlig 2023:8). The plan covers specific ambitions and targets for Gaelic in the areas of use and learning across communities, homes, media and the arts, business, public authorities, schools and post-school.

11.3.3 Generational and Geographical Diversity

The experience of Gaelic speakers today varies widely according to factors such as age and geographical location. Census data shows that Gaelic speakers are geographically concentrated in the Highland and Island north-west of Scotland. Figure 11.2 shows the percentage of Gaelic speakers in each parish in Scotland. The most densely concentrated region is the chain of islands off the north-west coast, the Outer Hebrides. Scottish Government (2015b) provides some more in-depth analysis of the profile of Gaelic speakers. Recent surveys of language use in the Outer Hebrides, Skye and Tiree suggest that Gaelic usage is concentrated in the fifty+ age bracket and tails off among younger generations (Munro, Taylor and Armstrong Reference Munro, Taylor and Armstrong2011; Ó Giollagáin et al. Reference Ó Giollagáin, Camshron, Moireach and Péterváry2020). Gaelic usage is most common in home domains rather than in public spaces (Birnie Reference Birnie2018).

Figure 11.2 Percentage of Gaelic speakers in each parish in Scotland according to the 2011 Census.

Attribution: SkateTier (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/). Licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode

Older generations of Gaelic speakers in Outer Hebridean communities typically grew up in Gaelic-speaking environments. It was usual to learn English on entering the school system and use Gaelic as a family and peer-group language. Outside of larger towns such as Stornoway, acquisition of Gaelic in this manner is common in anyone aged over fifty (Munro et al. Reference Munro, Taylor and Armstrong2011; Nance Reference Nance2013). However, the picture is now changing, as demonstrated in the census and survey analysis. Munro et al. (Reference Munro, Taylor and Armstrong2011:11) refer to intergenerational transmission in the community they studied as ‘broken’ and demonstrate that although this is numerically one of the densest Gaelic-speaking communities, it is rare for a child to grow up in a Gaelic-speaking household.

As discussed above, archaeological and place-name evidence suggests that Gaelic was spoken as a community language across present-day Scotland in early medieval times, around 1000 ce. In living memory, however, the Gaelic communities in cities such as Glasgow and Edinburgh have been largely immigrant communities. Glasgow especially has been a natural destination for migrants from the Highlands seeking work since at least the seventeenth century (Withers Reference Withers1998).

In recent times, Glasgow has been a focal point for Gaelic revitalisation programmes, including GME, and has been referred to as ‘City of the Gaels’ (Kidd Reference Kidd and Kidd2007). Cities such as Glasgow and Edinburgh also now provide ample opportunity for acquiring Gaelic as a second language. Thriving university departments, cultural scenes, Gaelic employment in politics and media, and parents with children in GME all contribute active communities of speakers. Additionally, Gaelic speakers from the north-west of Scotland continue to migrate to lowland cities to take up employment or study opportunities (McLeod, O’Rourke and Dunmore Reference McLeod, O’Rourke and Dunmore2014; Nance et al. Reference Nance, McLeod, O’Rourke and Dunmore2016).

Another location which has recently seen changes in the make-up of the Gaelic-speaking community due to revitalisation measures is the Isle of Skye. In terms of the concentration of speakers, census data suggests that Skye has been more anglicised than the Outer Hebrides, but Skye was chosen as the location for the Gaelic-medium college, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, which is now part of the University of the Highlands and Islands. Founded in 1973, the college has continued to expand to provide Gaelic intensive courses and is a hub for those acquiring the language and also those extending their skills (Hutchinson Reference Hutchinson2005). The majority of the adult fluent L2 speakers discussed in McLeod et al. (Reference McLeod, O’Rourke and Dunmore2014) and Nance et al. (Reference Nance, McLeod, O’Rourke and Dunmore2016) had spent a year studying at Sabhal Mòr, and in the Gaelic L2 community it is almost seen as a rite of passage to have spent time, usually a year, on Skye to attend Sabhal Mòr.

11.4 Linguistic Characteristics

This section provides an introduction to the main linguistic aspects of Gaelic in terms of syntax, morphology, phonology and phonetics. For further introductory reading about the linguistic aspects to the language, see Lamb (Reference Lamb2002), Ó Maolalaigh (Reference Ó Maolalaigh2008a), Gillies (Reference Gillies, Ball and Müller2009), and Watson and MacLeod (Reference Watson and MacLeod2010).

11.4.2 Phonetics and Phonology

This section gives an overview of the sound system of Gaelic. For further information, see Ladefoged et al. (Reference Ladefoged, Ladefoged, Turk, Hind and Skilton1998), Ternes (Reference Ternes2006), and Nance and Ó Maolalaigh (Reference Nance and Ó Maolalaigh2021).

11.4.2.1 Consonants

Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of Gaelic phonology, and the Goidelic languages generally, is the system of consonant contrasts between palatalised and non-palatalised, often referred to as ‘slender and broad’ respectively in the Celtic literature. The majority of consonants in Gaelic have both a ‘broad’ and ‘slender’ realisation, which mostly correspond to non-palatalised and palatalised respectively. In orthography, broad consonants are surrounded by orthographic <a>, <o> or <u> and slender consonants are surrounded by <i> or <e>. For detailed information on orthography in Gaelic, see Ó Maolalaigh (Reference Ó Maolalaigh2008a) and Gillies (Reference Gillies, Ball and Müller2009).

The consonant phonemes are shown in Table 11.1. This table is based on the dialect descriptions of Lewis Gaelic in Borgstrøm (Reference Borgstrøm1940) and Oftedal (Reference Oftedal1956) as well as more recent phonetic analysis such as Ladefoged et al. (Reference Ladefoged, Ladefoged, Turk, Hind and Skilton1998) and Nance and Ó Maolalaigh (Reference Nance and Ó Maolalaigh2021). These studies focus on Lewis Gaelic; for analysis of Applecross, see Ternes (Reference Ternes2006). Table 11.1 shows broad consonants at the top of each box and their slender counterparts below. Note, there is some debate over the phonemic status of palatalised labials in the literature, which are either analysed as combinations of labial + /j/ or palatalised labials (Borgstrøm Reference Borgstrøm1940; Ladefoged et al. Reference Ladefoged, Ladefoged, Turk, Hind and Skilton1998; Gillies Reference Gillies, Ball and Müller2009). These now require detailed phonetic research.

Table 11.1 Consonant phonemes in Gaelic

	Bilabial		Labio-dental		Dental		Alveolar		Post-alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Plosive	pʰ pʰʲ	p pʲ			t̪ʰ	t̪			tʃʰ	tʃ	cʰ	c	kʰ	k
Nasal	m					n̪ˠ n̪ʲ		n
Tap/trill								rˠ r rʲ
Fricative			f fʲ	v			s		ʃ		ç		x	ɣ	h
Approximant												j
Lateral approximant						l̪ˠ l̪ʲ		l

Plosives in Gaelic are not voiced, even in word-medial position (Nance and Stuart-Smith Reference Nance and Stuart-Smith2013). Orthography uses the symbols <b>, <d> and <g> but these sounds are produced as [p], [t̪] and [k] respectively. As well as the voiceless unaspirated stops, Gaelic has a series of voiceless aspirated stops, which are realised as pre-aspirated in word-medial and word-final contexts (Nance Reference Nance2020; Nance and Moran Reference Nance and Moran2022; Nance and Stuart-Smith Reference Nance and Stuart-Smith2013). The realisation of pre-aspiration varies dialectally (Ó Murchú Reference Ó Murchú1985), but in Lewis it is usually produced as a period of breathy voicing followed by a voiceless glottal fricative.

Gaelic sonorants are described as not only having palatalised and non-palatalised phonemes, but also a velarised phoneme. This three-way contrast is the result of sound change from a hypothesised four-way contrast in Old Irish (Borgstrøm Reference Borgstrøm1940; Oftedal Reference Oftedal1956; Thurneysen Reference Thurneysen1946). As such, many modern Gaelic dialects have three-way contrasts in laterals, (non-bilabial) nasals, and rhotics (Kirkham and Nance Reference Kirkham and Nance2022; Nance Reference Nance2014; Nance and Kirkham Reference Nance and Kirkham2020, Reference Nance and Kirkham2022). For example, we find a contrast between càl /kʰaːl̪ˠ/ ‘cabbage’ vs. caill /kʰail̪ʲ/ ‘lose’ vs. càil /k^haːl/ ‘anything’.

