Re: Celtica (was: Maggel)

On Jun 15, 2004, at 6:55 AM, Stephen Mulraney wrote:
> I've noticed that (as Barbara suggests) "Gaelic" when referring to
> Scots
> Gaelic is pronounced [gal1k], or when referring to Irish, [gEjl1k].
> However, In Ireland, "gaelic" is really only used to refer to gaelic
> culture, most often gaelic sports. Using "Gaelic" meaning "the Irish
> language" has a rather contemptuous ring to it, I think, though I'm not
> sure why (similar to "Erse", in fact). I suppose it might be because
> either it's a typical name used by people who are ignorant about the
> languages (or their distinctness), or because it was the standard term
> in the bad old days when most Irish people knew as much Irish as they
> did Dyiribal.. However, there are certainly people in Ireland who,
> rather old-fashionedly to my ears, use the name "Gaelic" without
> malice.
> But generally it's not done.
> As for it's use by Forringers, well, there's no accounting for that...
> but Irish people call "Gaeilge" "Irish", and that's about as
> authoritive
> as you can get, I think.
> Stephen Mulraney   ataltane@ataltane.net
When i took a semester of Irish in college, the instructor said
specifically to call it 'Irish' and not 'Gaelic', because calling it
'Gaelic' is impolite.  Of course, whenever i used the term 'Irish'
outside of class people got confused, so now i generally end up saying
'Irish Gaelic' just in case :P .


-Stephen (Steg)
  "quit it with the damn schwa already! i hate phonetics!"
      - my friend e
        (back when we took intro to linguistics together)