Celtic Languages In Appalachia

by Lorien Hightale

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...


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