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Scottish Gaelic (/ ˈ ɡ æ l ɪ k /, GAL-ik; endonym: Gàidhlig [ˈkaːlɪkʲ] ⓘ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as both Irish and Manx, developed out of Old Irish ...
According to the 2001 census Scottish Gaelic has 58,652 speakers (roughly 1% of the population of Scotland). In total 92,400 people aged three and over in Scotland had some Gaelic language ability in 2001. [25] 15,723 of these reside in the Outer Hebrides, where the language is spoken by the majority of the population. [26]
The first reliable statistics on the prevalence of Gaelic in Scotland begin in the 1690s. At that time around 25–30% of the country spoke Gaelic. [32] By the time the first Census of Scotland asked the population about its ability to speak Gaelic in 1881, that figure had been whittled down to merely 6%.
Canadian Gaelic dialects of Scottish Gaelic are still spoken by Gaels in parts of Atlantic Canada, primarily on Cape Breton Island and nearby areas of Nova Scotia. In 2011, there were 1,275 Gaelic speakers in Nova Scotia, [20] and 300 residents of the province considered a Gaelic language their "mother tongue." [21]
The Gaelic languages have been in steep decline since the beginning of the 19th century, when they were majority languages of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands; today they are endangered languages. [ 91 ] [ 92 ] As far back as the Statutes of Kilkenny in 1366, the English government had dissuaded use of Gaelic for political reasons. [ 93 ]
Glasgow Gaelic is an emerging dialect, described as "Gaelic with a Glasgow accent", [2] of Standard Scottish Gaelic. [3] It is spoken by about 10% of Scottish Gaelic speakers, making it the most spoken Dialect outside of the Highlands .
According to the 2011 Scotland Census, 282 (1.1%) residents of Caithness age three and over can speak Gaelic while 466 (1.8%) have some facility with the language. The percentage figures are almost exactly the same as for all of Scotland (1.1% and 1.7%, respectively). [80] Nearly half of all Gaelic speakers in the county live in Thurso civil ...
In Canada, at one time Scottish Gaelic was the third most spoken language after English and French; in 1901, there were 50,000 speakers in Nova Scotia alone. [ 2 ] It has survived as a minority language among communities descended from Scottish immigrants [ 3 ] in parts of Nova Scotia (especially Cape Breton Island ), Glengarry County in ...