Manx language

The Manx language or Manx Gaelic (in Manx: Gaelg Vanninagh or Gailck Vanninagh) is a language Celtic spoken on the Isle of Man, a small island in the Irish Sea that is a self-governing British Crown Dependency not part of the United Kingdom. Although it was considered an extinct language after the death of Ned Maddrell, its last native speaker in 1974, in recent years the local authorities and the Manx themselves have made an effort to revive it, promoting its use in schools and other cultural settings.

This language is very similar to Irish Gaelic and Scottish Gaelic.

History

The arrival of the Goidelic language on the Isle of Man occurred between the 4th and 5th centuries AD. C., when invasions of settlers from Ireland settle on the island, substituting this for a supposed Brittonic language spoken until then there.

However, the Isle of Man, and with it its language, appeared after the Scandinavian invasions; Between 800 and 815, the Vikings came to the Isle of Man essentially by pillage. Between the years 850 and 990, they settled on the island, but this time under the control of the Scandinavian kings of Dublin. Between 990 and 1079 finally, the island was subject to the powerful jarls of Orkney. Throughout the Scandinavian period, the island was nominally under the suzerainty of the Norwegian kings, but they were rarely able to assert their rights, except for some like Harald I in 885, Magnus III at the turn of the century XI, and Hakon IV from 1217.

From the 13th century the island was disputed by Anglo-Saxons and Scots, and later it was the domain of various English noble titles, before finally passing into the hands of the British Crown.

Development

The development of Manx from Goidelic did not separate from Irish until the 13th century and from Scottish Gaelic until the XV century. However, its evolution was more progressive as it retained archaisms from Old Irish that were lost in other Goidelic languages.

The Nordic contributions, the result of successive Viking invasions, first in the 9th century and then a second from Ireland in the 11th century, remaining under Norwegian domination until the second half of the century XIII, would also leave a deep imprint on Manx.

The isolation of the island and its dependence on the English (later British) crown since the XIV century made the Manx adopted a spelling based on English and not on other Celtic languages. The oldest continuous text in Manx is the Anglican Bishop John Phillips's (1610) translation of the Book of Common Prayer.

Three periods of Manx can be distinguished:

• Early: centuryXVIIWith the translation of Phillips.
• Classic Man: centuryXVIIIwhen the Bible is translated.
• Manes late: 19th and 20th centuries.

Conservation

During all these historical periods on the island, Gaelic survived until the 18th century, and not until the middle of the 18th century. XIX when it began its decline.

When Manx passed into the area of English influence from the 14th century, after centuries of Scandinavian rule, English established itself as the legal and administrative language in the cities, coexisting, without displacing it, with Manx. Due to the geographical isolation of the island and the fact that most of the inhabitants were native Manx, with very few English settlers, Manx was able to be preserved without problems.

However, the impoverishment of the island from the 17th century forced many locals to emigrate, a fact that together with the opening of the island to the outside through trade, made it especially from the 17th century XVIII began the decline of Manx.

In 1831 it was regularly spoken by 30% of the population, with the generation born between 1860 and 1880 being the last to receive Manx as their mother tongue. Faced with the progressive decline of the language, in 1899 the Yn Cheshaght Ghailckagh was created, that is, the Society for the Manx Language, with the aim of preserving Manx as the language of Manx itself. the Isle of Man and study, cultivate and publish Manx literature. Despite this, in 1901 only 970 people spoke it and the last native Manx speaker, Ned Maddrell, died on December 27, 1974 at the age of 97.

After its extinction at the end of the XIX century as the mother tongue of the population, today attempts are being made to recover the Manx, surviving thanks to a small number of people who have learned it as a second language and who try to promote it and normalize it against English, their mother tongue. In 1992 the Manx Language Unit was formed, led by Brian Stowell, initiating the first actions for the recovery of the language.

According to the 2011 census, 1,823 inhabitants out of a total of 80,398 (2.27% of the population) claimed to have knowledge of the Manx language.

