The Scots Gaelic Myth

[Steve Ashton]

that whilst Britain is still ruled by a line of Queens and Kings who are of Stuart descent,

??? I'm sorry, perhaps my history is rusty.

[Taskr]

The Royal House of Stuart became extinct with the death of Cardinal Henry Benedict Stuart, brother of Charles Edward Stuart, in 1807

[PatrickHughes123]

The Royal House of Stuart became extinct with the death of Cardinal Henry Benedict Stuart, brother of Charles Edward Stuart, in 1807

Wasn't George Hanover like the half-German grandson of James Edward Stuart?

[Bruce Scott]

Wasn't George Hanover like the half-German grandson of James Edward Stuart?

One of George I's grandmothers was Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James VI & I.

https://www.britroyals.com/stuarttree.asp

[OC Richard]

Please correct me if I am wrong but is the Gaelic spoken in Scotland not different from that in Ireland? Many place names, even districts, seem to have more in common with Welsh than Gaelic.

The Irish language, and Scots Gaelic, and Manx, are closely related Q Celtic or Goidelic languages.

As to the differences between Irish and Scots Gaelic, they're the things that happen in any two sister languages:

-shared core vocabulary
-sound shifts
-semantic shifts
-grammar differences

The longer two sister languages are separated the greater the divergence in sounds, word meanings, and grammar, yet the core vocabulary remains the same. I have been told by native speakers that Irish and Scots Gaelic are somewhat mutually intelligible, not unlike Italian and Spanish.

Welsh, Breton, Cornish, Cumbric, and Pictish are from a different Celtic branch, P Celtic or Brythonic.


Called Q-Celtic and P-Celtic because of word-pairs like ceann/pen (head) and mac/map (son) etc which is due to a sound shift quite some time ago, like the thing between German and English where Germanic G became English Y.

[Allan Thomson]

The Royal House of Stuart became extinct with the death of Cardinal Henry Benedict Stuart, brother of Charles Edward Stuart, in 1807

That's a myth in so many ways...

You fall into the old fashioned mistake of just judging a lines linage by the paternal side - which given that Pictish society was said to be matralinear masks the Stuart linage of our current dynasty. They didn't just invite a random German household to become the rulers of the UK... Indeed Cumberland & Charlie were distant cousins...

On top ofthat back in the other line with the surname Stuart, they Fathered a fair few B*stards...one of them was buried in Dunkeld... Even Cardinal Henry had a few he acknowledged...

I did read a book some years back by someone calling himself Prince Michael of Albany claimingsto be a descendant of the Stuart and rightful claimant to the throne. I was cynical & took his claims to be far fetched. But he did produce a convincing enough argument that there was plenty of illegitimate offspring from that line...it was more that he was arguing about the legitimacy of some of them....my bet is there's probably a lot with Stuart blood about today....

[Allan Thomson]

I'm intrigued by the assumptions that all place names with Dun in are all definitely Gaelic. In some cases is just as probable they were Saxon in origin - the Saxon word for Hill was Dun. For example Edinburgh was part of the Kingdom of Northumbria at one point. Would we claim that Durham and Dunstable are Gaelic? They may be Celtic in origin possibly, but more likely Saxon and if they were Celtic they were P & not Q Celt.


Just a case of the Gaelic extremists (no slight intended to Gaelic Scholars or speakers) seeing a place name & assuming + asserting that it is Gaelic only because it fits with their agenda?

Suprised nobody has brought up Dingwall yet? That drfinitely isn't Gaelic or Saxon & provides evidence of governance by another none indigenous people....

[Allan Thomson]

Actually looking further but the Brythonnic equivalent of Dun (a vitrified Hill Fort) is said to be Din. So Edinburgh could well be P Celtic in origin.

What's to say during the period of Gaelacisation that some older P Celt place names weren't mangled into Gaelic equivalents (or even something totally different?).

I'd suggest the more Southerly appearances of Dun in Scotland & Northern England are of the Saxon origin or Saxon corruptions of earlier P Celt placenames and not evidence of Gaelic being spoken in those areas.

[neloon]

Suprised nobody has brought up Dingwall yet? That drfinitely isn't Gaelic or Saxon & provides evidence of governance by another none indigenous people....

I believe it is accepted as Norse = the meeting place of the thing (assembly).
It's Gaelic name is, of course, Inbhir Pheofharain.

Alan

[Allan Thomson]

Indeed & it's the same as Tynwald & Tinwald. My point was that's Norse & yet not in the areas typically associated with Norse influxes.