Where's Gaelic from?

[ELIN175]

One guy told me that Gaelic originally came from Wales so that the Welsh originally spoke both Welsh and Gaelic; then Gaelic spread to Ireland and Scotland. Is this right or was he lying or was drunk?
I thought Gaelic only came from Scotland or Ireland.

[KevinBarclay-Jay]

gaelic is an old european language spoken in what could be callled the Celtic heartland in either northern asia of south easten europe, depending on your source. There are two linguistic varients called 'P' and 'Q' Gaelic generlly associated with the brythonic and Goidelic Celts respectively. Brythonic Celts spread across mainland Europe settling in Gaul and Britain from about 1500BC, Giodelic Celts inhabited coastlines and arrived fairly early in Ireland and west coasts of Scotland. As latin and other languages gained supremecy Brythonic gaelic survived in area where anglo saxon, jute,frisian,frank,goth etc where not settled until a later date, that is Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, Galatia nad the Borders of Scotland. Goidelic Gaelic remained mostly uninterupted up until the Norman Invasions.

[Steaphan]

Basically Gaelic is a language that came to Scotland via a tribe called the Scotti by the Romans. They established a kingdom called Dalriada, in the south-west, an area now known as Argyle which means "The coast of the Gael" (Earra-Ghaidheal)in Gaelic. Eventually, Gaelic came to be spoken throughout almost the whole of present-day Scotland, and a succession of Gaelic speaking monarchs ruled up until the 11th-12th centuries. Robert the Bruce's mother was a native speaker of Gaelic, she was of the Carrick nobility. Gaelic diverged from Old Gaelic or Old Irish to the extent that now it's regarded as a separate language although sharing many common features with Donegal Irish in particular. This is like say Portuguese and Spanish being so similar.

Welsh is a different language from Gaelic, the past forerunner of present-day Welsh was spoken even in parts of Scotland until the coming of the Gaels, and the establishment of the Kingdom of Alba (Scotland). Speakers of Gaelic would need to learn Welsh to understand any of it, and vice versa, but Irish and Scottish Gaelic speakers may have a fair degree of mutual comprehension, depending on the dialect of Irish spoken. Scots Gaelic although having different dialects is fairly uniform compared to the different dialects of Irish Gaelic.