[Closed] Random observaation, Scottish identity

Or

Milngavie – Muillean gaoithe or Meall na gaoithe – meaning ‘the windmill’ or possibly ‘the hill of the wind’.

Or

There is some confusion surrounding this name. There are two separate places, four miles apart, one called Milngavie and the other Milndavie:

Milndavie

Mylnedavie RPS 1649 [1649/1/444] (This is misidentified on rps.ac.uk as Milngavie)
Mildavy 1747-55 Roy
Milndavie 1832 Thomson

Milngavie

Mylnegaivie, Milnegaivie, Milngaivie RPS 1649 [1649/1/444]
Milgay 1654 Blaeu Lennox
Millgavie Roy 1747-55
Milngavie 1832 Thomson

Although Muileann Dhàibhidh is often used for Milngavie, this seems to be based partly on an assumption that some of the early forms for Milndavie are actually Milngavie. It is also based on the assumption that the pronunciation of the English name of [gai] or 'guy' relates to the Gaelic pronunciation of Dàibhidh as [dai]. The loss of the bilabial however surely occurred in a Scots context rather than a Gaelic one. It would appear that the secondary element in Milngavie is obscure.

ps only reason I bring up king david, is that that's where, I think, rutherglen(south side of glasgow) takes it's royal burgh status from. It was a very important town back then. And king david, would have been active in the area I think. So not too far of a stretch to get out to milngavie way. Though the name on the map not appearing till the 1600s kinda kills that idea I think.

[quote=tjagain ]craigw
Milngavie is from Gavins mill so certainly not gaelic. the others don't look like gaelic either

Kirkcaldy / Cair Chaladain (possibly Caladains field/enclosure)
Leuchars / Luacharas (a place with reeds or rushes)

Ta scotroutes - Gaelic is a bit of a mystery to me as yoo can tell

SS7

Problem there, is Scotland does't recognise it's Irish history, so how can they seriously begin to address the question of Gaelic, when they don't even recognise the largest group of peoples history that have the closest connection to Gaelic?

Been a mandatory part of the History courses on Migration and Empire since 2009. If you don't teach the bits with warts, your pupils will fail. As an aside; the Gaelic school in Embra is massively oversubscribed. Must be migration from the Highlands eh? As to dating when English became more common,we stayed in a house in a place called Autbea, the small holder next to us had his elderly mother in with him,she spoke no English and that was the 70's. So you must have been able to exist with just Gaelic up to then.

I am from the central belt and we were taught it in primary school. 30 years on i can still count to ten, say hello/ good morning/afternoon/ how are you? and sing a couple of songs. Of course if you bought any Glayva or several other scottish tipples you will have been using gaelic without knowing...

Or brogues.

Or ever thought something was so good it was smashing.

Really interesting topic. As for identity, I'd agree with the cohesive feel of Scotland. I've always lived in Ayrshire, so a lowlander really, but my family harks from Loch Awe area.

That being said, whenever I travel up north, I really do feel a sense of belonging to a Scotland that is all one. ( including Edinburgh 😛 )

Do I get concerned with the Gaelic not being spoken ... not really cause as said, it wasn't really a language of my area. I do like to hear the old Scots words appearing in phrases, and the further into Ayrshire you go, the more you hear. It'd be a shame to lose them.

Milngavie discussion is interesting to me.

Growing up I remember we were told in school that it came from Mill of Gavin, with Guy being a common nickname for Gavin. But that could well be nonsense. (We were never taught any gaelic in school - too far south for that)

There is/was certainly an old building there called Gavin's Mill. Though it is an old water mill down on the Allander river, not a windmill on a hill, which might exclude one of scotroutes suggestions.

In antiquity as I recall, lowland Scots would have spoken Welsh as they were ethnically British like the Welsh

What do you mean by "ethnically British"?

Cheers Scottie - some very interesting stuff there.

Fond memories of a lovely wee lassie from Milngavie!!

