The Scots Gaelic Myth

[PatrickHughes123]

I just used the links you provided to access the sites? Am still able to access them at the moment.

I don't agree that Pictish language & culture died out in the true sense (ie ceased to exist) that doesn't happen even in a violent form of takeover. What happened is that the P Celtic Pictish Culture merged with Q Celtic Scottish culture in the places where Q Celt was the linguistic form & it evolved & combined to make a new culture which became considered as "Scottish". The articles you provided made comments about how P Celtic words could combine with Q Celt words to form placenames. Similarly if Pictish culture died out, why do we have words such as Aberdeen, &Aberfeldyremaining as Placenames? Likewish there was a merging of cultures between the P Celtic Picts & the Saxon Northumbrians to form a more uniquely Border Culture.

My point remains that Saxon was in Scotland before the Scots even arrived. Therefore as some 'Gaelic Fanatics' regard English as a language of an oppressor because it has eventually lead to the reduction of Gaelic as a true Language except for in a minority of places & they see Gaelic as more original to the Landmass we see as Scotland & therefore deserving of bilingual status, if we reconsider things in these terms of Saxon having been at a significant level of use in the Lowlands prior to the Dalriadic influx then the idea that Gaelic is any more 'Scottish' than Scots English is is called into highly questionable ground...

Do I think Gaelic was spoken more widely than it was? Yes but in different forms and from different influences & not just as one form comingvfrom Central and Highland Scotland like you seem to suggest & rather than a spreading band across land it was pocketting in from the sea. I also think loan words spread across cultures but not necessarily indicating that those languages were spoken widely in that area.

Do I think Gaelic is any more indigenous to the Landmass of Scotland than Scots English - not really both are languages which have come in from outside, but evolvedi nto a different form distictive to the region.

Do I think Gaelic is worthy of support? Yes I think it is, however as a tool to preserve the culture of the Highlands & Island & help them identify their roots. However it should not be made to look like this is the indigenous culture of the Lowland Scotland as the picture is more complex than that. And it should never ever be allowed to obliterate or call into question the preexisting cultures which were already there when the Scots arrived & this includes the Kingdom of Northumbria. But I also think where relevant P Celtic languages should also be incorporated in some way to the curriculum at least to facilitate an understanding of placenames.

Do I think any of your sources are reliable? Well I'd definitely say that map you provided was highly unreliable given the linguistiplacenames.it suggests as Being Wholly Irish Gaelic when in fact they were Norse Gaelic. I've discussed the reliability of the websites & have struggled to see the background of the people writing the pieces so one has to question what was their agenda. I also think in some cases you're putting an interpretation on things even the original author hasn't tried to do - ie the link you posted said it was a myth that Gaelic has nothing to do with the Lowlands, which is very different to saying that Gaelic is THE true language of the Lowlands like you are making out.

Okay, this is what I'm talking about, Gaelic came to Scotland from Ireland. It then spread to Pictland where as well as replacing the Pictish language, Gaelicized many Pictish names. Same with the Cumbric people. As Alba grew, Gaelic spread. Even before the Norse Gael culture, there were pure Gaels that settled in the South-West about the 6th Century. I've even heard that Dalriada originally existed from Northern Ireland across to South-West Scotland. I know it was the Western Isles, but I've heard that the South-West was also a part of Dalriada.

I may have misrepresented myself, what I meant was, Gaelic shouldn't be treated as a regional language of the Highlands when in fact, long ago in Scotland's history, it was spoken over most of Scotland. It may not be relevant to the Lowlands today, but it was and is historically speaking.

Would Southern Gaelic have been different from Highland Gaelic? Yes. Was Galwegian Gaelic more Norse than the Gaelic of the Highlands? Yes. If it had survived, would Galwegian Gaelic be a different language? Possibly. But the point is, all of these possible historical dialects were all Gaelic ones.

No, Gaelic is not the only true language of Scotland. Scots is another true language and the only other as Gaelic and Scots are the only ones that have survived into the 21st Century.

[neloon]

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

[Father Bill]

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

Oh, it doesn’t end the debate, it just raises it considerably.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Allan Thomson]

Okay, this is what I'm talking about, Gaelic came to Scotland from Ireland. It then spread to Pictland where as well as replacing the Pictish language, Gaelicized many Pictish names. Same with the Cumbric people. As Alba grew, Gaelic spread. Even before the Norse Gael culture, there were pure Gaels that settled in the South-West about the 6th Century. I've even heard that Dalriada originally existed from Northern Ireland across to South-West Scotland. I know it was the Western Isles, but I've heard that the South-West was also a part of Dalriada.