Initial consonant mutations are a phenomenon which encompasses both phonology and morphology. As in all the Celtic languages, word-initial consonants in Gaelic undergo a series of changes in certain morphophonological contexts. Gaelic has only one mutation recognised in orthography, usually known as lenition. Lenition occurs in contexts such as the dative case with the definite article, feminine singular nominative nouns after the definite article, the vocative of proper nouns, and adjectives modifying a feminine noun. For full details of lenition contexts, see Byrne (Reference Byrne2002) and Ó Maolalaigh (Reference Ó Maolalaigh2008a). Table 11.2 summarises the changes which occur with consonant phonemes in lenition contexts. For examples and sound files, see Nance and Ó Maolalaigh (Reference Nance and Ó Maolalaigh2021).

Table 11.2 Initial consonant mutation changes

Plosives		Fricatives and sonorants
Consonant	Lenited realisation	Consonant	Lenited realisation
pʰ	f	m	v
p	v	f	Ø
t̪ʰ	h	s	h
t̪	ɣ	ʃ	ç
tʃʰ	h	l̪ˠ	l
tʃ	j	l̪ʲ	l
kʰ	x	n̪ˠ	n
k	ɣ	n̪ʲ	n
cʰ	ç	rˠ	r
c	j

Another mutation, not shown in orthography, is known as nasalisation or eclipsis. This mutation occurs after items that are closely grammatically related, such as nouns following the definite article an, or nouns immediately following a modifying adjective ending in a nasal consonant. There is some dialectal variation in the realisation of eclipsis and some dialects or speakers do not produce it. For further details, see Gillies (Reference Gillies, Ball and Müller2009:251–2) and Ó Maolalaigh (Reference Ó Maolalaigh1996).

11.4.2.2 Vowels

Gaelic has nine oral monophthongs, which can be phonemically long or short; however, many speakers do not produce a distinction between /ɛ:/ and /ɛ/. These vowels are shown in Table 11.3. For phonetic analysis, see Ladefoged et al. (Reference Ladefoged, Ladefoged, Turk, Hind and Skilton1998), Nance (Reference Nance2011), Nance and Ó Maolalaigh (Reference Nance and Ó Maolalaigh2021). Figure 11.3 shows the measures of the first two formants from the sound files in Nance and Ó Maolalaigh (Reference Nance and Ó Maolalaigh2021).

Table 11.3 Vowel phonemes in Gaelic

Oral monophthongs		Nasal monophthongs		Diphthongs
i	iː	ĩ	ĩː	iə
e	eː	ẽ	ẽː	ia
ɛ	ɛː	ɛ̃	ɛ̃ː	uə
a	aː	ã	ãː	ua
ɔ	ɔː	ɔ̃	ɔ̃ː	ai
o	oː	õ	õː	ei
u	uː	ũ	ũː	əi
ɤ	ɤː	ɤ̃	ɤ̃ː	ui
ɯ	ɯː	ɯ̃	ɯ̃̃ː	au
				ɔu

Figure 11.3 F1 and F2 measures of Gaelic oral monophthongs.

Gaelic has an extremely rich diphthongal system, shown in Table 11.3. Vowels can also be nasalised. Derived from historical nasal consonants, vowel nasalisation is now to some extent lexically, dialectally and even idiolectally specific. Oftedal (Reference Oftedal1956:40) notes that it is ‘one of the most elusive features’ of Gaelic phonemics. Phonemic nasal vowels as shown in Nance and Ó Maolalaigh (Reference Nance and Ó Maolalaigh2021) are in Table 11.3. Some diphthongs may be nasalised, though this appears to be lexically specific rather than phonemic.

11.4.2.3 Prosody

Gaelic syllables are described as having a VC structure rather than the much more typologically common CV (Bosch Reference Bosch1998; Clements Reference Clements, Bogers and Van der Hulst1986; Hammond et al. Reference Hammond, Warner, Davis, Carnie, Archangeli and Fisher2014; Smith Reference Smith, Van der Hulst and Ritter1999). For example, a word such as aran ‘bread’ would be syllabified as [ar.an]. Svarabhakti (vocalic epenthesis) vowels break up certain consonant sequences in Gaelic, and usually phonetically repeat the preceding vowel; for example, Alba ‘Scotland’ [al̪ˠapə], dorcha ‘dark’ [t̪ɔrɔxə]. For further analysis of svarabhakti, see Bosch (Reference Bosch1998), Bosch and De Jong (Reference Bosch and De Jong1997), Hall (Reference Hall2006) and Morrison (Reference Morrison2019).

A second group of words which behave interestingly in terms of syllabification are referred to as ‘hiatus’ words, and historically contained an intervocalic consonant which is no longer pronounced. For example, leabhar ‘book’ [l̪ʲɔ.ər] (‘hiatus’ word) compared to gu leòr ‘enough’ [kə l̪ʲɔːr] (no hiatus). Hiatus words are produced in Lewis dialect with the word accent for multisyllabic words whereas a non-hiatus word such as leòr would be considered monosyllabic (Borgstrøm Reference Borgstrøm1940:153; Bosch Reference Bosch1998). In non-Lewis dialects, hiatus is realised phonetically with an inserted glide, period of glottalisation, or a glottal stop (Holmer Reference Holmer1938; Iosad Reference Iosad, McLeod, Gunderloch and Dunbar2021; Jones Reference Jones2000; Mandić Reference Mandić2021; Morrison Reference Morrison2019; Scouller Reference Scouller2018).

Stress is almost always on the first syllable of the word. Exceptions include some borrowings, such as buntàta ‘potatoes’ [punˈt̪ʰaːʰt̪ə], and compound words, such as an-diugh ‘today’ [ənˈtʃu]. Some dialects of Gaelic such as Lewis and the north-west mainland are described as using contrastive pitch accents on words of different syllable counts (Iosad Reference Iosad, Hilpert, Duke, Mertzlufft, Östman and Rießler2015, Reference Iosad, McLeod, Gunderloch and Dunbar2021; Ladefoged et al. Reference Ladefoged, Ladefoged, Turk, Hind and Skilton1998; Morrison Reference Morrison2019; Nance Reference Nance2015b; Ternes Reference Ternes2006). In monosyllabic stressed words, pitch is level low or rising, and in polysyllabic stressed words, pitch is high, falling or rise-falling. This contrast leads to near-minimal pairs such as bò ‘cow’ [↗po:] and bogha ‘underwater rock’ [↘po.ə]. While it is possible to find near-minimal pairs like the words here, they are not very great in number, unlike, for example, in dialects of Swedish which have a similar word accent system. For further examples and sound files from Gaelic, see Nance and Ó Maolalaigh (Reference Nance and Ó Maolalaigh2021). In terms of sentence-level intonation, it has been suggested that the default pattern in declaratives is a phrase-final fall (Dorian Reference Dorian1978; MacAulay Reference MacAulay and Ó Baoill1979; Oftedal Reference Oftedal1956).

11.5 Language Change and Linguistic Innovation

The context of Scottish Gaelic is well known in the sociolinguistic literature through Dorian’s seminal work, Language Death (Dorian Reference Dorian1981). Dorian demonstrated the linguistic outcome of language obsolescence in East Sutherland Gaelic. The linguistic structure of East Sutherland Gaelic had undergone a series of changes, including lesser use of the conditional, the passive voice and the case system, and phonological change such as a reduction in the number of contrastive sonorants. Dorian attributed these changes to the decreasing use of Gaelic, increased use of English, and the rapid simplification and reduction of complex contrasts in contexts of language obsolescence (see also Dorian Reference Dorian1989, Reference Dorian2010). Dorian’s work was instrumental in documenting this kind of change and bringing language obsolescence contexts to a wider linguistic audience.

Dorian’s important fieldwork was conducted in the 1970s and reflected the context of a peripheral Gaelic dialect in East Sutherland. More recently, sociolinguistic work on Gaelic has focused on change in west Highland and Island Gaelic-speaking communities (Section 11.5.1), Gaelic in new settings such as immersion education (Section 11.5.2), and Gaelic in new geographical locations such as Glasgow and Edinburgh (Section 11.5.3).

11.6 Conclusion

This chapter has outlined the historical developments which led to the current status of Gaelic as a language simultaneously undergoing obsolescence and revitalisation. As well as outlining the traditional linguistic structure of Gaelic grammar and phonology, I have provided a summary of recent linguistic work which shows the exciting intersection of the social context of Gaelic and developments in language production. Research in the context of Gaelic continues to explore the legacy of language obsolescence but also the innovation occurring from the opportunity of revitalisation.

