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[Lianachan]

I'm not implying anything. I have at no stage discussed Welsh.

You seem to have a very blinkered, black/white view of language and culture - nothing is ever that simple.

[Polwarth]

Lianachan
It is a waste of time trying to speak sense to Raigaenach or Hugh2 as he prefers to be called nowadays

[Hugh2]

Originally Posted by Lianachan

I'm not implying anything. I have at no stage discussed Welsh.

You seem to have a very blinkered, black/white view of language and culture - nothing is ever that simple.

Ah! The usual North British academic answer. No change there then!

[Lianachan]

Originally Posted by Hugh2

Ah! The usual North British academic answer. No change there then!

I most definately am not "North British". I am a Scottish Highlander.

Polwarth - you're right. There's no point in entering a debate with the deaf.

[ANDY-J3]

Originally posted by Hugh2

Surely, if Scots-Gaelic dies our genuine Scots Celtic identity dies with it.

Surely you mean our Scots Celtic/Norse identity? Your argument is rendered null and void by the fact that both highland and lowland Scots culture and ethnicity was affected by Germanic influences- Norse in the highlands and Anglo-Saxon in the lowlands. A genuine Scots "Celtic" identity is a myth.

[Lianachan]

Originally Posted by ANDY-J3

Originally posted by Hugh2

Surely, if Scots-Gaelic dies our genuine Scots Celtic identity dies with it.

Surely you mean our Scots Celtic/Norse identity? Your argument is rendered null and void by the fact that both highland and lowland Scots culture and ethnicity was affected by Germanic influences- Norse in the highlands and Anglo-Saxon in the lowlands. A genuine Scots "Celtic" identity is a myth.

"Celtic"ness is, of course, a myth anyway!

[Steaphan]

Going back to the original reason for starting this thread. It is still the case that, in my opinion, the available reliable evidence points to there being a majority of Gaelic speakers in Scotland until the 18th century.

Webster's Parish Registers for Scotland in 1750 state that "the majority of the population live north of the Highland Line." We all know what language was spoken "north of the Highland Line" in 1750, and it wasn't Scots English!

Also, we know that Gaelic was still spoken by the people of Galloway in the 1700s, and of course, it predominated in Argyle until the early 20th century. (1901 census, speakers of Gaelic in Argyle number 54.35% of total population; in 1881 the figure was 65.25%); therefore......it is a reasonable assumption to make that Gaelic speakers were in the majority in the whole of Scotland, up until around the 1700s.