Why can't Scottish people speak Scots Gaelic?

[On_the_trot]

Okay because English is the global language one must be able to speak it fluently but the vast majority of Scottish people cannot even say one word in Scots Gaelic? What seems ironic is that even though there are  strong sentiments of nationalism running through the blood of a lot of Scottish people everyone still speaks English.....the language of England. And in Wales where nationalism is not as fervent a lot of people can still speak Welsh. Please discuss. 

[sft42]

Your question is based on an erronious premise.....english is firstly the language of the british isles, always has been as it developed and grew...different dialects are used in many areas of the country but the name given to the language is misleading....Scots is another language derived from english and info on that can be found here http://www.scots-online.org/< /P>

Furthermore Gaelic was only ever spoken in any numbers in the North West of Scotland which is still the stronghold of the language these days.....as for welsh as far as i am aware there has been a large promotion of the tongue and it is far more widely spoken these days.

 

[On_the_trot]

Thank you sft42

[SKCOLL]

1) It's also down to the lacking of funding/training that the Government initiated.  I grew up in the Hebrides and my lasting memory of this arguement was that on a royal visit the primary school kids sang to Prince Charles in French - the teacher had no Gaelic so was unable to teach the kids.

 

2) The langauge was strong among the older folk (and a few young ones) but the influx of non-natives meant that the language died as to be able to communicate effectively you needed to use English so everyone could understand.

 

3) Next - when TV and Radio started up it started to destory the culture of conversation and ceilidhs.  It also led to the decrease in the regional accents of people too.

 

S o lots of reasons - and yes I can speak some Gaelic but alas, the Government (Westminster at the time and still there at the time of writing) didn't fund it when I grew up so it's only a few token phrases.

[SKCOLL]

Second little post <g>  I agree with sft42 - it's the langauge of the British Isles.  It's amazing how uppity the English have become and it's amazing how many times England & Britain become confused/misused.

&nb sp;

Remember, the whole downhill slide began because the "English" ran out of royalty and the Scottish King at the time (James VI) decided that taking over the throne of England would be a good idea - so became James VI of Scotland and James I of England.  I guess he liked the warmer climate and the rest is history.......

But more importantly who are the English???  They have been invaded by the Germans, Romans, Normans and Vikings.  So are the English really a mix of those folk?  They seemed to slaughter the natives that didn't run to the shelter of Wales/Ireland/Scotland - so are the true English really Welsh? <g>

 

[beale]

A good point SKCOLL the English are a very racially mixed bunch but the different waves of invaders and immigrants tended on the whole not to replace whoever was there already (as we once thought) but integrate. Like with the arrival of the Saxons some of the Britons scarpered and some hung out. Basically the true English are whoever lives in England! I agree a lot of English people have an attitude that must be annoying to the rest of the home nations but I think this usually has more to do with ignorance than arrogance, please don't tar us all with the same brush!

 

  ;

[New Forester]

Just to clarify, Scots and Gaelic are completely different languages.

 

Gaelic is a "Celtic" language, closely related to Irish and Manx Gaelics, and somewhat less so to Welsh, Cornish and Breton (and extinct British languages such as Cumbrian and Gaulish).  Gaelic has never been the native language of lowland Scotland, where I believe that the ancient Celtic language was in fact a Welsh-type British.

 

Scots is the language of the lowlands, still widely spoken in various degrees (this is why we English speakers cannot always follow Billy Connolly's speech -- or is it the rude words my mum never taught me?).  Depending upon your point of view, Scots is either a dialect of English, or English is a dialect of Scots, or they are separate languages of similar origin sharing grammar and a lot of vocabulary.  They developed side by side from the Germanic language of the Saxon (etc) colonists/invaders.  The Scots maintain that the Scots language cannot be English for the fairly logical reason that it was not brought to them from England but developed itself in Scotland -- but there has enough interchange between the two to keep them very close.  Scots is quite often written with its own spelling nowadays, as can be seen on that http://www.scots-online.org page.

