], a Welsh festival.
The linguistic situation in the two predominantly Celtic countries are naturally similar to the one of the Scottish Highlands. The former Celtic idiom was replaced by English mainly for social reasons, whereas the superseded language left its traces.
It is worth to mention that Cymric, the language of Wales, is the
most vigorous one of all Celtic languages. About 20% of the
population still know it. However, hardly any monolingual speaker
has remained either. So, Wales must be considered an
English-speaking country, English being the most widespread
everyday language. Politically, Wales is tightly bound to England
(administration and Common Law, among other things), the role of
StE is thus a significant one for social progress. The Cymric
substrate is restricted to phonetic interferences like rolled [r],
dropped [h], devoiced mediae, and monophthongization (Bähr, 1974:
120-122), some loan idioms (he is a brother to me, to be on a
hurry, he is belonging (i.e. related) to me), and a few loan
words expressing popular culture, as e.g. the famous
eisteddfod [], a Welsh festival.
There was a little difference in the Irish situation as compared to other Celtic countries, mostly because of the sea which separated Ireland from the rest of the British Isles; hence, it was not part of the United Kingdom until 1801. At that time, Irish was the language, often the only language, that a overwhelming majority of the inhabitants (about 90%) spoke and possibly wrote. The other 10% were mostly English and Scottish settlers; Ireland was under English rule since the Middle Ages. Those immigrants had kept a conservative form of English, as they had been isolated from their cultural centre (Barry, 1982: 84f.). The Irish adopted the new language not from abstract teaching-books, but from their neighbours. That is why Irish English is less coined by the Celtic substratum than are the other formerly Celtic nations. The Irish do not roll the r, though they did it when they spoke Irish, yet IE is rhotic. IE has had a strong influence on American English, both a said to be closer to Skakespearean English than nowadays pronunciation in Stratford-on-Avon would be. Like in Scots and Scottish English, rhoticism conserved many vowel phonemes in front of r's that were neutralized in StE (Wells, 1982a: 420f.). Even the Middle English pronunciation ... for e, ea, ei has been preserved in some words:
| tea, cream, speak, either, decent |
[ ,
 ,
 ,
 ,
 ] |
The most common features of IE:
StE d, t, n are dental, not alveolar (Irish interference),
diphthongs are monophthongized,
StE [
] is unrounded as in American English,
StE [
] + [f,
s, 
] is [æ]:
[
],
[
],
[
], in
other cases StE [] is
[
],
wh is voiceless
([
]).
Besides, less educated speakers tend
to mix up s and sh.
The well-kept culture and the fact that Irish is the first official language of the Irish Republic (Poblacht na hÉireann) has not stopped the dying of the Irish language.
Some official terms are taken from Irish, as Taoiseach (prime minister), Teachta Dála (T.D.; member of Parliament), Dáil Éireann (Irish Parliament), Uachtarán (for whom also the notion President is used). The almost entire rest is considered nasty interference from Irish by most of the Irish.
.