evidence: In Northern Ireland, Irish (Gaelic) is now a minority language. According to the 2001 census, 10.4% of Northern Ireland’s 1.8 million people had 'some knowledge of Irish'. The main dialect spoken in Northern Ireland is known as Ulster Irish. Before the 17th century, Irish (Gaelic) was more widely spoken in Northern Ireland, although it was spoken in a variety of dialects. During the 20th century the dialects spoken in County Down, County Fermanagh, the Glens of Antrim, County Tyrone, County Londonderry, and Armagh all died out. Varieties of Irish (Gaelic) indigenous to the territory of Northern Ireland finally became extinct as spoken languages when the last native speaker of the Rathlin dialect of Irish (Gaelic) died in 1985. [...] English English is spoken as a first language by almost 100% of the population of Northern Ireland. However, the variety of English spoken in Northern Ireland might be considered a dialect of English. Words like 'wee' (meaning "little") and 'aye' (meaning 'yes') are used in much the same way as they are in the Scots language. The dialect is of course also spoken with an 'Irish' accent – listen to the audio file below.