Celtic languages: Goidelic
Goidelic
The third group of the Celtic subfamily is Goidelic, to which Irish (also called Irish Gaelic), Scots Gaelic, and Manx belong. The term
Scots Gaelic is the tongue of about 60,000 persons in the Highlands of Scotland and an additional 3,000 in Canada. Most of these people also speak English. Gaelic speech began to reach Scotland in the late 5th cent.
Manx is a dialect of Scots Gaelic that was once spoken on the Isle of Man, but it has almost entirely died out there. First recorded in writing in the early 17th cent., Manx does not have an important literature. It is written in the Roman alphabet and shows a strong Norse influence.
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