ABSTRACT
A member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic, Irish is the first official language of the Republic of Ireland, with English, and is an official language of the European Union. The Gaeltacht – the area where Irish is spoken – is not continuous; there is a broad three-way dialect group division: Munster in the southwest (Kerry and in particular the Dingle Peninsula), Connacht in the midwest and Ulster in the northwest (Donegal and increasingly in areas of Northern Ireland). Of these, the Connacht dialect group, centred on Connemara west of the city of Galway, constitutes the strongest and most cohesive Irish-speaking community. Munster dialects are linguistically more conservative, while Ulster dialects not only show a degree of innovation but also share certain features with Scottish Gaelic. The relative strength of Connacht Irish, together with its medial linguistic position, has made it a popular choice for language programmes and courses in recent years. An official written version of Irish – an Caighdeán – exists for use in official publications and for teaching in schools throughout the Republic – it is broadly based on Connacht. The three dialect groups exhibit considerable divergence in pronunciation and phraseology, less in vocabulary and much less in syntax. About 80,000 people speak Irish in one form or another, none of them monoglot. The language is enjoying a resurgence of interest as a second language, particularly in the North. A standard orthography was adopted in 1948, which, amongst other measures, removed many letters and letter combinations that are silent in most dialects – e.g. ceathrú ‘fourth’ (formerly ceathramhadh), cónaí ‘residence’ (formerly comhnaidhe). This far-reaching simplification of spelling was aimed at making the language easier for learners (Irish is a compulsory subject in schools), but in the process abandoned etymological transparency as well as, incidentally, the visual link with Scottish Gaelic (which has retained etymological spelling).
