Ken writes: I know a couple of Irish people who are native speakers of the indigenous language of this island. And they are adamant that it must be called ‘Irish’ not ‘Gaelic’. They convey this with a surprising depth of feeling, but a philosopher is naturally perverse: I can’t help wondering why I shouldn’t call it ‘Gaelic’ anyway. OK, they are native speakers of the language in question, but against that, they’re talking about how to refer to the language in English, and I’m a native speaker of English. I can confirm that ‘Gaelic’ is a name (in English) for that language (it’s also very similar to the Gaelic for Gaelic (‘as gaeilge‘ is ‘in Gaelic’ in Gaelic)). Is it perhaps derogatory? like the N-word? Well, no it’s not derogatory not in the least. And it would be very unfair to people who use the word to take them to be speaking of the Irish language in a derogatory way. It’s wrong to take offence where none is intended. Should it be avoided because it risks confusing Scottish Gaelic, and Manx Gaelic with Irish Gaelic? Yes maybe, except that by and large the context will make it obvious whether one intends Irish Gaelic or one of the other varieties. For example, if one asked about the standard of Gaelic teaching in Irish schools, it should be perfectly obvious from the context that one intends Irish Gaelic and not one of the other varieties.
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Ken and Dot's Allsorts · It's about all sorts
History breeds far more depth of feeling than context can relieve.
I don’t understand this comment at all. The history of conflict between Britain and Ireland might well generate profound depth of feeling, but how does that bear of the choice between saying ‘Irish’ and saying ‘Gaelic’? Couldn’t history also have led to a preference for saying ‘Gaelic’ over saying ‘Irish’?
Ken,
I think the usages ‘Gaeilge’ in Irish and ‘Irish’ in English are consistent with the Constitution’s usage regarding the name of the state, ‘Eire’ in Irish and ‘Ireland’ in English.
I would like to see consistency in the placenames: Baile Breac/Speckled Town, but not Ballybrack!
How do you feel about referring to Dublin as Blackpool?
But it would be ‘Town of the Ford of the Hurdles.’ We would quickly learn Baile Atha Cliath!
well, to ME, being the child of a us flamin Fenian who never set foot in Ireland would give me “the look” if I said “Gaelic” vs “Irish.” He also raised me that “Irish aren’t white,” which I find fascinating. When my peers blasted me during JFK”s election, he said–kinda like the late, great mystic Howard Thurman–, “Look, baby, you live in MS; it’s 1960; you have been raised right to honour ALL people, even if I have trouble with the English in Ireland and the Six Counties and trouble with the first group of your church, the Episcopal Church’s connection to the Anglican Church. “(He LOATHED Robin Eames and that whole ridiculous Windsor Repotr about GLBT peoplS (“Have none of those people read the SOUND biblical scholarship of the last 50 years and especially the last ten? Good grief.” I think he may have disliked Eames more than I. “Look at the racial atrocities of the US, the US South, and MS and tell me if you know of any white people who were and ARE treated the way of the Irish…of COURSE we’re not white, we’re Irish.” So HE, my da, God rest his soul, would vote for “Irish.” He would laughing say “there IS no other Gaelic” when I said I was only trying to distinguish WHOSE Gaelic. Call it Scottish or Cornish or whatever, but I was taught the word is ‘Irish’.”
I say “Irish”.
At school the class was called “Irish Class”.
The Gealtacht was marketed as a place to improve your Irish.
I have to say hearing it called Gaelic does cause vein twitching. I don’t know why, and it is the only thing I feel strongly about as regards any kind of national feeling.
There are 3 Gaelic languages that I know of still in use, Irish, Scots Gaelic and Manx. Refering to Irish as gaelic would be comparable to refering to English as being West Germanic as it is a West Germanic language. I am always perplexed and annoyed when visitors to Ireland continue to believe that they know better than the Irish speakers in Ireland what Irish is called. No one expects you to know everything,but I have met several visitors who have persisted in refering to Irish as Gaelic even when it has been explained patiently to them that this is offensive.
