Talk:Scottish Gaelic

Gaelic speakers in Scotland (1755 - 2001) table

Some of the cells contain the rather vague abbreviation "N/A". Is this information "not available" or "not applicable"? If "not applicable", I wonder if the number of people who now speak Gaelic only should be "0"? Either way, a footnote about why the data isn't available or doesn't apply would be helpful. --kingboyk 21:22, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The reason it is N/A is because there are were no bilingual speakers in the 1750's and there are no monoglots of Gaelic today. 24.89.212.44 (talk) 18:54, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Are you having a laugh? No bilingual speakers in the 1750's?!?!

Back to the original table, yes -- the N/A is a bit confusing. I believe that early censuses didn't actually ask about bilingualism -- instead there was only one box for language -- whereas the situation today is that there is theoretically 0 monolingual Gaelic speakers (there are a handful of elderly people who have lost their English as a symptom of dementia, and a handful of kids aren't exposed to English for the first few years of infancy).

Prof Wrong (talk) 20:09, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Statistics at .sco

I am merging .sco to Proposed top-level domain. There is some statistical data there which - if it is correct and relevant - should be placed at this article.

Here it is:

The 2001 Census revealed that 93,282 Scottish residents out of a population of over 5 million had some knowledge of Gaelic, of whom 31,235 claimed to be able to "read, speak and write" Gaelic. [1].

Can anyone please merge it into this article? This article already has some statistics and i don't want to introduce contradictions without even properly understanding the subject.

Thanks in advance. --Amir E. Aharoni 18:42, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

This affects both the table and opening paragraph (and perhaps something I've missed). Both give the figure of 58,652 for those in Scotland who had some Gaelic ability according to the 2001 census. There are references [6] and [2]. However, reference [6] leads to a broken link and reference [2] gives the much higher figure of 92,400 for those in Scotland who had some Gaelic ability according to the 2001 census. Can anyone assist please?

BBO (talk) 15:32, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Scottish Gaelic punk

The Scottish Gaelic punk article is up for deletion - please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Scottish Gaelic punk --MacRusgail (talk) 17:52, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Language in Southern Scotland

Folk in what's now Southern Scotland spoke a Brythonic language until most of them were incorporated into the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria in the seventh century, whence began the process of replacement of that Brythonic language by Old English. Gaelic arrived several centuries later, when the Scots conquered south of Forth & Clyde, but Gaelic NEVER became the dominant language of southern Scotland. FACT. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.229.9.98 (talk) 18:18, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

That is quite simply nonsense and ignorance. Galloway (which makes up about half of Southern Scotland) was one of the earliest Gaelic speaking regions. And as ive pointed out below Gaelic was also spoken across "the Land of the English in the Kingdom of the Scots" (Lothians/South East). This is not a matter of controversy and i advise you to either read properly on the subject or to put your agenda aside because all you are doing is bringing the quality of the article down by inserting inaccurate information.siarach (talk) 18:25, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

First of all Gaelic was not spoken in "a few patches" of southern Scotland but across its entirity. Across Scotland it was the language of "court and government, of the artistocracy, clergy and intelligentsia and used throughout the royal territory" although the Lothians (and presumably the adjoining parts of the borders) was something of an exception in that it enjoyed the presence of the language largely as one of the elite exclusively rather than being also the language of the masses (the popular language in this region being English as you say).

Secondly to claim "Old English and had been the dominant language of the south of what's now Scotland since the seventh century" is to speak nonsense. To claim that "Old English had been the dominant language of the South-East/Lothians" might be reasonable although still misleading given the presence of Gaelic as the elite language in that region by the land owning aristocracy and their followers for about 200 years. As it is your additions betray either a lack of knowledge on the topic or of fairly blatant pov. siarach (talk) 18:22, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Siarach's correct; English didn't spread much (at least not permanently) beyond the coastal strip of the Merse and Lothian until the the high middle ages. That's not southern Scotland. Even then, English lordship in Lothian and the Merse which began in the 7th century does not necessitate linguistic displacement: we have no evidence of the English v British situation in that zone until the 12th cent, far too late to place the death of British in the area to a date as unlikely early as the 7th cent.. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 18:31, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what books you two have been reading, but I suggest you try some proper academic histories. Taking place name evidence for a start, the oldish Anglo-Saxon 'Broughton' is found right up at the top of the Tweed Valley, west of Carlisle even, & the very old English (early C7th at latest) 'Haddington' on the Lothian plain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.229.9.98 (talk) 18:41, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'm the last person on wikipedia you should be trying to brow-beat on this topic; even if evidence such as that were reliable ... and let's assume it is ... 1) it doesn't necessitate general regional displacement; it only shows there were English settled in the area at some stage before the first appearances of such names, not that Britons ceased to exist in their hinterland nor that such English settlements survived long; and 2) that area is not southern Scotland; you're trying put forth an area with the size and population density of Aberdeenshire as "southern Scotland" ... is Aberdeenshire "northern Scotland"? Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 18:51, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I've made a more detailed edit that I think should satisfy everyone. There is no reason to edit war over this, especially as the main bone of contention seems to be re Old English & Old British rather than anything to do with Gaelic, or to make snide remarks. I'm actually quite a fan of Brythonic survival, being something of a 'Highamist', but place name evidence seems to me to indiicate very strong Anglian presence in the eastern Solway Basin, throughout the Tweed valley & all across the lothian plains. The latest evidence for Brythonic survival in Anglian-dominated Northumbria that I've encountered is the placename 'Cumwhinton', which is post-Norman Conquest. If you're interested in Brythonic survival & don't already know it then I recommend Charles Phythian-Adams's 'Land of the Cumbrians' (1996).80.229.9.98 (talk) 19:39, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Your latest version looks fine to me. siarach (talk) 19:42, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

There is a charter in the Glasgow Registrum dated around 1200 which may suggest British was alive in the hills around Peebles at that period; you'll find discussion on it in a forthcoming article by Dr. Fiona Edmonds of Cambridge. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 19:48, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I shall make sure I get hold of that. One thing we could really do with is a study of the Tweed/Clyde/Annan watershed - surely one of the greatest natural obstacles in 'Middle Britain' - as a cultural & political boundary.80.229.9.98 (talk) 20:16, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

GOC -- justification

I recently added a statement saying that no academic justification had been released for the GOC, but it was reverted as "unsourced criticism".

A) How do we source references for non-existence?!?

B) Do other editors agree with me that this is a (very) relevant piece of information? I always assumed that a statement of the whys and wherefores would exist somewhere, and it is natural for others to do so. Surely the absence of something we would assume to exist is noteworthy in and of itself? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Prof Wrong (talk • contribs) 21:33, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I haven't ever seen an attempt to produce an academic justification for GOC (perhaps because everyone who looked at it realised that any such attempt would be futile? or perhaps there are hundreds of such attempts and I have carelessly failed to notice them?).

In response to your question A I guess stating that something doesn't exist can only be done if you can reference some published statement to that effect which is regarded in some sense as reliable. This is extremely regrettable in the case of GOC. You can probably find plenty of emails in the Gaelic-L, gaidhlig-A, and gaidhlig-B archives at irlearn.ie that criticise GOC, but probably none that say that no ascademic justification has been released for it because no-one sees that as remarkable.

