Editing Scottish Gaelic (section)

==History==
{{main|History of the Irish language|History of Scottish Gaelic}}

===Origins===
{{further|History of the Irish language|Primitive Irish|Old Irish|Middle Irish|Early Modern Irish}}
[[File:Scots lang-en.svg|thumb|left|Linguistic division in early 12th century Scotland.
{{legend|#0fe3e3|[[Goidelic languages|Gaelic]] speaking}}
{{legend|#eb82df|[[Norse–Gaels|Norse-Gaelic]] zone, use of either or both languages}}
{{legend|#eed4e0|English-speaking zone}}
{{legend|#0ff183|[[Cumbric language|Cumbric]] may have survived in this zone}}]]
[[File:Bal element in Scottish placenames.png|thumb|right|Place names in Scotland that contain the element ''bal-'' from the Scottish Gaelic {{lang|gd|baile}} meaning home, farmstead, town or city. These data give some indication of the extent of medieval Gaelic settlement in Scotland.]]

Based on medieval traditional accounts and the apparent evidence from linguistic geography, Gaelic has been commonly believed to have been brought to Scotland in the 4th and 5th centuries CE by settlers from Ireland who founded the Gaelic kingdom of {{lang|gd|[[Dál Riata]]}} on Scotland's west coast, in what is present-day [[Argyll]].{{r|Jones1997 |page=551}}{{r|Chadwick1972|page=66}} An alternative view has been voiced by archaeologist [[Ewan Campbell]], who has argued that the putative migration or takeover is not reflected in archaeological or placename data (as pointed out earlier by [[Leslie Alcock]]). Campbell has also questioned the age and reliability of the medieval historical sources speaking of a conquest. Instead, he has inferred that Argyll formed part of a common [[Q-Celtic]]-speaking area with Ireland, connected rather than divided by the sea, since the Iron Age.<ref name=ewancampbell>{{cite journal |last=Campbell |first=Ewan |url=http://www.electricscotland.com/history/articles/scotsirish.htm |title=Were the Scots Irish? |journal=Antiquity |issue=288 |date=2001 |volume=75 |pages=285–292 |doi=10.1017/S0003598X00060920 |s2cid=159844564 |doi-access=free |access-date=29 March 2019 |archive-date=10 November 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121110002412/http://www.electricscotland.com/history/articles/scotsirish.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> These arguments have been opposed by some scholars defending the early dating of the traditional accounts and arguing for other interpretations of the archaeological evidence.<ref>[https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/publications/and-they-won-land-among-the-picts-by-friendly-treaty-or-the-sword '... and they won land among the Picts by friendly treaty or the sword'] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200714023910/https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/publications/and-they-won-land-among-the-picts-by-friendly-treaty-or-the-sword |date=14 July 2020 }}. By Cormac McSparron and Brian Williams. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 141, 145–158</ref>

Regardless of how it came to be spoken in the region, Gaelic in Scotland was mostly confined to {{lang|gd|Dál Riata}} until the eighth century, when it began expanding into [[Picts|Pictish]] areas north of the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde. During the reign of [[Constantine II of Scotland|Caustantín mac Áeda]] (Constantine II, 900–943), outsiders began to refer to the region as the kingdom of Alba rather than as the kingdom of the Picts. However, though the Pictish language did not disappear suddenly, a process of [[Gaelicisation]] (which may have begun generations earlier) was clearly under way during the reigns of {{lang|gd|Caustantín}} and his successors. By a certain point, probably during the 11th century, all the inhabitants of Alba had become fully Gaelicised Scots, and Pictish identity was forgotten.<ref>Broun, "Dunkeld", Broun, "National Identity", Forsyth, "Scotland to 1100", pp. 28–32, Woolf, "Constantine II"; cf. Bannerman, "Scottish Takeover", passim, representing the "traditional" view.</ref> Bilingualism in [[Pictish language|Pictish]] and Gaelic, prior to the former's extinction, led to the presence of Pictish [[loanwords]] in Scottish Gaelic<ref name="auto">{{cite book |last=Jackson |first=Kenneth |editor-last=Thomson |editor-first=D.S. |title=The Companion to Gaelic Scotland |date=1983 |pages=151–152 |chapter='Loanwords, British and Pictish'}}</ref> and syntactic influence<ref>{{cite book |last=Green |first=D. |editor-last=Thomson |editor-first=D.S. |title=The Companion to Gaelic Scotland |date=1983 |pages=107–108 |chapter='Gaelic: syntax, similarities with British syntax'}}</ref> which could be considered to constitute a Pictish substrate.<ref>{{cite book |last=Taylor |first=S. |editor-last=Driscoll |editor-first=S. |title=Pictish Progress: New Studies on Northern Britain in the Middle Ages|date=2010 |pages=67–119 |chapter=Pictish Placenames Revisited'}}</ref>