12.1 Introduction

A thousand years ago, Irish Gaelic (IG) was spoken by the entire population of Ireland. Today, it is spoken by a few thousand people. The first part of this chapter tells how this language shift came about. The second section describes a number of linguistic features which make IG distinctive.

The earliest written records of IG date from the seventh century. The language of the period from pre-700 to 900 is called Old Irish. This was followed by Middle Irish in the period 900–1200. Old Irish resembles other older Indo-European languages in that its inflectional morphology was quite complex. In the Middle Irish era, the paradigms for nouns and adjectives were simplified considerably. However, the greatest change can be observed in the verbal system. In Old Irish, the verbal complex contained not just the verbal root and suffixes but also preverbs and encliticised pronouns. By 1200 this had been replaced by the same kind of verbal structure as we find in English, with preverbs and pronouns being separated from the verb proper.

Because the overall shape of IG which emerged at the end of the twelfth century was to survive until the twentieth century, 1200 is regarded as the beginning of Modern Irish. The era 1200–1600 is called Early Modern Irish, and the period after 1600 is referred to as (Late) Modern Irish. By the time scholars began to examine IG at the end of the nineteenth century, it existed almost entirely only as spoken dialects. For this reason, in the literature on contemporary IG, it has been customary to refer to Connaught Irish, Munster Irish and Ulster Irish, the regions within which the language is spoken. In 1958, guidelines for a written standard were published. The variety recommended is called An Caighdeán Oifigiúil, and it is used in official publications, including schoolbooks.

For more on medieval Irish, see Greene (Reference Greene and Cuív1969) and also Russell (this volume).

12.2 1200–1800

The emergence of Early Modern Irish coincided with the arrival in Ireland of a group of Anglo-Norman invaders. By 1200 they had conquered much of the country and had established their seat of power in Dublin. As well as a new legal system and forms of administration, the Anglo-Normans brought with them the English language. Initially, English was confined to a small area around Dublin called the Pale, and to a handful of urban centres, mostly in the east, south and west of Ireland. Elsewhere, the newcomers appear to have intermarried with the Gaelic population and adopted their language. Contact between the two languages was intense. A large number of items of vocabulary were borrowed from English into IG in the centuries following the Anglo-Norman invasion. As might be expected, these words were related to semantic realms like commerce, military affairs and administration. Many personal names were also borrowed from the newcomers. Some of these have endured to the present day, being regarded as typically Irish, such as Seán (John), Siobhán (Joanne) and Séamas (James) (Ó Cuív Reference Ó Cuív1986).

One reason why IG proved so resilient in this period was the existence of a learned class, the bards, who were the guardians of native culture. Literacy was confined to this elite group and to the immediate families of the numerous clan chiefs who ruled over most of the country. The written language was codified and used in various kinds of documents: praise poetry, genealogies, annals and religious writings. This written code was cultivated in Ireland and in Gaelic Scotland until the seventeenth century. For a detailed account of the literary language, see McManus (Reference McManus, McCone, McManus, Ó Háinle, Williams and Breatnach1994).

During the reign of the Tudors, the English government in Ireland set about the military and cultural conquest of the whole of Ireland. Part of this policy involved replacing the Irish language with English. This was achieved by two measures. In some cases, the traditional Gaelic rulers were dispossessed, and their land settled by planters from England and Scotland. Alternatively, the sons of the Gaelic rulers were educated in Anglophone environments in the hope that they would then cooperate with the authorities in transforming Ireland into an English colony.

The military conquest of Ireland coincided with the establishment of the Church of Ireland in 1536, modelled on the Church of England, with the English monarch as its head. During the reign of Elizabeth I, work commenced on translating the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer into IG. The translation of the New Testament was published in 1602, and that of the Book of Common Prayer in 1608. However, most of the Irish remained Catholic. A number of works of the Counter-Reformation were translated into Irish and disseminated among the clergy. Because the Catholic Church was not permitted to preach and conduct services, and the majority of the Gaelic population was illiterate, the effect of the printing revolution on IG was negligible (for further details, see Caball Reference Caball2018).

The policy of Anglicisation continued in the seventeenth century under the Stuarts and during the Commonwealth period. As a result, by 1700 the old aristocracy had been replaced by a new ruling class, the Anglo-Irish, who were Protestant in religion and English in terms of language and culture. More importantly, the bards, the tradition-bearers, had been eradicated from Irish society. From 1700 onwards, literacy became increasingly associated with the English language. This was the language of power and prestige, of the new urban centres, of education, and of the new print culture. Written IG continued to be cultivated by a small group of scribes, but the majority of the population remained illiterate. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, the more affluent members of the Catholic population began to gain access to education and the professions. This led to an increased demand for English, which gradually filtered down to the masses (for more details, see Cunningham Reference Cunningham2018; Mac Mathúna Reference Mac Mathúna2007, Reference Mac Mathúna2012).

The other change which took place in this period concerned the Catholic Church. Because it was not allowed to operate openly, priests had to go abroad to be trained. This, and the gradual spread of English, caused the hierarchy to abandon Irish. By the time the first Catholic seminary was opened in 1795, the clergy were thoroughly anglicised. At the same time, a new national identity was coming into being, one based on religion, not language. This development can be illustrated by considering the semantics of the word Sasanach. Originally, this meant ‘Saxon, Englishman’. From about the middle of the eighteenth century, it began to acquire a second meaning, that of ‘Protestant’. By the time we get to the nineteenth century, the religious meaning was dominant, and that of ‘Englishman’ was confined to literary texts. Religious affiliation, not language, was what determined one’s identity (for more on religion and language, see Mac Murchaidh Reference Mac Murchaidh2012).

By 1800, we begin to get some idea of the numbers of people speaking IG and English. There seems to be a consensus that about half of the population spoke IG in 1800, which would be the equivalent of about 2.5 million (Ó Cuív Reference Ó Cuív1951). This figure has to be viewed within the context of the sociolinguistic dynamics of the day. Many of these 2.5 million speakers used English as well as IG on a daily basis, and many of them did not pass Irish on to their children. On the other hand, very few of the c. 2.5 million English speakers were able to speak or understand IG. The Irish-speaking population was still sizeable, but the balance had already tipped in favour of English.

For more on this six-hundred-year period, see Mac Giolla Chríost (Reference Mac Giolla Chríost2005:74–100).

12.3 1800–1870

The language shift that was in place by 1800 accelerated over the next seventy years. This process has been dealt with extensively in previous works (Ó Cuív Reference Ó Cuív1951:20–7; Ó Huallacháin Reference Ó Huallacháin1994:24–33; Mac Mathúna Reference Mac Mathúna2007; Ó Ciosáin Reference Ó Ciosáin1997:30–58; Doyle Reference Doyle and Kelly2018). While the ideological stances of authors vary considerably, there is a degree of consensus on the causes of the change. Participation in public life, in particular politics, increased dramatically in the nineteenth century for the Catholic population, which until then had been excluded from this sphere of activity. The leader of the Catholics in the first half of the century was Daniel O’Connell. One of the methods he used to mobilise his followers was to address large crowds at monster meetings, with his speeches being reported in the press. This activity was conducted almost exclusively through English; O’Connell had no interest in harnessing IG to his political causes. Later political movements like Young Ireland in the 1840s or the Fenians in the 1860s did, it is true, allow some place for IG in their ideology. Nevertheless, when it came to communication, in writing or in speech, English was the language chosen.

Irish society at the time was being transformed by the growth of state bodies like the post office, the police force and the Ordnance Survey mapping of the country. The economy moved from barter to monetary exchange, which took place at fairs and markets in urban trading centres. Access to these was provided by the network of roads and railways which were spreading all over the country. A minimal grasp of English was necessary to avail of these services. A native command of this language gave one a chance of finding employment in the new civil service.

Educational opportunities also expanded for the less wealthy. This was mainly due to the Education Act of 1831, which allowed children to attend primary school free of charge. Not surprisingly, the new national schools used English as their medium of instruction. Not only that, but pupils were punished for speaking IG at school. The spread of education undoubtedly contributed to the decline in IG. Much has been made of the role of the national schools in the language shift, and their failure to provide an education in keeping with the language and culture of their pupils. However, they simply perpetuated a trend that already existed. As early as 1824, 40 per cent of children were attending some kind of private school (Ó Ciosáin Reference Ó Ciosáin1997). Even in the so-called hedge-schools of rural areas, where the parents paid a master to educate their sons, the medium of instruction was English, and no attention was paid to IG.

