Quote:
Originally Posted by wullie m
And good luck to all of them!
The truth is that both Scots & Gaelic are agricultural languages which never survived the move to the city. Gaels & Irish flocked to Glasgow by the hundreds of thousands, it was either that or the colonies.
In the 1840s there were complaints from the Highland community, that the Irish had preference for work (labouring), the reason being that it was a poor Irishman with no English. There were cases on the south side of kids presenting for school with only Gaelic a hundred and fifty years ago, but in my time I've never heard of a case where Gaelic/Irish was passed on to the next generation, including my own. Speakers of Broad Scots ditto.
Getting bread on the table was what mattered. Knowing the Gaelic for a stairheid lavvy would be of no help in an emergency!
Gaelic only survived in a social sense in Glasgow, by repeated influx from the north (a trickle now) and the Highland Societies.
wullie.
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Gaelic was reintroduced into Glasgow by the Anglification of the Scottish mentality through language that took bread AWAY from the table and then privatised the table. Medieval Stirling was Gaelic speaking and a thriving wee toon for its day.