Irish and Gaelic Irish? Plus other quesitons!

[O'Callaghan]

Probably the reason that lowland Scots referred to highlanders as Erse, which does mean Irish, is that The Gaels migrated there from Ireland, so they were originally Irish in a very real sense. Of course, they did mix together with other groups, but the Gaelic language and culture seems to have dominated. According to myth and legend, they came to Ireland from Spain before that, and although there's no real proof of that, it is not inconsistent with current scientific opinion. ETA: The presence of Irish Gaels in the Scottish Highlands we know from Roman historians.

The Celts in the British Isles are either Gaelic or Brythonic, and the two groups of languages are quite different. Brythonic languages would include Welsh, Cornish (in SW England) and Breton (in Northern France).

Highland Scots speak Scots Gaelic (and English, of course!) whereas in the lowlands a language called either Scots or Doric was spoken, which is related to English, as of course the culture there is not Celtic atall. Some today tend to speak something which is neither quite English nor quite Scots, and if you aren't aware of this you may mistake those Scots words that do differ from the English as being Gaelic words, but they aren't.

Everyone in Ireland (the Republic) has to learn Irish in school (the term being synonymous with Irish Gaelic). This is not the case in Northern Ireland (the British part), but there they have three official languages, two of which are dialects of Gaelic, including Ulster Scots, which is actually not a dialect of Scots, but a sort of Irish version of Scots Gaelic, although the latter is apparently hardly spoken by anyone (?). So with Scots Gaelic per se and Manx Gaelic I make that four official versions of Gaelic that exist in one country or another.

I have heard that Irish and Scots versions of Gaelic are somewhat mutually intelligible. It's hard for me to judge, knowing only a tiny smattering of Irish but no Scots Gaelic worth mentioning. I do know that word endings differ, though. Even the word for Gaelic is not the same! Irish is Gaelige and Scots Gaelic is Gaidhlig, so there is no necessity to specify any further as to which you are referring to when actually speaking the language (although I could not remember the word for Scots Gaelic and had to look it up).