[Closed] Random observaation, Scottish identity

And the vikings brought some language too -

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.

Molgrips - its fairly much thought of as one country. Soapdodgers in Glasgow but even with the weegies we think of them as the same country. surprising amount of lowlanders have never been north tho

However i know BBC Alba exists but that is the only evidence i am aware of. So do Scots regard Gaelic as part of their identity, and their heritage so why no attempt to teach more broadly?

To answer this question above, I'm forever told I'm Scottish(even though I put no stock in nationality, largly because I identify with a smaller area that straddles countries) if I try to relate to what I've just written(this is another aspect of recent Scottish history(early 1900s onwards), that I'll not go into too much, as it'll derail the thread, but I do need to comment a little).

No, as a "Scots" man, I don't see Gaidhlig as part of my identity, the Scots side of my family are all lowlanders on my mothers side, and even the majority of those lines go back to Ireland, Ulster again largely around Antrim this time, but those moves happened much further back in time.(My mum did a family tree years ago which is fairly extensive).

So, I'd view my historical heritage as Gaeilge/English(Scots largely, but I largely view Scots as an English dialect.)

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?

IMO, if you are putting Gaelic bilingual signs up in Glasgow, they should be in Irish/English.

I guess my thoughts above, show a small part of the difficulties in trying to define a nation. (Alot of Scots won't even recognise the point of view, as I'm sure I'll have difficulty in recognising other unique views and the shades in between..)

And the vikings brought some language too

It's all around the coast of Britain. Two islands in the Bristol Channel called Flat Holm and Steep Holm. Holm is modern Swedish for small island.

In regards to my Grandparents, by the time I came along they'd completely turned to English

My Nan's parents were native Welsh valleys people rather than industrial incomers, they were native Welsh speakers. But they didn't teach Welsh to their own daughter. Back then the dominant thinking was that trying to teach two languages to kids would confuse them and slow their educational development. Now we know that it can slow them down a bit at first but later on it is actually beneficial.

In the 30s you'd get punished for speaking Welsh in school, and made to stand in the corner with a knotted rope around your neck - the Welsh Knot. However, even though the English had actively tried to stamp it out in Tudor times, in the 30s they were just trying to improve the kids' prospects.

There's a pretty good history of Scots Gaelic here - including how it was the Vikings that were responsible for spreading it south, and how it fell into decline.

https://cranntara.scot/gaelic.htm

FWIW, my Hebridean wife didn't speak English until she started school.

It's around this time, I think a lot of Scots begin to forget the shared gaelic history with Ireland/England and Wales

Good post but I'll just correct you on this. There are two linguistic groups of British Celts - Goedels and Brythons. Gaelic is Goedelic and Welsh/Cornish/Breton is Brythonic. So whilst Welsh is pretty different to Gaelic although related, Breton is mutually intelligible to a Welsh speaker. I'm told.. I can't pick any words out as a learner mind. So the Welsh are Celtic (for whatever that means) but not Gaelic.

seosamh77

English is the dominant language even in Donegal. But IMO, the English language take over there is much later, early 19th/around the turn of the 20th century going by my own personal census records, they'd have been typical of Donegal natives as far as I know. Irish still exists fairly strongly as it has been promoted in schools for years, and because the history of it still exists in the generational memory going back not too far. The change could well be earlier than my assertions though, happy to be schooled by any Donegal natives on that(I have no particular strong connection to Donegal, few distant cousins around letterkenny but that's about it.)

Nope. It's much more complicated than that. In Donegal there was a concerted effort to eradicate the Irish language and effectively anglicise the native population from the plantation of Ulster c 1609 onward (same with all of Ulster). There was a revival of Irish language and culture throughout Ireland in the mid 1800s ultimately leading to the Easter Rising and independence. The Irish language was only really brought back into daily use again after the establishment of the Republic .

In Donegal the Irish language only really survived in the west of the county, particularly around the coast. East Donegal still has the highest concentration of protestants to be found in rural Ireland, many of whom still speak something of an Ulster Scots dialect.

My father-in-law is a Shetlander, he has very little affinity with the Scots despite living there. Associates himself much more with the Norwegians, wouldn't dream of wearing a kilt. 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? Foos yer doos

Associates himself much more with the Norwegians,

Without wishing to sound too personal - how do Shetlanders associate? Do they keep up with what happens there, do people visit Norway or Norwegians visit Shetland? Not accusatory, just interested.

jimjam - Member
seosamh77
English is the dominant language even in Donegal. But IMO, the English language take over there is much later, early 19th/around the turn of the 20th century going by my own personal census records, they'd have been typical of Donegal natives as far as I know. Irish still exists fairly strongly as it has been promoted in schools for years, and because the history of it still exists in the generational memory going back not too far. The change could well be earlier than my assertions though, happy to be schooled by any Donegal natives on that(I have no particular strong connection to Donegal, few distant cousins around letterkenny but that's about it.)