In response to B, I do regard this as very relevant information, but there is no way in which we would assuume that such in thing exists because the authors of GOC have demonstrated both their failure to understand the phonology of the language and a their related failure to understand that Gaelic orthography was (until they got hold of it) firmly rooted in Gaelic phonology (although of the things they did were in fact sensible and justifiable). Michealt (talk) 16:43, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

This figure looks odd

From the census table, number of speakers of Gaelic only:

1881 - 231,594

1891 - 43,738

Was there a change in methodology between those two censuses? 86.143.48.55 (talk) 23:48, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

It looks like the 1881 and previous census asked if people could speak Gaelic. 1891 and onwards is looks like they were asked if the could speak Gaelic and/or English. This would produce differing answers on the part of respondents. However, the table looks like it tries to combine the two questions sets assuming that anyone reported to be a Gaelic speaker 1881 and earlier was a monoglot Gaelic speaker. Or at least that's what it looks like to me. --sony-youth^pléigh 02:41, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Also 58,000 is 1.2% of the population while 7,300 is 11% ?? this is wrong 62.254.79.111 (talk) 22:55, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Phonetics

The English phonetic transcription looks fine, but isn't [ˈgaːlɪk] really only said by Gaelic speakers? Most Scots/Scottish English dialects don't have a long/short vowel distinction, so a lot of people I know would say [ˈgalɪk] with the short vowel /a/ rather than long /aː/. (Or possibly even use the English pronunciation.) Prof Wrong (talk) 16:28, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Confusion between Scots and Scottish Gaelic

This comment is misleading and not referrenced: "Outside Scotland, it is occasionally also called Scottish or Scots". It should be removed. Who exactly outside Scotland calls Scottish Gaelic simply "Scots"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.143.63.66 (talk) 15:45, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree and the rest of the paragraph conludes: "This usage is uncommon in Scotland (and parts of northernmost England) because since the 16th century the word Scots has by-and-large been used to describe (Lowland) Scots". I have lived in Scotland all of my life and I have never heard anyone refer to the Gaelic language as Scots. It's not uncommon. It simply is never used in either Modern English or Scots. Currently, "Scots" always refers to Lallans or Lowland Scots. I think someone should remove this section or clean up this mess as it is unreferenced and quite frankly not true. The use of the word Scots may indeed have a 1500 year old tradition of being used to describe Gaelic but this is not current usage.--62.249.233.80 (talk) 13:46, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

"Scottish" may be used as such, however. At least I sometimes do (outside the formal context of Wikipedia, of course!). Steinbach (fka Caesarion) 22:55, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

"Scottish" perhaps but definitely not Scots.--62.249.233.80 (talk) 22:53, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately what people say is often independent of what we might want them to say. See things like [2]. This place seems to use Scottish and Scots interchangably [3], and it appears to be an accredited educational instution.

Eurotalk's products are all "Scots Gaelic" although Birlinn, Hugo, Teach Yourself and Colloquial all prefer the term "Scottish Gaelic" for their self-study books. George MacLennan's great wee book "Scots Gaelic: A Brief Introduction" uses the shorter form too.

All the best books just say "Gaelic" -- McLeod, MacBain, MacAlpine and Dwelly's dictionaries, for a start.

There isn't any real historical consensus, so we can hardly say what's right and what's wrong. We can advise that the term "Scots Gaelic" is potentially ambiguous and advise against its use, but we cannot deny that the term is currently in active use, so we cannot censor or ban it.

Prof Wrong (talk) 13:14, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Anonymous User. Just adding my two cents. I'm an American (California), and I've always heard it referred to as "Scots' Gaelic", not Scottish. Scottish itself could be confusing - you might be referring to the uniquely Scottish form of English, where Scots' Gaelic leaves little room for ambiguity.

Dialects

Just noticing, this article doesn't contain even a section on Scottish Gaelic dialects, while the dialects of Irish are described in detail (even having their own articles). Is the language so uniform or is this a major gap in the article? Steinbach (fka Caesarion) 21:19, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

The dialects aren't as radically distinct in Scottish Gaelic as they are in Irish, but there are distinctions nonetheless and I think a section on them would be relevant. User:tcm1707 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.4.208.236 (talk) 15:00, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

POV Statement?

The phrase "After centuries of persecution, prejudice and neglect,[11] " in the "Official Recognition" section seems a rather POV statement to me, or at least a loaded one, given it's tone and word choice. I didn't delete it as it references a book which I myself haven't read, but seems to be in itself a representation of one point of veiw rather then an unbiased study. Could someone who knows more about the subject look at this and delete or modify it as they see fit? 82.41.31.24 (talk) 11:28, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I can definitely see how you could take that as POV, as it does seem to be a little forceful in it's point; however, it might actually be a true statement from what I know. Here is an excerpt from another book: The even heavier influx of English speakers, which bean a few centuries later, has in turn almost overwhelmed Gaelic, which is now commonly spoken only in some of the western islands and the most isolated parts of the western Highlands. It was never the languages of the whole of Scotland. By the 17th century Gaelic had retreated to the Highlands and the Hebrides, where it had meanwhile absorbed the remaining Scandinavian-speaking territory. Independent Gaelic culture was gradually undermined by central government: bards, the itinerant poets and storytellers, were outlawed. The voluntary Gaelic schools of the early 19th century were replaced by English-speaking state schools after 1872.

This book uses the statement "Gaelic culture was gradually undermined..." I'm not sure if there is better way of putting it. Maybe something to the effect of pressure of the English language? Kman543210 (talk) 11:50, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

After Culloden Gaelic was outlawed

"Their culture was demolished, their native language - Gaelic - was banned and marked as a hanging offence if spoken, the wearing of tartan was also made a hanging offence and even the Bible was not allowed to be learnt in their own language, never mind written." http://www.highlanderweb.co.uk/culloden/jacobite.htm

"Re: Banned Languages Further to the problems of Scots Gaelic: the sorry story of the enforced demise of the Gaidhealtachd (Gaelic-speaking area of Scotland) is very fully told in Charles W. J. Withers. 1984. *Gaelic in Scotland 1698-1981*. The Geographical History of a Language. Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers Ltd. The book briefly treats the period prior to the 17th century and then recounts in copious detail measures taken by various regimes/churches to reduce the numbers of Gaelic-speakers in the country to their present tiny total."

http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/2/2-177.html

See also: http://www.scotland-calling.com/language.htm and http://www.visitdunkeld.com/jacobites.htm and http://tafkac.org/language/scottish_gaelic.html

Quite what the legal materialisation (if any) of the ban was I'm unsure. But is it common knowledge that ban happened. From a practical point of view: languages don't just dry up so quickly and get replaced without extreme causes. The likelihood of GAels suddenly deciding they would speak a foreign language, is just not credible. 88.109.244.223 (talk) 12:20, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Beginners' courses...

Someone anonymously added a link to the Edinburgh Language Academy under "Scottish Gaelic for Beginners". I'm of the opinion that this isn't appropriate -- we surely can't be expected to list every single language school offering Gaelic courses -- but I've left that decision to more experienced editors than me. What I have done is made sure it's not the first link in the list -- it certainly doesn't deserve that position. Prof Wrong (talk) 20:01, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Bible in Gaelic

The page says "The first translation of the Bible into Scottish Gaelic was not made until 1767 when Dr James Stuart of Killin and Dugald Buchanan of Rannoch produced a translation of the New Testament.". However, David Ross in Scotland: History of a Nation (Geddes & Grosset, 2002) states that "A Gaelic version of the Bible was published in 1690 by the Rev. Robert Kirk, minister of Aberfoyle, [...] but it was not widely circulated.", and at the back pages' Chronology repeats it ("1690 [...] Rev. Robert Kirk has his translation of the Bible into Gaelic printed in London"). Can anyone either confirm or disprove this? Duncan MacCall (talk) 23:05, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Iirc, the 1690 Bible was simply a reprint of an Irish one, which became more and more hard to understand as time went by. Only from the 18th century on did both Irish and SG move away from Classical Irish and towards the spoken language.85.241.125.199 (talk) 01:02, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

