On a lighter note...

I think I may be a bit of a bore about the whole Irish language thing. A couple of years ago I was at a church choir party (we get together for gin and tonic every week after rehearsal) and a new member had joined us. We were talking about our interests, and I mentioned that I was learning Irish. Just as the new person started to say "Top 'o the mornin'" (which would have been made even more ridiculous by the fact that it was about 9:30 at night) the entire rest of the choir chorused "It's a LANGUAGE!"

Redwolf

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Please wait for corrections/ more input from other forum members before acting on advice

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

A couple of points here:
- "Irish" has been used to refer to the language for many hundreds of years. (As described previously, it was even used for Scottish Gaelic up to the 18th century). It is by no means some recent coinage, still less something concocted by officialdom for "political" purposes, as has been suggested here.
- the term "Irish" was also used by 19th century Irish immigrants to the US, as a little online research can testify. If "most people in the U.S. ... refer to the language as Gaelic", as you say, it is not because their ancestors knew only that name.

It's not "Irish" that's confusing - going by your previous post - but "Gaelic", which is probably best avoided for that reason.

That's just the way English works. You have precisely the same problem with other languages/nationalities: "English", "Spanish", "French" etc., yet nobody thinks of changing the name of the language on that account!

Do bhuaileas lena lán cainteoirí dúchaise i gCorca Dhuibhne agus dúradar "Gaelic" agus "Irish" i mBéarla.
Is minic a deirid "Gaelic" nuair 'táid siad ag caint le daoine ó Mheiriceá nó ón Mór-Roinn. Dúirt mo sheanathair
agus mo sheanmháthair "Gaelic" leis agus deireann cuid mhaith desna daoine dá lucht comhnaoise "Gaelic" fós.

Tá dhá nós ann, is cuma cé 'cu a deirir (im' thuairim), fé mar a dúradh thuas.

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The dialect I use is Cork Irish.
Ar sgáth a chéile a mhairid na daoine, lag agus láidir, uasal is íseal

This has been a fascinating thread to follow. I am really enjoying the comments.

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Brand new Irish learner inclined to ask questions. Writer, Words & Worlds of New York, a website about language-learning. http://www.ellenjovin.com

It's not of recent coinage, no...but the insistence on using ONLY the word "Irish" to refer to the language (with the implication...or sometime even outright statement...that calling it "Gaelic," or even "Irish Gaelic," is wrong) does have something of a "politically correct" push behind it.

As far as the newspaper issue goes, the difference is that normally, when one is talking about an "English paper," one would assume it is written in English. Same goes for French, Spanish, etc. And, in fact, if a paper is written in a language that isn't the majority language in a given country, it IS qualified with the word "language" (for example "an American Spanish-language newspaper"). With Irish, you can't make that assumption.

Redwolf

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Please wait for corrections/ more input from other forum members before acting on advice

I never said that the word Irish was "some recent coinage". I said that Irish is the current politically "correct" way to refer to the language. Why are you using a straw man fallacy to debunk something that I never said?

I didn't say that "their ancestors knew ONLY that name".

You've already quoted what I actually said: "Most people in the U.S. (and probably in other countries, too) still refer to the language as Gaelic, like their ancestors before them …" Did you happen to notice that I didn't say that every single person referred to the language exclusively as Gaelic? Why do you insist on arguing against things that I never said? That's another nice straw man you've got going there.