Here was me thinking that Leuchars meant - a place with a railway station and (ssshh dont tell) some nukes hidden away in Tentsmuir!!!

fisha - Member
Really interesting topic. As for identity, I'd agree with the cohesive feel of Scotland. I've always lived in Ayrshire, so a lowlander really, but my family harks from Loch Awe area.

There is a cohesive Scottish identity, but it's not a single identity, as I think this thread shows(in an albeit narrow way). We live in a multicultural world, so the identities will be very wide ranging. I personally think that's a good thing.

There's also a very large Scottish/British (majority) identity in the modern day sense, as the indy ref confirmed. And a large EU identity too(one that I personally subscribe to, so much so, that I think I was get an Irish passport in the future just to keep it, even if I don't use it.)

duckman - Member
SS7
Problem there, is Scotland does't recognise it's Irish history, so how can they seriously begin to address the question of Gaelic, when they don't even recognise the largest group of peoples history that have the closest connection to Gaelic?
Been a mandatory part of the History courses on Migration and Empire since 2009. If you don't teach the bits with warts, your pupils will fail.

Good to hear!

somewhere in this sort of discussion is the subtle distinction between "the scots people" and "the people of scotland" I am not one of the former having no familial roots in Scotland but I am one of the latter having made scotland my home.

Its a subtle point often missed in the independence debate

Shhh thm.. state secrets...

[img] [/img]

😆

([url= http://www.secretbunker.co.uk/ ]really interesting place to visit by the way[/url])

I drove past it recently Graham but didn't stop as the lure of Kingsbarns golf was greater!!

It didn't look much from the road. What's there? A button!!!

tjagain - Member
somewhere in this sort of discussion is the subtle distinction between "the scots people" and "the people of scotland" I am not one of the former having no familial roots in Scotland but I am one of the latter having made scotland my home.

Its a subtle point often missed in the independence debate

I personally thought that throughout the Scottish ref, with the way the voting was allowed to happen, ie anyone resident in Scotland had a vote. Meant that it was acknowledged that you have a recognized stake in Scotland and was a good thing.

I think that came across well(Even if it isn't always true on the ground at a personal level). But I guess that's not really for me to confirm.

its often the political commentators that miss this distinction IMO - hence the unfounded accusations of racism against the SNP. Note EU immigrants were allowed to vote in the scots referendum but not the EU one

It didn't look much from the road. What's there? A button!!!

Nah a big ass underground nuclear shelter hidden 100ft under a field with a little farmhouse on top.

Including dorms, war room, and a studio where they would broadcast to (whatever was left of) the nation. There are also displays of the old battlefield hazmat suits and weapons etc and exhibits about the nuclear Observer Corps etc.

Remember going there a couple of decades ago with my gf (now wife) out of tourist season and it was deserted and quite eerie.

(I also remember that there was clearly more to it than we were seeing. I peered through silvered glass window on one locked door and saw an SA80 sitting on a desk, which was an oddly contemporary weapon for a museum. Decided at that point I should probably be less nosey... 😯 )

My other abiding memory is that it we forgot it was a Sunday and there were no buses. So we had to hitchhike back to St Andrews. We ended up getting a lift from an interesting woman whose dashboard was covered in bird skulls she collected from the beach, while I was crammed in the back with her bear sized dog.

She was local and maintained that everyone in the area knew fine well the bunker was there as they'd watch the trucks disappearing into it while it was being built.

She was local and maintained that everyone in the area knew fine well the bunker was there as they'd watch the trucks disappearing info it while it was being built.

This is quite interesting too http://www.secretscotland.org.uk/index.php/Secrets/SecretShipsOfCalMac

A few folk wondered by the doors were so over-engineered

I peered through silvered glass window on one locked door and saw an SA80 sitting on a desk, which was an oddly contemporary weapon for a museum. Decided at that point I should probably be less nosey

At least it wasn't a ZX81.

That would have been scarier.

