Gaelic is a family of languages, spoken in
Ireland,
Scotland,
Canada, and 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. An Irish speaking area is called a Gaeltacht and they are to be found in Counties Donegal, Mayo, Galway, Kerry and, to a lesser extent, in Waterford and Meath.
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, however attempts to revive it continue.
The other commonly used Celtic languages belong to the Brythonic branch of Celtic and include Welsh and Breton, as well as the nearly-extinct Cornish language.