The Scots Gaelic Myth

[Damion]

Allan Thomson

Where are you getting all of this? This doesn't seem to be true history. Northumbria only ever stretched as far as the South-East of Scotland. Strathclyde, like Pictland, was absorbed directly by Alba.

Alba took the South-East of Scotland from Northumbria. It has nothing to do with Gaelic extremism.

He's referring to the Battle of Nectansmere in the 7th century where the Anglians were defeated, but this was a century and a half before the Scots and Picts unified (how ever that happened).

Northumbria consisted of three regions, Lothian, Bernicia, Deira. All three are thought to represent British Kingdoms that were absorbed by the Angles. The old Welsh poem Y Gododdin represents one of the last attempts by the Gododdin tribe to turn back Anglian encroachment. Based somewhere in Lothian, perhaps Edinburgh, this British army marched south to reclaim land - I think in Deira. They were defeated and the Anglians eventually took Lothian itself and added it to Northumbria.

Later the Scots took the northern third of the Kingdom which was Lothian and the northern part of Bernicia to the Tweed.

[Allan Thomson]

Not sure that peer-reviewed articles end the debate about Q- versus P-.
Dr. Ewan Campbell suggested that Q-Celts were in Scotland prior to any Irish in-migration and that some Picts may have spoken Q-Celtic
https://www.electricscotland.com/his...scotsirish.htm
(originally published in Antiquity 75)
Bridget Brennan, on the other hand, disputes his analysis
http://www.academia.edu/7174193/A_cr...e_Scots_Irish_

Alan

Further to this I was watching a documentry on Roman Britain & another hypothesis for the appearance of Gaelic in Galloway was that mercenaries could have been employed from Ireland either towards the end of the Roman period or after the end of the Roman occupation in a similar way to the Saxons. So possibly another source for the appearance of Gaelic in Lowland areas - payment would have most likely in land and therefore this could have lead to the introduction of Gaelic placenames even though the language of the majority of Scotland at that point would definitely have been a Brythonnic possibly with element of Latin influences remaining.

[OC Richard]

Scots Gaelic died out in the Cape Fear region after the American Civil War.

http://shimajournal.org/issues/v2n1/...Shima-v2n1.pdf

https://www.ncpedia.org/hoi-toiders

https://www.ncpedia.org/gaelic-language

Thanks for those links! The third link is a fascinating article about Scots Gaelic in the Cape Fear River Valley beginning in 1739 and as you say waning following the ACW.

(The first two links BTW are about the English West Country accent in the Outer Banks, one of the oddest accents I've heard.)

[OC Richard]

Not sure that peer-reviewed articles end the debate about Q- versus P-.

Yes no matter what the topic, once you delve into the published articles of intrenched professors in the field you find the same thing: at least two camps which derive opposite conclusions from the same material, each camp lead by one or more academics, each professor supported by a number of grad student sycophants, the two camps often indulging in childish mudslinging at each other within the pages of these respectable academic journals.

The level of debate often gets lower rather than higher as you ascend the ladder.

[davidlpope]

(The first two links BTW are about the English West Country accent in the Outer Banks, one of the oddest accents I've heard.)

Correct. I was making the point that the dialect of the Outer Banks is not derived from Scots Gaelic.

[Damion]

Further to this I was watching a documentry on Roman Britain & another hypothesis for the appearance of Gaelic in Galloway was that mercenaries could have been employed from Ireland either towards the end of the Roman period or after the end of the Roman occupation in a similar way to the Saxons.

That would be very convenient if true as it might solve the mystery of who the Attecotti were. The name possibly derives from Aithechthuatha, which referred to vassal people in Ireland. Attecotti units did exist in the Roman army.

That only accounts for the first Irish settlers, obviously they kept coming over the centuries including the Norse Gaels. The Irish colonised much of the western seaboard of Britain during this time though only the ones in what became Scotland were successful.