Is Irish Gaelic related to Modern French?

Question

are they related, because a few the words are the same, or are simular, and it dosent seem the same with the english version of the word.

also, the order of words in both languages is a bit muddled up, not like in english, were it in order.

i am 2nd generation irish, and my first language is english, i learned a bit of french when i was in secondary school, and since i have been learning irish, with help of my mother, i have realised it is a bit like french.

Answer 1

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. No, they are not related. Any similarity is the result of chance or of borrowings.  

Answer 2

Distantly related yes, both are Indo-European languages but in separate branches. Irish Gaelic is a Celtic language, French is a member of the Romance family of languages, part of the larger Italic branch.

I think you impression of similarity is base on rather limited knowledge of both languages and linguistics. They are not much alike.

See the family tree in the Wikipedia article 'Indo-European Languages'

Answer 3

Irish is my first language and I did French for 5 years at school and they dont seem alike to me at all.

The words are nt muddled up, and the words in English arent in the right order.

All languaes have different word orders.

Irish is a VSO language, Verb-Subject-Object. All the Celtic laguages are, so is Arabic and Maori (and others).

English is SVO, Subject-Verb-Object. So is French with some exceptions.

What words do you find similar to French because I cant think of any but now I'm curious?

Answer 4

There is a tenuous relationship  between the two languages because Irish is a Celtic (or more accurately Neo-Celtic) language and French is a Romance language with a Celtic substratum inherited from the Ancient Gauls who spoke a Celtic language. There also appears to be a Celtic substratum in Dutch which also comes from the Ancient Gauls. This gives French a flavor different from the other Romance languages, and Dutch a flavor different from German spoken just across the Rhine.

Some linguists claim that the tendency of French to palatalize a lot as in the change of Vulgar Latin "caballus." "castillum," "cattus"  and carita to  cheval, château,  chat and cherie  is a carry-over from Celtic. Palatalization is quite common in Gaelic too. For example, Latin ecclesia "church" and scribere "to write" was borrowed into Irish as eaglais (pronounced ogg-lush) and sgríobh (pronounced shgreev).

The nasal sounds in French are probably a carry-over from Celtic too as they did not exist in Latin are not found in Italian either. I remember that Welsh actor Richard Burton once said of Welsh, a Neo-Celtic language, that it could out-nasalize French and out-gutteralize German. Nasalaization also occurs in Irish in a process known as "eclepsis" as in capall "horse" but don gcapall "for the horse" and bád "boat" but don mbád "to the boat."

There are a few words of Gallic origin in French that have unmistakable counterparts in Modern Irish like 1)  barrière "barrier" cf. Irish barr "top/ summit,"  2)  briser "to break" cf. Irish brisim "to break, 3)chemin "road," cf. Irish céim "step", " 4) lande "heath / moor" cf. Irish lann "land / holy ground," 5) ruisseau "stream" cf. Irish sruth; Welsh ffrwydd "stream,"  and 6) ruche "beehive" which corresponds to Breton ruskenn "beehive" and to Irish rusc "bark."

One must keep in mind , however, that despite numerous miscellaneous links between French and the Celtic languages, French is still Romanized enough to be classified as a "Romance" language rather than a "Celtic" language.

Answer 5

Yes, but very far via the common Indo-European root, and the few Celtic influences that survived the Roman occupation of Gaul.

"Before the Roman invasion of what is modern-day France by Julius Cæsar (58–52 BC), France was inhabited largely by a Celtic people to which the Romans referred as Gauls."

"The population of about 10 million Gauls was largely Celtic. Although the French often refer to their descent from Gallic ancestors ("nos ancêtres les Gaulois"), perhaps fewer than 200 words with a Celtic etymology remain in French today, largely places (ber, lande, grève 'sandy bank), plant names (berle 'water parsnip', chêne 'oak', if 'yew', baume 'balsa(m)') and words dealing with rural life and the earth (notably: mouton, tonne, crème, charrue, charriot, barde, bouc, boue, brosse, caillou, cervoise, druide, magouille, orteil, souche). It should be noted that other Gallic words were imported in French through Latin, in particular words for Gallic objects and customs which were new to the Romans and for which there were no equivalent in Latin (e.g. braies, ambassade, matras)."