Scottish Gaelic is similar to Irish, although most dialects are not mutually comprehensible. A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος, dialektos) is a variety of a language used by people from a particular geographic area. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Islay and Argyll Gaelic are also fairly similar to Irish. The extinct dialects of north east Ulster, particularly Rathlin Island, were also close to Scottish Gaelic. In Scotland, dialects also existed in southern Kintyre and Galloway which were probably similar to Irish, sliabh is fairly common as an element in Galloway placenames, but quite rare in the Highlands. The dialects of all these regions, are also in turn, the most similar to 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. In both Munster and northern Scottish Gaelic it is pronounced /klaun/ whereas in Ulster it is /klan/ and in Connacht /klɑ:n/. Similarly, im meaning butter is pronounced /i:m'/ in both Munster and northern Scotland but /im'/ in Ulster. In the substantive verb tá of Standard Irish, northern Scotland and west Munster agree in leniting the initial t, thus one hears thá in West Kerry and Waterford in East Munster and tha in northern Scotland. Landsat image of Islay Islay (pronounced ; Scottish Gaelic: , or ee-luh), a Scottish island, known as The Queen of the Hebrides, is the southernmost island of the Inner Hebrides. ... Argyll, archaically Argyle (Airthir-Ghaidheal in Gaelic, translated as [the] East Gael, or [the] East Irish), sometimes called Argyllshire, is a traditional county of Scotland. ... Rathlin Islands location Bird sanctuary on Rathlin Island False-colour NASA Landsat image showing Rathlin, the Antrim coast, and Kintyre Rathlin Island (Irish: Reachlainn) is an island off the coast of County Antrim in Northern Ireland, and is the northernmost point of the region. ... Kintyre shown within Argyll Kintyre is a peninsula in western Scotland in the south-west of Argyll. ... Galloway (Scottish Gaelic, Gall-ghaidhealaibh or Gallobha, Lowland Scots Gallowa) today refers to the former counties of Wigtownshire and the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright in southwest Scotland, but has fluctuated greatly in size over history. ... Motto: (Latin) No one provokes me with impunity(English) Wha daur meddle wi me? (Scots)[1] Anthem: Multiple unofficial anthems Capital Edinburgh Largest city Glasgow Official languages English, Gaelic, Scots[2] Government  - Queen Queen Elizabeth II  - Prime Minister Tony Blair MP  - First Minister Jack McConnell MSP Unification    - by Kenneth I...

The closest to Scottish Gaelic in Irish is the dialect currently spoken in Donegal, as illustrated by the sentence "How are you?". Donegal (Irish: Dún na nGall) is a town in County Donegal, Ireland. ...

Scottish Gaelic — Ciamar a tha sibh? (formal form) or Ciamar a tha thu? (informal form)

Ulster Irish — Caidé mar a tá tú?, also spelt Cad é mar atá tú?

Munster Irish - Conas taoi?, Conas tánn tú?, Conas tá tú?

Connacht Irish - Cé chaoi a bhfuil tú?

In Lewis dialect however, Dè mar a tha thu? is commonly used. All these forms share the structure of the Doric dialect of Scots, Fit like? or literally, What like are you?, a commonly heard expression amongst many in older generations when translating directly from Gaelic. Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) is a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages. ... Ulster Irish is the dialect of the Irish language spoken in the province of Ulster. ... Munster Irish is the dialect of the Irish language spoken in the province of Munster. ... Connacht Irish is the dialect of the Irish language spoken in the province of Connacht. ... Looking towards the Uplands in the centre of the Island of Lewis Lewis (Leòdhas in Scottish Gaelic) or The Isle of Lewis (Eilean Leòdhais), is the northern part of the largest island of the Western Isles of Scotland or Outer Hebrides (Na h-Eileanan Siar). ... For the Doric dialect of ancient Greek, see Doric Greek Doric was formerly used to refer to all dialects of Lowland Scots but is now usually used as a name for the dialect spoken in the north-east of Scotland. ... Scots refers to the Anglic varieties spoken in parts of Scotland. ...