Nope. It's much more complicated than that. In Donegal there was a concerted effort to eradicate the Irish language and effectively anglicise the native population from the plantation of Ulster c 1609 onward (same with all of Ulster). There was a revival of Irish language and culture throughout Ireland in the mid 1800s ultimately leading to the Easter Rising and independence. The Irish language was only really brought back into daily use again after the establishment of the Republic .

In Donegal the Irish language only really survived in the west of the county, particularly around the coast. East Donegal still has the highest concentration of protestants to be found in rural Ireland, many of whom still speak something of an Ulster Scots dialect.

Ta, as I said, happen to be schooled, I'm aware there will be massive gaps in my perceptions in relation to donegal. In reality, my largest core identity is as a Glaswegian/Ruglonian. But Aye, it's the Rosses my grandparent come from, the gaeltacht, anagary and rosapena/downings to be exact, so aware it's just the west it really stuck.

Do you know of any Donegal history books? I'd love to get a hold of one specifically about the west.

surprising amount of lowlanders have never been north tho

Very. I've a few colleagues at work who are Jockanese (racist!!)
One lass is from Greenock & asked ME where the best places were to visit in the Highlands!

[img] [/img]

UP Helly aa, but Bergen is as close as Aberdeen on the ferry.

Fascinating discussion.

Have been to the Celtic Music Festival in Lorient in Brittany (the road signs in Brittany are in both French and Breton) close links to Cornwall, Wales, Ireland and Scotland - basically all accessible by boat so you can understand the movements and cultural ties. As I understand it Gaelic is one of the Celtic languages

molgrips - Member
It's around this time, I think a lot of Scots begin to forget the shared gaelic history with Ireland/England and Wales
Good post but I'll just correct you on this. There are two linguistic groups of British Celts - Goedels and Brythons. Gaelic is Goedelic and Welsh/Cornish/Breton is Brythonic. So whilst Welsh is pretty different to Gaelic although related, Breton is mutually intelligible to a Welsh speaker. I'm told.. I can't pick any words out as a learner mind. So the Welsh are Celtic (for whatever that means) but not Gaelic.

Cheers, aye there's many gaps there, so any more please correct.

Aye, Celtic to me means the ancient British isles, the archipelago. It's a catch all for the tribal culture that stretches back on these islands to pre roman times.

But it's an even wider term than that, and is the lose connection of related tribal cultures that covered the Baltics to Spain to Donegal and the vast history that includes.. (Celtic is strong in relation to the British isles, because that's the direction the Romans pushed the ancient Celtic cultures back to.)

Celtic is a term that has a few meaning depending on how you look at things in the timeline of European History, going back thousands of years.

David Mitchell's thing is pretty good except from the "nationalist politicians"- the SNP don't give that much of a shit about gaelic, a lot of gaelic advocates consider it basically a betrayal. The previous lab/lib administration was much more into it, launching dual language roadsigns and spending more. (depending on who you ask, the government spending on gaelic [i]may[/i] be a revenue generator- tourism and job creation)

Not fussed, it's not my language. Though I did used to love that gaelic DIY show where all of the technical words were in english. "Failte! Dè a' phrìs tha seo Damp Proof Coursing? Tha mo bhàta-foluaimein loma-làn easgannan"

Do you know of any Donegal history books? I'd love to get a hold of one specifically about the west.

I can't say that I do to be honest. I just know what I know on account of being a native. If I was buying I would be looking for books dealing with the plantation, the flight of the earls, O' Doherty's rebellion and maybe the famine. Perhaps the Boundry Commission. Those would be the main events that shaped the county that I can think of off the top of my head.

My favourite Gaelic thing is the rugby on alba - with gaelic commentary from Hugh Dan the man - who has become a cult figure in Scottish rugby for his wonderful excited but incomprehensible commentry

jimjam - Member
Do you know of any Donegal history books? I'd love to get a hold of one specifically about the west.
I can't say that I do to be honest. I just know what I know on account of being a native. If I was buying I would be looking for books dealing with the plantation, the flight of the earls, O' Doherty's rebellion and maybe the famine. Perhaps the Boundry Commission. Those would be the main events that shaped the county that I can think of off the top of my head.

Cheers, i'll have a look into those.

