Talk:Goidelic languages
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Goidelic and Gaelic languages
Hmm, maybe there should be a Gaelic disambiguation page, "Goidelic" could be renamed "Gaelic languages" since that seems more natural in English? And a Gaelic culture page or something... alot of references are not to the Gaelic languages, but the Gaels as an ethnic group. Something needs to be written about that. Similiar articles to this are the ones "Slavic Peoples" and "Germanic Peoples" among others. Even though Gaels have come to be seen as just members of the Anglophone cultures in Ireland, Scotland and Mann who speak another language by many people the fact is Gaels (speakers of Gaelic) have as much a completely independent set of cultural references and traits as other groups, for example the Sami or the Greeks, do. A common literary and oral tradition up to the point that Classical Common Gaelic was quashed, mythological origin, distinctive brand of Christianity, calendar systems...
shouldn't this artical be named "Gaelic languages"?
- Yes it should. So I moved it. -- Jim Regan 14:57 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Gaelic and Gaelic are used often to refer simultaneously to both the language group and a specific member of that group (often so-called Scottish Gaelic) and this usage seems very approriate in context. The context is usually historic, referring to the period when the Gaelic of Alba was also the Gaelic of Ulster. Finding however that Gaelic links to Goidelic is somewhat disconcerting, and I can see no possible ambiguity in linking instead to Gaelic languages. Laurel Bush 14:52, 13 May 2005 (UTC).
You need to realize that Goidelic languages is the scientific term for the group, as, in contrast, Brythonic languages is the term collective of Welsh, Cornish and Breton. Goidelic is the scientific convention for classification, and it really should remain for an article about a language family. Gaelic is the term used for individual languages, in expressions such as "He speaks Gaelic," which refers to the names of the individual languages. Also compare North Germanic languages (instead of Scandinavian languages nor Nordic languages), Indo-Iranian languages (instead of Aryan languages), Turkic languages (instead of Turkish languages), etc. These are clearly understood among linguists, and their terminology remains authoritative in the matter. - Gilgamesh 20:53, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
Any problem with Goidelic (Gaelic) languages as the name of the article? And I am wondering about the etymology of Goidelic. It might be 'scientific', but it is somewhat obscure. (So is Brythonic, but I dont know of any other word used with the same sense as Brythonic). Laurel Bush 09:41, 14 May 2005 (UTC).
- There's no reason to move the article to Goidelic (Gaelic) languages. The languages are called Goidelic languages, they're not called Gaelic languages. Leave the article where it is. --Angr/comhrá 08:32, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
Sorry. I still dont know where Goidelic comes from. Laurel Bush 12:43, 18 May 2005 (UTC).
Read the etymology box here (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=goidelic). - Gilgamesh 13:03, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. Old Irish. Possibly Old Welsh. Laurel Bush 13:53, 18 May 2005 (UTC).
google gives 20'000 hits for Goidelic, and 3,300,000 for Gaelic (>100 times as many). I think it is misleading to say "they are sometimes also called Gaelic". dab (ᛏ) 09:52, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
- The languages as a group are very rarely referred to by linguists as "the Gaelic languages", but the term is probably more common among laymen. "Gaelic" by itself without further qualification usually means Scottish Gaelic, except in Ireland where it usually means Irish if left unmodified. In linguistics contexts I've really only ever seen "Goidelic languages". --Angr/탉 10:10, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
I am well convinced Wikipedia should include an article called Goidelic languages. I am equally sure we should have an article designed at least and primarily to disambiguate Gaelic. Laurel Bush 10:07, 27 May 2005 (UTC).
- I'm not opposed to having a disambiguation page for the word Gaelic. At the moment, that redirects to Gaelic languages, which is a separate article from Goidelic languages. I think Gaelic languages should be merged with Goidelic languages (i.e. the content should be moved there and integrated, and then a redirect to Goidelic languages should be left in its place), while Gaelic should no longer redirect, but become a disambig page indicating that "Gaelic" can mean: (1) "Goidelic" as in Goidelic languages, (2) Scottish Gaelic language, (3) Irish language, also called "Irish Gaelic language", (4) Manx language, also called "Manx Gaelic language". --Angr/ 10:43, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
I have been bold and re-created Gaelic as a disambig page. I've added some non-language uses of the word "Gaelic" to make it more useful as a general disambig page. I've tagged this article and Gaelic languages as being in need of merger. --Angr/ 14:38, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
Ps and Qs
Are we saying the language groups are p-Celtic and q-Celtic or p-Gaelic and q-Gaelic? I have seen bith on the web. --rmhermen
The correct technical terms are definitely p-Celtic and q-Celtic. Since Gaelic is q-Celtic, there can be no such thing as q-Gaelic. Welsh is definitely not Gaelic but it is p-Celtic. Whereas speakers of Irish and Scots Gaelic will understand each other fairly well, neither of them will understand a Welsh speaker. The languages are as different as English and Dutch, both of which are Germanic languages. -- Derek Ross
shouldn't this artical be named "Gaelic languages"?
