Scottish or Irish Gaelic: Which Should I Learn?

[photon]

I have been wanting to learn to speak Gaelic. Does anyone hear speak it? A problem I've run into is which one to learn. Scottish or Irish? Which would you reccommend?

 

[photon]

So noneone here speaks Gaelic, eh?
Oh well. Maybe I'll just go kick a rock or something.
[b(]

 

[chroot]

I recently came across some audio files for learning Irish, and thought about giving it a try... but I dunno. I guess I have nothing to add to this thread!

- Warren

 

[rick1138]

Many of my former girlfriends speak fluent Irish Gaelic.

 

[jcsd]

Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic are quite simlair (the Irish invaders the Dal-riadian 'Scots' who brought Gaelic with them having arrived in Scotland from Ulster 1500 yrs ago).

English is of course by far the most predominat language in Scotland and Ireland, but Irish Gaelic has been subject to a revivalist movemnt and is much more widespread than Scottish Gaelic which is only really spoken at the very tip of the Highlands. So I'd choose Irish Gaelic as you've got far more chance of meeting someone who can speak it either as a first or second language than you have got of meeting someone who can speak Scottish Gaelic.

 

[photon]

Yeah. And as I understand, Scottish Gaelic came from the Irish Gaelic.
So I'll go with the original.
PS. Its really cool when a whole sentence is strung together in Gaelic. It just sounds cool.

 

[Thallium]

I'm going to Ireland to study Irish Gaelic in a few years.

 

[jcsd]

As I understand it there is quite a reasonable degree of mutual intelegibilty among the Goidelic Celtic languages (Irish and Scottish Gaelic and Manx) and yes they do have a common route from the Goidelic Celtic spoken in Ireland in the first half of the first millenia (the history of the Dal-Riadians and the forming of the kingdom of Scotland is quite interesting).

I've done some checking and Irish Celtic has about 250,000 speakers and 80,000 for Scottish Gaelic and 70,000 for Manx compared to about 500,000 speakers each for the extent Brythonic Celtic languages - Welsh and Breton.

 

[jimmy p]

well i think that there is a greeting in Scottish Gaelic which goes something like this

"Dia Esmuhra Guhit"

I'm not sure if that is exactly right but say it to someone and if you get a broken jaw, you can blame me!