Irish is the most deeply researched of all Gaelic languages, with its very
long history giving rise to a number of stages in its development process:
Insular Irish, Archaic Irish (circa 400-800), Old Irish (circa 800-1000),
Middle (circa 1000-1500), Classical and Modern Colloquial Irish.It is possible
to have such a long period of growth in that the
Ogham
inscriptions, found in Ireland, prove it to be the earliest of all
Goidelic languages, inscriptions dating back to the 5th century A.D. and
containing several words even now heard in the tongue.Rich literature of
the Old Irish epoch allows us to study this language thoroughly, and Middle
Irish also presents us with a wide field of literature as source material
we can learn much from in present-day study.After the whole of Ireland
was finally taken over by England --for good and all in the 17th century
-- its Gaelic speaking population rapidly began to go into decline, and
religious rebellions, uprisings for human rights and independence all caused
and brought severe repressions onto the Irish people.Over the years much
of the population also died of hunger, frequent on the island, or in time
emigrated to America.In the past century the number of Irish-speaking persons
has declined from 50 percent of the population of the island to less than
20 percent.In the 19th century one could be sure Irish Gaelic would soon
become extinct.
But that didn't happen.This century Ireland finally gained its independence
and now the language again is coming back in force in the Republic.It is
taught at schools, it is heard on the radio and television and in rural
areas there is yet a fair amount of people who use it every day in their
homes.Now we can breathe freely -- Irish is no longer endangered.
Originally a highly inflected language, as it was in its earliest stages,
Irish now retains essentially two noun cases, nominative and genitive,
with the dative surviving in the singular of feminine nouns (though the
Classical language still uses dative widely); the language has present,
past, simple-future verb tenses in the indicative mood as well as other
complex tenses.Celtic initial mutations are present everywhere in Irish
in two forms: aspiration, or lenition, and nasalization, or eclipsis.Linguists
still argue about the origin of these interesting phenomena which are not
met up with in the Continental Celtic languages.
