One of our cultural connections to Celtic cultures is the study and preservation of Celtic languages. An unfortunately large number of people still think that "Irish" and "Scottish" are funny English accents, rather than real languages as different from English as Russian and Spanish. There are six modern Celtic languages, each unique although sometimes closely related to others:
English Language Name |
Language's Name for Itself |
Country of Origin |
Fluent Speakers |
Irish Gaelic | Gaeilge | Ireland | |
Scots Gaelic | Gàidhlig | Scotland | |
Manx Gaelic | Gaelg | Isle of Man | |
Welsh | Cymraig | Wales | |
Cornish | Kernewek | Cornwall | |
Breton | Brezhoneg | Brittany |
Local to Knoxville, TN, there are groups studying both Irish and Scottish Gaelic. The Irish group is an informal gathering that meets Thursday nights at 6:30pm at The Great Southern Brewing Co. on Gay Street in the Old City. We are currently studying the lessons from the Irish People, which are friendly, well organized, and accessible, as well as being available on the WWW. We run a local mirror for these lessons as well. We are also reading the book An t-Ainmhí by Pádraig Standún.
We have started a page for Irish exercises taken from various sources.
I'm looking for information on the number of fluent speakers of each of the Celtic languages. I consider this to be a more interesting number than "native speakers," since two of the languages in question (Cornish and Manx Gaelic) are considered to be "dead languages" in the sense that the last native speaker has died. But these languages have been resurrected and many now consider themselves fluent speakers of these languages. Please mail us if you've seen this information somewhere...