Scots Dialect : Where is it spoken ?

[Scottish_Republican]

Originally Posted by ANDY-J3

With regards to Gaelic placenames a factor that has to be considered is that Gaelic clerics were very much in demand and they were given patronage in the form of land by Scottish Kings and nobility so for that reason Gaelic placenames will be found all over Scotland even in areas that may not have had any long term Gaelic habitation.

Aye right.

That's a new excuse. It's amazing the mental gymnastics people will go to, to deny what's on the ground.

The clerics tended to write in LATIN, Andy. Yet the fact is, there's only a handful of Latin names in Scotland, most of them with the words "chester" or "grange" in them.

The anti-Gaidhlig brigade in Caithness has got round to the idea that it was spoken there (into the 20th century), but the latest form of rationalisation is to say that it was introduced by people from Sutherland. Anither pile ay keich.

Originally Posted by ANDY-J3

The county of Clackmannan and the village of Slamannan are evidence of the Brythonic history of east central Scotland as they are derived from the Brythonic tribe Mannau Gododdin, but Pictish place names show that the Picts almost certainly spoke a Brythonic dialect so at one time that was the universal language throughout the whole of Scotland.

Yes, and they're also BOTH evidence of Gaidhlig too, since "Clack" (clach) and "Sla" (sliabh) are both from it. Sliabh is evidence of an early Gaidhlig name in Scotland, so they tend to be found in Argyll, Islay and Galloway. Likewise a lot of Pit- names are a mixture of Pictish and Gaidhlig.

There are a lot of Gaelic placenames associated with the church, or saints, in areas where the language is generally not that well represented.

Yes, and there's quite a lot connected with the church, or saints, in the Hebrides, Ireland, Isle of Man and Galloway etc. In some cases this was because Christianity was introduced, or at least reinforced (as in Galloway, where Ninian arrived early), by these missionaries, and the names survived the demise of the language in those areas, e.g. Galloway.

[Kern]

Originally Posted by Duthill

The chalk cliffs , as seen from Gaul

I have come across this theory before .
It seems to one of the more credible ones on offer .



from Wikipedia ...
""The name is of Celtic origin, with an exact cognate in Welsh elfydd "earth, world" (in fact, the personal name Albiorix means 'world king' or 'king of the world'), from the Proto-Indo-European root that denotes both "white" and "mountain", but the Romans took it as connected with albus (white), in reference to the chalk "White Cliffs of Dover", and Alfred Holder's Alt-Keltischer Sprachschatz (1896) unhesitatingly translates it Weissland ("white-land"). The early writer (6th century BC) whose periplus was translated by Avienus at the end of the 4th century AD (see Massaliote Periplus) does not use the name Britannia; he speaks of nesos 'Iernon kai 'Albionon (island of the Ierni and the Albiones). So Pytheas of Massilia (4th century BC) speaks of Albion and 'Ierne. From the fact that there was a tribe called the Albiones on the north coast of Spain in Asturias, some scholars have placed Albion in that neighbourhood (see G. F. Unger, Rhein. Mus. xxxviii., 1883, pp. 156-196).""

Albion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Been away.....Now this looks like an explanation I can go with. Isle of White etc etc.

[Kern]

''Aye right.

That's a new excuse. It's amazing the mental gymnastics people will go to, to deny what's on the ground.''

Problem is Scottish Republican that there just wouldn't have been the numbers of gaels. And there is abosolutely no oral or written evidence of a gaelic invasion. And please don't quote that pile of shyte wkipedia. And it is credible that if the gaelic Clerics were the ones who wrote, then they would have written Pictish / Scottish place names as they heard them. Thus giving places a gaelic feel. You see this phenomena in England with the Normans writing down peoples names in the Doomsday book as they heard them.