It always amused me that you would be moved on withing a few minutes of stopping anywhere near Leuchars but people were allowed to camp outside Greenham Common. Go figure, as they say!!!

i

[url= https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_exonyms ]The wiki page on Welsh Exonyms[/url] is interesting with regards the etymology debate. It says that some Welsh names pre-date the English ones, some are English names adapted to Welsh, and some are literal translations of English names.

So Milgavie could be any of those, if Gaelic was introduced at any point after the original geneisis of the place. I still don't know how to pronounce it mind.

What do you mean by "ethnically British"?

I assume he means not Anglo-Saxon, but also not Irish...

I still don't know how to pronounce it mind.

Mill-Guy.

(or Mull-Guy depending on your accent! 🙂 )

Cheers Scotroutes done many crossings on Columba and Clansman, always wondered why the Clansman was so slow

Mill-Guy.

(or Mull-Guy depending on your accent! )

I've been calling it Mor-guy all my life. Not that I live there, of course, I live in Maryhill which definitely isn't Gaelic. It's named after Mary Hill.

When IGM says "ethnically British" I think it's in the sense of people who spoke a Brythonic language related to modern Welsh rather than a goidelic language like Gaelic.

As an aside; the Gaelic school in Embra is massively oversubscribed. Must be migration from the Highlands eh?

Of course, if you are from Glasgow, then the correct phonetic conversation goes like this:

[i]"Whaur'd ye comfy?"

"Mill Guy"

"Oooooohh... Mill-in-Gav-eee.."[/i]

[img] [/img]

When IGM says "ethnically British" I think it's in the sense of people who spoke a Brythonic language related to modern Welsh rather than a goidelic language like Gaelic.

Didn't the Celts come from mainland Europe, though?

Celtic [i]culture[/i] came from Europe yes. Last thing I heard it was simply a cultural migration not one of actual people. I'd also read that most Brits are in fact descended from the original post ice age inhabitants anyway, so even when people invaded they didn't bring that many actual people with them. But the spread of Celtic culture wasn't an invasion like the Saxons anyway - just cultural sharing.

One of the ward's older patients got quite incensed that money was being spent on Gaelic in the area, as Doric was Aberdeenshire's historic tongue.

While this is undoubtedly true of lowland (most of) Aberdeenshire, don't forget Highland Aberdeenshire, Banffshire and Moray. The last native speaker of Gaelic in Aberdeenshire (Jean Bain of Braemar) died as recently as 1984. In the 1891 census, 60% of the population of Braemar habitually spoke Gaelic.

All the signs at Cairngorm ski centre are bilingual now. When was the last time Gaelic was widely spoken in that area

When I moved to Grantown as a child in the late 60's my father's secretary spoke some Gaelic and remembered it being commonly spoken when she was a child prior to the First World War. And this was in Moray. In Badenoch Gaelic still survived as a community language until the Second World War.

[url= http://www.linguae-celticae.org/dateien/Gaidhlig_Local_Studies_Vol_21_Baideanach_Narann_Ed_II.pdf ]source[/url]

Celtic culture came from Europe yes. Last thing I heard it was simply a cultural migration not one of actual people.

My understanding was that it was actual people: it was pre-existing inhabitants responsible (for example) for the construction of stone circles.

But I'm no expert.

In Aberdeenshire, where they have lived for years, some of the old locals still speak Doric as noted above - is that a dialect of Scots, are both dialects of English, or are they all languages?

I'm from Aberdeen/shire, and as with Donald above (who seems to know his stuff!) can confirm Doric is a Scots dialect- although it has such a strong identity that it could argualby be its own language. Track down some writing by broadcaster Robbie Sheppard, he has written columns in local press in Doric. Even better, try finding some traditional Doric language on YouTube. I know very little of it from a historical and linguistic POV but it makes me swell up with pride with my roots being in the bleak farming land surrounding Aberdeen via Sutherland and..er Montrose... I'm actually in a kilt writing this right now.

FWIW, my mum is a Highlander and English was her second language when she moved to Aberdeen from Melness as a 15 year old in the early 60's. She had to adapt pretty quickly, even then, to get a job etc.