As far as im aware Kirks bible wasnt simply a rehashed Irish language one but a genuine attempt at translation into Scottish Gaelic. However it doesnt seem to have been circulated at all and it wasnt really until efforts by the SSPCK (following pressure by Dr. Johnson no less!) that a genuinely Scottish Gaelic bible was provided for the masses. siarach (talk) 14:53, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

v vs vs vs/v vs v v

Someone's changing all the vss for versus to vs. I can't find Wikipedia guidelines on the matter, and while my company's house style is "v", I think it looks very unclear, particularly in the section headers here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Prof Wrong (talk • contribs) 15:20, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Tag Questions

Our article on Tag questions starts with a general section which mentions various languages, and then has a full section on English, for the obvious reason that English tag questions are so much more complex and interesting than those in most other languages. It would be highly desirable to get something in there on tag questions in Celtic languages. I am thinking here of sentences like Tha i breagha an diugh, nach eil? If they are as simple as French n'est-ce pas then a brief mention in the first section would do, but if as I suspect, they are as complex as the English ones, then a new section at the bottom would be needed. I have a sneaking suspicion that the English system, which is untypical of Germanic languages, is modelled on Celtic, and it would be great to see just how far it is parallel. Can some of the competent Gaelic speakers here turn their attention to this? --Doric Loon (talk) 16:23, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Gaelic is even more complex than English in this, as English only uses auxiliary and modal verbs for creating tag questions, while Gaelic uses full verbs. For example, I saw him, didn't I? translates into Gaelic as Chunnaic mi e, nach fhaca?, where fhaca is inflection of the full verb faic (see). --Duncan MacCall (talk) 22:35, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. It's parallel to the way Gaelic uses full verbs for "yes" and "no" answers. But I don't know enough to write this up. Please do go over to Tag question and explain this there. --Doric Loon (talk) 09:35, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Well I've expanded the article like this, but I don't see why anything else should be done, unless you mean to expand it for all the groups of languages (Slavic, Romance &c), which I certainly don't feel up to. And I'm afraid I see no reason why to supposse that the English way is modelled on the Celtic one, they both seem to naturally derive from the respective ways of treating common questions and negatives. --Duncan MacCall (talk) 11:51, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the article overcomplicates the rules for tag questions. The tag question is simply the questiony bit of the simple question stuck on the end (which I've now tried to express in the English section of the article). At that level of complexity, the rule is identical in English and Gaelic.

The differences in form (auxiliaries vs main verbs) exist only because of the different rules for formation of questions in the two languages. There's no such thing as an auxiliary in Gaelic anyway.

It's quite plausible that the English tag question is a calque from the Celtic form, but I would also think it's pretty likely that the Celtic form is how it was handled in proto-IE, so it could have still existed in Anglo-Saxon at the time of settlement. I'd want to get some references before I would state baldly that it came from the Celtic....

Prof Wrong (talk) 12:12, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

The above statement that there is no such thing as an auxiliary in Gaelic is wrong. The verbs bi, dean and gabh all have uses as auxiliary verbs. When a statement uses an auxiliary verb any attached tag uses only the auxiliary, not the main verb (eg "Bidh e a' tighinn gach latha, nach bi?" , "Nì e 'mholadh fhéin, nach dean?"). Michealt (talk) 18:00, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

There is no such thing as an auxiliary verb in Gaelic -- there is only ever one verb in a Gaelic clause. The verbal noun is a noun, not a verb: the concept of an auxiliary verb is only valid in a language with multiple verbs in a clause, such as English or Latin. Prof Wrong (talk) 18:02, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Is "go" in a sentence like "Tomorrow I can go to Glasgow" is not a verb - it's certainly not a finite verb since it carries no tense (that is carried by teh auxiliary verb "can" and all infinite verbs in English are either substantives or adjectives. So your argument applies just as well to English as to Gaelic. Do you really want to say that there are no auxiliary verbs in English?Michealt (talk) 19:55, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

By whose analysis is an English infinitive a noun or adjective? I could see how you could argue that a to-infinitive can be used as a noun in high register speech (to err is human, etc) but in most cases if we want a noun from verb we have to form the gerund. In particular, note that the English infinitive never appears after prepositions (after leaving, not *after to leave). (Unless you consider "to" a preposition, in which case it's the exception, not the rule.)

As for I can go, you cannot replace "go" with a common noun -- can needs another verb, so "go" here has to be a verb (in the infinitive, as you say).

If we start trying to impose the idea of auxiliaries onto Gaelic, then what do you do with constructions like "An urrainn dhuit innse dhomh...?"? Is "Is" the auxiliary here? The adjective "urrainn"? The construction "is urrainn"?

The notion of auxiliaries really can't be applied consistently to Gaelic because Gaelic typically uses substantives in places where other languages use verbs.

Prof Wrong (talk) 10:02, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

You're quite right about references - but the English system is unique in Germanic languages, so a relationship with Celtic is certainly plausible. But we don't do OR here, so we must leave that alone for now. What we CAN do is show more clearly how Gaelic does this, so people can make the comparison for themselves. So, for example, what I would like to know is whether the balanced / unbalanced tag question distinction holds good in Gaelic. I don't think, by the way, that the article overcomplicates the English system: it really IS this complicated. You won't appreciate this until you try teaching it to foreign learners, but the intricacies are fiendish. --Doric Loon (talk) 16:46, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Numbers

Could someone acquainted with modern Gaelic better than me add a brief section on the use of vigesimal vs decimal systems? I think it would be well worth mentioning here, but I found nothing on the subject either here or in any other Gaelic-related article. --Duncan MacCall (talk) 22:43, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Well if all you want is the old system compared to the new system i.e. 30 = Deich air Fhichead = Trichead / 45 = Dà Fhichead 'sa Coig = Ceithread 'sa Coig, - i could do that but i'm not quite sure how it would work as a distinct section. siarach (talk) 11:00, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I think this would fit better in the Scottish Gaelic grammar article (which could use some attention, anyway). CapnPrep (talk) 13:37, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I know how the systems work (and you're right - that should probably be in the "grammar" article rather than here), but I'm at a loss about how much is each used - eg the 1993 Teach Yourself Gaelic by Robertson and Taylor states the decimal system is not in common use in Gaelic communities (is this information out of date?), while the BBC "Litrichean" by Ruairidh MacIlleathain systematically use it (is it done so they're more learner-friendly?) - that's what I thought should probably be mentioned here. --Duncan MacCall (talk) 23:00, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

That's a tough question to answer with any non subjective references to be honest. The decimal system is what is taught in schools and is the only system taught (at least in my experience) but most Gaelic speakers over the age of 30 or those who have not gone through Gaelic Medium Education (i.e. the great majority) are more familiar with the more traditional vigesimal system. Personally i find i have to vary which system i use depending upon who i am talking to. Generally speaking everybody understands the vegisimal system while many older people have trouble understanding the newer decimal system. siarach (talk) 23:37, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't have any appropriate sources to hand so I can't add anything to the article. Unfortunately, these two contributions to Vigesimal are unsourced, and this page is just a blog. It should be possible to find documentation about when/why the decision was made to adopt decimal counting in "official" Gaelic teaching materials. CapnPrep (talk) 23:45, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Disambiguation header

The reason for the latest edit: (dab headers are for disambiguation only - they are not de-luxe "See also" sections)

I don't think this is quite fair -- the intention behind the original header (not written by me) was clearly just that a lot of people confuse Scots and Gaelic. The addition of Scottish English was, to my mind, a mistake, as I don't recall ever hearing anyone confuse Scottish English with Gaelic!

I've reinstated Scots in the header (but not SSE that's a matter for the Scots article to disambiguate) as I really do believe it's directly addressing a genuine confusion, rather than functioning as a "deluxe See Also section". Prof Wrong (talk) 12:03, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Quoting Wikipedia:Hatnotes

Hatnotes are meant to reduce confusion and direct readers to another article they might have been looking for,

As I say above, many people do confuse Gaelic with Scots, so it is reasonable to assume that some will have been looking for the article on Scots.

