This month’s first blog is borrowed from a lecture I gave to a local Hibernian Society. A huge thanks to them for the opportunity and to everybody who attended. They let me blab at length about the history of the Irish language, so I decided I’d share it with the rest of you. The following is a terse account of the ancient Celts and the Irish given through a linguistic lens.
Irish or Gaelic is Ireland’s official language. Numbers are always quibbled over and there’s a dramatic degree of discrepancy when discussing the amount of people who are speaking Irish. The last census I saw reported an estimated 1.5 million people with varying degrees of Gaelic competence, though only a rough 300,000 to 400,000 claim fluency. That’s only a disappointing 5 to 6.5% of the population. And of that percentage, it’s conjectured that somewhere between 40,000 and 100,000 people speak Gaelic on a consistent daily basis, about 0.6 to 1.5% of the 6.2 million that make up the Irish populace. Ireland is the only nation in the EU that claims a minority language as its official. Based off numbers alone, that’s like making Italian the official language of the U.S. But that’s hardly the point. The idea is that Gaelic is an important facet for Irish identity, a key to understanding Ireland’s history and culture, and how a people that model themselves as Celtic figure in today’s rapidly globalizing world. Truly, Irish has a rich history full of triumph and tragedy, of passion and innovation. To uncover the extent of its experiences, let’s start from the beginning.
Irish is one of many tongues that share a common origin in the language linguists have termed Proto-Indo-European. Proto-Indo-European spread over Europe, and even found outlets in Iran and India sometime before 2500 BC. Within the Indo-European family of languages are a large number of subfamilies including some of Europe’s principle languages like the Germanic subfamily (German, Dutch, English) and the Romance subfamily (Italian, French, Spanish). Another subfamily, which incorporates a marginal few speakers compared to those previously mentioned, is the Celtic subfamily of which Irish is a member. Ironically, though use of the Celtic languages is comparatively microscopic today, they were once the most widespread of Indo-European languages. At their height, Celtic languages could be found stretching in a broad band through Europe, from Portugal and Spain through France, into Ireland and the British Isles, through Austria, Switzerland, Southern Germany, Northern Italy, and down into Eastern Europe. Even in Turkey, an enclave of Celtic speakers known as the Galatians, was allowed to flourish.
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| *This map roughly displays the vicinities in Europe where Celtic languages were spoken. Yellow represents the earliest arena of development (Halstatt 1200-600 BC), light green the second phase (La Tène 600-1BC), and dark green the areas that still claim a strong relationship with a native Celtic language. |
Celtic languages developed among the societies designated as the precursors to Celtic civilization, first with the Halstatt culture (13th to 6th centuries BC) and then with the La Tène culture (6th to 1st centuries BC). Both of these societies were named after archaeological sites—the former in Austria and the latter in Switzerland—that typify their respective cultures. Halstatt culture seems to have developed during the Bronze Age out of an importance of trade in tin and copper (the components of bronze) as well as salt, which, in a world without refrigeration, was a vital element in long-term food preservation.
One thing seems to be consistent with both cultures: they were highly mobile. Graves of the elite members of both cultures feature wheels and carts, first as trading vehicles with the Halstatt, then as war-chariots with the La Tène culture. An ease of mobility most certainly aided in the rapid expansion of La Tène culture through continental Europe. Despite that mobility, La Tène art finds its way to Ireland late in the period (about 250 BC) mostly in the form of weapons, decorative jewelry, and equine equipment.
Celtic language and culture seems to have taken root in Ireland through a long, gradual process of interaction which included trade and emigration from Celtic Britain and the Continent. It seems unlikely that any type of large-scale Celtic invasion took place, because the style of artifacts found in Ireland, though heavily influenced by La Tène art, are unique from the designs found in Britain and the continent. It is more likely that Celts came to Ireland as refugees and traders. Whatever the case may be, a Celtic language—the oldest version of Gaelic in evidence—was firmly entrenched in Ireland by the introduction of writing.
The earliest form of records we have in Ireland survived through inscriptions on wood and stone. The letters were devised through a system of line scores called Ogham script, and they were used mainly to display names with the purpose to mark landownership or act as memorials. Ogham also seems to have been employed as graffiti. One stone found in County Kerry, for example, transliterates to ‘ANM COLMAN AILITHIR.’ This can be read as ‘the name of Colmán the Pilgrim,’ believed to be etched by a traveler sometime along his holy sojourn merely to commemorate his passing by. Despite a common belief that Ogham script was a druidical alphabet, it was much more likely inspired by Latin letters introduced through the early Christian writings that were coming to Ireland in the 4th century AD. There are only about four-hundred examples of Ogham inscriptions that have survived today, found primarily in Ireland from the 5th and 6th centuries AD and written in a phase of the Gaelic language known as Primitive Irish. Archaeological evidence of Ogham inscriptions has confirmed the vigorousness of the Dark Age Irish, as examples have been found all over the west coast of Britain, especially in south Wales where the Irish were able to establish themselves for an extended period of time.