As an aside for the OP's benefit, its hacks me off when searching iPlayer for programs that I cant filter out BBC Alba programming from the results... if someone knows a way to do that id be grateful haha!

When IGM says "ethnically British" I think it's in the sense of people who spoke a Brythonic language related to modern Welsh rather than a goidelic language like Gaelic.
Didn't the Celts come from mainland Europe, though?

There were people here before the Celtic take over. But I think we are talking over a long period of time, thousands of years. So in that sense, it rings true to me that it was both cultural movement and physical movement between tribes that held a lose common culture. Saying that, I'd probably doubt British Celts knew much of Celtic culture in the far south and east of Europe or of Spanish Celtic culture, would probably, know more of German and French.

I think we also need to take into account that there were less people then too, so more space to move into.

They probably followed the natural resources as they saw them, more than anything I'd imagine though, particularly if there were events of large scale migration at particular times.

And you've also got to take into account that they warred among them themselves as well, so that would have caused movement too.

Put it this way, the people on these islands came from somewhere(even the pre-celts), migration, imo has been a (variable 😆 ) constant over the last 8000 years.

Again difficult to ascertain for certain, as Celtic written tradition didn't start in Scotland till about 4/500Ad as far as I know. So, alot of this is speculation.

I live in Maryhill which definitely isn't Gaelic. It's named after Mary Hill.

I apparenlty don't say that correctly either. Being from the midlands I can't help but say meryhill, like the shopping centre.. that or mary. hill.

:-/

I don't even bother with the Tak Me Doon road...just sounds silly with an english accent.

Wouldn't worry about it. I grew up with people mispronouncing Milngavie.
Seen plenty of tourists asking about Glass-cow or Ed-en-burg.

And done the same thing myself when I first went to Kirkcudbright. 🙂

[quote=scotroutes ]tjagain  » craigw
Leuchars / Luacharas (a place with reeds or rushes)

That makes sense as it's on the Eden estuary. I grew up the next village over

Be glad you have a sense of identity, i like that folks that come from Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Yorkshire etc, seem to be proud to be from there, i grew up in Hampshire, you never really hear people talk of being passionate and proud of being from the Home Counties!

Always enjoyed political geography, my own family has constantly moved about, mostly for work.
On my mothers side, her mother was of Glaswegian stock, but she was born in Sunderland with father in dockyard, then raised in Sheffield as he then went to work in steel industry, she married my grandad and moved to Wiltshire, then Hampshire.
My grandad was born in Italy, then came over in the late 30's, and worked on farms in Wilshire, East Sussex and then Hampshire.

On my dad's side, they came from Larne in Northen Ireland, to Birmingham and Solihull.

I was raised in Portsmouth, then lived for years in North Yorkshire, before marrying a Norfolk girl and settling here, i've never felt settled in one place and i believe my heritage is a large part of that.

Yeah, the etymology of place names is useful for challenging the view that Gaelic was confined to the Highlands and Islands.

I'm generally in favour of some investment in retaining the language. Without it we'd lose access to some of the wonderful songs and stories. My own knowledge is mostly restricted to "hillwalkers" Gaelic. Being able to decipher the names of land features is a handy skill to have. I did start to learn it but ended up in arguments with my wife over the pronunciation of some words. Turns out that the curriculum teaches Skye Gaelic whereas she speaks Lewis Gaelic 🙂

Be glad you have a sense of identity, i like that folks that come from Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Yorkshire etc, seem to be proud to be from there, i grew up in Hampshire, you never really hear people talk of being passionate and proud of being from the Home Counties!

Always enjoyed political geography, my own family has constantly moved about, mostly for work.
On my mothers side, her mother was of Glaswegian stock, but she was born in Sunderland with father in dockyard, then raised in Sheffield as he then went to work in steel industry, she married my grandad and moved to Wiltshire, then Hampshire.
My grandad was born in Italy, then came over in the late 30's, and worked on farms in Wilshire, East Sussex and then Hampshire.

