Scottish Gaelic, originally the language of the Scoti settlers from Ireland to Scotland, became the language of the majority of Scotland after it replaced Cumbric, Pictish, Old Norse, and in considerable places, Old English. There is no definitive date indicating how long Scottish Gaelic has been spoken in today's Scotland, though it has been proposed that it was spoken in Argyll before the Roman period, although no consensus has been reached on this question. However, the consolidation of the kingdom of Dál Riata around the 4th century, linking the ancient province of Ulster in the north of Ireland and western Scotland, accelerated the expansion of the language, as did the success of the Gaelic-speaking church establishment, started by St Columba, and place-name evidence shows that Gaelic was spoken in the Rhinns of Galloway by the 5th or 6th century.
The Gaelic language eventually displaced Pictish north of the River Forth, and until the late 15th century was known in the Scots' English language as Scottis, and in England as Scottish. Gaelic began to decline in mainland Scotland from the beginning of the 13th century, accompanying its decline in its status as a national language, and by the beginning of the 15th century, the highland-lowland line was beginning to emerge.From around the early 16th century, Scottish-English speakers gave the Gaelic language the name Erse , and thereafter it was invariably the collection of Middle English dialects spoken within the Kingdom of Scotland, that they referred to as Scottis . This in itself was ironic, as it was at this time that Gaelic was developing its distinct and characteristic Scottish forms of the modern period.
Scottish Gaelic was called "Erse" partly because educated Gaelic speakers in Ireland and Scotland all used the literary dialect (so that there was little or no difference in usage). When Classical Gaelic stopped being used in schools in both countries, colloquial usage began to predominate, and the languages diverged. Scottish Gaelic has a rich oral and written tradition, referred to as beul-aithris in Scottish Gaelic, having been the language of the bardic culture of the Highland clans for many years. The language preserves knowledge of and adherence to pre-feudal 'tribal' laws and customs . The language suffered particularly as Highlanders and their traditions were persecuted after the Battle of Culloden in 1746, and during the Highland Clearances, but pre-feudal attitudes were still evident in the complaints and claims of the Highland Land League of the late 19th century. . .
. . .The first translation of the Bible into Scottish Gaelic was not published until 1767 when Dr James Stuart of Killin and Dugald Buchanan of Rannoch produced a translation of the New Testament. Previously the Irish Gaelic translation of the Bible dating from the Elisabethan period was in use. Very few European languages have made the transition to a modern literary language without an early modern translation of the Bible. The lack of such a translation until the late eighteenth century may have contributed to the decline of Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic may be more correctly known as Highland Gaelic to distinguish it from the now defunct dialects of Lowland Gaelic. Of these Galwegian Gaelic was spoken in Galloway and seems to have been the last dialect of Gaelic to have been spoken in Lowland Scotland, surviving until the Early Modern Period. By the end of the Middle Ages, Lowland Gaelic had been replaced by Middle English/Lowland Scots across much of Lowland Scotland, while the Brythonic language had disappeared. According to a reference in The Carrick Covenanters by James Crichton , the last place in the Lowlands where Scottish Gaelic was still spoken was the village of Barr in Carrick (only a few miles inland to the east of Girvan, but at one time very isolated). There is, however, no evidence of a linguistic border following the topographical north-south differences. Similarly, there is no evidence from placenames of significant linguistic differences between, for example, Argyll and Galloway.
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http://www.thehouseofoojah.com/audio...ow/gaelic.html)
Originally Posted by Canuck of NI
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