Manx love poem

A translation of the love poem into Manx (Manx Gaelic, Autonym : Gaelg, Gailck), and some verses for a pretty woman of Man island, a young lady surrounded by cats without tail.

The Manx is a Celtic dialect of Man island close to Scottish Gaelic, including Scandinavian elements, one consider it as a dialect of Scottish Gaelic. This Gaelic language is therefore not very far from Irish Gaelic; it has 1,500 speakers.

The word Gaelic, refers to the group of Celtic languages spoken in Scotland, Ireland and Man. Originally there is a primitive Irish, from which descend, an old, then middle, then modern Irish, as well as the Manx, and the Gaelic of Scotland.

The first traces of this ancestor of Gaelic languages date from the 4-6th century, these are names inscribed on ogham stones. Gaelic spoken in Man dates from the beginning of the 17th century.

For what remains of the Celtic languages (Britain and Great Britain) whereas previously they were widespread throughout Europe, we can divide them into two groups goidélic or Gaelic (who do not have the "p") and brittonic (who have the "p").

Manx, Irish and Scottish are part of the 1st Gaelic group). The others Welsh, Breton, Cornish who keep the "p", belong to the Brittonic group.

The first text written in Manx language is a prayer book in 1610, but three centuries later, the way of spelling the language will be revisited in the translation and edition of another religious book. This spelling is still the one used today.

Poems, tales, and popular songs form it literature, which was initially oral for a long time. The last person to have had the manx as mother tongue is extinct in 1974.

The Isle of Man, a former Viking kingdom in the Middle Ages, lies in the Irish Sea, equidistant from Ireland and northern England. Like Ireland, the Isle of Man is not part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, but the Lord of Man (the sovereign of the island), since 1504 is indeed the British crown.

The name Man comes from Mananann, the god of the sea among the Celts, from which the island takes its name.

Today this island, of course, draws its resources from tourism, but also from finance; many consider Man to be a tax haven.