We have already mentioned that Catholicism was crucial in the formation of the new Irish identity that was emerging. The period 1800–1870 witnessed the penetration of the Catholic Church into many spheres of life, including education and health care. This was accompanied by a confrontation with the Church of Ireland and other Protestant denominations. In the first two decades of the nineteenth century, there was an initiative from the non-Catholic churches to try once more to convert the Irish to Protestantism; this later became known as the Second Reformation. As part of this movement, various Bible societies set about teaching Irish speakers to read the Bible. Local Catholic teachers were employed by the societies to run the Bible schools. This movement drew the wrath of the Catholic hierarchy, with converts and teachers alike being denounced from the altar. One consequence of the dispute was that literacy in Irish became something suspect, a sign of having come under the influence of the spiritual enemy, and there is evidence that the disapproval of the Catholic Church extended to the very speaking of IG. On the other hand, while there was still a need for Irish-speaking priests to minister to Catholic congregations in many parts of the country, the hierarchy, with some exceptions, made no concerted effort to cater for this. For a detailed account of the interplay of language and religion in the first half of the nineteenth century, see de Brún (Reference de Brún2009).

The key event in Irish history in the nineteenth century is the Great Famine of 1845–49. This played its part in the decline of IG. The most obvious effect was that among the million people who died, many were speakers of this language. The more lasting consequence was that the Famine initiated mass emigration from Ireland, particularly from the western and south-western regions, where IG was still spoken. Because the emigration was exclusively to English-speaking parts of the world, particularly Britain and North America, it became more necessary than ever to learn English. Unlike other émigré communities, the Irish made little effort to maintain a distinct language. This was partly due to the fact that Irish communities were linguistically mixed. In such a situation, English inevitably won out. Another factor was that just as in Ireland, in Britain and the USA, Catholicism was the institution that provided an identity for the new arrivals. As was to be expected, the Catholic Church abroad operated exclusively through English. A third factor was that the Irish immigrants were illiterate in IG. This meant that unlike, say, the Scottish Gaelic inhabitants of Canada, print culture could not function as a support for speakers of the language, which in turn strengthened the trend towards using English. One way or another, despite the large numbers of IG speakers who emigrated, there is no evidence of the language being passed on to succeeding generations. For more on IG in the New World, see Sumner and Doyle (Reference Sumner and Doyle2020).

As regards numbers of speakers, a clearer picture emerges as the nineteenth century progresses. For the first time ever, the 1851 census recorded statistics on language. Twenty-three per cent of the population replied that they spoke IG, but less than a third of these spoke IG only. Furthermore, many of these monoglots were over sixty years old. It is worth remembering that an ability to speak IG was not the same as actually speaking it. Thus, in many districts, while there were still large numbers who could speak IG, or who had spoken it in their youth, the language of the school, the pulpit, and the marketplace was English by the middle of the nineteenth century.

12.4 1870–1920

In the 1870s, a new force began to emerge in Irish life, called ‘cultural nationalism’. This was a response to the anglicisation of Ireland, which, it was felt, had turned the country into a mere province of Britain. Cultural nationalism aimed at restoring distinctly Irish forms of expression, in areas such as sport, economics and literature. Language also became a focus for the new movement.

The Romantic nationalism of Europe, with its emphasis on the language and folklore of the people, had played little part in Irish nationalism until then. Beginning in 1876, with the founding of the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language, this was to change. The members of this society were concerned about the loss of what they regarded as a vital component of the soul of the Irish nation. Their main objective was to achieve recognition for IG as a school subject, a goal that was achieved over the following few decades. The Society also made the urban intelligentsia aware of the importance of IG.

This early initiative led to the founding in 1893 of the Gaelic League. The leading figure in this organisation was Douglas Hyde. He himself was Anglo-Irish but he believed that IG was the heritage of all Irish people, regardless of their class or religion. The Gaelic League turned out to be a dynamic movement which attracted a great deal of support from the middle class all over the country. It continued the policy of trying to preserve IG where it was still spoken, but also agitated for its adoption by the English-speaking part of the population, a far more radical step. By 1891, IG had all but disappeared from most of Ireland, and many inhabitants of towns and cities were unaware of its existence. The term revival is used to describe the work of the Gaelic League, but a more accurate term might be language replacement. After all, IG had never been the language of Dublin, even if many Irish speakers lived in the city.

The Gaelic League promoted its agenda by various methods. It organised classes for adults all over the country, in which the spoken language was taught using modern teaching methods. Part of the attractiveness of the language movement was that it combined language with cultural events such as folk dancing and singing at events called feiseanna. The League published a weekly bilingual newspaper, and also encouraged the writing of new literature in IG. One of its most lasting legacies was the notion of the Gaeltacht, a region where IG was spoken. The League idealised the Gaeltacht in the west of Ireland as a repository of all that was distinctively Irish. In the writings of people like Hyde and the nationalist Patrick Pearse, the Gaeltacht, with its pre-industrial way of life and picturesque landscape, came to embody everything that the language movement was striving for. A return to the values, and language, of this imagined landscape would enable the Irish nation to regain its soul and its true self, so the argument went.

The Gaelic League agitated relentlessly for making IG a core subject in Irish education. In 1908 it became obligatory to pass an exam in IG in order to matriculate in the National University of Ireland, which had a trickle-down effect on both secondary and primary education. This measure was achieved by a ruthless campaign which targeted members of county councils and other public institutions. It also set the tone for language campaigns in the years to come, in that legislation was enacted without ensuring that it could be carried out. The problem in 1908 was that there was not a sufficient cohort of trained teachers available to teach IG at secondary level throughout Ireland. For more on the Gaelic League, see Ó Conchubhair (Reference Ó Conchubhair and Bartlett2018), Ó Huallacháin (Reference Ó Huallacháin1994:38–72) and Doyle (Reference Doyle2015:161–262).

Regarding the shape of the language, the revival period was transformative. IG had never been codified in the way that English or French had. In 1890, the Gaelic Leaguers were faced with a hard choice. They could return to the manuscript tradition which reflected, but poorly, the spoken language of the nineteenth century, or they could codify the spoken language of the day. After much controversy, the latter course was chosen. Within thirty years, IG was being written in a more or less consistent orthography. Not only that, but its vocabulary had been supplemented to bring it into line with urban life, and new registers introduced for creative writing, education and journalism.

12.5 1922–1960

Many members of the Gaelic League became active in the separatist political movement that developed in the period 1900–14 and took part in the War of Independence of 1919–21. When the Free State of Ireland was established in 1922, the restoration of IG became one of the objectives of the new regime (Kelly Reference Kelly2002). From 1922 onwards, the state took an active interest in the promotion of IG in public life. In March 1922, the teaching of IG became compulsory in all primary schools for a minimum of one hour a day. It was slower to make its presence felt in secondary education, but by 1934 IG was a core subject there as well. Some schools went so far as to teach other subjects through the medium of IG. At third level, IG became an indispensable part of the curriculum in colleges which trained primary teachers. Because of its proximity to the Gaeltacht region of Connemara, it was envisaged that University College, Galway, would become an Irish-speaking university. To achieve this aim, scholarships were set up for Gaeltacht students, with some courses being offered through the medium of IG.

On a more general level, a knowledge of IG became necessary for those joining the civil service, with a further oral test being required before an employee could be made permanent. Civil servants with IG were often chosen over English speakers for promotion, and the use of IG, particularly in official correspondence, was actively encouraged.

The new state also tried to support cultural activity in IG. A publisher, An Gúm, was set up in 1926–27, in order to provide reading matter at affordable prices. Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe was established in Galway in 1928 to produce plays in IG. The new radio station, 2RN, broadcast programmes in IG from 1926 onwards. Literary reviews like Comhar and printing houses like Sáirséal agus Dill published the work of poets like Seán Ó Ríordáin, Máire Mhac an tSaoi, and Máirtín Ó Direáin, and of novelists like Máirtín Ó Cadhain. The government subsidised festivals like the Oireachtas, the annual meeting of the Gaelic League. Gael-Linn, founded in 1953, funded the recording of Irish music and singing, and cinema in IG.

Determining the boundaries of the Gaeltacht became one of the main items of policy of the new state (Walsh Reference Walsh2002). Officials were aware of the economic problems facing Irish-speaking areas and introduced various measures like improvements in infrastructure to reduce the population drain caused by emigration. However, it proved impossible to change the negative attitudes of the native speakers towards IG, and English continued to encroach steadily on the Gaeltacht.

