At the moment I’m in the Isle of Man for Yn Chruinnaght (‘the gathering’), the Manx National and Inter-Celtic Festival. Yesterday I heard some Scottish Gaelic and odd bits of Manx at a fantastic concert featuring Capercaille and a bunch of local musicians (David Kilgallon and Some Thoroughly Nice Folk), and expect to hear all the other Celtic languages while I’m here as performers and visitors from all the Celtic lands are here for the festival.
The word cruinnaght means ‘assembly, function, gathering, event’ and is used in such expressions as:
– cruinnaght skeerey – parish gathering
– Cruinnaght Vanninagh Ashoonagh – Manx National Assembly
– cruinnaght-vooar – mass meeting
In case you’re wondering, cruinnaght acquires an extra h after yn (the) because it’s feminine and the initial letters of feminine nouns usually mutate after the definite article, in the singular at least. This is a peculiarity shared by all the Celtic languages.
The verb form of cruinnaght is cruinnaghey, which means ‘to gather, huddle, troop, enclose, beseige, raise, round, head, screw up, sum up, focus’.
Source: Online Manx Dictionary
Ah, lucky you. Wish we were there.
P.S. I recently attempted my first (short) blog post in Manx. http://lncn.eu/qvw
I’d be interested to know what the lingua franca at the event is. Is mutual intelligibility/familiarity with other Celtic languages such that speakers can stick to their own Celtic language when speaking to members of other linguistic groups, or is it necessary to resort to (for example) English?
The lingua franca here seems to be English. Speakers of the Gaelic languages can understand one another to some extent, and I think there is limited mutual intelligibility between Welsh and Cornish, and between Cornish and Breton, though not really between Welsh and Breton. Some Manx speakers know or at least have some familiarity with other Celtic languages, but others I’ve talked to understand very little Irish or Scottish Gaelic.
Some more discussion of mutal intelligibility.
Thanks for your answer and the link, Simon. Enjoy the rest of the festival.