It's only unambiguous to Mais Oui! because he/she knows the difference, and sadly a lot of people don't.

EG ibiblio.org list Burns under the "Gaelic" hierarchy [4] Prof Wrong (talk) 13:29, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Question: if someone types "Scottish Gaelic" into the Search box and presses Go then how likely is it that that person is actually trying to find the article on the Scots language? Answer: nil. That is what disambiguation headers and pages are for: to help people find the article they are actually looking for. They are not for linking to related topics: that is what See also sections are for.--Mais oui! (talk) 13:33, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Trouble is they wouldn't type "Scottish Gaelic" into the Search box, but just "Scottish", which would lead them to the disambig page, and I suppose quite a few would then be tempted to simply choose "Scottish Gaelic" and never consider what "Scots language" might mean, as they wouldn't take "Scots" for an adjective but a wrongly typed genitive. You'd be surprised how many even well-educated Europeans live under the impression that Scots speak either English or some Celtic language, because of course "Scots are Celts". --Duncan MacCall (talk) 22:40, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Exactly -- there's more than one way to reach a page in error, particularly when the error is in the reader's perception. By putting the hatnote in, we make the point (subtly) that the reader may be confused. If we try to disambiguate (yes, disambiguate) the user's perception at some arbitrary point in the article, we risk the user simply not reading that part of the article, and continuing to read in the false belief that he is reading about the language of Burns or somesuch. Prof Wrong (talk) 13:18, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, I've disambiguated to Languages of Scotland. Is this OK? Prof Wrong (talk) 13:26, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Clì Gàidhlig - deletion

Someone has just put a deletion tag on Clì Gàidhlig. Those interested in Gaelic language issues might stop by there and see if they agree. --Doric Loon (talk) 16:07, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Had a look and it seems to be a pretty spurious nomination. Clì comfortably returns enough hits on google to justify an article. Are we required to go through the whole discussion/vote rigmarole simply because this guy has stuck up an AfD template or can we just revert his insertion and save everyone a lot of pointless blether? siarach (talk) 21:32, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Since I started that article, I can't really do that, but you can. Why don't you delete the tag, explain why briefly on talk, and it can probably be left at that unless this guy comes back looking for an argument. However, he IS right that the article doesn't have much in it yet and if you can add some content, that would be the surest way of securing its survival. --Doric Loon (talk) 21:44, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Kk will do on both fronts. siarach (talk) 10:02, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

IPA

What are probably broad (phonemic) transcriptions are shown in brackets as though they are narrow. This is common in W'pedia and beyond. Beats me why. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.140.57.113 (talk) 11:01, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Untidy conventions, even linguists are not always clean in distinguishing [phonetic] /phonemic/ and <orthographic>. Mind, the move has been to use phonetic rather than phonemic lately (was asked to review quite a few) to reduce the amount of ambiguity to the casual browser not familiar with the phonemic rules of language X. Akerbeltz (talk) 14:09, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

the US, Australia, New Zealand

For some reason, these countries were listed in the infobox. While it is true that we can find speakers of almost any language in almost any country, that is not a reason to list every country in the world in the infobox for every language. The numbers listed for New Zealand, the US and Australia in the infobox here were below the numbers for French speakers, Swedish speakers, Spanish speakers etc. in the same countries. Australia and New Zealand is completely absent from the infoboxes for French, Swedish and Spanish, the US absent from the infoboxes for both Swedish and French (despite more than 100.000 native French speakers and 1.6 million total French speakers in the US compared with less than 2.000 for Welsh). If we included each country where a language is spoken by so low a number as less than 2.000 or even 1.000 speakers, as had been done here, infoboxes would be very long indeed.Jeppiz (talk) 23:22, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

New Zealnd, the USA and Australia all have traditional and longstanding Gaelic speaking communities. Your comparison with other (major) languages is utterly irrelevant. It would indeed be strange to list every country which contains a couple of thousand French speakers in the infobox for French. But given that the population of Gaelic speakers in Australia/NZ/Australia make up a reasonable proportion of the total number of Gaelic speakers, given how few there are in total, and form the remnants of long standing populations their inclusion is justified. siarach (talk) 10:53, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

The point is that these communities are important to Gaelic, not to the host countries. That's why these communities are in the infobox, but similar sized communities of Chinese, French and Spanish speakers are not listed in their appropriate boxes. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 11:07, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

While I understand that point, I still think it's dubious. Where do we draw the line between what is important for the language and what is not. I'm not too sure about the "reasonable proportion" argument. Despite French being a larger language, the number of French speakers in the US represent a roughly equal proportion of French speakers as the Gaelic speakers in New Zealand do of the Gaelic speakers there, and French has a much longer tradition in the US than Gaelic does in either New Zealand or Australia. So whily I see the points of the arguments, I'm still not convinced that so very low numbers belong in the infobox.Jeppiz (talk) 13:47, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok, since nobody seems to disagree I guess these same countries can be removed from the infobox again? The number of Gaelic speakers in these countries is extremely low by any standard, very far below what is normally seen in infoboxes.Jeppiz (talk) 18:02, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

You raised nothing you hadn't raised first time round when we disagreed. The populations in these countries are important to the language and the article topic and should be counted in the infobox. siarach (talk) 18:06, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

How are the 669 Gaelic speakers in New Zealand more important to the language that much higher number of speakers of other languages elsewhere? These numbers aren't even for native speakers, they are for all people who have reported some knowledge of the language. If we used the same logic for English in Finland, we would end up with more than three millions. In addition, there are more than 70(!) languages that are more widely spoken in New Zealand than Gaelic, according to the same source. In short

• The number of Gaelic speakers outside the UK and Canada is extremely low in both absolute numbers and in percentages.
• Most of these speakers are likely mto be learners of the language, not native speakers.
• Around 70-100 languages have higher numbers of speakers in these countries than Gaelic, yet these countries are not found in infoboxes for other countries.
• Gaelic is not a big language, true, but even allowing for that, the percentage of these speakers is very low. If we count both native speakers and learners of French in the US, the percentage of speakers is more important for French than the percentage of Gaelic speakers in New Zealand.

I don't doubt An Siarach's feelings for the Gaelic (it's evident from the name) and I fully share those feelings, but a little bit of WP:NPOV might be good as well.Jeppiz (talk) 18:19, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

(undent) I think the point that An Siarach is trying to make is that you can't equate the French in the US case to the Gaelic in NZ case, precisely because Gaelic is an endangered language. What makes the 600 odd speakers of Gaelic in NZ significant is not the percentage of the total but the fact that when it comes to an endangered language every speaker counts. French isn't endangered but Gaelic clearly is. As the older fluent native speaking population dies, the situation becomes more critical to keep track of how many people speak the language even if they are no longer part of the community in Scotland. The same principle has been applied on the Irish and Welsh pages. I don't think this distinction between the number of speakers of an endangered language and the number of speakers of a non-endangered one is is wikipedia policy, but perhaps it should be. Comhreir (talk) 17:08, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

PS. Note that I don't think Jeppiz's 2nd point is correct. US, Canada and NZ all have very large Scottish immigrant populations, and a large portion of the Gaelic population in Scotland has been subject to the diaspora. So I seriously doubt these numbers are the number of learners. (I have no evidence, but it didn't strike me that these numbers were meant to be Gaelic learners. I think the number of learners is probably higher).Comhreir (talk) 17:14, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

