Editing Goidelic languages (section)

==Scottish Gaelic==
[[File:WIKITONGUES- Rosemary speaking Scottish Gaelic.webm|thumb|A Scottish Gaelic speaker, recorded in [[Scotland]]]]
[[File:Scots lang-en.svg|thumb|Linguistic division in early twelfth century Scotland:
{{legend|#0fe3e3|Gaelic speaking}}
{{legend|#eb82df|[[Norse–Gaels|Norse–Gaelic]] zone, characterized by the use of both languages}}
{{legend|#eed4e0|[[English language|English]]-speaking zone}}
{{legend|#0ff183|[[Cumbric]] may have survived in this zone; more realistically a mixture of Cumbric, Gaelic (west), and English (east).}}
]]

{{Main article|Scottish Gaelic}}
Some people in the north and west of mainland Scotland and many people in the [[Hebrides]] still speak Scottish Gaelic, but the language has been in decline. There are now believed to be approximately 60,000 native speakers of Scottish Gaelic in [[Scotland]], plus around 1,000 speakers of the [[Canadian Gaelic]] dialect in [[Nova Scotia]].

Its historical range was much larger. For example, it was the everyday language of most of the rest of the [[Scottish Highlands]] until little more than a century ago. [[Galloway]] was once also a Gaelic-speaking region, but the [[Galwegian Gaelic|Galwegian dialect]] has been extinct there for approximately three centuries. It is believed to have been home to dialects that were transitional between Scottish Gaelic and the two other Goidelic languages. While Gaelic was spoken across the [[Scottish Borders]] and [[Lothian]] during the early [[Scotland in the High Middle Ages|High Middle Ages]] it does not seem to have been spoken by the majority and was likely the language of the ruling elite, land-owners and religious clerics. Some other parts of the [[Scottish Lowlands]] spoke [[Cumbric]], and others [[Scots language|Scots Inglis]], the only exceptions being the [[Northern Isles]] of [[Orkney]] and [[Shetland]] where [[Norn language|Norse]] was spoken. Scottish Gaelic was introduced across North America with Gaelic settlers. Their numbers necessitated North American Gaelic publications and print media from Cape Breton Island to California.

Scotland, known as Alba in Insular Celtic languages, takes its English language name from the Latin word for 'Gael', ''{{lang|la|Scotus}}'', plural ''{{lang|la|Scoti}}'' (of uncertain etymology).<ref>[http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50216347 ''Oxford English Dictionary'']: Scot, ''n''.<sup>1</sup>. The source of the late Latin word is obscure. There is no evidence that it represents the native name of any Gaelic-speaking people (the Irish ''Scot'', an Irishman, pl. ''Scuit'', appears to be a learned word from Latin), nor does it exist in Welsh, though Welshmen in writing Latin have from the earliest times used ''Scoti'' as the rendering of ''{{lang|cy|Gwyddel}}'' (Gaels). [...]. Retrieved 11 October 2010</ref> ''Scotland'' originally meant ''Land of the Gaels'' in a cultural and social sense. (In early Old English texts, ''Scotland'' referred to Ireland.)<ref>Lemke, Andreas: [https://www.univerlag.uni-goettingen.de/bitstream/handle/3/isbn-978-3-86395-189-4/GSEP8_lemke.pdf?sequence=1 The Old English Translation of Bede's ''Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum'' in its Historical and Cultural Context], Chapter II: The ''OEHE'': The Material Evidence; page 71 (Universitätsdrucke Göttingen, 2015)</ref> Until late in the 15th century, ''Scottis'' in [[Scottish English]] (or ''Scots Inglis'') was used to refer only to Gaelic, and the speakers of this language who were identified as ''Scots''. As the ruling elite became Scots Inglis/English-speaking, ''Scottis'' was gradually associated with the land rather than the people, and the word ''Erse'' ('Irish') was gradually used more and more as an act of culturo-political disassociation, with an overt implication that the language was not really Scottish, and therefore foreign. This was something of a propaganda label, as Gaelic has been in Scotland for at least as long as English, if not longer.

In the early 16th century the dialects of northern [[Middle English]], also known as [[Early Scots]], which had developed in [[Lothian]] and had come to be spoken elsewhere in the [[Kingdom of Scotland]], themselves later appropriated the name [[Scots language|Scots]]. By the 17th century Gaelic speakers were restricted largely to the Highlands and the Hebrides. Furthermore, the culturally repressive measures taken against the rebellious Highland communities by [[Monarchy of the United Kingdom|The Crown]] following the second [[Jacobite risings|Jacobite Rebellion of 1746]] caused still further decline in the language's use – to a large extent by enforced emigration (e.g. the [[Highland Clearances]]). Even more decline followed in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The [[Scottish Parliament]] has afforded the language a secure statutory status and "equal respect" (but not full equality in legal status under [[Scots law]])<ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4467769.stm |title=MSPs rule against Gaelic equality |date=21 April 2005 |publisher=[[BBC News]]}}</ref> with English, sparking hopes that Scottish Gaelic can be saved from extinction and perhaps even revitalised.