Comparison of Irish and Scottish Gaelic
Although Irish and Scottish Gaelic are closely related as Goidelic Celtic languages, they are different in many ways. While most dialects are not immediately mutually comprehensible, speakers of the two languages can rapidly develop mutual intelligibility.
Phonetic and grammatical differences
The spoken dialects Irish and Scottish Gaelic are most similar to one another in Ulster and southwestern Scotland, regions of close geographical proximity to one another. It is thought that the currently extinct dialect of Galwegian Gaelic, spoken in Galloway in the far south of Scotland, was very similar to Ulster Irish and Manx.While the dialects of northern Scotland and southern Ireland tend to differ the most from one another in terms of vocabulary, they do share some features which are absent in other dialect areas lying between them. For example, in both Munster Irish and the Gaelic of the north of Scotland, historically short vowels have been diphthongised or lengthened before long sonants. An example of this is the word clann meaning "children of the family". In Munster Irish and northern Scottish Gaelic it is pronounced whereas in Ulster and County Mayo it is and in Connemara ; the Manx form cloan is in the north and in the south. Similarly, im meaning "butter" is pronounced in Munster, Southern Connacht and northern Scotland, but in Ulster and Southern Scottish.
In addition, slender coronal stops, are affricated in Mayo and Donegal, the southern Highlands and in Manx, but not in Munster or the northern Highlands.
In the verb tá of Standard Irish, northern Scotland and Central-Southern Munster agree in leniting the initial t, thus one hears thá in County Waterford and County Tipperary, and tha in northern Scotland. West Munster also lenites the t, but only after the preverb a "that".
The closest to Scottish Gaelic in modern Irish is the dialect currently spoken in County Donegal, as illustrated by the sentence "How are you?".
Sibh is used in both Irish and Scottish Gaelic for the plural "you", while Scottish Gaelic also uses sibh as a formal version of "you". Modern Irish does not use this formal/informal distinction when addressing people. The use of sibh as 'polite' you is a retention from the Classical Irish usage of the plural personal pronouns to refer to the singular in polite communication, thus sinn "we" for mé "I, me" and sibh "you " for tú "you/thou". Thu is used in Scottish Gaelic when speaking to an individual friend, family member, or a younger person.
The negative particle in Scottish Gaelic, Manx and Northern Ulster Irish is cha/chan. In standard Irish the negative particle is ní ; ní is a retention of the normal Old Irish negative; these are illustrated by the sentence "I have no money":
Scottish Gaelic speakers may also sound as if they were using the Irish phrase, as Chan eil can frequently be shortened to 'n eil.
The Classical Irish digraph éu is still used in Scottish Gaelic spelling but is now obsolete in Irish, except in southern dialect writing, as a means to distinguish the vowel é when followed by a broad consonant from the regular dialect development é to i in the same environment, thus éan "bird" in comparison to d'éug "died; passed on"). Éa is now used instead of eu in Standard Irish. Both éa and éu existed in Classical Irish, to a large extent showing nominal case differences, however in both Scotland and Ireland, spelling reforms and standardisation independently went for different versions.
At times Scottish writers used the spelling ia to represent how the combination is pronounced in northern dialects, writing ian instead of eun, the southern form. Manx spelling, based mainly on English, shows that ia is also the underlying form in Manx, the word being spelled eean.
Eclipsis
The most obvious phonological difference between Irish and Scottish Gaelic is that the phenomenon of eclipsis in Irish is diachronic but fully synchronic in Scottish Gaelic. Eclipsis is shown in the Irish orthography but not in Scottish Gaelic as it is conditioned by the actual environment.For example, this means that phrases like Standard Irish ag an doras, standard Scottish Gaelic aig an doras†, Manx ec y dorrys is pronounced as follows in different parts of the Gaelic speaking world:
- Southern Irish :
- Western and Northern Irish:
- Scottish Gaelic :, more commonly further south, with fully voiced "d".
