Irish | ||||
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Irish Gaelic Gaelic Standard Irish:Gaeilge Gaeilge na hÉireann | ||||
Pronunciation | [ˈɡˠeːlʲɟə] | |||
Native to | Ireland | |||
Region | Ireland, mainly Gaeltacht regions | |||
Ethnicity | Irish | |||
Native speakers | 73,804 in Ireland (2016) 4,166 in Northern Ireland L2 speakers: 1,761,420 in the Ireland (2016), 104,943 in Northern Ireland (2011) | |||
Language family | ||||
Early forms: | ||||
Standard forms | An Caighdeán Oifigiúil | |||
Writing system | Latin (Irish alphabet) Irish Braille | |||
Official status | ||||
Official language in | Ireland (Statutory language of national identity (1937, Constitution, Article 8(1)). Not widely used as an L2 in all parts of the country. Encouraged by the government.) EU | |||
Recognised minority language in | UK (Northern Ireland) | |||
Regulated by | Foras na Gaeilge | |||
Language codes | ||||
ISO 639-1 | ga | |||
ISO 639-2 | gle | |||
ISO 639-3 | gle | |||
Linguasphere | 50-AAA | |||
Proportion of respondents who said they could speak Irish in the Ireland and Northern Ireland censuses of 2011. | ||||
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Irish, Irish Gaelic or Gaelic is a language spoken in Ireland and (less commonly) in Northern Ireland. Irish is a Gaelic and so it is similar to Scottish Gaelic and Manx Gaelic and less so to Breton, Cornish, and Welsh.
Many people who speak Irish can understand some Scots Gaelic but not Welsh because the Celtic languages are divided into two groups. One group is called the p-Celtic languages, and the other is called the q-Celtic languages. Irish and Scots Gaelic are q-Celtic languages, and Welsh is a p-Celtic language.