Lucia Losada: There's more to the British Isles than English

Do you think English is the only language the inhabitants of the British Isles speak? If you do, I’m afraid you are wrong. Just like Spanish shares our country with other languages, such as Galician, Catalan or Basque, English has a handful of “roommates” too: the Celtic languages. Needless to say, English is, by far, the most spoken language in the British Isles nowadays, so some of these Celtic languages are in serious danger of disappearance. 

For example, just 2.000 people speak Manx (the Isle of Man’s native language), which actually disappeared as a first language in the 70’s when all its native speakers died. Fortunately, it came to life again as a second language some years ago. 

Other Celtic languages are healthier: Scottish Gaelic is spoken by 60.000 people in Scotland and some more in other places (the USA, Canada, New Zealand or Australia) while 600.000 people speak Welsh as their first language. Not too bad, don’t you think?

Irish or Irish Gaelic is one of the luckiest, since it has been recognized as the first official language of the Republic of Ireland (English is the second, can you believe it?). Children must study Irish at school, although there are just 72.000 native speakers. The rest of them (about 2.5 million people) range from fluent speakers to people who can say only a few words (in fact, the bigger group). No wonder the Government tries its best to encourage the use of Irish by all means. Some of them are as original as this one:

Thanks a lot, Lucia! The topic came in just handy with the reading text "Languages alive and well" by David Crystal (page 15 of your textbook). And may I say I had a good laugh with the funny short!
The thing is I've always loved "all things Irish" since I first travelled to the Republic in 1992, and I'm really fond of the country's music and culture. That's why I thought I could extend your entry a little bit by embedding this beautiful, heart-felt old song in Gaelic performed by one of my favourite Irish artists, the great Mary Black: Mo Guile Mear (My Gallant Darling) is a tribute to Bonnie Prince Charlie (the descendant of Mary Stewart, Queen of Scots), who had sought to sit on the throne of Britain.

If you want to read the original lyrics and their translation into English, click here.