GAELIC

GAELIC
1. Of the Celts of Scotland, Ireland, and the Isle of Man, their languages, customs, etc.: Gaelic coffee, a Gaelic phrase book.

2. The English name for the Celtic language of Ireland (Gaeilge), Scotland (Gaidhlig), and the Isle of Man (Gaelg, Gailck); commonly pronounced ‘Gay-lik’ in Ireland, ‘Gallik’ in Scotland, where it is often referred to, especially by its speakers, as the Gaelic (Does she have the Gaelic? Does she speak Gaelic?). In Ireland it is generally known as IRISH, and formerly in Scotland was referred to as both Erse and Irish. Gaelic was the principal language of Ireland before and after Norse settlement in the late 8c and remained so until the 18c, after which it went into decline under pressure from English. It was taken to Scotland in the 3–5c and was the foremost language of the kingdom during the early Middle Ages. It dominated the Highlands and Western Isles until the late 18c, after which it also went into decline under pressure from English. It is the national language of the Irish Republic (co-official with English), spoken by some 100,000 and read by some 300,000 people; in Scotland it has some 80,000 speakers, mainly in the Hebrides and GLASGOW. It died out as a natural language on the ISLE OF MAN with the last native speaker, Ned Maddrell, in 1974, but revivalists sustain a version of it in an ORTHOGRAPHY distinct from the Irish and Scottish varieties. Gaelic was spoken widely in Canada and parts of the US in the 18–19c, but is now limited to a community of perhaps 5,000 in Nova Scotia, mainly on Cape Breton Island. See BORROWING, CANADIAN ENGLISH, CELTIC LANGUAGES, HIBERNO-ENGLISH, HIGHLAND ENGLISH, IRISH ENGLISH, SCOTTISH GAELIC, SHELTA.