- Irish: bliana "year" > ocht mbliana "8 years"
- Scottish Gaelic: bliadhna > ochd bliadhna
†In conservative speech, Scottish Gaelic feminine nouns also slenderise in the dative case, giving aig an uinneig, and so a different final consonant. This feature is uncommon today except in more formal registers and is ignored here.
Orthographic differences
There are a number of distinctive orthographical differences. The spellings of both languages have been reformed in recent decades, which has led to further divergence, though conversely more recent spelling reforms in Scottish Gaelic have reduced the divergences to some extent.One difference is that the accent is written as a grave accent in Scottish Gaelic, as opposed to the acute accent used in Irish; hence the word for "welcome" is written as fàilte in Scottish Gaelic and in Irish as fáilte. Irish does not use the grave accent, while until recently Scottish Gaelic used the grave and acute accents to differentiate between open and closed vowel sounds. However, recent spelling reform has meant that only grave accents are now in Scottish Gaelic, leaving phonemic distinctions unmarked.
Another difference in Scottish Gaelic is that the aspirate linker h- is always hyphenated, while in Irish it is attached to the beginning of the word, as illustrated by the languages' respective names for each other:
Additionally, while the linkers n- and t- are usually hyphenated in both languages, in Irish they are attached to the beginning of words whose first letter is capitalised; in Scottish Gaelic they are always hyphenated.
A number of letter combinations are possible in written Irish which are not found in Scottish Gaelic e.g. "ae", "bhf". Irish uses "cht" where Scottish Gaelic uses "chd", although "chd" itself was once common in written Irish, as was "cht" in Scottish Gaelic – both being used in Classical Gaelic. In the combinations "sc"/"sg" and "st"/"sd", Irish now uses "sc" and "st", while Scottish Gaelic uses "sg" and both "sd" and st, despite there being no phonetic difference between the two languages.
Most obvious differences in spelling result from the deletion of silent lenited digraphs in Irish in spelling reforms, which was only sometimes done in Scottish Gaelic. Overall, Scottish Gaelic orthography is more conservative than that of Irish.
List of Irish and Scottish Gaelic cognates
Differences in vocabulary
| English | Irish | Scottish Gaelic | Notes |
| in | i, in | an | In Classical Irish the forms were "i", "a", "in", "an" – "i/in" when the following sound was slender, and "a/an" when the following sound was broad. In both Irish and Scottish, in the spoken language, the four forms of "i", "a", "in", "an" still exist. |
| minister | ministir, ministéir | ministear | In Irish, aire for a government minister |
| Bible | Bíobla | Bìoball | |
| Germany | An Ghearmáin | A' Ghearmailt | |
| America | Meiriceá, Meirice | Ameireaga | |
| England | Sasana | Sasainn | |
| London | Londain | Lunnain | |
| road | bóthar/ród | rathad | |
| cold | slaghdán | cnatan | Meaning illness |
| talking | ag caint | a' bruidhinn | Bruíon in Irish means "fighting", "quarrelling." Cainnt in Scottish Gaelic is used as a noun only, meaning "speech," except in Arran where it is also a verb |
| Irish | English | Scottish Gaelic | English | Notes |
| cuan | harbour | cuan | ocean | A number of words are used in both languages for "ocean" and "sea", such as aigéan/aigeun, an fharraige. Caladh or cala are commonly used in Irish for "harbour". |
| An Bhreatain Bheag | Wales | A' Bhreatain Bheag | Brittany | Breatain is the same in both. The Scottish Gaelic equivalent for Wales is A' Chuimrigh, a Gaelicisation of an Anglicisation of the Welsh Cymru. The Irish for Brittany is An Bhriotáin from Latin "Britannia". |
| shiúil sé | He walked | shiubhail e | He died | Siubhail means "walk" or "stroll" in Scottish Gaelic, but is also a euphemism for death |
Differences can also be seen in words used for geographical features. For example, "hill" and "mountain" are usually "cnoc" and "sliabh" respectively in Ireland, but "càrn" and "beinn" in Scotland. Additionally, "inbhir," meaning "river mouth" and usually Anglicized as "inver", very common in Scotland, is almost never seen in Ireland.