Gaelic

A family of languages, spoken in Ireland, Scotland, Canada, and formerly, in the Isle of Man. It belongs to the Goidelic branch of the Celtic language family. Irish Gaelic, (known as 'Irish', formerly 'Erse'), is one of Ireland's two official languages and is still fairly widely spoken in the west of Ireland. Scots Gaelic is still spoken to some extent in the north and west of Scotland and the Hebrides but partly because of its lack of official recognition and partly because of large-scale emigration from this part of Scotland, there are not as many native speakers as there used to be. In fact there are now believed to be more native speakers of Scots Gaelic in Nova Scotia than there are in Scotland. Manx is the almost extinct language of the Isle of Man.

The other commonly used Celtic languages are Welsh and Breton?. A less commonly used Celtic language is the Cornish language. These all belong to the Brythonic branch of Celtic.

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