Gaelic

About Gaelic

In English, "Gaelic" usually means Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language of the Scottish Highlands and the Western Isles. It is a close relative of Irish, which is sometimes called Irish Gaelic. Scottish Gaelic was spoken by about 57,000 people in the 2011 census and has official status in Scotland. Most guides in this category are about Scottish Gaelic and some are about Irish, which has its own Irish category.

Gaelic spelling follows its own rules and does not match English sounds. Consonants change their sound next to h, so bh and mh usually sound like v, and a vowel with a grave accent, as in à, is long. Scottish Gaelic has a polite "you", sibh, used with elders and strangers, and a familiar one, thu, used with friends.

FamilyIndo-European, Celtic, Goidelic
Speakersabout 57,000 (2011)
Where spokenScotland, especially the Highlands and Western Isles
Statusdefinitely endangered (UNESCO)
ScriptLatin alphabet
Codesgd (ISO 639-1), gla (ISO 639-3)

Speaker number: Ethnologue, citing the 2011 census, via Wikidata. Retrieved 26 September 2026.

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