What is the difference between Irish Gaelic and Scottish Gaelic?

Question

I just want details for example: English in the US is not that different from England's, the accent is really the biggest difference. So what about Irish and Scottish Gaelic? I thought it was just Gaelic....

SO IF I LEARN EITHER KIND OF GAELIC I WOULD BE ABLE TO COMMUNICATE WITH IRISH AND SCOTTISH PEOPLE?

I just want details for example: English in the US is not that different from England's, the accent is really the biggest difference. So what about Irish and Scottish Gaelic? I thought it was just Gaelic....

I understand why you might think "why in the world does she want to learn Gaelic?" it would be just for fun... I like how it sounds... Thanks for the answers! :-p

Answer 1

There are differences in vocabulary and sometimes when vocab. is the same the spelling is different. Also pronunication is different. I speak Munster Irish and Scottish Gaelic sounds quite different to mean but the differences between Ulster Irish and Scottish Gaelic are less.


Also check here:

http://www.geocities.com/ecosse_mon_coeur/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differences_between_Scottish_Gaelic_and_Irish

http://www.colmcille.net/

Answer 2

The difference is about 1500 years,and in that time it's not surprising that languages change-eg you might have two words for the same thing and over the centuries one disappears from one language and the other word disappears from the other language;the pronunciation of a word might change so much that it effectively becomes two separate words;words might be adopted from other languages(many words,especially geographic,came from the Scandinavian languages during the Viking era).This is true of all languages-just think of the difference between Anglo-Saxon and modern English which are separated by a similar timespan.
Some words are the same in both languages, while some words are pronounced the same but spelt differently and some words are spelt the same but pronounced differently.
Scottish Gaelic is closer to Manx than it is to Irish Gaelic and,while learning one dialect would help you to understand the other,it wouldn't allow you to follow a full conversation (not even a fluent speaker can do that).
There are three Irish dialects,but I don't know how different they are from each other to give an opinion,but from what I hear,the Ulster variety is said to be the closest to Scottish Gaelic.

Answer 3

Gaelic died out as a literary language when Elizabethan England finally got serious about imposing its rule and its culture on the Ireland. Until then a generally accepted literary form had given unity to at least the written language. The language from then on only survived at an almost village level, with each district using its own local dialect. The revival of Gaelic from the late 19th century on has led to attempts to return to a standard Gaelic, but these attempts for obvious political reasons have failed to coordinate such efforts in both Ireland and Scotland. However, Scots Gaelic is now almost extinct outside the islands of the Hebrides, so the dialects that survive, being in the same small region, are fairly similar to each other. In Ireland, on the other hand, despite the encouragement of a standard Irish Gaelic by the Irish state, when IRA prisoners in the Maze Prison decided to renounce all use of English during their imprisonment, they had virtually to create a new dialect of their own, mixing their own varied forms of the language simply in order to become mutually intelligible. One obvious immediate difference, which enables the written forms to be distinguished immediately, is that in Ireland, the traditional forms of the letters, based on medieval uncial letters, are preserved, whilst Scots Gaelic is always written in the normal Latin alphabet.

Answer 4

OK I could argue the point about American English against that used by the rest of the world, but perhps this site may give you a few pointers on phrases.

http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/gaidhlig/ga-ge/coimeas.html

As to information, Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) is a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages. This branch also includes the Irish and Manx languages. It is distinct from the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages, which includes Welsh, Cornish, and Breton. Scottish, Manx and Irish Gaelic are all descended from Old Irish. The language is often described as Scottish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic, or Gàidhlig to avoid confusion with the other two Goidelic languages. Outside of Scotland, it is occasionally also called Scottish or Scots, a usage dating back over 1,500 years, for example Old English Scottas. This usage is uncommon in Scotland because since the 16th century the word Scots has by-and-large been used to describe (Lowland) Scots, which developed from the northern form of early Middle English. In Scottish English, Gaelic is pronounced [ˈgaːlɪk]; outside of Scotland, it is usually [ˈgeɪlɪk].

Answer 5

There are differences in grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, but they're not that big. The three major dialects of Irish also differ in these ways, and there are less differences between Gaidhlig and the Ulster dialect, although it must be remembered that the present Ulster dialect is based on West Ulster, whereas Gaidhlig descended from East Ulster.

In my case, having had a background in Munster Irish I live in Ulster and now I speak mostly Ulster dialect. I have visited the Isle of Skye in Scotland and found that the adaptation to Scots Gaidhlig was mostly acclimatising my ear to different pronunciation. Written Gaidhlig is intellible to most native Irish speakers because the Gaidhlic spelling differs only in that it sometimes uses older forms which were removed from standardised Irish about 50 years ago. All the languages are very fluid and there is huge variation in the way it is spoken even within any dialect. Even the name for the language itself differs with dialects in Ireland - Gaoluinn in Munster, Gaeilge in Connacht; Ulster the same as Connacht but pronounced Gaeilig.

The differences were very little up to the 17th scentury, because travelling poets and bards went back and forth between Ireland and Scotland with no difficulty in expressing themselves in a common Gaelic culture, and songs from each tradition appear frequently in the other, with slight modifications.

There is even a programme on Irish language radio preseneted by an Irish speaker and a gaidhlic speaker, and both are intelligible to me.

So I'd describe the differences as follows.

They're more different than American and British English.
They're less differenet than Dutch and German.
And they're about as different as American and a strong local Irish accent.

Hope that helps.

Answer 6

Some similarities but there are minor discrepencies between the two, sorry but I don't know enough on the subject to go in to more detail (I have no experience of Irish Gaelic!)

Answer 7

They would be more different than the English spoken in the US vs. the UK, but still pretty much mutually intelligible, like Danish and Swedish.

That said, I'd be surprised if you needed to learn any Irish or Gaelic to communicate with anyone in Ireland or Scotland.

Answer 8

I live in the UK and have been to Ireland and Scotland and have never ever heard Gaelic spoken in either country. I doubt it will be useful to you as I assume almost all speakers will have it as their mother tongue and your accent won't be very good. As for Welsh, we hear it more often, but again the accent is quite hard.

Answer 9

the spelling