In 1018, after the conquest of [[Lothian]] (theretofore part of [[Kingdom of England|England]] and inhabited predominantly by speakers of [[Northumbrian Old English]]) by the [[Kingdom of Scotland]], Gaelic reached its social, cultural, political, and geographic zenith.{{r|Withers1984|pages=16–18 }} Colloquial speech in Scotland had been developing independently of that in Ireland since the eighth century.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Druim Alban, Dorsum Britanniae– 'the Spine of Britain'|first=Philip M.|last=Dunshea|date=1 October 2013|journal=Scottish Historical Review|volume=92|issue=2|pages=275–289|doi=10.3366/shr.2013.0178}}</ref> For the first time, the entire region of modern-day Scotland was called {{lang|la|Scotia}} in Latin, and Gaelic was the {{lang|la|lingua Scotica}}.{{r|Clarkson2011|page=276}}{{r| Baoill1997|p=554}} In [[Scottish Lowlands|southern Scotland]], Gaelic was strong in [[Galloway]], adjoining areas to the north and west, [[West Lothian]], and parts of western [[Midlothian]]. It was spoken to a lesser degree in north [[Ayrshire]], [[Renfrewshire]], the [[Clyde Valley]] and eastern [[Dumfriesshire]]. In south-eastern Scotland, there is no evidence that Gaelic was ever widely spoken.<ref name="Watson2010">{{cite book |author=Moray Watson |title=Edinburgh Companion to the Gaelic Language |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GwurBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA8 |date=30 June 2010 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=978-0-7486-3710-2 |page=8 }}</ref>

===Decline===
Many historians mark the reign of King Malcolm Canmore ([[Malcolm III of Scotland|Malcolm III]]) between 1058 and 1093 as the beginning of Gaelic's eclipse in Scotland. His wife [[Saint Margaret of Scotland|Margaret of Wessex]] spoke no Gaelic, gave her children Anglo-Saxon rather than Gaelic names, and brought many English bishops, priests, and monastics to Scotland.{{r|Withers1984|p=19}}During the reigns of Malcolm Canmore's sons, Edgar, Alexander I and David I (their successive reigns lasting 1097–1153), [[Anglo-Normans|Anglo-Norman]] names and practices spread throughout Scotland south of the Forth–Clyde line and along the northeastern coastal plain as far north as Moray. Norman French completely displaced Gaelic at court. The establishment of royal burghs throughout the same area, particularly under [[David I of Scotland|David I]], attracted large numbers of foreigners speaking Old English. This was the beginning of Gaelic's status as a predominantly rural language in Scotland.{{r|Withers1984|pp=19–23}}

Clan chiefs in the northern and western parts of Scotland continued to support Gaelic bards who remained a central feature of court life there. The semi-independent [[Lord of the Isles|Lordship of the Isles]] in the Hebrides and western coastal mainland remained thoroughly Gaelic since the language's recovery there in the 12th century, providing a political foundation for cultural prestige down to the end of the 15th century.{{r|Baoill1997|pp=553–6}}

{{multiple image
| align = right
| image1 = Gaelic1400Loch.png
| width1 = 150
| alt1 =
| caption1 =
| image2 = Gaelic1400nich.png
| width2 = 150
| alt2 =
| caption2 =
| footer = Linguistic divide in the middle ages. Left: divide in 1400 after Loch, 1932; Right: divide in 1500 after Nicholson, 1974 (both reproduced from Withers, 1984)
* Note: Caithness Norn as shown in the orange was also spoken in the 1400s in the same region as the 1500s' picture, but its presence, exact timeline, and mixture with Scottish Gaelic is debated*
{{Legend|blue|Scottish Gaelic}}
{{Legend|#ff0|[[Scots language|Scots]]}}
{{Legend|#F87217|[[Norn language|Norn]]}}
}}