From some of the comments posted it seems that this is an issue of nationalism and not really related directly to language. My grandparents from the Hebrides spoke Gaidhlig, or said in English, Gaelic.
I think in Ireland the language was part of the nationalist movement, and so the language was necessarily linked to the country. This is not the case in Scotland. Gaels were regularly called “Erse” and were even seen by some as foreigners, despite a continuing presence in the country for more than 1500 years.
Still, it looks as though Irish and Gaelic will not be around past this century, so by that time you can call what you wish. Oh well.
@ Ciara,
(Sorry, I didn’t see your comment until now)
It is foolish to get offended by people who don’t mean any offence. Most native speakers of English from the US or New Zealand or the wider English speaking world think of the indigenous language of Ireland as Gaelic. They don’t mean offence by this, as they haven’t been told otherwise, and anyway, they are not wrong. Gaelic (making allowances for spelling) is how it is called in Gaelic. They are native speakers of English and they are speaking English and using the English word for the language of Ireland. The very worst you can accuse these people of is using a less than perfectly precise term for the language. In my post I anticipated this and said that it is perfectly natural to rely on the context to clear it up. In a petrol station, ‘fuel’ means either petrol or diesel. For a fire, fuel means either coal or wood. Likewise in Scotland ‘Gaelic’ means Scots Gaelic and in Ireland it means Irish Gaelic.
I do take your point about referring to English as ‘West Germanic’ in that it would be true but not precise. But it doesn’t strike me as quite analogous because no one would understand you if you did refer to English as West Germanic. Can you imagine a newspaper columnist fulminating about the teaching of West Germanic in schools? People just wouldn’t get it. The word ‘Gaelic’ is actually used for Irish and you do get what language is meant.
I think, if anything, the word ‘English’ is inaccurate because it’s too precise (see my post here).
@ Coinneach and @ Una
Thanks for your comments.
As I’m Canadian, it’s hardly my place to contribute, however I believe that a more suitable comparison would be that which concerns French Canadians; French Canadians are known, commonly, to speak Quebec, or Frenglish, as if you were to compare traditional French with that spoken in Quebec, you’d see a humorous display of difference. As you would expect though, most detest this label, and take it offensively when they are refered to as such. The scope may be reversed, but the point is still there: if they don’t like it, then it IS offensive, unless of course you believe that the term Nigger is any less offensive considering it simply translates into ‘Black’.
Ignorance doesn’t make things any better either.
So French speakers of Quebec are offended when people refer to the language they speak as ‘Frenglish’ or ‘Quebec’ rather than ‘French’ or ‘Francais’ or ‘Quebecois’?
Are these terms intended to be offensive? I mean, do the people who use them intend to offend people from Quebec? It’s hard to tell from your limited description, but it sounds as though they are (especially ‘Frenglish’ (‘Franglais’?), as though what they speak wasn’t a proper form of French because it has been corrupted by English. I’ll believe you if you say English speaking Canadians use this, but I imagine it’s more likely that old world French speakers might use it. Anyway, if it is meant to be disparaging and dismissive, then of course it’s quite natural and proper that people in Quebec would be offended.
However, I stand by the points I made about sensitivities regarding ‘Gaelic’. No one who uses that word does it in anything other than a purely descriptive way. As such, it is absurd to take offence. It is simply unreasonable to expect the entire English speaking world to conform to one’s nationalist sensitivies
Ken,
Keep calling it ‘Irish Gaelic’ because that’s what it is. The problem is that Irish Nationalists have entirely politicised the language by calling it ‘Irish’ to try and associate it with the modern ‘Irish Nation’. This is despite the fact that historically a similar form Gaelic would have been spoken by all across the island, and in other parts of the British Isles. It has become so politicised that a large proportion of Unionists in Ireland (whom many would also have spoken some form of Gaelic back in history) completely disown the language altogether.