And incidentally, Jeppiz, you're off on your assumption regarding their status as non-native speakers. I don't have any figures to back this up as this comes from many years of being active in the community and having close links to the NZ circuits but they are mostly native speaker emigrants (there have been numerous TV docs on them over the years) and 2nd/3rd etc generation speakers. This includes a mixed Maori/Pakeha bilingual community in NZ speaking Assynt Gaelic. Sure, there will be some learners in there, but the they're unlikely to be the majority. Can we move on? This isn't a very fruitful topic for debate, time would be much better spent adding content. Akerbeltz (talk) 00:39, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Chauvinism

Unfortunately, it's far too common on Wikipedia that users want to exagerate the importance and influence of their own country, their own religion or their own language. This page is case in point. In sharp contrast to more or less every language page on Wikipedia, the idea here seems to be to give the impression that Gaelic is much more widely spoken that it is. The number of speakers in the US or in Australia is minimal, at least in the US Gaelic is probably not among the 100 most spoken languages. Despite this, some users insist on having both the US and the Australian flags here. Languages such as French, Swedish, German, Japanese, Chinese and many many others are spoken by 10 - 1000 times as many speakers in the US, yet we don't have the US flag in the infoboxes for those countries. Unlike Gaelic, French is even a community language in parts of the US and the majority language in some areas. While trying to assume good faith, it's hard not to think that users insisting on including completely irrelevant number of speakers in the infobox are acting more out of a will to make Gaelic seem more widely spoken than it is than out of interest of providing accurate information. Such chauvinism and POV only serves to undermine the quality of the whole article.Jeppiz (talk) 21:24, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I see your point but you have to see that in relative terms. Canada, Australia, NZ and the US were major centres of emigration for Gaelic speakers in the past and they represent the only countries with significant numbers of speakers. Ok, in absolute terms 882 speakers in Australia may not seem like anything to write home about, but when you put that against a grant total of 63,753 speakers worldwide, 2000 speakers represent just over 3% of all speakers; claiming that's irrelavant would be like saying that 26 million mandarin speakers (3%) is nothing.

What I have just realised though is the number of 90,000 in the infobox, that needs changing. It's totally misleading as that includes half speakers and passive speakers, the number should be 58,652 (active speakers). Akerbeltz (talk) 21:40, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

It is of course true that we have to take the relative size of the language into consideration, but that still doesn't explain it as Gaelic stands out even then. There are around 1.600.000 people who speak French natively in the US. That is also around 2-3% of the total number of French speakers in the world, and the same argument can be made for many other languages. No matter how small a language is, we should always report the country/region where it is spoken, and I agree that for smaller languages, smaller number are sufficient to be significant. However, even if we take all of that into account, there is still no reason to include the US and Australia as the number of speakers is so exceptionally low. We should try to apply more or less the same standard for all languages, not special standards for languages we happen to like, as I'm sure we both do when it comes to Gaelic.Jeppiz (talk) 22:14, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

There is not reason NOT to include it either, the numbers are ref'd, related to the topic and not trivial (not like listing 5 speakers for Japan or something). Your argument for removing the data just isn't convincing. Akerbeltz (talk) 00:33, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

My reasoning isn't convincing? I've outlined in some detail why I think we should not include these languages, as it is not in line with how we treat other languages. Yes, these numbers are very trivial and your attempt to silence opinions you don't like by refusing to discuss and saying we should move on is, to be honest, not very convincing either.Jeppiz (talk) 03:40, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Calm down, I'm not silencing anyone - this is Wikipedia remember? The fact remains that your suggestion to remove the location of 8% of all Gaelic speakers globally is NOT convincing. There really are better ways of improving this article. Akerbeltz (talk) 09:37, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Bòrd na Gàidhlig in the infobox

I've removed BnaG from the infobox for the simple reason that the Agency field in the language infobox relates to institutions regulating the language, not language policy. For example, under French you'd get the Académie française or under Spanish the Real Academia Española. BnaG is charged with developing the language in a policy context and not involved the regulating spelling/grammar/pronunciation/terminology. Akerbeltz (talk) 14:05, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

"Highland Gaelic"

I don´t think I have ever heard this term before. I don´t think there´s any justification for referring to the term as a common one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.171.129.69 (talk) 21:35, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I find the term odd too. I've worked with the language for nigh on 15 years now and never heard the term. Google searches aren't particularly fruitful either. Anyone got a ref? I'll tag it in the meantime. Akerbeltz (talk) 16:38, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

A' Ghàidhlig

Native speakers of this language speak of 'A' Ghàidhlig' ( English: 'The Gaelic') and not of 'Gàidhlig' (English: 'Gaelic'). In most if not all varieties of Gaelic, the name of a language has the definite article placed before it. Native speakers of Gaelic even carry through this practice into the Enhlish language, where we hear of 'the Gaelic' not just 'Gaelic'!Eog1916 (talk) 15:49, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Both occur. The forms with the definite article are more common in genitive constructions but either way, the article is not obligatory. Akerbeltz (talk) 16:38, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

In 'A Gaelic Grammar' by George Calder, Glasgow, 1923 it states; "II. The Article is used : 7. with names of languages : Am faigh a' Ghàidhlig bàs—Will Gaelic die ? Anns a' Bheurla chruaidh-In hard English". In 'Gráiméar Gaeilge na mBráithre Críostaí' ( URL: http://ec.europa.eu/translation/language_aids/freelance/documents/irish/christian_brothers_irish_grammar.pdf ) it is stated in 7.14 ( page 47) "Úsáidtear an t-alt freisin sna cásanna seo a leanas; le hainmneacha teangacha nuair atá a mbrí forleathan: 'is í an Ghaeilge teanga ár sinsear'; 'tháinig an Béarla isteach'; 'Bhí an Ghearmáinis go maith aige'.Ligtear an t-alt ar lár mura bhfuil an bhrí forleathan: abair i mBéarla é; cuireadh Fraincis ar an mBíobla; tá Gréigis aige; leabhar Spáinnise." This rule would appear somewhat similar to the French language. InCliffsNotes - The Fastest Way to Learn ( SEE URL: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/CliffsReviewTopic/Definite-Articles.topicArticleId-25559,articleId-25478.html) it states; "Use the definite article as follows: With names of languages, except directly after parler, en, and de, 'Le français est facile'. (French is easy., but 'J'adore le français'. (I love French.)"Eog1916 (talk) 01:23, 30 June 2009 (UTC) Eog1916 (talk) 13:31, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Calder is not a reliable source, he's too much of an antiquarian philologist. And the Christian Brother's grammar deals with Irish. I'm not saying that the article is not used with languages but it's not compulsory in many settings. For example, in spoken Gaelic it is normally stated that tha Gàidhlig agam not tha a' Ghàidhlig agam (though the latter would not be wrong, it's just much less common). But in the phrase tha gràmar na Gàidhlig furasta the form with the definite article na would be preferred. It's not a black and white thing. Akerbeltz (talk) 15:13, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I feel this is a bit of a distraction. Whether Gaelic speakers use the article or not when talking about Gaelic is irrelevant to the article. As pointed out in Eog1916's post, French uses the article, but you don't see the article in the translation on French_language. The same goes for Spanish and the wikipedia entry on the Spanish language. Equally, the word "apple" never occurs on its own, but only in the forms "an apple", "the apple", "apples" etc, yet the wikipedia entry is marked apple.

I feel that including the article in the translation flies in the face of WP convention, which favours the plain headword as it would appear in a dictionary. The "A'" and lenition are grammatical features and not part of the word per se.

