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> Wales, Scotland and Ireland were taught the language at the point of a sword. AFAIK this is somewhere between very incomplete and clearly wrong in the case o
by leoc 11y ago
> Wales, Scotland and Ireland were taught the language at the point of a sword.
AFAIK this is somewhere between very incomplete and clearly wrong in the case of Scotland, and to a lesser extent Ireland. It may actually be a bit more accurate to say that of England, come to think of it: it's just that the pointing of swords happened a while earlier there (to the extent that it really happened) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_settlement_of_Britain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_settlement_of_Brit... . But this just highlights that it's probably impossible to reasonably declare languages non-native on this kind of basis.
- ciupicri 11y agoFrom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language > Irish (Gaeilge), also referred to as Gaelic or Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. [...] > Irish was the predominant language of the Irish people for most of their recorded history, and they brought it with them to other regions, notably Scotland and the Isle of Man, where through earlier branching from Middle Irish it gave rise to Scottish Gaelic and Manx respectively.
- leoc 11y agoI did most of my primary and secondary education in the Republic of Ireland, and finished with a secondary leaving qualification in Irish Gaelic language and literature (as well as modern Irish and European history). My final grade in Irish was fairly respectable too, and I even had half-decent conversational Irish by then.