Note also that there would have also been many more dialects than the present ‘standard’ form of ‘Irish Gaelic’ (the ‘standard’ form of ‘Irish Gaelic’ actually being the form of Gaelic originally spoken in southern Connacht, and standardised as recently as in the 1950s after the formation of the Irish Republic).
You might find it hard to believe the pettiness that some of these Irish Nationalists will go to prove that they are part of an ‘Irish Nation’, but it’s all down to a bit of an inferiority complex. You see, they try to define themselves as uniquely ‘Irish’ – and will often strongly identify themselves ‘not British’. They couldn’t possibly admit that they have much in common with people from other parts of the British Isles, and therefore exclude themselves from admitting or showing any association with anything that is common throughout the Isles.
From first hand experience from the other side of the divide,
Paul
Thanks for your comment Paul.
I have a friend who is Irish and she is fluent in english and the other language, however she refers to it as gaelic, not irish. Is there a difference in the languages or is gaelic(from Ireland) just not a language at all, but rather a people or something?
@ Lauren
Gaelic is definitely a separate language.
This is an interesting debate. I am Belgian, and I’m a student of Modern Irish. When other people refer to the language as Gaelic, it annoys me, because all the Irish people I know refer to it as Irish when they’re speaking English. It doesn’t really matter what caused this (be it nationalism or whatever). If native speakers refer to it as such when they’re speaking English, why would we call it otherwise? This doesn’t mean ‘Irish Gaelic’ or ‘Gaelic’ is wrong, but it is only used by non-Irish people. I don’t think they get offended by it, but it just isn’t the usual Irish way to refer to it. The only problem I run into when I’m explaining to other ‘non-Irish) people what I am learning, they completely ignore the existance of the language, and they think that I’m referring to Hiberno-English.
Thanks for the comment Renaud.
It seems strange that someone living in Ireland(and presumably being told often that ‘Irish’ is preferred to ‘Gaelic’) persists in saying ‘Gaelic’. If I knew someone named George who preferred ‘Gus’, what would it say about me if I continued to call him George after he told me repeatedly that he did not like the name and preferred Gus? I would be correct, in fact more precise, to continue calling him George, but why would I? If he couldn’t convince me that his reason for preferring Gus was good enough and he disliked George immensely, who would be the unreasonable one? Why would someone who says he is a philosopher repeatedly and intentionally use a term that he perceives as offensive to people. You write “It is foolish to get offended by people who don’t mean any offence.” It is also foolish or purposeful to continue using a term you don’t see as offensive if you are aware that the person to whom you are speaking does find it so.
Thank you for the excellent comment!
I DO see merit to what you say. We all have to get along, after all. And choosing to speak in a way that one knows is likely to cause offense is impolitic and imprudent.
On the other hand, sometimes you need to take a stand on something you believe in, even if it makes you unpopular. That’s exactly what philosophers are supposed to do. Socrates was put to death by the citizens of Athens for telling too many of them what they didn’t want to hear.
Rest assured that while I do claim to be a philosopher (insofar as I have a PhD in philosophy and peer-reviewed academic publications), I don’t, of course, live up Socrates’ high ideals in real life. I do try not to needlessly insult the good citizens of Dublin on a daily basis.
As a native speaker of English, I honestly don’t think I could tell the difference between Irish Gaelic, Manx Gaelic, and Scottish Gaelic. I don’t think I could tell the difference between Quebec French and what the French speak either. I know there are different types of Chinese too, but the subtleties escape me. I would just call the languages ‘Gaelic’, ‘French’, and ‘Chinese’. Better when guessing to guess the broader category.
I speak English. I am sure many non-native English speakers can’t tell exactly where my accent is from, after all many nations speak English, and there are many dialects as well. But I don’t take offense. I would expect the same from them.
I only know one person who speaks Gaelic. He is from Ireland. He refers to it as “Gaelic”. If that’s good enough for him, why that’s what I’ll refer to it as too.
That sounds very reasonable Mike. Completely in the spirit of my own position. Thanks for your comment.