On my dad's side, they came from Larne in Northen Ireland, to Birmingham and Solihull.

I was raised in Portsmouth, then lived for years in North Yorkshire, before marrying a Norfolk girl and settling here, i've never felt settled in one place and i believe my heritage is a large part of that.

*Littlest Hobo theme tune

I also have a smattering of Lallans (from my Mum's side) and we used Cant words when we were younger without knowing from where they'd originated.

Words and language.

My favourite is kirk, which is a rough phonetic spelling of the Norse (and possibly Dutch) pronunciation of church.

For those who don't know what that means I'll let you guess.

On the "ethnically British" question I think someone (molgrips?) pointed out the two Celtic groupings, which are related but diffferent. In modern terms British/Welsh in one side and Scots/Irish on the other.

For the interested, the Scots were an Irish tribe originally and you can go and see their original hill fort from their arrival in what is now Scotland at Dunadd - place your foot in the footprint.

Oh, and can I just add, I've never yet met a Sheltie that didn't consider themselves Scottish.

My own knowledge is mostly restricted to "hillwalkers" Gaelic.

I started off like that in Basque/Euskara. Remember being out of water on a hot MTB ride, descending hopefully to a village that turned out to be just [url= https://goo.gl/maps/Fro2jxAkA4z ]a chapel and a farmhouse[/url], no sign of anyone. Eventually found the most delicious water pouring out of the hillside round the back of the church so made a waypoint on the map for future emergencies. The 'village' name is Iturriotz, literally 'cold spring' so a little knowledge of placenames can go a long way!

it makes me swell up with pride with my roots being in the bleak farming land surrounding Aberdeen

And yet others on the thread say local languages are a waste of time....

I'd probably doubt British Celts knew much of Celtic culture in the far south and east of Europe or of Spanish Celtic culture

Don't bet on it. The archaeological record shows that aronze age Britain was part of a huge trading network all over Europe. Britian supplied minerals - there was a huge mineral processing plant on the Great Orme in North Wales, and stuff from there has been found all over the place.

My favourite is kirk, which is a rough phonetic spelling of the Norse

Same word basically all over Germanic Europe today. Norwegians go to Kirke on Sundays, Swedes go to kyrka, Finns go to kirkko, Germans to kirche...

Don't bet on it. The archaeological record shows that aronze age Britain was part of a huge trading network all over Europe. Britian supplied minerals - there was a huge mineral processing plant on the Great Orme in North Wales, and stuff from there has been found all over the place.

There was a good BBC programme last year i believe, with the lovely Dr Alice Roberts (why didn't my history teach look like that!)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06h7x5f

 

"hiv ye seen Hamish?"

"Aye he's awa nickin' floors fae the Kirk again"

"och nooooo"

There was a good BBC programme last year i believe, with the lovely Dr Alice Roberts (why didn't my history teach look like that!)

Aye, but it also had Neil Oliver, which made it basically unwatchable.

molgrips - Member
Don't bet on it. The archaeological record shows that aronze age Britain was part of a huge trading network all over Europe. Britian supplied minerals - there was a huge mineral processing plant on the Great Orme in North Wales, and stuff from there has been found all over the place.

Spin - Member
Dingwall in the Highlands is viking in origin meaning meeting place of the assembly or some such. Gaelic though is Inbhir Pheofharain. Never heard anyone actually call it that.

I have.

bencooper
Aye, but it also had Neil Oliver, which made it basically unwatchable.

[img] [/img]

molgrips

And yet others on the thread say local languages are a waste of time....

I know you're not advocating that Molgrips, but just imagine how dull and homogenised life would seem if everyone everywhere spoke the same language with the same accent.

