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History of Scottish Gaelic
Gaelic is the traditional
language of the Scotti or Gaels, and the historical language of most
regions of Scotland. The language was introduced to Scotland by settlers
from Ireland, in the 4th century.
Gaelic
eventually displaced Pictish north of the River Forth, and until the
late 15th century was known in the Scots' English language as Scottis,
and in England as Scottish. Gaelic began to decline in mainland Scotland
from the beginning of the 13th century, accompanying its decline in its
status as a national language, and by the beginning of the 15th century,
the highland-lowland line was beginning to emerge.
The language
suffered particularly as Highlanders and their traditions were
persecuted after the Battle of Culloden in 1746, and during the Highland
Clearances. With this defeat came repression of both the
aelic language and all things Gaelic. In the following years there was a
systematic eradication of the Gaelic culture by the British government.
As can be seen from the chart below the number of Gaelic speakers in
Scotland has plummeted from 1,265,380 in 1755 to
58,652 in 2001 - despite a population rise from 1,265,380 to 5,062,011.
Alphabet
The modern
Scottish Gaelic alphabet has 18 letters:
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U.
The letter h, now used mainly to indicate lenition of a consonant, was
in general not used in the oldest orthography, as lenition was instead
indicated with a dot over the lenited consonant. The letters of the
alphabet were traditionally named after trees (see above), but this
custom has generally fallen out of use.
Long vowels are either marked with a grave accent (à, è, ì, ò, ù) or are
indicated through digraphs or conditioned by certain consonant
evironments. Traditional spelling systems also uses the acute accent on
the letters á, é and ó to denote a change in vowel quality rather than
length, but reform from within the Scottish schools system has abandoned
these in parts of Gaelic speaking society.
Number of
speakers of Gaelic in Scotland
|
Year |
Scottish population |
Speakers of
Gaelic only |
Speakers of
Gaelic and English |
Speakers of
Gaelic and English as % of population |
|
1755 |
1,265,380 |
289,798 |
N/A |
N/A (22.9 monoglot Gaelic) |
|
1800 |
1,608,420 |
297,823 |
N/A |
N/A (18.5 monoglot Gaelic) |
|
1881 |
3,735,573 |
231,594 |
N/A |
N/A (6.1 monoglot Gaelic) |
|
1891 |
4,025,647 |
43,738 |
210,677 |
5.2 |
|
1901 |
4,472,103 |
28,106 |
202,700 |
4.5 |
|
1911 |
4,760,904 |
18,400 |
183,998 |
3.9 |
|
1921 |
4,573,471 |
9,829 |
148,950 |
3.3 |
|
1931 |
4,588,909 |
6,716 |
129,419 |
2.8 |
|
1951 |
5,096,415 |
2,178 |
93,269 |
1.8 |
|
1961 |
5,179,344 |
974 |
80,004 |
1.5 |
|
1971 |
5,228,965 |
477 |
88,415 |
1.7 |
|
1981 |
5,035,315 |
N/A |
82,620 |
1.6 |
|
1991 |
5,083,000 |
N/A |
65,978 |
1.4 |
|
2001 |
5,062,011 |
N/A |
58,652 |
1.2 |
Must Know Gaelic Phrases
|
Gaelic |
English Translation |
|
Ciamar a tha thu? |
How are you? |
|
Madainn mhath |
Good morning |
|
Feasgar math |
Good afternoon |
|
Tapadh leat |
Thank you |
|
A bheil an t-acras ort? |
Are you hungry? |
|
A
bheil am pathadh ort? |
are you thirsty? |
|
Slàn leat |
Goodbye |
|
Slàinte |
"Good health" (used as a toast
when drinking - similar to the use of "cheers") |
|
Dè an t-ainm a tha oirbh? |
What's your name? |
|
'S mise..... |
My name is... |
|
Ciamar a tha sibh? |
How are you? |
|
Tha gu math, tapadh leibh. |
I'm well, thank you. |
|
Tha gaol agam ort. |
I love you. |
|
Tha mi duilich. |
I'm sorry. |
|
Dè an t-ainm a tha ort?
|
What is your name? |
|
Tha deagh shìde ann |
The weather is good. (This is a
phrase seldom heard in Scotland as it has not stopped raining
for the last 637 days) |
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