The Scots Gaelic Myth

[PatrickHughes123]

Carrick, I believe, comes from the Gaelic Carraig

[Ivor]

Carrick, I believe, comes from the Gaelic Carraig

Gaelic may well have this word but Welsh also does so does that mean a common root? Dafydd ar y gareg gwen - David of the white rock. There seem too many similarities to assume that these languages developed in isolation.

[neloon]

Gaelic may well have this word but Welsh also does so does that mean a common root? Dafydd ar y gareg gwen - David of the white rock. There seem too many similarities to assume that these languages developed in isolation.

The languages began to diverge into "P-Celtic" and "Q-Celtic" in southern France probably around 1000BC. There are many words which are virtually the same though the languages are no longer mutually intelligible.

Alan

[Allan Thomson]

I think there's another factor to consider as well which is what if the P Celt placename were documented or mapped by someone more familiar eith the Q Celt language? This can impact on the way something is spelt which then in future can impact on pronounciation if a language disappears fromnan area.

Manx was written down by a Welsh speaker which makes the spellings somewhat different to Scottish & Irish Gaelic. Then when some English only speakers who are not familiar even with the local dialect pronounce them it can make an impact & there are even two different ways used by some locals to pronounce words. An example of that would be the local legend about the Mhoddey Dhoo. As a child it was pronounced the "Mawdey Dhoo", now a lot of people say the "Moddy Dhoo" (even a few the "Moody Dhoo"), but in fact the Gaelic pronounciation should be "Mawtha Dhoo"... That's only after less than 100 years after the death of the last original Manx speaker... Imagine what happens to a long gone language in the hands of a population speaking another (possibly two different at one point) languages....

My point is let's be very careful when assuming that all Celtic placenames are Gaelic when in fact some of them could equally be Brythonnic or that they are indeed a Celtic language in an area which has constantly changed hands, especially in those areas where there is far more evidence for P Celt & Saxon history.

Finally don't be afraid to discuss the exceptions (ie the Kingdom of Galloway) but also equally important ensure you understand the main & most common & easiest methods of travel were by sea and watercourses & not by land....

[PatrickHughes123]

I think there's another factor to consider as well which is what if the P Celt placename were documented or mapped by someone more familiar eith the Q Celt language? This can impact on the way something is spelt which then in future can impact on pronounciation if a language disappears fromnan area.

Manx was written down by a Welsh speaker which makes the spellings somewhat different to Scottish & Irish Gaelic. Then when some English only speakers who are not familiar even with the local dialect pronounce them it can make an impact & there are even two different ways used by some locals to pronounce words. An example of that would be the local legend about the Mhoddey Dhoo. As a child it was pronounced the "Mawdey Dhoo", now a lot of people say the "Moddy Dhoo" (even a few the "Moody Dhoo"), but in fact the Gaelic pronounciation should be "Mawtha Dhoo"... That's only after less than 100 years after the death of the last original Manx speaker... Imagine what happens to a long gone language in the hands of a population speaking another (possibly two different at one point) languages....

My point is let's be very careful when assuming that all Celtic placenames are Gaelic when in fact some of them could equally be Brythonnic or that they are indeed a Celtic language in an area which has constantly changed hands, especially in those areas where there is far more evidence for P Celt & Saxon history.

Finally don't be afraid to discuss the exceptions (ie the Kingdom of Galloway) but also equally important ensure you understand the main & most common & easiest methods of travel were by sea and watercourses & not by land....

Allan,

I'm not a Gaelic extremist. I don't deny the earlier P-Celtic languages of Scotland and the Germanic Scots language, but I'm saying that Scotland as a kingdom, in its very early days, before King David I, was a Gaelic-speaking nation, with exceptions in the South-East and North-East. Gaelic was once the majority language in Scotland but began to retreat to the Highlands, the South-West and very isolated parts of the Scottish Lowlands when David I established English-speaking boroughs.

What I meant was that the kingdom of Scotland, Alba back then, was a Gaelic-speaking nation. I never denied the Pictish language or the Cumbric dialect of Common Britonnic.

[Allan Thomson]

But again I am questioning your evidence for that & whether it is right to consider Gaelic as any more belonging to the landmass we call Scotland than English. Both are outside incursions pushing into what was a P Celt country. The thing is that there's Pictish Crosses commemorating.battles with the Nothumbrians and Northumbrian Halter fragments found in the Montrose area before the period of the rise of the Kingdom of Scotland. So for the Lowlands a Saxon tongue was in place well before (if there ever was one) a Gaelic incursion into any significant part of Lowland Scotland at all - both obliterating an earlier P Celt tongue.

I'm in favour of Gaelic signs in the Highlands & Gaelic medium education in the Islands. What I am opposed to is the desire to cover over true history in a highly political move to make out that all of Scotland somehow should be Gaelic.

[PatrickHughes123]

https://www.omniglot.com/writing/gaelic.htm

https://newsnet.scot/archive/scotlan...land-language/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/multilin..._history.shtml

Sources