I may have misrepresented myself, what I meant was, Gaelic shouldn't be treated as a regional language of the Highlands when in fact, long ago in Scotland's history, it was spoken over most of Scotland. It may not be relevant to the Lowlands today, but it was and is historically speaking.

Would Southern Gaelic have been different from Highland Gaelic? Yes. Was Galwegian Gaelic more Norse than the Gaelic of the Highlands? Yes. If it had survived, would Galwegian Gaelic be a different language? Possibly. But the point is, all of these possible historical dialects were all Gaelic ones.

No, Gaelic is not the only true language of Scotland. Scots is another true language and the only other as Gaelic and Scots are the only ones that have survived into the 21st Century.

Dalriada may have even stretched as far as the Isle of Man. But that's not what is commonly considered to be part of Dalriada and the Isle of Man had a large number of influxes within it.

However I'd point out one thing, there's a 9th Century Pictish Cross found at the Monastic Site at Maughold in the Isle of Man. Ross Trench Jellico discusses the large amount of Pictish motifs appearing in ecclesiastical stone carvings on the Isle of Man, and the very outstanding Cross slab of St Paul and St Anthony, which is pretty much identical except for a difference in layout (and that layout difference does not impact on the overall "hierarchy" of the slabs considered by him to two in Eastern Scotland. At one point certainly there were strong links to the Priory of Whithorn. I was fortunate enough to be working at the Manx Museum at a point at which he was extensively photographing the Pictish Stone kept at the Manx Museum (along with the Calf of Mann Crucifiction which is definitely Byzantine influenced), and my first comment was to him that I thought it was Pictish and he confirmed it and proceeded to disemminated his large body of knowledge built up by studying the crosses both on the Isle of Man and in Scotland. Off the back of that I read his thesis....

So if Pictish Culture is 'ended' by the creation of the Kingdom of Alba then why is it springing up on the Isle of Man at a later date (bearing in mind that the Island faced a number of outside influences throughout that period of History, including a P Celtic one, Gaelic Influxes -possibly Dalriada, Norse Gaelic - The Kingdom of the Isles, Northumbrian, Scottish, and then English based Lordships)? So if those Gaelic settlers in Galloway had 'ended' the Pictish culture there then how is it able to travel into the Island via ecclesiastical links? As I've said before there's strong evidence that the Gaelic Speakers who were in the Kingdom of Galloway were not true Irish or Scottish Gaelic speakers coming from the Kingdom of Alba, but a little Enclave formed by migrants from the Kingdom of Mann and the Isles. And as I've pointed out the Kingdom of Mann and the Isles was receptive enough to Pictish Culture that you are able to find Pictish Crosses and motifs more commonly found in North Eastern Scotland (let's not also get into the Conversation about Clackmannanshire and Mannanin Mclear)……

At the end of the 11th Century with the exception of Galloway (whose origins I have already talked about) the South Eastern Part of Scotland was dominated by the Kingdom of Northumbria. The South Western part was strongly under the control of the Strathclyde British who were P Celt, not Gaelic. And we know that the Kingdom of Northumbria must have been able to punch up as far as Montrose swallowing up Fife on the way because one of the stones near Aberlemno commemorated a battle fought between the Picts and the Northumbrians. Also in a museum in the area there was an Anglo Saxon Harness Fragment found.... If we consider that Dundee is often interpreted as a Gaelic name, but looking at it another way Dun is also a Saxon word for Hill, Dee is also found in Wales where it means the River of the Goddess or the Holy River....

Finally one other point to consider. When areas get taken over by other linguistic groups pushing in from outside what tends to happen is that there's not a true 'extermination' of all the people, but that a ruling class tends to set itself up with its own linguistics but leaving the population to continue to use their own tongue except where it is important to communicate with them (and of course those who really want to get ahead in that society of the other linguistic group tend to become bilingual so they carve a niche for themselves communicating between the incomers and the subject population.). so what happens is that of course the landowners pick the place names for their land, impacting on placenames but that doesn't mean that the surrounding population are all speaking that language...…(we could observe this in areas of the British Empire in the past). So even placenames do not fully communicate the language that was spoken by all of the inhabitants, just the (or one of the) languages of the landowning classes who had their holdings documented...