However, there are some important differences. The most obvious orthographical difference is that the accent, or fada, is written as a grave accent in Scottish Gaelic, as opposed to the acute accent of Irish; hence the word for "welcome" is written as fàilte in Scottish Gaelic and in Irish as fáilte. The suffix "sa" added to the end of a prepositional pronoun for emphasis, is hyphenated in Scottish Gaelic, whereas in Irish it is added to the word, as illustrated by the sentence "I've got money": The orthography of a language is the set of symbols (glyphs and diacritics) used to write a language, as well as the set of rules describing how to write these glyphs, including spelling, punctuation, and capitalization. ... The grave accent ( ` ) is a diacritic mark used in written Greek until 1982 (polytonic orthography), French, Catalan, Welsh, Italian, Vietnamese, Scottish Gaelic, Norwegian, Portuguese and other languages. ... The acute accent (  ) is a diacritic mark used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin and Greek scripts. ...

Scottish Gaelic — Tha airgead agam-sa.

Standard Irish — Tá airgead agamsa.

Also, the negative participle in Scottish Gaelic is cha (chan eil = is not) whereas in standard Irish it is ní (níl = is not, a contraction of ní fhuil), as illustrated by the sentence "I have no money" (cha and chan fhuil are still legitimate Irish forms in Ulster, though): Statistics Area: 24,481 km² Population (2006 estimate) 1,993,918 Ulster (Irish: Cúige Uladh, IPA: ) forms one of the four traditional provinces of Ireland. ...

Scottish Gaelic — Chan eil airgead agam.

Standard Irish — Níl airgead agam.

It should be noted that Scottish Gaelic speakers may also use the Irish phrase, or at least sound as if they were, as Chan eil can frequently be shortened to 'n eil or simply nil. Some words have "a" in Irish but "u" in Scottish Gaelic, for instance the word for the English language Béarla in Irish and Beurla in Scottish Gaelic. This is due to a spelling reform and standardisation which took place in Ireland under the auspices of the Irish government during the 20th century. Spelling reform generally attempts to introduce a logical structure connecting the spelling and pronunciation of words. ... The 2nd Dáil (the last elected parliament of the Irish people) delegated its governmental authority to the military authority in 1938, which continues to this day as the lawful Government of Ireland. ...

The most obvious grammatical difference between Scottish Gaelic and Irish is that in the former only remnants remain of eclipsis, meaning that Irish has two major mutations to Scottish Gaelic's one. In general, one could say that the grammar of Scottish Gaelic is slightly simpler than that of Irish, while its phonology is more complex, something that also has an impact on spelling. Irish, like all modern Celtic languages, is characterized by its initial consonant mutations. ... Phonology (Greek phonē = voice/sound and logos = word/speech), is a subfield of linguistics which studies the sound system of a specific language (or languages). ...

Orthographic differences

There are a number of distinctive written differences. Both languages have been reformed in recent decades, which has led to further divergence.

Irish has no grave accent, only acute accents, while until recently Scottish Gaelic had both grave and acute accents. The recent spelling reform has meant that there are now only grave accents in Scottish Gaelic, the opposite of Irish. The grave accent ( ` ) is a diacritic mark used in written Greek until 1982 (polytonic orthography), French, Catalan, Welsh, Italian, Vietnamese, Scottish Gaelic, Norwegian, Portuguese and other languages. ... The acute accent (  ) is a diacritic mark used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin and Greek scripts. ...

Another couple of features, also changed recently, were that "d" and "u" were common in Scottish Gaelic, where "t" and "a" would be in Irish e.g. Comunn-cumann (now "Comann" in Scottish Gaelic).

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. In Irish one uses "sc" wherever Scottish Gaelic uses "sg". "Sg", too, was once commonly written in Irish.

Note that lenited consonants, which can be silent, glottal stops, or act to lengthen a vowel, are written in Scottish Gaelic but omitted in the corresponding Irish words when silent. Lenition is a kind of consonant mutation that appears in many languages. ... The glottal stop or voiceless glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in many spoken languages. ... In an alphabetic writing system, a silent letter is a letter that, in a particular word, does not correspond to any sound in the words pronunciation. ...

Differences in vocabulary

* Similar to Irish ród

There are also false friends. False friends are pairs of words in two languages (or letters in two alphabets) that look and/or sound similar, but differ in meaning. ...

* Irish equivalent is aigéan
** Scottish Gaelic equivalent is A' Chuimrigh (similar to Cymru in Welsh) Welsh redirects here, and this article describes the Welsh language. ...