do all Scottish, Irish and Welsh speak English?

jake   Thu Jun 08, 2006 2:07 pm GMT
I am one of a small group of native Scots Gaelic speaker's left myself, and I am a teenager from Canada. I know when I last returned to my parent's native Isle of Skye, everyone I knew spoke English as well as Gaelic, but, it was harder to determine among the grop of women and men in their late 80's and older as they chose to speak only Gaelic. I have heard that there have been some who've had strokes and have lost their English completely. In Ireland, there are if I am right, seven or so monolingual Irish speakers left in Donegal..... but really, the numbers are too few. I am a true rebel when it comes to protecting my Gaelic, but I must admit, it is really terribly unfortunate when I can count on one hand the amount of Gaelic speakers passing the language on to their children, or for that matter, I can count on one hand the number of children chosing to speak Gaelic if they can, they opt for English looking at Gaelic as redundant and too old fashioned.
jake   Thu Jun 08, 2006 2:17 pm GMT
sorry, I should note that my great grandparents were both the last to my knowledge of being monolingual Gaels. As soon as my grannie arrived, she had to speak English in school, but Gaelic was her home language... passed down through to my mom, then myself: a Vancouver university student with a Gaelic tongue... I can read and write it perfectly, and I can understand Donegal Gaelic, and read Irish Gaelic as well. I just wish to express that our numbers our dwindiling like cherry blossom pedals in a wind.... I am deeply saddended, and what is worse is that the last Gàidhieltachta regions now are converting to English with the death of more Gaelic speakers, even church services now are bilingual.. and even only in English in parts of Skye, where when I was younger, I remember attending a full Gaelic mid-night mass at Christmas.... every year.
Damian in Edinburgh   Thu Jun 08, 2006 3:21 pm GMT
I have never been to the Isle of Skye!....but been to the Isle of Lewis loads of times...every year with my family when I was growing up and a wee bit later...now I do my own thing. Gaelic still holds firm in the Western Isle...still the first Language for many people there, and all signs are bilingual.

In the streets of Stornoway you will hear the Language spoken widely, even by kids, and there is a fierce resolve there and in the neighbouring Isle of Harris to withstand the English tide.

There is a certain resentment against people from other parts of the country......more especially from England!! .... moving in permanently. Most of them want to escape the pressurised rat race of "civilisation" and think they can live a life of self sufficiency doing all sorts of The Good Life type jobs but then whinge that the weather is often stormy, the countryside is very open and bleak and wild, it gets (BLEEP)ing cold with freezing snowstorms in winter, there is little to do except go to ceilidhs and sup in the pubs...and people speak a "foreign" Language. There is little enthusiasm from many of them to adapt to the local culture. Learning Gaelic is not a priority at all.

People in parts of Wales, similar to those parts of Scotland, have similar resentments from English incomers with an identical outlook and intent.
Learning Welsh is not a priority at all.

Last year I went down to Cornwall with a mate, and he belongs to a youth 18-30- Scottish Folk Song and Dance group here in Edinburgh (he wants me to join...not sure. Anyway, last weekend he and the rest of the group went down to Brittany on a weekend exchange with a local group there and they all had a great time. Brittany is very much like Cornwall in many ways, and a good many of the road signs there are bilingual...French/Breton. He brought a prezzie back for me....the Breton flag.....it's black and white stripes, with eleven Breton symbols in a small corner in the top left. Cool.

BRAZIL*TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO*BRAZIL*TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO*
Damian   Thu Jun 08, 2006 3:26 pm GMT
The Breton flag:

http://www.brittany-shops.com/produits/produit-182_en.php?rayons=8

In Breton, white and black is: gwenn ha du

In Welsh: gwyn a ddu
Adam   Thu Jun 08, 2006 6:31 pm GMT
"That must be because when they see you, they realize you are not interesting. I understand them. "

Don't woory, it's just to me. It's any "outsider". Any non-Welshman.

They'd even do it to you.
Adam   Thu Jun 08, 2006 6:32 pm GMT
"There is a certain resentment against people from other parts of the country......more especially from England!! .... moving in permanently"

That's unreasonable, considering there are almost 1 million Scots living in England.
jake   Thu Jun 08, 2006 9:10 pm GMT
hello again,

yes I am aware that in the highlands and the hebrides that Gaelic is still very much a living language, but Skye itself is mostly made up of the elder generation of speakers, and though the signs are bilingual, I am more and more frequently hearing English when I travel back to vist my family on Skye. It seems that as the generation gets older, the newer generation replacing them have been swept under the broom of globalization, and the older Gaelic speakers are dropping like flies so to speak. Communities now are very much bilingual, and among teenagers especially like me, the choice of language is English. Many a time at home too the language now appearing most commonly is English.. so at least to my ears, it is sadly dying. My grandparents, mother and her siblings are still very insistant upon using Gaelic, but with more modernization and digitalization of the Gàidhealtachd, we are just losing to English. It is true that in England and even most parts of low land Scotland there is great dislike taken to Gaelic, and I think that is partly the problem. In Ireland too.... Irish though it represents a strong hold as a symbol for Ireland, most Irish children, even those to go to Gaelscoil opt for English.. and the mass integration of English speakers into the Irish Gaeltachtaí, Gaelic is again losing to English. Sad really.
Shannon   Fri Jun 09, 2006 5:06 am GMT
I have a hypothetical question for those of you familiar with Welsh and Scots-Gaelic:

If a man, about 45, raised in Aberystwyth, and a Welsh speaker, saw another guy who was wearing a kilt and said something to the kilt-wearer in Welsh, assuming that the kilt-wearer was Scottish and knew Gaelic, would the kilt-wearer understand the Welshman? And if the kilt-wearer replied in his own tongue, would the Welshman understand him? Of course both men know English, but are just hassling each other in fun. I also understand that these two languages are from different "trees", but still am wondering if they would at all be able to understand, or maybe even get the jist of it.