The attempts to revitalise IG among the population at large engendered much resentment among schoolchildren and those in the public service who lacked the linguistic ability to take advantage of the new opportunities for those who knew the language. Nevertheless, most school-leavers acquired at least a reading knowledge of IG, and a smaller number achieved a high level of active competence. In terms of the goals of the Gaelic League, the project was a failure, but one could argue that it was a success in that it gave everybody the opportunity of learning the language. Much was achieved as well in the area of codification and standardisation. In the 1940s, the decision was taken to adopt the Roman alphabet instead of the so-called Gaelic font. Guidelines were published for the spelling of Irish, Litriú na Gaeilge: Lámhleabhar an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (Oifig an tSoláthair 1945). This was followed in 1953 by a grammar book, Gramadach na Gaeilge: Caighdeán Rannóg an Aistriúcháin (Oifig an tSoláthair 1953). The significance of these publications for the writing of Irish cannot be overestimated. For the first time ever, there were clear guidelines available for the spelling of Irish and for its inflectional morphology. The innovative English–Irish dictionary compiled by Tomás de Bhaldraithe (de Bhaldraithe Reference de Bhaldraithe1959), and the Irish–English dictionary of 1977 (Ó Dónaill Reference Ó Dónaill1977), both followed the recommendations of the Caighdeán Oifigiúil (‘official standard’). Despite the carping of many native speakers and scholars, the standard laid down in the 1940s and 1950s has been followed since in all state publications, particularly those intended for the educational system.

For more on this era, see Ó Huallacháin (Reference Ó Huallacháin1994:85–155).

12.6 1960 Onwards

Irish society changed drastically in the period 1960–2000. One of the manifestations of this change was that nationalism became less intense, as Irish people began to see themselves as part of a larger global community. This in turn had an effect on the movement to revitalise IG. Gradually, the state came to accept that IG was never going to replace English as the main means of communication in Ireland. IG ceased to be seen as the language of a nation and instead came to be treated as a minority language within a broader European context which accorded the same rights to smaller languages as to those more widely spoken.

For the first time ever, IG communities started to create structures for themselves that would enable them to participate more fully in mainstream life in Ireland. Beginning in the 1970s, IG found a presence in the audio-visual media which it lacked before. Raidió na Gaeltachta began broadcasting from the three main Gaeltacht regions in 1972. A form of local government for these regions was set up in 1980, Údarás na Gaeltachta. State funding for the television station TG4 from 1996 onwards ensured a daily service in Irish covering a wide range of subjects. In 2003, an Official Languages Act was passed, enshrining the right of citizens to conduct their business in Irish with state agencies. Finally, the Gaeltacht Act of 2012 provided for the recognition of places outside the traditional Irish-speaking zones which could be accorded the status of ‘Irish language networks’ or ‘Gaeltacht service towns’, on condition that they implement plans for promoting IG.

This last piece of legislation promises more than it delivers. It presupposes a pool of highly competent speakers of IG in all state services, and a demand on the part of a sizeable part of the population for such services. There is little evidence that such demand exists among native speakers, who are accustomed to conducting business through English. There is even less evidence that competent speakers could be found to run services through IG. To date, the only tangible result of language legislation is the rise of a translation industry, offering jobs in Ireland and in Brussels translating legislation into IG. Even in this branch of activity, there is a severe shortage of qualified translators.

The dearth of civil servants and translators is directly linked to the teaching of IG. Despite the criticism of the pre-1960 system as uninspiring, and more likely to foster a hatred of IG than a love of it, pupils did manage to acquire a reasonably high command of the language. As part of the general change in approach to IG, a more relaxed style of instruction began to be applied in the 1970s, with more emphasis on the spoken language than on traditional grammar. The results of this change in tack are not encouraging. Even graduates of third-level institutions struggle to read texts that were on the secondary school curriculum fifty years ago. Nor has the general resentment of the public at having to study IG decreased; if anything, it has grown.

A more positive aspect of the teaching of IG is the advent of all-Irish schools, providing immersion education in IG. These began in the 1970s in urban centres in response to demand on the part of parents for education through IG, and have spread all over Ireland. Pupils are encouraged to speak Irish at all times, usually without any rigid monitoring of their language skills. As a result, we find today a growing number of pupils coming from these schools who have a confidence in speaking IG not possessed by even the better students of previous generations. On the other hand, it must be noted that the language spoken by these pupils is profoundly different from traditional Irish (see Nic Pháidín Reference Nic Pháidín and Ni Mhianáin2003; Mac Mathúna Reference Mac Mathúna2008; Ó Murchadha Reference Ó Murchadha2018).

Until the 1970s, the model for learners of IG was always the language of the Gaeltacht; even if few learners achieved the mastery of the native speaker, this was what they aspired to. In the last fifty years the last truly Irish-speaking communities have been more or less eradicated (Ó Giollagáin and Mac Donnacha Reference Ó Giollagáin and Mac Donnacha2008). In areas designated Gaeltacht, the reality is that children, even when parents make an effort to raise them through IG, are more competent in English. It is debatable to what extent the label native speaker is valid; perhaps a more appropriate designation would be bilingual with a bias towards English. This shift has coincided with the rise of the all-Irish schools, which produce large numbers of graduates with fluency in IG.

The term new speaker has been coined to describe this new kind of learner: ‘These new profiles of speakers are frequently characterised by their middle-class status and use of a standardised variety of language frequently acquired through the education system or through adult classes’ (O’Rourke Reference O’Rourke2015:77). The new speakers outnumber the traditional native speakers, and in time they will probably be the only speakers of IG. More importantly, they dominate key areas of language use like education, the media, and language planning. At the same time, they display an anxiety with respect to the traditional IG of the Gaeltacht, a feeling that their language is in some way inferior to that of preceding generations. In the view of one commentator, this reflects a tension between the search for authenticity, provided by the Gaeltacht, and the simultaneous move towards anonymity ‘that holds that language is valuable as a neutral, objective object of expression available to all users’ (O’Rourke Reference O’Rourke2015:65). The code used by the new speakers, whatever their attitude towards traditional IG, is a new variety in the history of the language. While it is too early to attempt to describe its grammar, it differs radically from traditional Late Modern IG in terms of its pronunciation and vocabulary, and to a lesser extent in terms of its morphology and syntax (Ó Béarra Reference Ó Béarra and Tristram2007). For a good survey of the contemporary state of affairs, see Nic Pháidín and Ó Cearnaigh (Reference Nic Pháidín and Ó Cearnaigh2008). See also Nance, this volume, for a discussion of new speakers of Gaelic in Scotland.

12.7 Northern Ireland 1920 Onwards

Under the Government of Ireland Act of 1920, a separate political entity was established in Northern Ireland. Because this was dominated by Unionists for the period 1920–72, and because IG was associated with separatism, the language enjoyed a much lower profile than in the Free State (later the Republic) of Ireland.

Under existing legislation, the option existed of IG being taught in primary schools in Northern Ireland. However, the Department of Education did not in any way encourage the teaching of the language; if anything, it did everything in its power to discourage it. As schooling was denominational, in practice, only Catholic schools were likely to want to teach IG, and only a small number of these actually opted to do so. The time allotted for IG was restricted to one and a half hours per week. IG was also studied in some second-level colleges, mainly those run by Catholic teaching orders.

The lack of official support was compensated for to some extent by the fact that IG in Northern Ireland was a potent marker of political and ethnic identity. As a result, language classes organised by Comhaltas Uladh, an Ulster body linked to the Gaelic League, attracted many students. The voluntary study of IG was underpinned by close links to the Gaeltacht region of Donegal, which borders on Northern Ireland.

With the suspension of the Stormont parliament of Northern Ireland in 1972, responsibility for education moved to London, which led to a more relaxed attitude on the part of officials towards the teaching of IG. Around the same time, urban communities in Belfast and Derry began to set up immersion schools similar to those being established south of the border. In 1989 the Ultach Trust was set up by the government to promote IG throughout the whole community of Northern Ireland.

The Good Friday Peace Agreement of 1998 included sections on language. In it, a commitment is made to promoting such areas as immersion education and broadcasting in IG. As a result, IG now enjoys a much higher visibility in Northern Ireland than in the past. For example, BBC Northern Ireland regularly broadcasts programmes in IG, something that would have been unthinkable thirty years ago.

