Re: Irish Gaelic is evil!

Keith wrote:
 
> Interjection. Where I'm from (Sligo), "Gaelic" is 
> ['ge:lIk] 
 
I've heard that in Ulster Irish, "Gaeilge" is ['ge:lIk]! Don't know if
it's true, but if it is, then that might explain where the general
English pronunciation comes from. I've always assumed that in Scotland
they say /g&lIk/ instead of /gEjlIk/ (or /ge:lIk/, /gejlIk/) due to the
fact that "Gàidhlig" is /ga:lIk/.
 
> Here here! Indeed they're not, and I question classifying them as
> seperate languages too. 
 
That's a canny question. Historically, of course, there was one big
dialect chain from the bottom of Ireland to the top of Scotland, and the
linguistic boundaries had nothing to do with the geo-political
boundaries. But after the breakdown of the Gaelic cultural
infrastructure in the 17th century leading to the current state in both
Ireland and Scotland of isolated dialects separated by wide swaths of
"anglophonedom", and especially the language planning of the 20th
century, I find Irish and Scottish Gaelic becoming less and less
mutually intelligible, and I'm afraid the situation will only worsen.
Heck, Serbian and Croatian are more similar than Irish and Scottish
Gaelic, probably even more similar than Ulster Irish and Munster Irish,
and they're generally considered separate languages now. But the
idealist in me still insists on "one language with three varieties"! :-)
 
> I reckon that had the classical language managed to
> survive, people wouldn't ever think of regarding them as seperate.
 
I agree completely!
 
> Now, if only we could get the Scots to spell properly... :-)
 
Hey! You guys are the ones that changed everything! ;-)
 
Thomas

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