 

Cont...

[New Forester]

....continued:

English as such may be the general language of the British Isles nowadays, but that was not the case historically.   The vernacular language in many parts was Gaelic, Welsh or other Celtic, and even local English dialects (including those in Wales and Ireland) were often very different from "standard" English -- much more so than now.  Our modern standard English is quite a recent development, spread from southern middle-class England for what really were political and social reasons (I've even seen people on this page castigate perfectly valid dialect forms for "not being grammatical").

 < BR>
In practice, whether something is a "dialect" or a "language" is also often a political rather than a linguistic decision -- for example, I understand that Swedish and Norwegian are very similar and could quite easily be regarded as sister dialects.  If Scotland had always remained independent, no doubt Scots would be a "proper" language, no arguments.

[leon8830]

There are several historcal and linguistic reasons why gaelic has died out and to compare Scotland with Wales is like comparing a ballerina to a cabbage (no offence intended to Wales) .

Scots Gaelic was actively persecuted throughout history  - most notably during the higland cleances when the use of the language was punishable by law. 

Furthermore to say that most scots cannot speak a single word of gaelic is a gross mistruth as several Scots Gaelic words have disseminted into the common tongue - the geography of much of northern Scotland also reflects this with mountains named Ben Macdui etc etc.

Use of Scots Gaelic has also died out because of Scotlands natural trading links with the rest of the world having to adapt and communicate on a global scale far earlier than Wales or England.

The language of Scotland has evolved - Scotland's horizons are global now and the language of Scotland is science, philosophy and finance..............
and another thing English is a ************** of Latin, German and other languages , it like every other language did not develop independantly of everything else - even this questions reeks of typical English Arrogance!!!

[saffstar]

sft42's point about how ".....english is firstly the language of the british isles, always has been as it developed and grew...".  I don't know enough to speak for any other area of Britain, but English certainly wasn't the language of Wales.  The British rulers persecuted Welsh just as they did Scots languages.  The&nbs p;vast majority of my Grandparent's generation spoke Welsh as a first language, and even more so earlier generations but, as an example of the methods used, when my Taid (Grandad in English) was in school, he'd regularly get beaten and be made to wear the dunce's cap for speaking Welsh (which was his first language and always the language he was most comfortable speaking).  So, yes, there has been a huge promotion of the Welsh language in recent years, but this 'damage repair work' wouldn't have been necessary had it been left alone in the first place.  (I don't speak anything close to fluent Welsh by the way).  As to the question, all I would say is, that a strong feeling of national identity and patriotism must run deeper than language.

[tartanwiz]

Tha Gaidhlig an cainnt nan Gaidhealtachd, cha cainnt nan Machair Gallda. (translation: Gaelic is the language of the Highlands, not the Scottish Lowlands). Suas a'Poblaig na h-Alba!

[Alej]

why are the scottish obviously so jealous of the english? ;)

[Peter Pedant]

trot,

and dont forget that in Saskatchewan there are more scots gaelic speakers than there are in Scotland.

Linguistica lly it will be more nineteenth century than that now in Scotland, as the further a language is from its origin, the slower it mutates

[omblod]

I once met someone from Shrewsbury and he couldn't speak a word of Mercian...

 

PS, That's the most thorough and informative answer post I've seen yet, New Forester!

[ianess]

Alej......what on earth does England have to make Scots jealous?

As someone once said, it would be a paradise if it wasn`t for the next-door neighbours!!!!!!!

Same could probably be true for Wales.

Does anyone support the UKIP or is that only for the English?

[New Forester]

Ianess -- do you mean the USDP...?

[ERIGENA]

Perhaps if more people sent their children to Gaelic medium schools at least their children would become bilingual.

Wales and Canada have shown us the way!

 

[ERIGENA]

Perhaps if more people sent their children to Gaelic medium schools at least their children would become bilingual.

Wales and Canada have shown us the way!