By the mid-14th century what eventually came to be called [[Scots language|Scots]] (at that time termed [[Early Scots|Inglis]]) emerged as the official language of government and law.{{r|Withers1988 |page=139 }} Scotland's emergent nationalism in the era following the conclusion of the [[Wars of Scottish Independence]] was organized using Scots as well. For example, the nation's great patriotic literature including John Barbour's ''[[The Brus]]'' (1375) and Blind Harry's ''[[The Wallace (poem)|The Wallace]]'' (before 1488) was written in Scots, not Gaelic. By the end of the 15th century, English/Scots speakers referred to Gaelic instead as 'Yrisch' or 'Erse', i.e. Irish and their own language as 'Scottis'.{{r|Withers1984|pp=19–23}}

===Modern era===

A steady shift away from Scottish Gaelic continued into and through the modern era. Some of this was driven by policy decisions by government or other organisations, while some originated from social changes. In the last quarter of the 20th century, efforts began to encourage use of the language.

The [[Statutes of Iona]], enacted by [[James VI and I|James VI]] in 1609, was one piece of legislation that addressed, among other things, the Gaelic language. It required the heirs of clan chiefs to be educated in lowland, Protestant, English-speaking schools. James VI took several such measures to impose his rule on the Highland and Island region. In 1616, the [[Privy Council of Scotland|Privy Council]] proclaimed that schools teaching in English should be established. Gaelic was seen, at this time, as one of the causes of the instability of the region. It was also associated with Catholicism.<ref name="Devine 1994">{{cite book |last1=Devine |first1=T. M. |title=Clanship to Crofters' War: The social transformation of the Scottish Highlands |date=1994 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=978-0-7190-9076-9 |edition=2013 }}</ref>{{rp|110–113}}

The [[Society in Scotland for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge]] (SSPCK) was founded in 1709. They met in 1716, immediately after the failed [[Jacobite rising of 1715]], to consider the reform and civilisation of the Highlands, which they sought to achieve by teaching English and the Protestant religion. Initially, their teaching was entirely in English, but soon the impracticality of educating Gaelic-speaking children in this way gave rise to a modest concession: in 1723, teachers were allowed to translate English words in the Bible into Gaelic to aid comprehension, but there was no further permitted use. Other less prominent schools worked in the Highlands at the same time, also teaching in English. This process of anglicisation paused when evangelical preachers arrived in the Highlands, convinced that people should be able to read religious texts in their own language. The first well known translation of the [[Bible]] into Scottish Gaelic was made in 1767, when James Stuart of Killin and [[Dugald Buchanan]] of [[Rannoch]] produced a translation of the New Testament. In 1798, four tracts in Gaelic were published by the Society for Propagating the Gospel at Home, with 5,000 copies of each printed. Other publications followed, with a full Gaelic Bible in 1801. The influential and effective Gaelic Schools Society was founded in 1811. Their purpose was to teach Gaels to read the Bible in their own language. In the first quarter of the 19th century, the SSPCK (despite their anti-Gaelic attitude in prior years) and the British and Foreign Bible Society distributed 60,000 Gaelic Bibles and 80,000 New Testaments.{{r|Hunter1976|p=98}} It is estimated that this overall schooling and publishing effort gave about 300,000 people in the Highlands some basic literacy.{{r|Devine 1994|pp=110–117}} Very few European languages have made the transition to a modern literary language without an early modern translation of the Bible; the lack of a well known translation may have contributed to the decline of Scottish Gaelic.{{r|Mackenzie1992 |pages=168–202}}

[[File:1891 Scotland Languages.jpg|thumb|1891 distribution of [[English language|English]] (including [[Scots language|Scots]]) and Gaelic in Scotland
----
{{legend|#aed0cb|75–80% Gaelic, and English}}
{{legend|#e7b0ad|25–75% Gaelic, and English; line indicates the 50% [[wikt:isogloss|isogloss]] |textcolor=#b8544e |text='''━''' }}
{{legend|#d59887|5–25% Gaelic, and English}}
{{legend|#d7927f|0–5% Gaelic, and English}}
{{legend|#b54640|Purely English}}
]]
Counterintuitively, access to schooling in Gaelic increased knowledge of English. In 1829, the Gaelic Schools Society reported that parents were unconcerned about their children learning Gaelic, but were anxious to have them taught English. The SSPCK also found Highlanders to have significant prejudice against Gaelic. T. M. Devine attributes this to an association between English and the prosperity of employment: the Highland economy relied greatly on seasonal migrant workers travelling outside the {{lang|gd|Gàidhealtachd}}. In 1863, an observer sympathetic to Gaelic stated that "knowledge of English is indispensable to any poor islander who wishes to learn a trade or to earn his bread beyond the limits of his native Isle". Generally, rather than Gaelic speakers, it was Celtic societies in the cities and professors of Celtic from universities who sought to preserve the language.{{r|Devine 1994|pp=116–117}}