Ken
I don’t think your comparison is entirely correct. People speaking Quebec French, Belgian French, Swiss French or ‘French’ French can perfectly converse with each other because it still is the same language. Only some words, expressions or pronunciation may differ at times. It is about the same as how American English compares with British or Hiberno-English. Irish, Manx and Scottish Gaelic on the other hand grew apart to become different languages for the most part. I would compare their relationship to the one between Dutch and German for example. Once the same language, but not comfortably interchangeable today. You can call all three of them Gaelic, but that naturally creates the problem of not knowing immediately which one it actually is. Not that big a deal, I agree. I just wanted to point out the difference between an accent and a language. Happy New Year!
Yes, that’s a fair point. The varieties of of Gaelic are not mutually intelligible. But that doesn’t bring down my point. My point is that as a matter of fact the term ‘Gaelic’ applies to all those varieties and given the appropriate context, like when we’re talking about Ireland and all things Irish, it applies to Irish Gaelic in particular. Now, you could say that given the lack of mutual intelligibility, ‘Gaelic’ shouldn’t be used in English to refer to what are essentially different languages, but that’s a prescriptive claim. It’s a claim about what should be the case, not what is the case. English isn’t rational like that; in fact no language is.
Well, I can definitely see the point that from the perspective of a speaker of one of the Gaelic languages that the other Gaelic languages may be so unintelligible as to be considered completely different languages. So if it were one Gaelic-speaker calling it “Gaelic” or “Irish” to another Gaelic-speaker, that would be one thing, a “family squabble” so to speak. But from the point of view of most English-speakers, they are all equally unintelligble, but they would sound more similar to each other than say French would to Chinese.
You can make the point that someone speaking French from Quebec could understand a Frenchman from Paris… but the English-speaker hearing both would not know if they could understand each other. If I heard someone speaking Manx Gaelic and someone speaking Irish Gaelic I wouldn’t know if they could understand each other. That’s their affair. To expect English-speakers to discern between foreign languages from the same family and also know what is politically-correct in their lands is asking too much.
It’s odd that Dutch and German should be brought up as an example because over the holidays I was in the subway and a girl sold me her unexpired Metro card (cheaply) as she was flying home for the holidays and she didn’t need it any more. Listening to her accent I said “are you Dutch?” and she said “No, German”. We wished each other a happy holiday and went our separate ways. It was a totally friendly exchange. She understood that I had guessed to the best of my ability, and guessed wrong.
As the only person I know who speaks Gaelic is from Ireland and calls it “Gaelic”, I can only assume that the term “Irish” can’t be universal even in Ireland. This being the case, I don’t feel that a person outside of Ireland should be held to a using a ‘standard’ name for the language that isn’t even a universal standard where it is spoken, and where their own neighbor may be using a different name.
Mike
I am Irish, a fluent speaker of Irish, a native speaker of English. The name for the Irish language is Irish. It is offensive to call it Gaelic as a non-Irish person, because of how the term Gaelic has been used historically by non-Irish people. It is not something that is easy to understand if you do not come from a minority background.
The fact that you are a native speaker of English does not qualify you to decide on the official name of something. There really is no arguing that the more commonly used term is Irish, or even Irish Gaelic. As has been pointed out already, the term Gaelic refers to the language group.
The term Gaelic is seen as derogatory by the majority of Irish speakers. The assertion that “it’s wrong to take offence where none is intended” is simply ridiculous. Try calling a black person the n-word, or a gay person a faggot, and see if they are any less offended when you tell them you didn’t mean it.
Perhaps more important than the debate of the term itself is the fact that you insist on using a term that people do find offensive, for no apparent reason. It is much more offensive to hear the term used by someone aware of it’s history, than, for example, a tourist who does not know the difference. It says a lot more about you as a person, or “philosopher,” than it does the Irish speakers.
Thanks for the comment. Sorry not to approve it before now but I only just saw that you’d made it.