Prof Wrong (talk) 18:30, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I was just responding to the point raised on a general basis, I have no problem with the native name being given as Gàidhlig only. Akerbeltz (talk) 18:34, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Barkatu, I wasn't suggesting otherwise. Prof Wrong (talk) 17:32, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Region

There are a number of speakers in Glasgow and other parts of the Lowlands (some born and raised there), and with growing numbers in the south in GME (about 1000 pupils at Sgoil Ghàidhlig Ghlaschu) I think this should be reflected here. I think I read once that a large percentage of the native population live in Glasgow, though I can´t quote the source just now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.171.129.70 (talk) 14:58, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I've found this page: [5] which states that according to the 2001 census, "55.5% of all Gaelic speakers usually resident in the wider Gaidhealtachd of the Western Isles, Highland and Argyll & Bute council areas, and 44.5% in the rest of Scotland" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.171.129.73 (talk) 22:14, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Editing Introductory Paragraph to History Section

The current text, before I begin my edit, is this:

Scottish Gaelic, originally the language of the Scoti settlers from Ireland to Scotland, became the language of the majority of Scotland after it replaced Cumbric, Pictish, Old Norse, and in considerable places, Old English.[7] There is no definitive date indicating how long Scottish Gaelic has been spoken in today's Scotland, though it has been proposed that it was spoken in Argyll before the Roman period,[8] although no consensus has been reached on this question. However, the consolidation of the kingdom of Dál Riata around the 4th century, linking the ancient province of Ulster in the north of Ireland and western Scotland, accelerated the expansion of the language, as did the success of the Gaelic-speaking church establishment, started by St Columba, and place-name evidence shows that Gaelic was spoken in the Rhinns of Galloway by the 5th or 6th century.[citation needed]

And now a quotation from Old Irish

"Old Irish is the name given to the oldest form of the Goidelic languages for which extensive written texts are possessed. It was used from the 6th to the 10th centuries, when it gave way to Middle Irish."

And now a quotation from Middle Irish

"Middle Irish is the name given by historical philologists to the Goidelic language used from the 10th to 12th centuries; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old English and early Middle English.[1][2] The modern Goidelic languages, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx, are all descendants of Middle Irish.

At its height, Middle Irish was spoken throughout Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man; 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."

The Time Line here, as it relates both to the other articles and the information in the citations below is completely out of sync. This is the reason for my edit. Just wanted to let everyone know.Ollie Garkey (talk) 21:36, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that we're confusing the issue of name and truth. For example, we commonly say that Christopher Columbus thought he'd sailed to India, whereas Columbus thought he'd sailed to the Indies, which is something else entirely.

The theoretical start date for Middle Irish is after Argyll became an independent kingdom, so that's where dialect diversion would have gained paced (if we assume the Gaels arrived in the 4th century, which is far from proven).

The line about Middle Irish being "spoken" across Goidelic Britain is wrong-headed. What we can say for sure is that written Middle Irish was in use across Goidelic Britain. The fact that Latin was the main language of written discourse throughout Italy until Dante popularised vernacular writing doesn't say that Latin was "spoken" across Italy.

The lack of a written Middle Scottish Gaelic vernacular would similarly not be evidence of a lack of spoken Middle Scottish Gaelic vernacular. The rapid change in the written mode in the Modern era can only have been caused by normalisation to a long-established spoken mode.

But just as Italy had the occasional piece of written vernacular predating Dante (by about 400 years), Scottish Gaelic has the 12th century Book of Deer, which contains distinctly different margin notes in Old Irish and Scottish Gaelic.

Furthermore, the influence of Norse within Scottish Gaelic helps us date the emergence of the language: the Hebrides (and the Isle of Mann) were invaded by Vikings before the theoretical start of the Middle Irish period, and the vikings left before the end of the period.

This leaves the only justification for talking about "Middle Irish" as one of "that's what everyone else calls it", but this argument only serves to obscure the details. The same thing happens in English vs Scots. Scotland got hold of Lothian before the invasion of the Normans, and it is commonly stated as fact that Scots is descended from Middle English, but as Middle English was the result of the Norman invasion, this is a clear falsehood. Yet here on Wikipedia, blatantly obviously logical non sequiturs are accepted as long as they are taken from a book or journal.... :-(

Prof Wrong (talk) 12:22, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

That last one is actually valid Prof. The Normans had a big influence on Scotland as well as England. They may not have 'conquered' it as they did England, but Norman lords were planted in the Scottish Lowlands to implement Feudalism. Famous families like the Bruces were Norman in origin. Anyway, it is likely that Scottish Gaelic began to differentiate from Middle Irish shortly after it's spread throughout Scotland. The Italian analogy is apt. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.175.71.145 (talk) 15:14, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

True, but it was slower, later and mixed in with immigration from Dutch and other North Sea traders. One ingredient does not make the meal! Prof Wrong (talk) 12:32, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree, it's messy and needs sorting. I think (broadly) one (linguistically) could describe Gaelic as an off-shoot of a Northern branch of w/e Irish and explain the confusion regarding names into a separate section. It's an old confusion though, Gaelic was known as Erse in Scotland for many years and we need to bear in mind that Gaels themselves did not really distinguish the two, it was simply "Goidelic" to speakers in both countries for many centuries. Not dissimilar to the sentiment in China that Cantonese and Mandarin are "dialects" of the same language when linguistically they're not. Akerbeltz (talk) 15:27, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Lowland edit

Stuff about Carrick already in the bit at the top about history - this page is far too messy - I have deleted the duplication Sologoal (talk) 16:02, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah right, ok, that makes sense now, cheers! Akerbeltz (talk) 16:06, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Dal Riáta and the Lordship of the Isles

I thought this was a bit of a spurious claim so I deleted it straight off rather than just hitting "Citation needed":

The language was maintained by the trade empire of the Lordship of the Isles the geographic and cultural descendant of Dál Riata, which continued to control parts of Ulster until the 1500s'

That said, if there is any serious academic who suggests that the Lordship of the Isles grew out of the Kingdom of Dalriada, and that the Kingdom of Scotland was something else entirely I would be very interested to hear it, as it paints a very different picture of the arrival of Gaelic in Scotland... Prof Wrong (talk) 22:18, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Phrases

I'd like to pose a question regarding the Phrases section. I believe that overall, people are discouraged from turning pages into dictionaries or phrasebooks unless there are very good reasons (e.g. a language that is not well documented even in the literature). There also seems to be some toing and froing with dialectal variation.

I think it would be good if we decided what the purpose of this section is and edit it accordingly. The main two options afaict are:

• a small section demonstrating connected speech, demonstrating the commonalities and differences between the Gaelics
• a small section simply of commonly used phrases

In the first instance, I think we should pick examples with less inter-dialectal variation. In the second, we should decide if we're going to list dialectal differences or not. Either we include them all or none but the current version is a bit of a hotchpotch. Opinions? Akerbeltz (talk) 17:57, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

As there is a section "Comparison#Common phrases" at Goidelic languages, I think it would be better if on this page Scottish Gaelic dialects were compared instead - OTOH I admit I've no idea how many of them (apart from the Lewis one) are all that distinct today. --Thrissel (talk) 14:11, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Out of Scotland theories

My edit of Gaoidheal's edit was based on a misreading, he never intended to imply that it had come from anywhere but Ireland. As far as the Out-of-Scotland theories, there are a few prominent Scottish historians who argue that it was exported to Ireland from Scotland. Can't think of the name off the top of my head but one of them caused quite a stir some time ago. Most, especially anyone with a linguistic background, see that as lunacy but they do exist and perhaps merit a very brief mention one I find the ref. Akerbeltz (talk) 15:38, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

There are serous questions now about the received history, that Gaelic was brought to Scotland from Ireland. The evidence is reviewed in the article cited, Were the Scots Irish?, by Ewan Campbell. He makes a pretty convincing argument and he is not a fringe voice by any means, building on a case made by a number of other archaeologists and historians. He is cited in the first history paragraph, but that paragraph is a mess, and I am afraid that it will never be coherently fixed. I have been watching this article for years, and it is an interesting illustration of the ideological debates around the connection between the Scottish Gaelic language and Scottish identity. The question of when and how Gaelic came to Scotland has always been ideological. Part of Campbell's thesis is that the migration history was an attempt by early Gaels to more tightly bind themselves to Ireland, at a time when a connection to Ireland would have been seen as prestigious. But in the later medieval period, this presumed connection was ironically used to marginalize Gaelic as "Erse" and foreign to Scotland. Campbell's point is that the origin of Gaelic in Scotland is far enough back in time that we may never know how the language came to Argyll, but looking dispassionately at the archaeological and onomastic evidence, the migration history is actually quite unlikely.--Lasairdhubh (talk) 13:10, 28 July 2010 (UTC)Lasairdhubh