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| *A diagram of the Ogham Alphabet. It is interesting to note that each letter is named after a tree or plant, for example the character representing 'b' is 'beithe,' meaning 'birch.' This tradition is still represented by the Gaelic languages today. The last column of supplemental characters was added late and used little. |
Ogham seems to have disappeared by the 8th century, but not before it could demonstrate a transition in the language from Primitive Irish to Old Irish. Old Irish represents a stage in the gradual evolution of the Gaelic language that includes important changes like the loss of the letter ‘q’ and the reintroduction of the letter ‘p.’
Old Irish was spoken from the 6th century up until the 10th century AD. It was not limited to Ireland, however. Irish-speaking people had begun to carve out a territory for themselves along the western seaboard of present-day Scotland, while others established themselves on the Isle of Man. Perhaps the most significant development of Old Irish was its appropriation into a more communicable system of writing. Priestly Irish scholars adopted the Latin alphabet from their studies so that they could communicate, not just devout teachings, but also the histories, myths, poetry, and sagas of their native land.
The Irish continued to demonstrate their energy and creative aptitudes during this period. We can find Old Irish notes written in the margins of religious, historical, and scientific books that Irish monks were copying (without the invention of printing presses, these books had to be written and copied by hand). These Old Irish notes are found in texts from abbeys as far away as Italy, but the most popular was found in Germany and, in poetic composition, compares the scribal duties of the writer and his cat’s preoccupation while he writes:
Messe ocus Pangur Bán
cechtar nathar fria saindán;
bíth a menma-sam fri seilgg,
mu memna céin im saincherdd.
I and Pangur Bán, my cat
Tis a like task we are at;
Hunting mice is his delight
Hunting words I sit all night.
(*note: translated into English by poet Robin Flower;
attention to rhyme is given with sacrifice to literal meaning)
Middle Irish, spoken from the 10th to 12th centuries AD, represents a flowering of Gaelic culture begun during the Old Irish period. A vast amount of texts derived from this period are still in existence today and have proved invaluable in grasping the literary and cultural identity of the medieval Irish, as well as an earlier pagan heroic tradition.
During the 12th century, Gaelic as it was spoken in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man began to diverge, eventually becoming three distinct languages with various dialects. Although language historians date the 12th century as a point of separation, high-levels of interaction between these different geographies slowed the rate at which Gaelic diverged, allowing Gaelic speakers of Ireland and the British Isles to communicate relatively easily up until the 16th and 17th centuries. Even today, some Irish speakers and Scottish-Gaelic speakers can understand each other on a level of mutual intelligibility. I had the fortune of testing this out when, while studying Scottish-Gaelic in Scotland, I found myself having a pint with a Northern Irish student. His particular dialect, Donegal Irish, has even more in common with Scottish-Gaelic than any other contemporary form of Gaelic. Through great stretches of his incomprehensible ranting, no doubt made less comprehensible by subsequent rounds of Guinness, I caught snippets and even whole strings of meaning. We did establish that important phrases like ‘cheers’ (sláinte) and ‘kiss my ass’ (póg mo thóin) were verbatim.
Up until the 18th century, Gaelic proved to be a very capable medium for artistic expression. Archaic conventions of the language, similar to Middle Irish, were used as a standard for poetic language in Ireland and Scotland. Linguists refer to this as Early Modern Irish or Classical Gaelic.
Unfortunately, several factors led to a sharp decline in the number of Gaelic speakers. Under British rule, Gaelic was prohibited from being taught in schools, effectively distancing the language from applications in art and science, limiting its ability to adapt to modern conventions. Many British and Irish administrators viewed Irish as backwards, and English, a language with a more comprehensible vernacular in sciences and other modern pursuits, as a venue for progression and prosperity. Perhaps even more catastrophic, the Great Famine struck rural Gaelic speakers worse than the predominately English speaking urban dwellers of Ireland. Large numbers of Gaelic speakers died from starvation or immigrated to places like North America, Australia, and New Zealand. For the most part, Gaelic was not passed on to the next generation of these immigrant Irish. However, an exception exists in Newfoundland, Canada where communities of native speakers can still be found today.
During the 20th century, Gaelic became a rallying point for Irish identity, independent of British sovereignty. There has been a great deal of public outcry and government support given to Gaelic, and programs established to facilitate the language have met with varying degrees of success. Overall, the number of native speakers has continued to decrease despite these measures to promote the language. Encouragingly, however, the count of secondary speakers has risen. At the current rate, native Irish dialects seem destined for extinction, while the amalgamated construct spoken by learners will replace it. With any luck and a good deal of tenacity, Gaelic will last in some capacity, a living artifact of Ireland’s Celtic past.
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| Diagram indicating how the Celtic languages fit into the broader Indo-European family. |