One consequence of the Good Friday Agreement was that it officially politicised language matters: IG was recognised as part of the cultural identity of the Catholic-Nationalist community, with the same status being conferred on Ulster-Scots for the Protestant-Unionist community. Since 2017, the two main political parties in Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party, have been unable to reach agreement on a number of issues. One of these was the proposed Irish Language Act which would have given IG a legal status similar to that which it enjoys in the Republic of Ireland. This issue seems likely to continue to divide the communities of Northern Ireland for the foreseeable future. For more on IG in Northern Ireland, see Mac Giolla Chríost (Reference Mac Giolla Chríost2005:134–90).

12.8 Late Modern Irish Gaelic: A Brief Description

The following account is by no means exhaustive. Instead, it focuses on those aspects of IG which differ from most other European languages, and hence more likely to be of interest to linguists. For fuller accounts, see Ó Siadhail (Reference Ó Siadhail1989), Ó Dochartaigh (Reference Ó Dochartaigh and MacAulay1992) and Doyle (Reference Doyle2001).

13.1 Introduction

Welsh is one of the descendants, alongside Breton and Cornish, of the Brythonic (Brittonic, British) Celtic language spoken across almost all of the island of Britain before and during the Roman period (see also Russell, this volume). It was used for a full range of functions in medieval Wales up until the English conquest of 1282–83, and has a vigorous written record beginning in the eighth century. English rule brought with it use of English for administrative and legal purposes and increasing use of English in other domains too. Nevertheless, up to the nineteenth century, Welsh was the dominant language of Wales: in 1801, perhaps 90 per cent of a Welsh population of around 587,000 spoke Welsh and some 70 per cent of the population was monolingual (Jenkins, Suggett and White Reference Jenkins, Suggett, White and Jenkins1997:47–8). During that century, however, migration from England and Ireland brought large numbers of non-Welsh speakers into the northeast and southeast who could not be assimilated linguistically. Furthermore, from the mid nineteenth century, education was taken into the hands of the British state, which pursued a policy of linguistic eradication via an English-medium education system. Ravenstein (Reference Ravenstein1879:620–1) estimated that 66.2 per cent of the population of Wales, some 934,530 people, spoke Welsh in 1871. The proportion of Welsh speakers in the population, although not their absolute number, continued to fall, to 49.9 per cent (930,000 people) in the census of 1901. During the twentieth century, absolute numbers fell too, reaching 18.9 per cent (504,000 people) in the census of 1981. Grassroots campaigns in the 1960s and 1970s led to a gradual reversal of policies to suppress the language, including its reintroduction into public administration and the emergence of a strong network of Welsh-medium and bilingual schools. Welsh-medium education has encouraged significant growth in the number of young people able to speak the language in areas where it was weak or moribund, notably in the northeast and southeast. As a result, overall numbers of speakers have stabilised since the 1980s, although in- and out-migration remains a serious threat to the maintenance of Welsh as a community language in many areas. Current estimates of the number of Welsh speakers range from 538,300 (17.8% of the population of Wales) in the 2021 Census, and 18 per cent in the 2022–23 National Survey for Wales,Footnote ¹ to 892,200 (29.5%) in the 2021 Annual Population Survey. As of January 2023, 23.9 per cent of primary schoolchildren and 23.0 per cent of middle and secondary schoolchildren in Wales attended Welsh-medium schools.Footnote ² Welsh government policy (Cymraeg 2050) now aims to achieve one million Welsh speakers living within Wales by 2050, although it remains to be seen whether the radical policies needed to achieve this aim will be implemented.

13.2 Phonology

13.3 Morphology

13.4 Syntax

Present-day Welsh is a verb-initial language, although, at an earlier stage, it had a verb-second rule in main clauses like Breton and Cornish (Willis Reference Willis1998). The usual word order in main clauses where the verb is synthetic rather than periphrastic is verb – subject – object (VSO):

1. (9)

   Gwelodd	Mair	gath.
   see.pst.3sg	Mair	cat
   ‘Mair saw a cat.’

In speech, only the past, future and conditional are expressed using synthetic verb forms. Other tense–aspect combinations are expressed periphrastically using the verb bod ‘be’ and a number of aspectual particles before the non-finite verbnoun. The result is the pattern auxiliary – subject – aspect marker – verb – object (AuxSVO):

1. (10)

   Mae	Mair	wedi	gweld	cath.
   be.prs.3sg	Mair	perf	see.vn	cat
   ‘Mair has seen a cat.’

There is also a tendency, particularly in northern varieties and for medium- and low-frequency verbs, to replace synthetic forms of all but the commonest verbs with a periphrasis using the verb gwneud ‘do’:

1. (11)

   Naeth	Mair	weld	cath.
   do.pst.3sg	Mair	see.vn	cat
   ‘Mair saw a cat.’

In the negative, there is an especially sharp contrast between literary Welsh and spoken Welsh. In literary Welsh, sentential negation is expressed in main clauses using the preverbal particle ni(d), while, in speech, the post-verbal marker ddim is used:

1. (12)

   Ni	neidiodd	Mair.
   neg	jump.pst.3sg	Mair
   ‘Mair did not jump.’

1. (13)

   Neidiodd	Mair	ddim.
   jump.pst.3sg	Mair	neg
   ‘Mair didn’t jump.’

Historically, this is the result of a negative (Jespersen) cycle, with ddim (originally < dim ‘thing, something’) having grammaticalised as a strengthener of the original negative particle ni(d), eventually replacing it (Willis Reference Willis, Willis, Lucas and Breitbarth2013).

In the present tense (including periphrases), most southern varieties use a negative auxiliary, variously smo, sa/so, simo, sana/sano; contrast southern (14) with (15) as found elsewhere:

1. (14)

   So	Mair	wedi	gweld	cath.
   neg.3sg	Mair	perf	see.vn	cat
   ‘Mair hasn’t seen a cat.’

1. (15)

   Dydy	Mair	ddim	wedi	gweld	cath.
   neg.be.prs.3sg	Mair	neg	perf	see.vn	cat
   ‘Mair hasn’t seen a cat.’

Historically, this derives from an existential construction nid oes dim o ‘there isn’t any of’, with grammaticalisation and extension beyond the original existential context. This form is a marker, and to some extent even a stereotype, of southern colloquial speech and is showing some signs of spreading within the south beyond its original distribution. In traditional varieties of the far southwest (the western half of Pembrokeshire), this auxiliary also has an imperfect form wena or ana (Awbery Reference Awbery, Ball, Fife, Poppe and Rowland1990).

Negative concord is a pervasive feature of the negative system. Some instances have already arisen: the verb bod ‘be’ has special negative-concord forms for use in negative clauses; contrast dydy in the negative clause in (15) with mae in the corresponding affirmative clause in (10). Negative-concord items, such as neb ‘no one’ or dim byd ‘nothing’, may express a negative in isolation, for instance, in sentence fragments, in (16), but may also trigger multiple negative concord elsewhere in the sentence, as in (17), where both dydy and ddim show negative concord with dim byd.

1. (16)

   Pwy	oedd	yno?	Neb.
   who	be.impf.3sg	there	n.one
   ‘Who was there? No one.’

1. (17)

   Dydy	Mair	ddim	wedi	gweld	dim byd.
   be.prs.3sg	Mair	neg	perf	see.vn	n.thing
   ‘Mair has not seen anything.’

Like main clauses, embedded clauses also manifest VSO or AuxSVO order. In literary Welsh, embedded complement clauses are introduced by the particle y(r):

1. (18)

   Mae	Geraint	yn	credu	y	gweli	di	gath.
   be.prs.3sg	Geraint	prog	believe.vn	prt	see.fut.2sg	you	cat
   ‘Geraint believes that you will see a cat.’

This particle is omitted in speech and may be replaced by a soft mutation in some varieties.

Finite verb forms are somewhat restricted in embedded complement clauses. The verb in (18) is future in meaning, and finite future forms are permitted in such clauses. However, where the verb would be in the past tense (preterite), an affirmative embedded clause is replaced by a non-finite clause with the subject marked using the preposition i ‘to’ (an ‘i-clause’) and the overall word order is SVO (Tallerman Reference Tallerman1998). Thus, (9) and (11) embed as (19).

1. (19)

   Mae	Geraint	yn	credu	[i	Mair	weld	cath].
   be.prs.3sg	Geraint	prog	believe.vn	to	Mair	see.vn	cat
   ‘Geraint believes that Mair saw a cat.’

Where the verb would be in the present tense or imperfect (including periphrases), an affirmative embedded clause is replaced by a clause introduced by non-finite forms of the verb bod ‘be’, corresponding to an AuxSVO word order. Thus, (10) embeds as (20).

