Gaelic Awareness Month

[Nathan]

Ditto and
+***!


Nathan, is the Gaelic version in the Cape Breton dialect?

Well sort of I guess... Cape Bretoners have largely resisted the latest orthographic reforms that happened in Scotland. Scotland made all the accents point in one direction rather than having them reflect the different pronunciation as was historically the case. So this is Scottish Gaidhlig as it would have looked in Scotland prior to those changes. The 20th Century orthographic reforms in Ireland were even more dramatic.

The "Cape Breton dialect" usually referred to is a bit of a misnomer as the dialects of Cape Breton Gaelic reflect the places in Scotland they were from. In orther words, there are regional variations in Cape Breton Gaelic just like there are between say Lewis and Barra in Scotland. Since some of those places have been basically depopulated (Eigg), some accents/dialects can now only be heard on Cape Breton, but as far as I understand it, no distinct Gaelic dialect evolved there. It's just a more conservative Gaelic and it's a community language so some people are less acquainted with the particularities of standardized Scots Gaelic that is taught in Schools and Universities now.