Part of my family comes from Cornwall. We share a name common in Cornwall with people in Brittany and northern Spain. Its a rare name outside of these places

Forget trying to learn Gaelic, just get your heads around pronouncing

Milngavie
Leuchars
Kirkaldy
Etc

who needs the complication of another language?

molgrips - Member
So the Welsh are Celtic but not Gaelic

btw, I'd never even thought of it that way, guess it makes sense to what I've written above actually, with the Scots(Irish) take over of Scotland seeing the end of welsh style language in Scotland(Which I think the pictish language, was closer to? Again happy to be corrected there). And it ties in with the term Celtic, not being one homogeneous society. As I say, it's just a term for a collection of ancient tribal cultures(that until the 4/5th centuries were largley oral in their traditions. Which is why I think it's difficult to define Celts, when they didn't write anything down for thousands of years, and would have had many languages and customs the length and breadth of Europe.)

Forget trying to learn Gaelic, just get your heads around pronouncing

Milngavie
Leuchars
Kirkaldy
Etc

who needs the complication of another language?

a dhol a Lunnainn airson a reic do na h-easgannan
You might get a better price for your eels there Northwind

I'm from Ayr with family ties to Islay and I very much feel that Gaelic is part of my identity. This is partly because Gaelic of a kind was widely spoken throughout south west Scotland for hundreds of years. The Gaelic spoken there was as others have said close to welsh, the Gaelic name for Galloway is Gal-gael meaning the stranger gaels.
As for roadsigns I believe the budget for that is 2 million and they are put uponly when existing ones need to be replaced.
It's very common for any language to borrow words from another language or to construct new words when there's no existing word for something.

Unlike in Wales its only spoken by a tiny % of the population and never in the lowlands ( is that true - help me out more knowledgeable folk) [b]It seems pointless to spend time money and effort on promoting Gaelic when learning a european language would be much more useful[/b]

Aye, Celtic to me means ancient British isles, the archipelago. It's a catch all for the tribal cultre that that stretches back on these islands to pre roman times. [b]But it's it's an even wider term than that, and is the lose connection of tribal culture that cover the Baltics to Donegal and the vast history that includes..

Celtic is a term that has a few meaning depending on how you look at things in the timeline of Europe going back thousands of years.[/b]

celtic culture, is synonymous with the movement of people since time begin, it's just the end part of one branch in the flow out of Africa. By it's very definition in that, it's very changeable and wide ranging.

I'd love to know more about.

Real Scots will be full of haggis neeps and tatties and pissed tonight not debating on the internet.

Its Burns Night FFS 😉

craigw

Milngavie is from Gavins mill so certainly not gaelic. the others don't look like gaelic either

The apparent mismatch between the town's written and pronounced names stems from the way its Gaelic name was adapted into English. The Gaelic name for the town is conjectured to have been Muileann Dhaibhidh (Scottish Gaelic pronunciation: [?mulan?? ??aivi];[4] "David's mill"[5][6]), with Daibhidh shortened to Dàidh in common speech,[7] yielding Muileann Dhàidh ([?mulan?? ??ai]). The former may thus account for the spelling "-gavie", the latter for the pronunciation "-guy". The stress placement is Gaelic, too, but the first part of the name may have been influenced by its Scots/English counterpart[8] in both pronunciation and spelling, not just reduced; cf. Kirkcudbright.

I'd guess the origins go back to king david?

Spelling mistake the Gaelic for Galloway is Gal-Ghaidheal meaning "stranger gaels

seosamh77

thats intersting - the local history has it as a simple corruption from the scots of Gavins Mill. (As I remeber) Mill of Gavin. milngavie I used to live there.

Worryingly so did I TJ.
(Went to Craigdhu Primary and then Douglas Academy growing up, left around 1992 I think)

Actually I lived outside of MIlngavie ( but use to go there all the time) and left in 79. My parents live right in Milngavie now.

seosamh77

"An alternative suggestion is that the original translation meant "Gavin's Mill", and indeed Gavin's Mill remains in the town centre to this day"

From what appears to be the same Wiki source you used

"Gavin's Mill The mill’s significance is such that were
it not for some alterations to the fabric it would be A, rather than B listed.
Briefly: it lies at the root of Milngavie’s identity,not only through the derivation of “Milngavie"

The first reference to a settlement named “Milguy” appeared on a map of 1654. The origin
of the name of Milngavie is unclear.
The "Miln" is undoubtedly a reference to the town's mill
on the Allander Water, but agreement has yet to be reached on the latter part of the name(should it be 'Gavin' or 'Davie'?).
We shall probably never know the true derivation but it
makes for a fascinating talking point.

KEEPSCOTLANDBEAUTIFUL.ORG "http://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/media/823609/Milngavie-in-Bloom-2015.pdf"

tjagain - Member
seosamh77

"An alternative suggestion is that the original translation meant "Gavin's Mill", and indeed Gavin's Mill remains in the town centre to this day"
From what appears to be the same Wiki source you used

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"?