1. (20)

   Mae	Geraint	yn	credu	[bod	Mair	wedi	gweld	cath].
   be.prs.3sg	Geraint	prog	believe.vn	be.vn	Mair	perf	see.vn	cat
   ‘Geraint thinks that Mair has seen a cat.’

From the discussion so far, we have seen that VSO word order alternates with certain other patterns: AuxSVO and i + SVO. These alternations have been interpreted as evidence that VSO word order in Welsh should be derived from underlying SVO by movement of the verb to an inflectional head preceding the subject. Where this occurs, we see an inflected verb in VSO order. Where this does not occur, we see either an inflected auxiliary followed by SVO or else an uninflected structure with a verbnoun.

Typologically, Welsh is a fairly strongly head-initial language, and word order within phrases reflects this. Adjectives, demonstratives, possessors and some quantifiers follow their head noun, while the definite article, numerals, some quantifiers and a few adjectives precede:

1. (21)

   y	gath	ddu	hon
   the	cath	black	dem
   ‘this black cat’

1. (22)

   holl	gathod	Steffan
   all	cats	Steffan
   ‘all Steffan’s cats’

1. (23)

   y	tair	hen	gath	i gyd
   the	three	old	cat	all
   ‘all the three old cats’

A major feature of Welsh syntax is the use of initial-consonant mutations. Morphophonological aspects of the mutations were dealt with in Section 13.2.2. Many mutations are triggered by a given word on the immediately following item within the same phrase. For instance, soft mutation is triggered by the pronominal elements dy ‘your (sg.)’ and ei ‘his’, by numerals dau ‘two (masc.)’ and dwy ‘two (fem.)’, by quantifiers holl ‘all’ or ychydig ‘few’, by prepositions am ‘about’ and o ‘from’, among many others (soft mutations in bold):

1. (24)

   am	glustiau	dy	ddwy	gath	di
   about	ears	2sg	two	cat	you
   ‘about the ears of your two cats’

Of all the Celtic languages, Welsh is the one that has gone furthest in integrating mutation into the syntax, and a number of mutation triggers are quite abstract. For instance, the direct object of a finite verb undergoes soft mutation, as in (25) (cath > gath), as does a noun phrase following a prepositional phrase, as in (26) (cathod > gathod).

1. (25)

   Welodd	Mair	gath.
   see.pst.3sg	Mair	cat
   ‘Mair saw a cat.’

1. (26)

   Mae	’n	gas	gan	Mair	gathod.
   be.prs.3sg	pred	hateful	with	Mair	cats
   ‘Mair hates cats.’

Such patterns have been interpreted in various ways, either as an indication that Welsh uses mutation to mark accusative case (Roberts Reference Roberts2005), or as an indication that mutation marks structural boundaries between phrases (the central insight of the XP-Trigger Hypothesis, Borsley and Tallerman Reference Borsley and Tallerman1996).

Welsh has an elaborate series of clause-initial particles used to indicate clause status (main or embedded), polarity (negative or affirmative), interrogative vs. declarative and to indicate narrow focus on a fronted element. The literary system is given in Table 13.6 (superscripts indicate mutation effects: S = soft mutation, AS = combination of aspirate and soft mutation).

These particles are generally analysed as complementisers, meaning that Welsh uses complementisers to introduce some main clauses as well as subordinate clauses. Particularly striking is the availability of the complementiser fe to mark affirmative main clauses (cf. example (6), and also use of mi in this function in some varieties of spoken Welsh below):

1. (27)

   Fe	welodd	Mair	gath.
   aff	see.pst.3sg	Mair	cat
   ‘Mair saw a cat.’

There are both affirmative and negative question particles. As would be expected typologically (initial question particles are found in prepositional languages, Greenberg Reference Greenberg and Greenberg1963:47), these are clause-initial:

1. (28)

   A	welodd	Mair	gath?
   qu	see.pst.3sg	Mair	cat
   ‘Did Mair see a cat?’

1. (29)

   Oni	welodd	Mair	gath?
   neg.qu	see.pst.3sg	Mair	cat
   ‘Didn’t Mair see a cat?’

Narrow focus is indicated by fronting of the focus element. What follows this element is formally identical to a relative clause:

1. (30)

   Mair	a	welodd	gath.
   Mair	prt	see.pst.3sg	cat
   ‘It was Mair that saw a cat.’

Narrow-focus negation of the fronted element is indicated by the particle nid:

1. (31)

   Nid	Mair	a	welodd	gath.
   neg.foc	Mair	prt	see.pst.3sg	cat
   ‘It wasn’t Mair that saw a cat.’

If the fronted element is questioned, this is marked by the particle ai, or, in the negative, onid:

1. (32)

   Ai	Mair	a	welodd	gath?
   qu.foc	Mair	prt	see.pst.3sg	cat
   ‘Was it Mair that saw a cat.’

1. (33)

   Onid	Mair	a	welodd	gath?
   neg.qu.foc	Mair	prt	see.pst.3sg	cat
   ‘Wasn’t it Mair that saw a cat.’

Where an element has been fronted for focus in the embedded clauses, this is marked using the particle mai, or its negative counterpart nad:

1. (34)

   Gwn	mai	Mair	a	welodd	gath.
   know.prs.1sg	foc	Mair	prt	see.pst.3sg	cat
   ‘I know that it was Mair that saw a cat.’

1. (35)

   Gwn	nad	Mair	a	welodd	gath.
   know.prs.1sg	neg.foc	Mair	prt	see.pst.3sg	cat
   ‘I know that it wasn’t Mair that saw a cat.’

This system of particles has broken down to some extent in speech. Some of the particles have been eroded. The question particle a is no longer used in speech, and only its mutation effect remains. Similarly, fe, along with its spoken northern counterpart mi, are frequently omitted in speech, although their mutation effects often remain. As we have already seen, the sentential-negation marker ni(d) is not used in speech.

Some of the particles have different variants in speech: thus ai is replaced by (d)ife in much of the south, and omitted entirely in the northwest; mai is replaced by taw in the far south, and by na in the northwest; the focus negative marker nid is replaced by dim or by the sentential-negation marker ddim in speech.

Finally, some of the particles have been re-formed from their constituent semantic parts: thus nad, which represents embedded focus and focus negation, is replaced by mai nid, a combination of particles used elsewhere on their own to express those values (36); in embedded clauses, ai is replaced by os ‘if’ + embedded focus marker mai (37).

1. (36)

   Dwi	’n	gwybod	mai	dim	Mair	welodd	gath.
   be.prs.1sg+I	prog	know.vn	foc	neg.foc	Mair	see.pst.3sg	cat
   ‘I know that it wasn’t Mair that saw a cat.’

1. (37)

   Dwi	’n	ansicr	os	mai	Mair	welodd	gath.
   be.prs.1sg+I	prog	uncertain	if	foc	Mair	see.pst.3sg	cat
   ‘I’m unsure if it was Mair that saw a cat.’

The full spoken system is given in Table 13.7.

Welsh shows agreement in person, number and, in the third-person singular, gender, between heads and pronominal elements, but not with lexical ones. Thus, verbs agree with subject pronouns, but remain in the default, third-person singular form with all lexical subjects, including plural ones, thus daeth y merched ‘the girls came’, but daethon nhw ‘they came’. Prepositions similarly agree with pronominal objects, but use a bare form with lexical objects, thus am ferch ‘about a girl’ but amdani hi ‘about her’.

There are two main copular structures. The first is a predicational one, in which a predicate nominal or adjective is marked using the predication marker yn in a verb-initial order, as in (38). The predication marker yn is also used to mark adverbs and secondary predicates.

1. (38)

   Mae	Mair	yn	feddyg /	dalentog.
   be.prs.3sg	Mair	pred	doctor	talented
   ‘Mary is a doctor/talented.’

The second copular structure is primarily an identificational one, in which the new element (in terms of information structure) is fronted in a verb-medial structure:

1. (39)

   Caerdydd	yw	prifddinas	Cymru.
   Cardiff	be.prs.3sg	capital	Wales
   ‘The capital of Wales is Cardiff.’

For further discussion of Welsh syntax, see Borsley, Tallerman and Willis (Reference Borsley, Tallerman and Willis2007).

13.5 Sociolinguistics

14.1 Introduction

The other Celtic languages discussed in this volume have an unbroken line connecting their past, present and future. Successive generations grew up surrounded by the language, then they surrounded their own children with it. Despite sometimes substantial new speaker populations (O’Rourke and Walsh Reference O’Rourke and Walsh2015:64), the line is always there, unbroken. For the two languages we cover here, that line was broken.