Ah thanks for reminding me of the name. The problem with historians is unfortunately that they rarely take historical linguistics into account or understand it. Or in other words, can you derive Scots Gaelic from Old/Middle Irish? Yes. Can you derive Irish from what little is known of Early Scots Gaelic. Hardly. Whatever movements the material culture was involved in, linguistically the movement is definitely Ireland > Scotland. Akerbeltz (talk) 16:00, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Many linguists don't read historians properly. The idea is that Gaelic developed in both Scotland and Ireland from continental origins. The idea that Gaelic comes from Ireland is based on historical rather than linguistic evidence, most of which is not thought today as reliable by historians. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 17:10, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Naming debate on the Gaelic Wikipedia

A chàirdean, We would like to invite all contributors with Gaelic (gd-4 and gd-5 in particular but gd-1 to gd-3 are welcome to contribute too), to take part in the debate to find an appropriate Gaelic form for Wikipedia that doesn't break any rules regarding phonology, intellegibility or forming good neologism. The debate is here [6] and - since it involves quite a few technical issues - in English. Chì mi ann sibh! Akerbeltz (talk) 13:30, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Referring to gaelic

This isn't actually a question about this article, more on all articles on Scottish Gaelic. Is it acceptable to just say "gaelic" if the article has already clearly established that Scottish Gaelic is the language in question? For example BBC Radio Nan Gaidheal acknowledges that it's scottish gaelic in the lead, can it then just be referred to as Gaelic for the rest of the article? JoshuaJohnLee ^{talk softly, please} 07:17, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

In Scotland or Ireland I believe that works. For an international audience I think it's best avoided because many articles refer to one of the other 2 Gaelics (Manx Gaelic or Irish Gaelic) and people are eternally confused about which "Gaelic" you might be talking about. So I think it's best to use Irish/Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Manx/Manx Gaelic consistently. Akerbeltz (talk) 10:32, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Mutually understandable with Irish?

I've noticed a discussion on the Mutual intelligibility talkpage about whether or not to include Scottish Gaelic and Irish as mutually understandable in one of the lists. Any reliable source (whether for or against) apparently welcome. --Thrissel (talk) 22:49, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Media section

In my new fervour for editing about gaidhlig media, I have rewritten the section on it a bit on this page. It was a bit confused before with some repetition and bouncing from topic to topic. I've also added some references to back up the material. JoshuaJohnLee ^{talk softly, please} 22:40, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Study into Attitudes towards Gaelic

I would like to bring to the attention of people editing this article the recent study towards attitudes and identity when it comes to Gaelic language. It is located here on the Scotland government website. It has a lot of useful observations which could be included into this article. Unfortunately I don't have enough time to do it myself, so I'm leaving it here for people to look over! JoshuaJohnLee ^{talk softly, please} 16:36, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

The Scottish Gaelic task force needs you!

JoshuaJohnLee ^{talk softly, please} 22:17, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Use of "Middle Irish" and "Primitive Irish

In the opening statement it says Scottish Gaelic developed out of Middle Irish and thus descends from Primitive Irish. I think this is quite inappropriate. The language was never referred to as Irish in those times. The word for the Irish language in Irish is Gaelg (I think) so why must English speakers take it upon ourselves to refer to the historical language as Irish rather than it's true name of Gaelic. I propose changing it to Scottish Gaelic, like Irish and Manx descends from Middle Gaelic which ultimately descends from primitive Gaelic. Thoughts ?

My thoughts are that you're trying to push some agenda across various pages. Whatever your personal views on the matter, Celtic linguistics calls these varieties Middle Irish and Primitive Irish in English. Open and shut case. Akerbeltz (talk) 15:14, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

As per Akerbeltz, Primitive Irish and Middle Irish are the proper linguistic terms and thus is the most acceptable for an encyclopaedia. Please do not change these terms in the article. JoshuaJohnLee ^{talk softly, please} 15:44, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Nope no agenda here. Just a curiosity. I didn't change it and won't I merely proposed changing it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.199.128 (talk) 01:13, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

No worries then! Your comment was valid and thanks for contributing here. Why not create an account and help contribute to articles? The five pillars can help you understand the basic philosophy behind editing on Wikipedia. JoshuaJohnLee ^{talk softly, please} 02:36, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Just to add to that, there is a valid argument to be made that the commonly-used term is slightly misleading. Just as I object to the term "Old English" for the language varieties spoken in parts of modern Scotland as well as modern England during the second half of the 1st millenium AD as excessively England-centric(Anglocentric doesn't work, as I'd prefer to call the language Anglo-Saxon), I object to the use of "Middle Irish" for a language by then long established in Scotland as excessively Hiberno-centric. Unfortunately, Wikipedia guidelines say to follow the bulk of literature and expert opinion, and the bulk of Gaelic researchers are Irish and the bulk of Anglo-Saxon researchers are English, so biased ethnocentric names are the current norm which Wikipedia must follow..... Prof Wrong (talk) 15:59, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Glad someone shares the same opinion as me then. Hopefully this will change sometime in the near future. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.194.215.249 (talk) 08:32, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Difficulty in learning

Might I suggest adding a few lines somewhere in the article about how difficult it would be for a native English speaker to learn Scottish Gaelic. I would find that quite an interesting piece of information as I've thought a bit about learning the language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.199.128 (talk) 11:34, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

If you can find sources to verify this then you can go ahead and add something about it. However I doubt that it is difficult for everyone who is a native english speaker to learn Gaelic. I'm a native English speaker and I've found it relatively easy so far. There may be a point for how different the grammar structure is etc. to English and how that increases difficulty, but would still need a source. JoshuaJohnLee ^{talk softly, please} 13:56, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and it would have to be a very serious linguistic source, because this is the kind of thing which people with no linguistic competence like to sound off about, especially after the third beer. You will certainly find journalistic sources, and they won't do. Personally, I doubt that any language is difficult, since any child can learn any language. But some are slightly easier for some learners in that elements of them are already familiar before they start. But quantifying that would be very difficult, and only a proper academic study would be citable. --Doric Loon (talk) 17:34, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

What he said. At best, you might be able to find some data on the relative distance between languages but on the whole, linguists don't really entertain the concept of easy or hard languages. Akerbeltz (talk) 18:47, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

If you look at the article on any other language, you'll find that this information isn't listed there either. You could make a list of differences between language pairs, but if it wasn't exhaustive then it wouldn't be indicative of the full difficulty or otherwise of a given language. But if it was exhaustive, it would be the length of several books, and would hardly be suitable for wikipedia. Taking a list of differences and finding a weighting for each difference that gives a sum "difficulty" would be very difficult indeed, and as others have said, there is no objective standard to judge against. Furthermore, difficulties are often the teacher's fault, not the language's, so it would never really be correct anyway. :-) Prof Wrong (talk) 20:08, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry I was of the understanding that speakers of certain tongues could find it difficult to learn others. Is Japanese not incredibly difficult (compared to certain languages) for non-Japanese speakers to learn (especially speakers of Germanic/Romance languages) ? Scottish Gaelic could have a very different or similair structure to English that's all I was suggesting. Just adding in a few lines over wether native English speakers would find it easy or difficult to adapt to the language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.199.128 (talk) 22:51, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

In basic terms I'm sure you're right. Some people with certain languages will find others easy to learn. Unfortunately, without verifiable and sourced information it can't be added to wikipedia. You yourself can feel free to go find a source somewhere to prove that and it can be added right away. If you find a source but you're not sure how to integrate it, just post the source here and someone will add it. JoshuaJohnLee ^{talk softly, please} 23:02, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Great I'll have a look around and see if I can come up with anything. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.199.128 (talk) 14:43, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

It really isn't worth your time. Myself, Doric Loon and Akerbeltz have all spent a lot of time working through the literature on this topic and I can tell you now that all you're going to find is opinion that will fail on grounds of the reliability of the source. If any genuine expert had published any peer-reviewed data on the difficulty or otherwise of the language, I'm pretty certain I'd have heard about it, and I'm 100% sure Akerbeltz would be able to tell me about it if I hadn't. The data you're looking for simply doesn't exist. Prof Wrong (talk) 15:49, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Ah I see. Thanks for the heads up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.199.128 (talk) 20:55, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

4th century: sources?