Grammar

Manx's vocabulary is derived mainly from Common Gaelic or Goidelic, as can be seen by comparing it with Old, Middle and Modern Irish, but it has certain forms also found in Scottish Gaelic, but not in Modern Irish.

He has also taken vocabulary from other languages through contact with them, mainly from Latin, Old Norse, English and Anglo-Norman. An example of these borrowings, in this case from Latin between the 5th and 8th centuries AD. C., are the ecclesiastical words, incorporated by Christian missionaries: ecclesia = agglish (church); episcopus = aspick (bishop); benedictio = bannaght; Pascha = Caisht (Passover); census = kessh; release = loose; passio = paish (passion); sacerdos = saggyrt (priest); strata = straid (path).

Old Norse influences have been present since the IX century AD. C. in words related to experience or skill, such as those referring to fishing: akkeri (anchor) = aker; batr (boat) = battey; vágr (bay) = baie; gardhr (garden) = garey; vindauga (window) = uinnag.

From English it took back around the XV century words like: answer = answer; stamp = stampey; lack = laccal; afford = fordrail.

Lastly, Anglo-Norman and Romance influences are found especially in words related to administrative and government concepts, such as hommage = ammys; buiteille = bottle; castel = cashtal; covenant = conaant; danger = danjeyr; favorite = foayer; diner = jinnair; advantage = vondeish.

The numbers from 1 to 10 are as follows: nane, jees, tree, kiare, queig, shey, shiaght, hoght, nuy, jeith; 20 feed, 30 jeih as feed, 40 daeed, 50 jeih as daeed, 100 keead.

Sentence order is verb, subject, and object.

The masculine and feminine definite article is yn and the plural is ny. The gender of nouns is indicated by suffixes, -an, -ys for the masculine and disyllabic feminine nouns with -ag, aght. Gender is also determined using the particle fer 'man', ben 'woman'; thus, fer-obbe is 'witcher' and ben-obbee 'witch'; hee 'god' and ben-jee 'goddess'.

Regarding number, in nouns the plural is indicated by the suffix -yn (Gaelic -an), thus: creg 'rock', plural creggyn; awin 'river', plural awinyin; coo 'dog', plural coyin.

The personal pronouns are as follows:

Possessive pronouns are:

• my/m' (my/my)
• dty/dt', (tuyo/tuya)
• e 'suyo' more aspiration; and 'suya' without aspiration.

The plural of the first three persons is nyn.

The demonstrative pronoun is shoh 'this', shen 'that', shid 'that'. The interrogatives are quoi 'who?', and cred, ke 'what?'. The relative is ny and with a negative form nagh, like yn dooinney ny chadlys 'the man who is sleeping'; my ddoiney nagh vel g'obbragh 'the man who is not working'. The relative pronoun is formed with ta, such as ta'n dooinney g'obbragh 'the man is working', yn dooinney ta g& #39;obbragh 'the man who is working'.

Vowels

Consonants

Sample Text

Saint John I 1 - 8

1. Ayns and toshiaght va'n Goo, as va'n Goo marish Jee, as va'n Goo Jee.
2. Va'n Goo cheddin ayns and toshiaght marish Jee.
3. Liorishyn va dy chooilley nhee er ny yannoo; as n'egooish cha row nhee erbee jeant va er ny jannoo.
4. Aynsyn va bea, as va'n ve soilshey deiney.
5. As ren and soilshey soilshean ayns and dorraghys, as cha ren and dorraghys goaill-rish.
6. Va dooinney er ny choyrt veih Jee va enmyssit Ean.
7. Haink eh shoh are feanish, dy ymmyrkey feanish jeh'n toilshey, liorishyn dy voddagh dy chooilley ghooinney credjal.
8. Cha nee eh va'n soilshey shen, agh v'eh er ny choyrt dy ymmyrkey feanish jeh'n toilshey shen.