Editing Moray (section)

===Language===
The first records on language use in the area indicate that in 1705, most of Moray except for the coast was described as "Wholly Irish & Highland Countreys" and "Ye Irish Parishes in which both languages are spoken."<ref name=Withers>Withers, C. ''Gaelic in Scotland 1698-1981'' (1984) John Donald Publishers {{ISBN|0-85976-097-9}}</ref> By 1822, [[Scottish Gaelic]] had weakened in the area, with only the far south of Moray reporting that, at most, 10% of the population were speaking Gaelic better than English.<ref name=Withers/> Records towards the end of the 19th century improved and show that between 1881 and 1921 the percentage of Gaelic speakers in Moray fluctuated as shown in the following table:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year !! Gaelic speakers (%)
|-
|1881
| style="text-align:center;"| 2.63
|-
|1891
| style="text-align:center;"|5.64
|-
|1901
| style="text-align:center;"|4.48
|-
|1911
| style="text-align:center;"|2.98
|-
|1921
| style="text-align:center;"|2.08
|-
|1991<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.scrol.gov.uk/|title=Welcome to Scotland's Census - Scotland Census 2011|access-date=17 March 2011|archive-date=4 July 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080704124556/http://www.scrol.gov.uk/|url-status=dead}}</ref>
| style="text-align:center;"|0.56
|}

Since then, it has been consistently below 1%. It was largely replaced by [[Doric dialect (Scotland)|Doric]] and latterly [[Scottish English]].{{Citation needed|date=September 2024}}