The [[Education (Scotland) Act 1872]] provided universal education in Scotland, but completely ignored Gaelic in its plans. The mechanism for supporting Gaelic through the Education Codes issued by the Scottish Education Department were steadily used to overcome this omission, with many concessions in place by 1918. However, the members of Highland school boards tended to have anti-Gaelic attitudes and served as an obstacle to Gaelic education in the late 19th and early 20th century.{{r|Devine 1994|pp=110–111}}

Loss of life due to [[World War I]] and the 1919 sinking of the [[HMY Iolaire|HMY {{Lang|gd|Iolaire|nocat=y}}]], combined with emigration, resulted in the 1910s seeing unprecedented damage to the use of Scottish Gaelic, with a 46% fall in [[monolingual]] speakers and a 19% fall in [[bilingual]] speakers between the [[1911 United Kingdom census|1911]] and [[1921 United Kingdom census|1921]] Censuses.<ref name="Scotsman 2022-12-20">{{cite news |url=https://www.scotsman.com/news/national/the-decade-when-scotland-lost-half-its-gaelic-speaking-people-3957569 |title=The decade when Scotland lost half its Gaelic speaking people |first=Alison |last=Campsie |work=The Scotsman |date=20 December 2022 |access-date=20 December 2022 |archive-date=20 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221220081358/https://www.scotsman.com/news/national/the-decade-when-scotland-lost-half-its-gaelic-speaking-people-3957569 |url-status=live }}</ref> Michelle MacLeod of [[Aberdeen University]] has said that there was no other period with such a high fall in the number of monolingual Gaelic speakers: "Gaelic speakers became increasingly the exception from that point forward with bilingualism replacing monolingualism as the norm for Gaelic speakers."<ref name="Scotsman 2022-12-20"/>

The [[Linguistic Survey of Scotland]] (1949–1997) surveyed both the dialect of the Scottish Gaelic language, and also mixed use of English and Gaelic across the Highlands and Islands.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://sgeulnagaidhlig.ac.uk/professor-cathair-o-dochartaigh/?lang=en |title=The Gaelic Story at the University of Glasgow |access-date=11 August 2019 |archive-date=24 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211124224701/https://sgeulnagaidhlig.ac.uk/professor-cathair-o-dochartaigh/?lang=en |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Defunct dialects===
Dialects of Lowland Gaelic have been defunct since the 18th century. Gaelic in the Eastern and Southern Scottish Highlands, although alive until the mid-20th century, is now largely defunct. Although modern Scottish Gaelic is dominated by the dialects of the Outer Hebrides and Isle of Skye, there remain some speakers of the Inner Hebridean dialects of Tiree and Islay, and even a few native speakers from Western Highland areas including [[Wester Ross]], northwest [[Sutherland]], [[Lochaber]] and [[Argyll]]. Dialects on both sides of the [[Straits of Moyle]] (the [[North Channel (British Isles)|North Channel]]) linking Scottish Gaelic with Irish are now extinct, though native speakers were still to be found on the [[Mull of Kintyre]], on [[Rathlin]] and in North East Ireland as late as the mid-20th century. Records of their speech show that Irish and Scottish Gaelic existed in a dialect chain with no clear language boundary.<ref>{{cite journal |title=The Gaelic Continuum |first=Colm |last=Ó Baoill |date=2000 |journal=Éigse |volume=32 |pages=121–134 }}</ref> Some features of moribund dialects have been preserved in Nova Scotia, including the pronunciation of the broad or [[velarised]] l ({{IPA|l̪ˠ}}) as {{IPA|[w]}}, as in the [[Lochaber]] dialect.{{r|Kennedy2002|page=131}}