Now - the reason I felt moved to write all this is that you are correct. Language is an important part of our lost culture. Language literally creates a framework for your brain to understand the world. If you need evidence that your forebearers saw the world differently, learning irish (even if you are not one allele irish), will help. See the way I wrote that? With the "will help" at the end? That's because my family has mostly non-english speaking roots, even though I have like half the mayflower as ancestors along one little pathway. And all those romance language speakering ancestors and children of celtic language speakers, they didn't mind putting the cart before the horse, syntactically speaking. They used complex sentences with glee. Irish is like that too. Everything is VSO, verb subject object. You really have to get all the way to the end of the sentence before you can untangle and understand it. There is a lot that Irish speakers hold in their head while speaking, reading and listening. It's part of the language. In our super economic anglo world, this is bad form. See? i did it again. That sentence would be corrected by an editor to begin: it is poor form in our economic world to....
Irish has no word for "have". You don't speak Irish, you have Irish, but since there is no word for it, Irish is "at you." If you ask me if I speak Irish, my reply is Ta Gaeilge agam, or Irish is at me. Or i have Irish on me. The verb comes first, though so "Ta" is the verb To Be (or "is") Although it changes in different contexts, much in the same way latin does.
Irish has different numbers for people, for counting and for things.
There is no word for "yes" in Irish. You use the verb. Are you going? Answer: Going/Not going. Although, you will hear people say just Nìl, that is only used in copula form.
The copula is a type is sentence that is used when something is equal to something else - the two things can be compared, irrespective of time. You'll see the word "is" but youd be wrong to think of it like the English 'is.' For example, If my house is green, the copula creates a way to say "my house, it equals green / or my house "is" green. I think it would read word for word like "Is house green," but not a question. Questions are signalled anothwr way. But youd never say it that way for something impermenant. Is bron mè (copula form of sentence), doesn't mean I am sad. It means I am the very embodiment of sadness all of the time and this will not change. Youd be saying, sadz and me, we are the same thing. To say "I am sad," you'd say, Ta bròn orm. Or sad is "at me" or "on me." I like that much better. Like you could just swat it away.
I don't hope or wish for things, I have an eye towards it. And I don't listen *to* you, I listen *with* you.
Irish is beautiful and it helps me understand the world better. If anyone here is thinking about diving in, I promise you, all you need is your decoder ring (understanding the Irish alphabet) and an open mind. And maybe maybe years to emerse yourself, because you won't learn it in ten weeks. More like ten years. But it will open your mind and give you eyes to see the past with. If youre an american english speaker, suddenly many phrases will make sense to you. If you are not of Irish descent, think of all the non-English English speakers and take the plunge. Languages are alive when working between cultures, not just within cultures.
Good luck!
Go n-eiri an t-adh leat! Which means: something...somethingly.."the luck with you".
Irish [type of] the luck be with you, that's it.