I tried the Dunadd thing ma fit didnae fit

Dingwall in the Highlands is viking in origin meaning meeting place of the assembly or some such

Yep. 'Thing' means assembly in Norse and modern Icelandic, IIRC their parliament is called the Allthing except spelled with a character that looks like a p but sounds like th. It's also the oldest current legislature in the world.

yourguitarhero - Member
scotroutes » tjagain » craigw
Leuchars / Luacharas (a place with reeds or rushes)
That makes sense as it's on the Eden estuary. I grew up the next village over

Balmullo or Guardbridge?

scotroutes - Member

I'm generally in favour of some investment in retaining the language. Without it we'd lose access to some of the wonderful songs and stories.

Just get the boy from Runrig to do it. Not Donnie Munro, the other feller that replaced him and didn't speak gaelic so just copied the noises

Bruce Guthro has, IIRC, two Gaelic lines in all the songs he sings with Runrig.

#northyfacts

Dude, Alba alone has more than that, come on. (I've seen him do the highest apple too, and just looked online and they play Onar too which is in the gaelic, maybe some others I don't know)

(on that note- keeping gaelic songs alive without speaking gaelic, this is actually awesome

well this thread went to shit, runrig ffs? 😆 😉

Kirk comes from Scandinavia. Bliddy Vikings.

Kirk comes from Scandinavia. Bliddy Vikings.

[quote=Northwind ]Dude, Alba alone has more than that, come on. (I've seen him do the highest apple too, and just looked online and they play Onar too which is in the gaelic, maybe some others I don't know)
(on that note- keeping gaelic songs alive without speaking gaelic, this is actually awesome
>

br />

Alba - the only word Bruces speaks is "Alba".
Onar - Bruces sings the verses (in English, except for one line) - I think he chucks in a "Cha ro Mi" on the occasional chorus .
An Ubhal as Airde - I've obviously not been to every Runrig concert but I can't ever recall Bruce attempting this. Any idea which concert (or even tour) it was on? The only time I've heard it since Donnies departure was at POTM in Muir of Ord.

Surely you mean this thread went to shite seosamh

Same word basically all over Germanic Europe today. Norwegians go to Kirke on Sundays, Swedes go to kyrka, Finns go to kirkko, Germans to kirche...

... and English speakers go to church, which has the same root again.

Proto German, borrowed from Greek, according to Wiktionary:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/church#English

Gaelic is a living language for parts of the North and the Islands, but only exists in place names and the odd conversational word for most of the Scottish population. My maternal grandparents were rural Highlanders born and bred, but were not Gaelic speakers.
There's value in looking after the language for cultural and historical reasons, but realistically, it will never stage a significant come back, and I expect there will just be a long slow decline in day-to-day use.

Bruce Guthro...Dear God...I was vaguely aware of Runrig and liked the earlier stuff. And lets be honest gents; some of us will remember them from their amazing live shows of the late 80's. After they became an American Mor band I denied ALL knowledge of ever having heard of them thinking they couldn't get worse. Oh; but they could!

Surely you mean this thread went to shite seosamh

Or even keech.

I'm from Aberdeen/shire, and as with Donald above (who seems to know his stuff!) can confirm Doric is a Scots dialect-

Missus is from there, first time I went for a visit I was lost for a week. WTF is a teuchter? and instead of a polite "what" in an Aberdeenshire accent, t'other half went back to shouting fit at me and then calling me a feel guipe or something.

Kind of got used to it now, her dad is from the Broch though so I still need subtitles from time to time.

Visting Caithness was different though, being a Yorkshire bloke the Caithness dialect seemed to make more sense - was told both Caithness and Yorkshire are heavily Danish influenced.

T'other half kind of understands Gaelic to listen to but doesn't really speak it. Always got the impression that the dialects were more common than the Gaelic - keep wanting to spell it Gallic as she pronounces it though.

[quote=joshvegas ] yourguitarhero - Member
scotroutes » tjagain » craigw
Leuchars / Luacharas (a place with reeds or rushes)
That makes sense as it's on the Eden estuary. I grew up the next village over
Balmullo or Guardbridge?

Grew up in Balmullo in the 80s/90s

gordimhor - Member
Surely you mean this thread went to shite seosamh

gone tae buggery!

