What does scottish gaelic sound like

The distinction between a language and a dialect is typically drawn at the point when speakers can no longer understand each other. The general consensus however is that Irish Gaelic and Scottish Gaelic have enough differences to be considered a different language. Visually both languages look similar in the same way that visually Spanish and Portuguese share similarities.

When spoken they sound very different and there are certainly enough differences to consider them different languages. They are both Gaelic languages in the sense that they share their roots from the language of the Gaels. The common term used when talking about Irish Gaelic in Ireland is simply Irish. Rarely, if ever, will you hear someone in Ireland referring to the language as Irish Gaelic. This is a major difference with the two languages.

While both languages do have a lot of words in common they sound very different. Some native Irish speakers, especially those from the more northern parts of the country like Donegal, can understand a greater volume of Scottish Gaelic. As this area of Ireland is geographically closer to Scotland it meant historically there was a great dialogue between the two regions which leads to the great understanding.

But for the most part Irish speakers cannot understand Scottish Gaelic. In the German speaking world there is one standard written form for all the dialects in all the countries where German is spoken. Are you familiar with the idea of a dialect continuum? I learned Irish in school. On Skye many years ago had little difficulty talking to people once they agreed to slow down — bit like talking English in Glasgow. The three dialects of Irish have become almost mutually intelligible since the standardization of the s and s, when Gaeilge Caighdeanach was introduced in schools and through radio and TV — differences in spellings, orthography.

Donegal Ulster Irish is the most distinctive still, especially in pronunciation, and closer to Scots Gealic to my inexpert ears. What do you think? I wonder which came first!? I tried the Irish course placement test once a few weeks ago and and was amazed at how different the two were, but I could get the gist the Irish still. Beautiful languages. I spent a year and a half doing Irish on Duolingo and recently added in the Scots Gaelic a few weeks ago. Understanding the structure of Irish really helped when I started the Gaelic and many words so far are the same or similar…..

Some phrases are way different…. I have a friend from Ireland who just did Irish years ago in schoolNd within a few weeks I k ew more Irish than she did! The Scots Gaelic program, on the other hand, vocalizes everything which is super helpful! Anni, a chara Having one Celtic language can definitely help when learning another but many things can be very different also. My own Father was from Donegal and he could understand the Scots Gaelic if both parties spoke slowly, keeping in mind that Ireland is only 12 miles from Scotland and a lot of the Big Clans had Scots and Irish blood.

How long ago was it that you saw that advert? I asked an old man on the Isle of Skye if he could converse in Gaelic with an Irish speaker. I had no interest in school as it was compulsory. Sorry now I now live in Canada and I am taking a self learning course on the internet. My mum learned Gaelic in school in Donegal.

Her teachers referred to it as that, as did her entire community. Probably because the Normans had less of an influence on the language in the North. This was a proto-Celtic sort of language, and I admit that I could never envisage that as being correct — until I saw Proto-Celtic, that is. The Celts came from a region roughly between the Teutonic peoples to the north, and the Latin speaking peoples to the south.

And that is borne out when youb see Proto-Celtic. Sometimes a given word seems to be similar to a Germanic word, at other times a word is similar to Latin. Thank you for taking the time to share your opinion and also for the really interesting history lesson. He also stated that there were two racial types in what is now England. A smaller, dark-haired type, and a tall light-haired type.

The Romans described the Celts as a tall, light-haired, large-limbed people. The former were undoubtedly the people who had migrated up to these islands from Spain. The latter must have been the Celts, as the English and Vikings had not yet arrived. It would be half a millennium before the Saxon onslaught commenced. I am of Scottish highland origin on all sides of my family, and grew up hearing the Scottish Gailic spoken in our family.

In I spent many months in Ireland and discovered that these beautiful Irish people were my family. While the two languages have evolved we are still one people. There was for sure a lot of over-and-back in boats you can see the edge of Scotland from Northern Ireland. Those same people are my ancestors. Trying to find out more about the Isle of Arron connections. Would love to connect with you. My parents and extended family are all native Irish speakers from the South Connemara Gaeltacht.

In my experience, all of the many Connemara native speakers,from their era born 20s, 30s,40s referred to their native language, when speaking English, as Gaelic.

One of my late uncles spent time in the Highlands during WWII and reported that he readily undertstood and communicated with Gaelic speakers in Scotland and the Hebrides. The whole discussion about vowels only applies in stressed i.

Gaelic uses the grave accent on vowels, so suddenly we have ten to cope with. The use of the accent is consistent though and just signifies a longer version of the vowel. A like in cat , or more accurately, like the first part of the vowel in cow. Well, I wanted to start you off with the easy ones. H as in English, but only when it's found in isolation which isn't often. When it comes after a consonant, it modifies the sound of the preceding consonant instead of having a sound of its own.

See below. P , T and C ; as in English, except that in the middle or end of words you should add a very slight 'kh' sound before them, almost no more than a little extra breath. That 'kh' is the back of the throat sound as in loch or German Bach. Practise it. B , D and G ; as in English only at the beginnings of words. Elsewhere they sound like English P, T and C respectively. R and RR ; rolled, and never left out. If you can't roll your R's and I can't you can approximate a single tap of the roll which is all most Gaels ever say anyway by bending your tongue back until the underside of the tongue is touching the roof of your mouth, and then flicking the tongue forward while trying to say an English R.

The tongue should catch behind the teeth, producing a sharp tapping sound rather unlike the English R. CH ; as in loch or German Bach. If you can't make this sound, you might as well give up now, because there's no surer sign that you're a Sassenach than being unable to pronounce loch as anything other than 'lock'.

You can tell if your vocal cords are vibrating or not by placing your hand against your throat and seeing if you can feel a buzzing sensation. It's a bit like gargling, or sitting on a G for several seconds. For example, thuilm 'hoolim'. Therefore aird 'aarsht'. As discussed above, in most cases, 'slenderising' a consonant just involves sticking a Y after it.

The difficulty for English speakers is ending a word with this kind of slenderised sound. Writing out the pronunciations for these things isn't easy either! Slender CH is pronounced like the German ich ; that is to say, rather like an H and a Y run together and said with more force. Slender GH and DH are a voiced version of the above, i.

It can sound rather like a severely overdone Y. L only slenderises at the beginning of a word. N only slenderises initially or after a back vowel. R slenderises everywhere except at the beginning of a word.

Honestly, who makes these things up? Finally, ever hear the English word tune pronounced 'tchoon' rather than 'tyoon'? This is a common trend, and the same is happening in Gaelic. Thus it's fine to pronounce teallach 'tchal-uhkh' rather than 'tyal-uhkh', and of course it means the word nid comes out as 'nyitch' because the D is pronounced as a T because it's not at the start, but it's also slender, so it becomes TY which then becomes TCH The trick with this stuff is knowing which vowels are actually supposed to be sounded, and which have been inserted to mark the surrounding consonants as broad or slender.

Also, Gaelic vowels have a habit of changing before certain consonants, much as the A's in the English words ''half'', ''hand'', ''hall'', ''halt'' and ''hallow'' are all pronounced differently. Just be grateful you aren't having to learn as many rules as a learner of English!