Languages of the Isle of Man

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The main language of the Isle of Man is English, predominately the Manx English dialect. Manx, the historical language of the island, is still maintained by a very small speaker population.

[edit] Manx

The Manx language is a Celtic language of the Goidelic subdivision, and descendant of Old Irish. The language was historically the dominant one on the island, but fell out of use during the twentieth century, and is considered to have become extinct in 1974[1], after the death of Ned Maddrell. At the present time, there are less than one hundred children that are being educated exclusively in Manx, and there are an additional 1,689 second-language speakers, comprising only 2.2% of the population of the Isle of Man. The language has been offered in public schools since 1992, and has been mandatory since 2001.

[edit] English

English has replaced Manx as the dominant language on the island. The most widely used variety is Manx English (also known as Anglo-Manx or Manx Vernacular English), which distinguishes itself by considerable influence and a large number of loanwords and phrases from Manx. However, this dialect is being supplanted by other dialects of English.

[edit] References

• http://www.gov.im/education/support/external/external_manx.xml