Editing Scottish Gaelic (section)

===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>