The most unusual language is Irish. Features of the Irish and its history

Ireland is a very small state, which, however, gave the world the St. Patrick's Day, the Halloween holiday, a huge number of words that most consider to be English. The Irish language belongs to the family of Celtic languages of Indo-European origin. Other languages from the same group are Gaelic Scottish, Breton.

Who speaks Irish?

According to statistics, about 1.6 million people speak Irish. They are residents of the Irish Republic, as well as Northern Ireland. In the US, there are also residents who use this language in everyday speech. Irish is one of the officially recognized languages of the European Union. In total, about 42% of the inhabitants of Ireland communicate with him. The vast majority of Irish, about 94%, also use English fluently.

Irish language: words of interest, and other features

One of the most interesting features of thinking speaking in Irish is the use of an unusual twenty-digit number system. This means that for them the number 60 means three times 20. Another characteristic feature is that in the Irish there is no pronoun "you", just as in English there is no pronoun "you". If a tourist visits Ireland for the first time, he should not be surprised if the Irishman, after his first acquaintance, starts addressing him to "you."

Properties of thinking of the Irish

What is even more unusual, in this language there are no "yes" and "no" concepts. For example, the question: "Were you at home today?" - the Irishman will not answer affirmatively or negatively. He will say: "I was at home today." Negation is transmitted by means of special forms of the verb. The order of words in the sentence is another feature that distinguishes this language. Irish is interesting in that it uses the reverse order of words. In other words, the phrase "I went home" will sound like "I went home."

Most people consider the concept of time linearly, that is say: "The house was built three hundred years ago". The Irish see the axis of time a little differently. For them, it flows from bottom to top. The same phrase they will say as follows: "The house was built three hundred years down."

History of the language

The initial stage of the Irish origin dates back to the period from the 7th through the 10th centuries. At this time the ancient Irish language is born. On it are composed the epic works of the people of the emerald island. The Old Irish language is one of the oldest in all of Europe - it is second only to the Ancient Greek and Latin.

Then follows the period of the Middle Irish language - from the Xth to the XIII centuries. Then the Old Irish language, being literary, is used in everyday speech. From XIII to XVII centuries. The classical form of the Irish is formed. Two centuries of power in Ireland carried out a policy to destroy the Irish language. It was banned not only in official use, but also in everyday communication. In 1798, a popular uprising was suppressed, after which the indigenous people emigrated to other countries.

Attempts to exterminate the language

The paradox was that at the beginning of the XIX century there was a huge number of Irishmen using their native language. Irish was the language of communication of peasants, workers - only about 5 million people. Although language, like local Catholicism, was banned, almost all the common people used it in everyday communication.

1831 became fatal for the Irish: this year, Britain ordered that throughout the territory of Ireland was established a unified school system. If earlier the Irish language was passed through illegal schools, now every child had to attend an English school.

But an even greater catastrophe was the economic crisis that collapsed in 1845, the consequence of which was a terrible famine. About 1.5 million people died from it.

Irish language for beginners: why and how to teach?

Many, inspired by the reading of the Irish epic, want to learn at least the basis of the Irish. A lot of myths and prejudices exist about this mysterious and unusual language. Some people think that this is a dying language. Irish, however, is not included in this group: it is a small language, but not dying.

Then those who want to learn Irish have another question: "What can be practical benefit from it, besides personal interest?" The fact is that this language is a whole treasury of unusual grammatical and lexical phenomena. Therefore, anyone who is interested in linguistics and would like to expand his horizons, can try to learn the Irish language. Self-teacher in Russian, like dictionaries, is a rare publication. However, you can find Anglo-Irish and Irish-English dictionaries, as well as tutorials in English.

A few more reasons to learn Irish

Irish grammar is a real challenge for lovers of linguistics. For example, the word "woman" will be used in various forms. The use of this or that variant depends on the context and the pronoun next to it - mine, yours or his woman is meant. When learning a foreign language, difficulties usually arise with a change in the end of a word. But the Irish is changing not only the ending of the word, but also its beginning.

Motivation for studying the Irish can also serve as its belonging to the western branch of the Indo-European language family. The Russian language belongs to the group of Slavic languages, English - to the Germanic group. Slavic and Germanic languages belong to the northern branch. Therefore, one can judge that even Russian is closer to English than Irish.

Also, the knowledge of the Irish language gives an opportunity to get acquainted with the rich Irish folk art. Most of the Irish folklore was never translated into Russian. For many, contemporary Irish prose will also be of interest.