Middle Irish

Language classification
Indo-European Celtic Insular Celtic Goidelic Middle Irish

Middle Irish is the name given by historical philologists to the form of the Irish language from the 10th to 16th centuries; it is therefore a contemporary of Middle English. The modern Goidelic languages Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx are all descendants of Middle Irish.

At its height, Middle Irish was spoken throughout Ireland and Scotland; from Munster to the North Sea island of Inchcolm. Its geographical range made it the most widespread of all Insular languages before the late 12th century, when Middle English began to make inroads into Ireland, and many of the Celtic regions of northern and western Britain.

A form of Middle Irish was used as a literary language in Ireland until the 17th century and in Scotland until the 18th century; the Ethnologue gives the name "Hiberno-Scottish Gaelic" (and the ISO/DIS 639-3 code ghc) to this purely written language.