[ANDY-J3]

Scottish Republican,
It's not a case of mental gymnastics or providing excuses it's a statement of fact. Clerics from Iona were given patronage throughout Scotland as a whole and probably even moreso in the Lothians given the preponderence of the social elite who lived there and the fact that by the early middle ages it was the centre of administration. Hence Gaelic placenames are found throughout the Lothians. That clerics wrote and performed religious services etc. in Latin is a point of no relevance. They spoke Gaelic in the course of everyday life and the places they inhabited reflect that. I interpret the available textual evidence objectively and without any bias. The people who claim that Gaelic was in fact widely spoken in the Lothians are ignorant of one crucial piece of historical evidence- the Lothians were ceded in the 970s- not conquered by Kenneth Macalpin- and a precondition of that was that the Anglian customs and speech which then prevailed should be respected and remain in usage. The mental gymnastics therefore are for the individuals who like to claim Gaelic was spoken throughout all of Scotland which is completely at odds with the historical evidence. As regards Clackmannan and Slamannan my only point was to show that they reflected the name of the Brythonic tribe which once controlled the central lowlands hence are evidence that the Brythonic language once predominated there.

[Kern]

I agree with ANDY-J3 - I am suspicious of this Gaelic drive. Like the Celtic drive.

More political re-correction of known history than actual truth.

[Scottish_Republican]

Originally Posted by Kern

''Aye right.

That's a new excuse. It's amazing the mental gymnastics people will go to, to deny what's on the ground.''

Problem is Scottish Republican that there just wouldn't have been the numbers of gaels. And there is abosolutely no oral or written evidence of a gaelic invasion. And please don't quote that pile of shyte wkipedia. And it is credible that if the gaelic Clerics were the ones who wrote, then they would have written Pictish / Scottish place names as they heard them. Thus giving places a gaelic feel. You see this phenomena in England with the Normans writing down peoples names in the Doomsday book as they heard them.

No, there isn't. Nor is there much evidence of a massive Anglo-Saxon influx. But the English all speak a Germanic language.

Kern quoted wikipedia, not me.

"it is credible that if the gaelic Clerics were the ones who wrote, then they would have written Pictish / Scottish place names as they heard them. "

And that ordinary people automatically followed suite? No, more a case of the other way round most of the time.

Originally Posted by Kern

I agree with ANDY-J3 - I am suspicious of this Gaelic drive. Like the Celtic drive.

More political re-correction of known history than actual truth.

We've already had the Anglo-Saxon drive - "The only true pan Scottish language is OE." The problem with that being that OE was only ever spoken in a fraction of Scotland.

Trying to claim Edinburgh as Edwine's Burgh, when it is a Brythonic name. Simeon of Durham is the cleric to blame for that one. There were probably more Anglo-Norman clerics about than there ever were Gaelic ones. Plus in many cases the early books were destroyed.

I'm not sure why the Lothians are persistently claimed as totally "Anglian" (i.e. English, more or less) - they were a mixture of Anglo-Saxon and Brythonic at best, with Gaelic influence predating MacAlpine. There's also an almost completely unacknowledged Norse influence - which is noted in Northern England, but not too much in SE Scotland. Do we even know that the majority of people in the Lothians spoke Anglo-Saxon? In the same way, the name "Maybole" has been claimed as Anglo-Saxon on the basis of ONE form - all the others point to a Celtic language origin.

"As regards Clackmannan and Slamannan my only point was to show that they reflected the name of the Brythonic tribe which once controlled the central lowlands hence are evidence that the Brythonic language once predominated there."

And, as I pointed out they reflect a dual heritage. The first syllable of each is Gaelic.

[ANDY-J3]

Originally posted by Scottish_Republican


And, as I pointed out they reflect a dual heritage. The first syllable of each is Gaelic.

And your reason for making that point isn't apparent to me- the dual heritage of the Scotish lowlands isn't an issue that I was addressing just the fact that it had at one time been a Brythonic kingdom. As regards the question of using placenames in Lothian to determine Gaelic settlement it just doesn't stand up to scrutiny. In northern England where there was no period of Gaelic habitation at all numerous placenames of Gaelic origin exist. Lindisfarne, Ros, Amble, Cambois, Glenwhelt, Glendue the list is endless. Given that these places exist in the the Anglian heartland the only viable explanation is that Gaelic speakers were being given land and patronage and the only Gaels who would have received such patronage from the Northumbrians would have been clerics from the Columban church and that I would suggest is the origin of the majority of Gaelic place names in Lothian.