We use the term language death in this chapter, following Crystal (Reference Crystal2000:1), who states that ‘a language dies when nobody speaks it any more’. Others have proposed alternatives such as language dormancy (see Belew and Simpson Reference Belew and Simpson2018), foregrounding the potential for rebirth. We similarly distinguish between ‘language revitalisation or maintenance (i.e. efforts to slow and reverse the decline … of a minoritised language which retains a native speech community) and language revival (i.e. efforts to revernacularise a language with no remaining native speakers)’ (Lewin Reference Lewin2017a:99). And since vernacular Cornish and Manx were only incompletely documented in terms of the breadth of their lexicon, registers, styles and genres, their revival also required reconstruction or reconstitution: ‘extrapolation from whatever information exists to guess what the language might have been like. Related languages may also be used to help with reconstitution’ (Hinton Reference Hinton, Hinton and Hale2001:414).

Consequently – and sometimes in the field we are a little shy of this – reconstruction of dead languages does not recover the original community vernacular. It involves piecing together a patchwork of extant resources, then filling gaps with the closest possible approximations. For Manx, these resources were more complete; but still Manx today is a hybrid. Cornish required much more extensive rebuilding. Over the centuries, both languages saw long-term lexical and structural influence from contact with English (Wmffre Reference Wmffre1998:1; Lewin Reference Lewin2022:665). Whether these influences are to be embraced or rejected has led to differences within each reconstruction effort, in some cases leading to disagreements, even hampering revival efforts at times. We discuss the various successes and complications below.

Speakers of both languages are principally ‘new speakers’ (Ó Murchadha et al. Reference Ó Murchadha, Hornsby, Smith-Christmas, Moriarty, Smith-Christmas, Murchadha, Hornsby and Moriarty2018:4), who learn them as second languages often in adulthood; or, if they grow up speaking these reconstructed forms, they are ‘neo-native speakers’ (McLeod Reference McLeod, Pertot, Priestly and Williams2008). Membership of either category distinguishes them from ‘traditional speakers’ (Hornsby Reference Hornsby2015), those who acquire a language by intergenerational transmission. To differing degrees, then, the two languages are both very old and very new. This absolutely does not make them less legitimate (both enjoy official recognition nationally and internationally) nor less able to represent a certain group (both have vibrant communities of users for whom they are inseparable elements of their identity). They are simply different. For this reason, they require different analysis and hence sit in their own chapter here.

A brief note on geography. The Isle of Man is allied to the UK as an autonomous crown dependency and protectorate. The term ‘British Islands’ is used in UK law to refer to Great Britain, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands.

14.2 Cornish

14.2.1 Decline and Death

There are three broadly accepted historical periods of Cornish (see also Russell, this volume), based on grammatical and lexical divergences in extant manuscripts: Old Cornish (eleventh century), Middle Cornish (c. fifteenth–sixteenth centuries), and Late Cornish (from the mid-sixteenth century ‘to the end’, i.e. the 1800s) (Jenner Reference Jenner1904:49; cf. Mills Reference Mills1999:47). To explain the decline of Cornish, some authors highlight clerical imposition of English and population decline after wars and uprisings in the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries (e.g. P. B. Ellis Reference Ellis1974:52–69); royal retaliation was swift and barbaric, reducing an already small population (Mills Reference Mills and Partridge2010:199). These persecutions also imperilled the existing literature of Cornish; for example, during the ‘Prayer Book Rebellion’ of 1549 (a Catholic revolt against Protestant imposition) the Privy Council ordered that ‘mass books of the old superstitious service’ should be destroyed, ‘giving order that people do use the service appointed by his Majesty’ (cited in Rose-Troup Reference Rose-Troup1913:287). This is likely to have included Cornish translations. Especially detrimental was the suppression in 1535 of Glasney College (Mills Reference Mills and Partridge2010:197), ‘the intellectual and literary centre of Cornwall in the later Middle Ages’ (Evans Reference Evans1969:295).

If the beginning of the end was explosive and violent (uprisings and retaliations), the final end was more mundane, with huge in-migration during mining booms from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries (Pounds Reference Pounds1943:45) (see Figure 14.1). The Cornish people, having been separated from their Celtic cousins in Wales and Brittany centuries before, now found themselves in a dizzying churn of new residents arriving from far and wide. This thoroughly and terminally diluted the Cornish language, and indeed also created a sociolinguistically fertile mix of English dialects from these disparate hinterlands: the nineteenth-century dialectologist A. J. Ellis (Reference Ellis1889:171) notes of English in Cornwall: ‘The mode of speech is said to vary … not more than ten or twelve miles apart … The miners, who abound, are a mixed race.’ The sheer scale of this diversification in the population leaves its mark today in a genetic composition ‘quite different from that of the Welsh clusters, and much closer to that of Devon, and Central/S. England’ (Leslie et al. Reference Leslie, Winney and Hellenthal2015:314).

Figure 14.1 Population per square mile in Cornwall, 1672 and 1801.

Source: Pounds, N. J. G. (Reference Pounds1943: 38–9). Population movement in Cornwall, and the rise of mining in the 18th century. Geography, 28(2): 37–46. Copyright © Geographical Association, reprinted by permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd, https://tandfonline.com on behalf of Geographical Association.

There are some partial accounts of ‘last speakers’ of Cornish, though no definitive record of a final user of the vernacular language (as is recorded for Manx). For details of some accounts, see for example, Jago (Reference Jago1882:9, 332), Treenoodle (Reference Treenoodle1846:3), Ellis (Reference Ellis1974:120), Pool (Reference Pool1982:28), Kent (Reference Kent and Tristram2007:206) and Sayers and Renkó-Michelsén (Reference Sayers and Renkó-Michelsén2015).

14.3 Manx

Manx today, like Cornish, is a reconstructed language, having also experienced revival efforts following a break in intergenerational transmission. Its decline as a community vernacular was more recent, and its reconstruction based on more extensive materials, including some audio recordings, though in a form significantly influenced by language shift to English.

14.4 Conclusion

Manx and Cornish benefited from the twentieth-century renaissance of interest in Celtic languages, although Cornish has generally enjoyed significantly less (and less consistent) support from both state and church (see also Sayers and Henderson, this volume). Cornish received notable central government support in the 2010s, though this was swiftly withdrawn in 2016 following a change of government (Sayers Reference Sayers2017). Manx has been better supported, though still modestly when compared with other Celtic languages. Both languages have gained visibility in cultural and civic life, encouraging widespread knowledge of at least a few common phrases.

Committed grassroots enthusiasts maintain something of a vernacular community in both cases, although as new speakers and some ‘neo-native speakers’ (McLeod Reference McLeod, Pertot, Priestly and Williams2008), both communities are sociolinguistically distinct from speakers of languages that never died, the former being characterised by relatively conscious placing of usage according to written norms (Ó hIfearnáin Reference Ó hIfearnáin2015:100; Sayers Reference Sayers2012).

Reliance on grassroots action, and a shortfall of state support, has led to controversies and imbalances, especially in the Cornish case, with significant factional dispute. Resolution in the 2000s with a standard orthography putatively accommodated each faction with spelling variants, though subsequently there has been a drift towards the variants of the most used pre-existing form – less through subversive action, more through simple inertia regarding the availability of existing resources (Harasta Reference Harasta2013:272–7). This carries the risk of renewed infighting, or at least marginalisation within the revival. Minorities do not exist as invariant organisms; indeed, the fate of ‘minorities within minorities’ is a live debate within minority rights more broadly (Eisenberg and Spinner-Halev Reference Eisenberg and Spinner-Halev2005, see also Odugu Reference Odugu2015:150).

Despite varying fortunes, we can nonetheless note increasing interest in these under-supported languages, including among those who live outside the areas traditionally concerned, in part facilitated by new technologies. There remain major obstacles, but both Cornish and Manx nowadays have a much more settled role as symbolic heritage. Core activists may dream of a thriving vernacular, but both languages are increasingly used in lower-level but still meaningful and affirming ways in set-piece phrases, from greeting friends and signing emails to road signs, supermarket branches, craft beers, sporting chants, cultural events, and so on. There is a palpable identity value to these smaller but more widespread uses, which contribute to a vibrant sense of community. And amid the relentless homogenising march of globalisation, that can contribute to something quite unique in these two corners of the British Islands.