Ireland is a completely small state, which, however, gave the whole world St. Patrick's Day, Halloween, a huge number of words that most consider English. Irish belongs to the Celtic family of Indo-European origin. Other languages from the same group are Gaelic Scottish, Breton.
Who speaks Irish?
According to statistics, about 1.6 million people speak Irish. These are residents of the Republic of Ireland as well as Northern Ireland. In the USA, there are also residents who use this language in everyday speech. Irish is one of the officially recognized languages of the European Union. In total, about 42% of the inhabitants of Ireland communicate on it. The vast majority of Irish, about 94%, are also fluent in English.
Irish: Interesting Words and Other Features
One of the most interesting thinking features of Irish speakers is the use of an unusual decimal system. This means that for them the number 60 means three times 20 each. Another characteristic feature is that in Irish there is no pronoun “you”, just as in English there is no pronoun “you”. If a tourist is visiting Ireland for the first time, he should not be surprised if the Irishman, after his first acquaintance, begins to contact him with “you”.
Properties of the Irish Thinking
What is even more unusual, in this language there are no concepts of "yes" and "no." For example, to the question: “Were you at home today?” - The Irishman will not answer in the affirmative or negative. He will say: "I was at home today." Negation is conveyed using special forms of the verb. The word order in a sentence is another feature that distinguishes this language. Irish is interesting in that it uses the reverse word order. In other words, the phrase “I went home” will sound like “I went home”.
Most peoples view the concept of time linearly, that is, they say: "The house was built three hundred years ago." Irish see the time axis a little differently. For them, it flows, as it were, from the bottom up. They will say the same phrase as follows: "The house was built three hundred years down."
Language history
The initial stage of the Irish origin dates back to the 7th to 10th centuries. At this time, the Old Irish language was born. It contains the epic works of the people of the emerald island. The Old Irish language is one of the oldest in all of Europe - it is second only to the ancient Greek and Latin.
The following is the period of the Central Irish language, from the 10th to the 13th centuries. Then the Old Irish language, as a literary language, is used in everyday speech. From XIII to XVII centuries. the classic form of the Irish is formed. For two centuries, Irish authorities have pursued a policy of annihilating the Irish language. It was banned not only in official use, but also in everyday communication. In 1798, a popular uprising was suppressed, after which the indigenous people emigrated en masse to other countries.
Attempts to exterminate the tongue
The paradox was that at the beginning of the XIX century there were a huge number of Irish people using their native language. Irish was the language of communication between peasants and workers — only about 5 million carriers. Although language, like local Catholicism, was banned, almost all ordinary people used it in everyday communication.
The year 1831 became fatal for the Irish: this year, Britain ordered that a unified school system be established throughout Ireland. If earlier Irish was transmitted through illegal schools, now every child was required to attend an English school.
But an even greater catastrophe was the economic crisis that struck in 1845, which resulted in a terrible famine. About 1.5 million people died from it.
Irish for beginners: why and how to learn?
Many, inspired by reading the Irish epic, want to learn at least the basic Irish. Many myths and prejudices exist about this mysterious and unusual language. Some consider it a dying language. Irish, however, is not included in this group: it is a small language, but not dying.
Then, for those who want to learn Irish, another question arises: "What practical benefit can it be, besides personal interest?" The fact is that this language is a whole piggy bank of unusual grammatical and lexical phenomena. Therefore, anyone who is interested in linguistics and would like to broaden their horizons can try to master the Irish language. A self-instruction manual in Russian, like dictionaries, is a rather rare publication. However, you can find the English-Irish and Irish-English dictionaries, as well as tutorials in English.
A few more reasons to learn Irish
Irish grammar is a real challenge for linguists. For example, the word “woman” will be used in various forms. The use of one or another variant depends on the context and the pronoun nearby - mine, yours or his woman is meant. When learning a foreign language, usually difficulties arise with a change in the end of the word. But in Irish, not only the end of a word changes, but also its beginning.
The motivation for learning Irish can also serve as his belonging to the western branch of the Indo-European language family. Russian language belongs to the group of Slavic languages, English - to the group of Germanic. Slavic and Germanic languages belong to the northern branch. Therefore, it can be judged that even Russian is closer to English than Irish.
Also, knowledge of the Irish language provides an opportunity to get acquainted with the rich Irish folk art. Most of Irish folklore has never been translated into Russian. For many, modern Irish prose will be interesting.