- Yes it should. So I moved it. -- Jim Regan 14:57 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)
History and Range
"There is evidence that (Celtic languages) were spoken in the region of Galicia in modern Spain." It would be interesting to include these sources of "evidence" in the article or in the links. I know that there are some 13th Century reports about a village in Northern Galicia (namely Bretoña) where an "unintelligible" language was spoken.
That's odd, why is that attributed to me? Anyway, it's sorta redundent how the article states Gaelic is part of the Goidelic branch of the Celtic languages, the Gaelic languages are the Goidelic branch. Starting with Old Gaelic ('Old Irish'/ Goidelic) you end up with the three modern languages. I think the Brythonic article says something similiarly unenlightening...
- Sorry 'bout that, hit the wrong link :( I did a basic merge on the articles, but there's still some redundancy. -- Jim Regan 18:01 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)
The information about Cornish and Manx is somewhat misleading. The article says they are nearly extinct; in fact they are by all means extinct in that the last traditional native speakers died in 1777 and 1974 respectively. Both are now being revived (Cornish/Cornic also reconstructed) and there are a number of new native speakers (children of fluent learners who decided to raise their children with Manx or Cornish on a par with English) in both countries.
Przemek Kasprzyk
In fact there are now believed to be more native speakers of Scots Gaelic in Nova Scotia than there are in Scotland.
This is false. There are only about a 1,000 native speakers left in Nova Scotia centered around Cape Breton. There are about 60,000 native speakers left in Scotland. This down from 70,000 from the last survey taken in the early 1990's. See Silicon Glen's Scotland FAQ Census figures for Gaelic speakers http://www.siliconglen.com/Scotland/7_14.html for more details. -- Chris Merle
- Estimates of the number of Gaelic speakers in Nova Scotia are now as low as 500, mostly elderly, and a government initiative to support Gaelic culture in the province has now been launched. -- Derek Ross | Talk
Over on Wiktionary we have a new contributor who seems to be pushing Gadhelic over Goidelic — Does anybody know if there is any science/history/politics behind choosing one of these words over the other? — Hippietrail 01:17, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Does anyone else think that there should be a mention of ogham in the article? Fire Star 04:45, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Yes.--Iasos 20:59, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
Done. Fire Star 22:34, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Manx?
Article could be far stronger on Manx, at least in discussing the form, orthography and grammar etc of it, rather than just that it is "being revived".
Write Goidelic
possible semantic mistake
I have changed the line: "Before the Irish potato famine of the 1840s, the language was spoken by the vast majority of the population, but the famine and immigration led to a decline which has only begun to reverse very recently." from 'immigration' to 'emigration'. I believe this is what the author had in mind, if not then please change it back.
Welsh Gaelic
I'm going to remove this reference completely. I know there are Americans who make the mistake of talking about Welsh Gaelic ('cause I've encountered them), but I don't think it's really Wikipedia's job to note and refute every mistake people make. The absence of the word Welsh in the article would explain just as well. — Moilleadóir 22:48, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Lowland Caithness?
I'm perplexed by the reference to Caithness as part of the "Lowlands" of Scotland (as opposed to simply "lowland", which it may well be). Perhaps this section would be clearer if we omitted the reference to the Lowlands entirely, and just said "other parts of Scotland", or some such formula. Alai 20:59, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Is Caithness Lowland? Depends on what you mean by Lowland. Like Highland the term has very variable meaning and connotations. Caithness is within the Highlands and Islands, as defined (in ways that may not be entirely consistent with each other) by legislation such as created the Highlands and Islands Development Board (now called Highlands and Islands Enterprise) and the Highlands and Islands electoral area of the Scottish Parliament. Orkney and Shetland are within the same area. Orkney and Shetland are not Highland in the same sense as the Hebrides and neighbouring mainland areas, where linguistic history is one of transition from Gaelic to English (or Scottish English). In Orkney and Shetland the transition is from Norse, and Norse is rather more closely related to Anglian languages (including the Inglis now called Scots) than to Gaelic languages. Caithness is a sort of border land between the Gaelic and Norse areas: probably Gaelic was never used by any ruling class, but was used by much of the 'peasant' population. Laurel Bush 09:58, 30 May 2005 (UTC).
Ambiguous
Dose ambiguous mean anything? Or is it just a clever trick? Laurel Bush 16:06, 12 May 2005 (UTC).