One of the things I like about living in Scotland is that in general there is no over inflated sense of importance. We know we are little country on the edge of europe. A couple of examples. During the independence referendum we were warned by an English politician that independent scotland would only have as much influence in international affairs as Finland. The consensus seemed to be " that seems right and fair" The other is the scotland football fans singing " we are crap and we know it"

this sort of attitude seems more healthy to me than the " hitting above our weight" "special relationship" " best in the world" sort of nonsense that we hear from England.

There seems to be a desire to act as an example of a modern social democracy - the trumpeting of the progress made on renewables, of an enlightend attitude to refuges, of progressive social policies and to show our worth to the world in this way rather than by sabre rattling and having that huge substitute for manhood the trident missile.

Of course this is only a tendency and not a universal truth ( both sides of this). However its something that differentiate Scotland from England and is a part of the national psyche and IMO one of the reasons I have made this country my home

Aye, that's true. I'm perfectly happy to live in a small European country.

The UK is, very often, all fur coat and no knickers. Wanting to have nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers while millions rely on food banks and the health service is collapsing. It's like an old man buying a sports car.

in general there is no over inflated sense of importance

That is true in most of the rest of the country too. It's not all Al Murray and St George. Just look at this forum - everyone's queueing up to say how shite we are. Everyone pours scorn on us for having an over-inflated sense of self. If everyone does that then it can't be true.

I suspect such people are in the minority. Despite Brexit vote.

That is true in most of the rest of the country too.

Aye, absolutely - many English people I'm sure would be happy to live in a middle-sized European country as well. But there's a lot of institutional and historic memory there.

Oops wrong thread.

Taking the thread back to its roots... One problem that the gaelic language has today in its heartland, is my own generation.
Born and brought up in a small west Highland village of Sassenach(Lowland) parents, my pals all came from households where the older generations spoke the mither tongue, so it was in common use among the youngsters. As new primary school pupils, we were shocked to discover that the rumours we'd heard were true; you got belted for using gaelic words in the classroom. An imported headmaster from the south had been given a brief by the education authority in Inverness that the old language was to be discouraged and he took that very literally, describing it as the words of peasants, not those of educated people. In the coming years, I then lost the limited vocabulary that I then had. Even Scots was frowned upon, to the extent that the folk of this part of the world became renowned for having the cleanest and best spoken English anywhere at all.
Nowadays, I think it's daft to spend limited public funds to put in new signage in non-heartland areas. For example, Glenshee ski area has replaced its signs on a grant-funded project.

Nowadays, I think it's daft to spend limited public funds to put in new signage in non-heartland areas.

But (playing devil's advocate here) as a speaker of a native Scottish language, how would you feel seeing your homeland dominated by a foreign language? People say the same thing about Welsh signs in Cardiff. But of course, not everyone in Cardiff actually lives here; nor was everyone who lives here born here.

scotroutes - Member

An Ubhal as Airde - I've obviously not been to every Runrig concert but I can't ever recall Bruce attempting this. Any idea which concert (or even tour) it was on? The only time I've heard it since Donnies departure was at POTM in Muir of Ord.

Pretty soon after he joined the band, it made me want a Carlsberg.

I thought it was pretty funny, but then I've sung along to Sepultura and no hablo portugues. Has to have been a festival or a hogmanay or something, that's the only time I've seen them- not a fan really but they do have some choons. Possibly even bangers.

Didn't realise that about Alba! That's cheating!

I think that there's a big difference between Wales and Scotland in this respect; a lot more folk in Wales as a whole do speak the native tongue, both in simple numbers and as a proportion of the population. Welsh is used routinely in more communities and by more folk than use the Gaelic in Scotland.
English of sorts (auld Scots) has been spoken here in the Highlands for a long time and so have many other languages. All imported at some time, including no doubt whatever it was that the Picts used before the Celts arrived! Clan warfare was a part of the medieval culture that included gaelic. Should we bring that back too...?
And just to be clear, when I'm touring in the Western Isles, I just love hearing the gaelic spoken. I wish I could understand it better.....