Not sure what region the Scot is from.
jake   Fri Jun 09, 2006 5:31 am GMT
shannon:

not at all... Scots Gaelic speakers can understand and most of the time converse with and read Irish Gaelic and Manx... Welsh is completely different... it is like an English speaker trying to have a conversation with someone who speaks Chinese..... it is wierd... within the two families, the celtic languages are usually intelligable with other ones from their family, but welsh is not a Gaelic language, and it is alien to us. For me, I have little problem communicating with an Irishman with a litte effort, but Welsh, not at all!
jake   Fri Jun 09, 2006 5:38 am GMT
on second note: Gaelic and Irish are almost dialects of eachother compared to Welsh and another Brtish-Cetlic language like Cornish. In County Donegal, the Irish there is very close to Scots Gaelic... the other dialects for me are easier to understand on paper then when spoken, but Donegal Irish and Scots Gaelic are practially dialects of eachother... umm but welsh, haha, it is all Greek to me. Nothing to me is remotely understandable, like I said before, it is like an English speaker trying to listen to someone in Chinese.. it is just impossible!
dAMIAN IN dUN eIDANN   Fri Jun 09, 2006 7:32 am GMT
As a lowland Scot I'm ashamed to say that Scots Gaelic is basically a "foreign" tongue in that I only know a few words and phrases, like the vast majority of the population of Scotland. It's important of course to realise the difference between the Scots dialectic version of English and the full blown Gaelic Language. Here in Edinburgh we are much more likely to hear a whole array of Continental European Languages being spoken than we are Gaelic.

I agree that the "appearance" of the written Gaelic Language(s)...Scots/Irish....is quite different from the other Celtic tongues of these islands...Welsh/Cornish...and their brother over in France, Breton. They look very similar to each other......indeed quite a few words in Welsh, Cornish and Breton are identical to each other.

In a nutshell, Scots/Irish Gaelic speakers would have a fair idea of what the others were saying, or writing, as would the members of the other Celtic branch down in the South...our Welsh, Cornish and Breton brothers. As far as I'm aware, only Welsh has that "LL" sound which causes so much grief to Anglo Saxons in particular. That's the one sound in Welsh which gets mercilessly, and maybe deliberately, mutilated by our dear Anglo Saxons friends in that green and pleasant land to the south and east of the Celtic Brotherhood.

Personally I have no bother at all with the LL sound, and certainly not the CH sound as that occurs here in Scotland. We have plenty of placenames with the guttural CH sound...Ballachulish, Auchtermuchty, Machrihanish etc. In Wales I reckon I could ask my way to Machynlleth without any bother at all.

btw Machynlleth was the homebase of Owain Glyndwr (Owen Glendower), the Welsh national hero who fought valiantly against English invasions and rampaging conquering incursions across the border into Welsh territory. He was the equivalent of our great national hero William Wallace (Braveheart) who similary had to deal with the English blood lust. Both heroes suffered at the hands of the English, and that is one of the reasons now, centuries later, the vast majority of Scots will not even think of supporting England in the imminent World Cup. The sale of team shirts of any side opposing England is going through the roof here in Edinburgh, as in the est of Scotland.

That does not mean I don't love all my English mates any less! No hard feelings guys, but we just don't want you to win! :-)

*BRAZIL*TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO*BRAZIL*TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO*
Damian in Dun Eidann   Fri Jun 09, 2006 7:35 am GMT
dAMIAN IN dUN eIDANN = looks vaguely Gaelic! Ha! Got my caps lock locked. Damian in Dun Eidann in Lowland Scots English.

On the other hand I could even fancy Germany itself......let's just see how it all pans out from tomorrow onwards. Baden Baden looks a cool place btw.
Guest   Fri Jun 09, 2006 8:27 am GMT
>In County Donegal, the Irish there is very close to Scots Gaelic<

I'd put it the other way round, knowing what the word "Scot" means.
Candy   Fri Jun 09, 2006 8:58 am GMT
<,Both heroes suffered at the hands of the English, and that is one of the reasons now, centuries later, the vast majority of Scots will not even think of supporting England in the imminent World Cup.>>

Yeah, because things that happened in 1305 and 1415 are sooooo relevant to a sports tournament of 2006. FFS!!!

On a lighter note, Germany is full of fans from all over the world...it's great to see and hear them all. I've just travelled on the tram surrounded by a group of very happy and friendly Swedish fans...;)
greg   Fri Jun 09, 2006 11:05 am GMT
Brennus : « The fact that Irish, Scots Gaelic and Welsh are all very difficult languages which cannot be learned in the same way as one would go about learning Norwegian, Spanish, French or even German makes it tough to revive them. »

Las lenguas célticas (insulares o continentales) no son muy extentidas fuera de las áreas lingüísticas donde se hablan nativamente estos idiomas — exactamente, por cierto, como el noruego en Noruega... ¿ Quizás quisiste decir « lenguas poco accesibles » (base locutiva materna + área geográfica reducidas) en lugar de « lenguas muy difíciles » ?