Relating to the Goidels or their languages, particularly the Celtic languages spoken in Ireland and Scotland like Irish and Scottish Gaelic.
Derived from Goidel with the suffix -ic meaning 'of or relating to.' It emerged in linguistic scholarship to classify the Q-Celtic branch of languages as distinct from the P-Celtic (Brythonic) branch.
Linguists noticed that Goidelic and Brythonic Celtic languages split a historical sound change differently—where Goidelic kept the Q sound (like in Queen), Brythonic changed it to P (like in Pen). So the whole language family's name comes from this one ancient sound shift! It's like naming siblings based on whether they inherited a certain trait from their parents.
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