While I accept that the 4th century invasion is the generally accepted theory, it could still be better attributed, couldn't it? I've heard it claimed that the only ancient source we have is Bede's chronicles. If this is true, I would have thought it worth including. Prof Wrong (talk) 21:42, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

It's not the generally accepted theory. Not amongst historians anyway. It's a completely ridiculous theory with no basis in historical or archaeological evidence. Sadly a creationist myth, fostered in the middle ages by Scottish kings to create closer ties with Ireland has become accepted historical fact... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.194.215.249 (talk) 10:57, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Reasons for Decline

I have always wondered this, why is it that Norman influence and the led to such permament Anglicization at the expense of Gaelic when:

The parts of Europe which participated in the Hanseatic League don't speak German Many countries that were influenced by forgeign languages didn't abandon their own languagues Wales which was under norman influence didn't have a linguistic divide at the expense of welsh like what happened in Scotland. And if Pictish died out so quickly why did it take Gaelic so long to decline in the higlands? Abrawak (talk) 20:18, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

The last strongholds of the Picts were in the low-lying easily accessible East. The Highlands are just that, high - I suspect geography. Akerbeltz (talk) 21:49, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

But why and how were the burghs able to lead to such anglicisation that even the national language was replaced as the national language and began it's decline. So many countries, like Scotland have been influenced by their neighbours (perhaps speaking more prestigious languages) but not at the expense of their native toungues. The countries that participated in the Hansiatic league for example,didn't become German speaking, the Baltic States and Finland aren't Swedish or Russian speaking and the norman influence in Wales and Ireland didn't erode their languages (offcourse it did but that was centuries later) But why was Scotland different? Abrawak (talk) 21:41, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

How widely was Gaelic spoken during the wars of independence? Abrawak (talk) 21:41, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Hm we're sliding into a forum debate here, which is not encourage by Wikipedia. Akerbeltz (talk) 22:22, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Edit warring over the letter "n"

I see there is an edit war going on over the use of nor versus or. According to the rules of English Grammar, nor is more correct. Also, as far as I can tell there is no policy favoring the use of or over nor, nor is there any proscription against nor. In fact, the manual of style uses nor in several places. So please stop the edit warring! Dave (djkernen)|Talk to me|Please help! 14:35, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, this edit warring has been annoying me. It's my belief that "nor" is more correct here and I think we should just leave it like that. I couldn't find a policy either, and English grammar means it should be "nor". Caledones ^{talk softly, please} 15:12, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I also agree. "Nor" is used correctly here and is a better choice than "or".--William Thweatt ^Talk | ^Contribs 16:13, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

The reason I reverted the change is that the existing text had been in place for a year (it was initially added in early March 2011) and had gone unchallenged since then. With language you cannot argue that something is "more correct" than something else, and often there will be more than one correct way, and each should be considered theoretically equal. Given that the word "or" has been here a year without anyone batting an eyelid, at the very least it falls under retain the existing variety. Personally I also think it's at best a heavily marked from that draws unnecessary attention to itself, at worst simply an outmoded usage. Prof Wrong (talk) 01:03, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Whether this is one or not, there are doubtless thousands of long-term errors lurking to be discovered in Wikipedia. This is hardly a valid reason for retaining something. Your constant reversions of several other editors, supported by those above, is tedious and distracting from getting on with other matters. Per my edit summary, and Conjunction (grammar), "nor" indicates a "non-contrasting negative idea", "or" would indicate an "alternative item or idea". The former is the case here, the latter is not. The notion that such a commonplace word as "nor" is outmoded seems bizarre. Mutt Lunker (talk) 01:20, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I disagree that it is "outmoded" - I use the word nor in everyday english (and I'm only 20, hardly outmoded!) Anyway, I think we've had enough of this now. "nor" seems to be the consensus. It certainly is not distracting nor a marked difference. Also, WP:RETAIN is under the heading of "national varieties of english" and refers to the usage of British or American English in articles, not cases like this. It's definitely not a policy for keeping something just because it's been there a while. Caledones ^{talk softly, please} 01:48, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Oh really? Care to share on what basis nor can be claimed to be outmoded? A quick trawl of bbc.co.uk lists 970,000 instances of nor. Hardly marginal I'd say. Akerbeltz (talk) 11:02, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, for one thing it occurs so rarely in corpus materials that the Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English doesn't even bother to include an entry for it in its index. If you look up "or", you'll find "nor" described as its rather infrequently used negative counterpart. It's one of those things that don't even get taught actively to most learners any more, because so few natives use them (see also whom).

I'd never have taken you for a prescriptivist, a Mhìcheil, and the bane of every descriptivist is the overzealous editing of a minority of prescriptivists -- every day, teachers and editors take natural written English and destroy the evidence of change by imposing dead or dying rules on it.

Nor is outdated -- it is no longer a majority usage -- but concensus wins. Prof Wrong (talk) 15:40, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

One other thought occurs to me -- it is ironic that prescriptivists fight so hard to preserve this double negative, when its death is a direct result of the self-same prescriptivists banning English's other historical double (and multiple) negatives -- I ain't never gone nowhere to say nothing to nobody. Prof Wrong (talk) 15:43, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Just because "nor" and "whom" are infrequently used does not make them any less correct. But anyway, we have consensus now and I think it's a good time to bring this discussion to an end. Caledones ^{talk softly, please} 15:53, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Your "descriptive" analysis is predicated on the hypothesis that nor is obsolete in modern speech but it is that very hypothesis that we are challenging. This is not a debate between descriptivists and prescriptivists; it is an argument over your description of nor as archaic. It simply is not, and most English speakers I know use it and use it correctly. Also, your claim that both forms are equally correct is without merit, because even from a descriptive perspective nor and or are not at all interchangeable. I can say "I don't have a driver's license, nor do I want one" but I cannot say "I don't have a driver's license or do I want one". I can however say "I don't have a license and I don't want one", which shows that while or provides a list of mutually exclusive alternatives, nor is a way to and together negative statements. In fact, the more I examine it, the clearer it becomes that I was mistaken to call nor more correct; I should have left out the word more because or was just flat out wrong. Dave (djkernen)|Talk to me|Please help! 15:58, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

That's a different structure, though, so irrelevant here. Prof Wrong (talk) 18:55, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I pick and chose between prescriptivism and descriptivism as I see fit, for I'm a practical linguist. Anyway. The consensus aside that has emerged, I punched various words into the Corpus of Contemporary American English (1990-2011) [7] and get 40,000 hits for nor. Rather more than for neither (33,000) and somewhat less than either (91,000). Taking that together with the bbc data, I'd say Longman's is guilty of a shortcoming, if anything. Akerbeltz (talk) 17:04, 2 March 2012 (UTC)