Let me see if I understand you rightly regarding racial epithets and the like. You are saying that even when people who use them don’t intend to be offensive they can be offensive anyway. I wonder if those particular words can ever be used in this way, but I suppose I can imagine maybe the older generation in the US South or someone who grew up in Apartheid era South Africa casually using that kind of language. Yes, I think I can see that. I can imagine being acutely embarrassed by my grandmother say if she casually used that kind of language (for the record, both my grandmothers are dead and neither spoke that way to my knowledge, though one of them did live in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe and could conceivably have unthinkingly casually used racial epithets in this way).
But I really don’t think “Gaelic” falls in the same category as those other words at all. The latest census puts the Irish population at about 4.5 Million, add the population of Northern Ireland and you might get about 6 million English speakers on the island of Ireland who might know the official position on the naming of the Irish language. Compare that to the millions upon millions of speakers of English who don’t. There’s no way they associate anything negative with the word ‘Gaelic’. Why would they? Why should they be expected to study your history enough to understand why you feel so strongly about it?
You say it’s offensive to use the term ‘Gaelic’ because of how the term has historically been used by non-Irish people. I would like to hear specific examples because I don’t know what your thinking about, but surely, if how the term was used historically was sufficient to cause offense, the same would be true of the word ‘Irish’ itself. Remember the signs that said ‘No Blacks or Irish need apply’ etc. They didn’t say ‘No Blacks or Gaels need apply’ did they? Shouldn’t you find the word ‘Irish’ offensive too? I don’t believe the historical mistreatment of the people of Ireland explains or justifies feeling offended by that word.
In your last paragraph, you want to turn the debate to an examination of me and my personality. I assure you I’m not worth it. I’m not special except for a pigheadedness that won’t let me withdraw from an discussion (which is something shared by almost all ‘philosophers’ (=people who go to university and study philosophy. Go to Trinity or UCD and you’ll see they’re exactly the same). While we’re ‘playing the man and not the ball’, I think you’re upset, indeed offended, with me because someone has the temerity to have an opinion about something you think of as your word, both ‘Irish’ and ‘Gaelic’. You think you have special ownership of them in virtue of being Irish. But you don’t. It’s an international language shared by millions of people the world over. It is common to everyone and no one has any special dominion over it. Not even the Queen of England can tell people how to speak English. No one has that power. I don’t say ‘Gaelic’ should be the ‘official’ word for Gaelic (used on all government documents and the like). I do say that being a competent speaker of English is sufficient for me to say that, like it or not, ‘Gaelic’ is A word for the native language of Ireland. You simply cannot deny it, even if you don’t like it.
Ken,
Perhaps you’ve figured out why by now. I will answer the truth, anywhere. although some may deny it. The passion comes for this reason: by declaring “gaelic” to be “Irish” a person is recognizing the political desire for a unified Ireland under a single government. It’s as simple as that. “Gaelic” is accurate but tribal in connotation. “Ireland” recognizes a higher calling to national unity, and a recognition of native Celtic tradition and heritage. It’s a weak way to assert a national identity, as most Irish see the Irish language requirements in school and it’s status in commerce and business as very useless. Why keep a bronze age language alive when the age is over? Gaelic was very useful for three millennia of bronze and cattle trading, but those days are over. If cult-lovers want to keep Irish/Gaelic of a peasant language and “holy language,” why not?
-Augustus
It’s an interesting suggestion, but I’m not sure it’s the whole story. It may be bound up with nationalism for some speakers, but most Irish people I’ve talked to about it, pretty much all people who live in Dublin, don’t really think about grand political ideas like a unified Ireland. They wouldn’t be averse to it, but they don’t think the Republic needs another six counties to be a complete country. I don’t think they want the baggage that goes along with that. But these people nevertheless often have an aversion to foreigners like me saying ‘Gaelic’. They act like its an aesthetic preference. On the other hand, maybe they’re in denial about the political roots of the choice of terminology.
I love the handle by the way!
Saying Irish instead is about politics, the desire for a unified Ireland under a single, native, national government.